Sizzling Seduction (13 page)

She set Dil on up at the kitchen table and gave him a kiss on the forehead. “Mommy wil be back to join you in a minute as soon, as she’s done seeing what he wants.”

She took a deep breath and then walked into the living room where Bil was sitting on the sofa, looking about as comfortable as the devil at a revival meeting.

“So, as I said before, what are you doing here?”

“I’m here because I heard you’ve real y lost it. Now you have al kinds of strange men in here around my kid. And if you think that’s going to fly with me, then you are sadly mistaken.” He glared at her and she glared right back.

“Since when did you ever give a damn about my son?”

She whispered between clenched teeth.

The nerve of this man!

“You’ve seen him what…three or four times in the last five years? You barely want to pay the measly child support you and your crooked lawyer friends, including my own father, worked out for you. You could care less. So, please, spare me.”

“It’s your fault that my son isn’t in his nice home, enjoying al the luxuries a son of mine should have. He shouldn’t be living in this hot mess, attending public school in this city with little future criminals in training. But his mother is a vindictive bitch who had a little hissy fit after one smal situation between us that we could have worked our way—”

“You. Punched. Me. In. The. Face.” The heat rose from her chest to her face and she could barely contain her outrage. How dare he belittle what he had done or her response to it?

“One time! We could have gotten past al that.” He shrugged in a nonchalant manner. “You filed for divorce and I decided to let you see how hard your life would be taking care of a five-year-old without me or your father there to cater to your every whim.”

“And I did just fine. I finished school, got a job and I’m taking care of my child. But, most important, my son doesn’t have to live in a home where his father hits his mother and I don’t have to worry about him becoming an abuser like you.”

Bil ’s toasted cinnamon-complexion turned even redder and she could tel that he was working hard to keep his anger in check. Although she was no longer afraid of him, she also didn’t want him to lose it in her apartment.

“Your father wants us to try to work this out for his grandson’s sake, and I need to make partner.”

There it was. When she was a twenty-year-old col ege sophomore enjoying life away from home and final y free, her father decided that the hot new attorney at his firm would be the perfect man for her to marry. She’d been young and naive and a tiny bit enthral ed by the twenty-seven-year-old’s handsome looks. But she wasn’t sure she was ready to get married. He father said women like her only went to school to get their MRS degree, and since he’d found the perfect man for her, she didn’t need to finish col ege. She hadn’t been strong enough to stand up to the pressure then. But she was more than strong enough now.

She took a deep breath and folded her hands in her lap.

“My father doesn’t care about his grandson any more than you do. My father likes to control people, probably even more than you do. He doesn’t control me any longer. I already told him—and now I’m tel ing you—I’m not going to the reception your firm is having. And I most certainly am not in the running for a second round with you. It’s over.”

He leaned forward with a mean and vicious-looking smirk on his face. “You think you’ve done something special because you got a BA in elementary education and the Paterson public schools hired you to teach some five-year-olds? That’s about the only thing your simple behind could do. It’s a good thing you were blessed with that face and that body, or your father wouldn’t have found anyone to marry you. You’re lucky I was even considering giving you another chance.”

“Take your second chance and you know exactly what you can do with it. And, for the record, if you were the best my father could come up with in his quest to marry me off, I wish he hadn’t bothered at al . The only good thing to come from that wasted ten years of my life was my son.”

“Fine.” He smirked. “Have it your way. I want to start seeing
my
son. I’l be picking him up on weekends from now on.”

“What?” Her heart jumped to her throat and she felt a slight dizziness overcome her. “You haven’t been interested in seeing him before. Why now?”

“It doesn’t matter.” He gave another one of those nonchalant, devil-may-care shrugs and she wished she could smack him. “I have rights. I was granted visitation.

And unless you want to take this back to court and see if the judge won’t decide that I should actual y have ful custody, then you should just have my son ready next weekend. I have plans this weekend. But from now on, the weekends are mine.”

Bil got up walked toward the door.

“Aren’t you going to at least say goodbye to the son you suddenly just
have
to be able see?” She bit the words out through her barely control ed anger.

“You can tel him I said goodbye. Have him ready around this time next Friday. I’l be here to pick him up.”

She fol owed him to the door and locked it. It felt as if she were on autopilot. The only thing she knew for certain was that she would do
anything
to protect her son.

Driving up to Aisha’s apartment building and seeing her and Dil on standing outside, dressed and ready to go to the Giants game, made Patrick’s heart nearly beat out of his chest. His throat tightened and his lungs suddenly felt overly ful . He had tried not to get his hopes up, just in case she wasn’t there, and seeing her nearly floored him.

They enjoyed the Giants game and surprisingly she didn’t put up a fight when he’d suggested that they have dinner at Dave and Buster’s and play some games while they were there.

She was strangely unlike herself and he could tel that something was bugging her. Rather than hound her about it and spoil the good time, he decided to wait and see.

After a while the thril of playing video games wore off on the two adults and they decided to just fol ow Dil on around and watch him play game after game after game.

“I could get used to this. Look at him. He’s so excited.”

Patrick let the words fal out of his mouth before he could stop them.

Aisha stared at him for a moment without saying a word.

“It probably wouldn’t be a good idea to get used to it.”

“Why not? Am I that bad that you real y can’t see trying to build something real with me?” He cursed the fact that he couldn’t just be nonchalant and coast with this woman. He couldn’t act as if he didn’t care. Because he did care—a lot.

Aisha watched Dil on fake speed racing on the Indy 500

game. And Patrick watched her. He focused on every feature of her pretty brown face, every strand of her black hair.

“My ex-husband showed up at our house last night. After years of canceling visitation and basical y ignoring his son, he wants to have him on the weekends.” A tear escaped her eye and she angrily wiped it away.

Patrick let out the breath he’d been holding. So that was it…Her ex was trying to work his way back into the picture?

Was there something in the water that was causing ex-wives and ex-husbands to trot their happy behinds back out? Why couldn’t they just stay gone?

“So do you think you would ever take him back? Is that where this is heading?” He had to know. Better to have the news kil him now than later. He was already in too deep.

She let out a sharp laugh. “That wil
never
happen. He’s an abusive jerk, and I wil never subject myself to that again.”

“He hit you?” The hairs on the back of his neck stood up, and he suddenly had the urge to find her ex and do him bodily harm.

“Once. And then I divorced his behind. But he was verbal y abusive for years and I’m stil angry at myself for staying as long as I did. And I wil not have my son subjected to that crap. I’m thinking I’l just leave the state.

Dil on and I wil just find another place to live. Maybe the South, or the Midwest—I don’t know. I just know I can’t let him take my baby for a minute, let alone a whole weekend.”

Dil on came running over to them and stopped short when he got in front of them. “Umm…I ran out of tokens…”

He shuffled from foot to foot and eyed the tokens Patrick was holding in his hands. “You guys done playing?”

“Uh-uh, Dil on…I know you haven’t used up al your tokens and now you’re over here begging Patrick for his.

You know you’re wrong.” Aisha laughed as she reached out and mussed her son’s hair. “Here, child, take mine and leave Patrick alone.”

Dil on reached for the tokens and took off for the next game. They walked right behind him, never taking their eyes off the hyperexcited kid.

“Wait up, Dil on,” Patrick cal ed.

Dil on spun around and took a step back toward them.

Patrick held out his tokens and dropped them in Dil on’s hands.

“Al right! Thanks, Patrick!” He stopped at another kid-appropriate video game and started spending his newly acquired bounty.

As much as it kil ed him to have to be the one to try and talk some sense into Aisha, Patrick knew he had to try. And it real y bugged him that he had to take her idiot ex-husband’s side.

“Has he ever hit Dil on?”

“No! Thank God. I think I’d be in jail if he did. But he has hurt my baby emotional y. Do you know what it feels like to have a kid stop asking about his father? He has just given up on ever having Bil love him.”

“So don’t you think if Bil wants to final y step up and be a man and spend time with his son, you should let him? If you run away, you’l essential y be breaking the law, and denying your son something he apparently wants…His father’s love.” Patrick stopped and stared at her.

Her stubborn face was contorted in one of those you-can’t-tel -me-anything expressions. She obviously wanted to tel him to mind his own business. But until she did, he ful y intended to try to get her to see where the idiot Bil may have been coming from.

“Men can be dense sometimes, Aisha. We don’t always get it right the first time out of the gate—”

“No way…You’re kidding…” She widened her eyes in mock surprise and mumbled sarcastical y.

“Ha, ha. Seriously, I know if I had a kid like Dil on, weekends wouldn’t be enough. And a boy needs a dad. If his dad is final y stepping up, you should give him a chance to rebuild their relationship. If he drops the bal , we’l be there to pick it up. But you can’t run from this.” He turned to face her, watching her as she watched her son.

“What do you mean
we?
” She offered a smirk and then nibbled on her lower lip.

He decided to let her figure out what he meant on her own. She was a smart woman. She had to know that where they were headed was a point of no return.

“And I know you won’t run, because the only thing you’re afraid of is
us
.” He leaned forward and brushed her lips with his.

The electric shock of the momentary touch almost made his heart stop. When her little tongue darted out and touched her lips as if to savor where his lips had just been, it was al he could do not to kiss her again for real.

“Hey look, you guys. It’s ‘Dance Dance Revolution.’

Mom’s real y good at this one. I have three tokens left.”

Dil on glanced back and forth between the video game and them.

“Oh, this wil be good. Are you light on your feet, Mr. Big Burly fireman? Can you dance?” Aisha eyed him for a moment, looking him up and down. “Nah, I don’t think so.

Dil on, Patrick won’t be able to hang. I think it’s just you and me, kiddo.”

“I think I’ve just been insulted. I’l have you know that I have moves. I wil dance the two of you under the rug.”

Patrick couldn’t believe she’d played him like that.

“A little less talk and a little more action. Come on, let’s see what you can do.” She reached out and took his hand.

The shock of her touch warmed him and he broke out in a grin. When she didn’t let go, he squeezed her hand. She squeezed back.

Once they were back at her apartment and Dil on was in bed, Aisha let the events of the day swirl through her mind.

She took a sip of her wine and stared at Patrick.

How had she gone from not dating him to sitting in her living room sharing a nightcap with him? And how had such a big powerhouse of muscles like him managed to beat her and her ten-year-old son at “Dance Dance Revolution”?

She licked her lips as she thought about how smooth and agile the man was on that dance pad. He hadn’t lied at al . He certainly had moves. She wondered what other kind of moves he had, and she licked her lips again.

This time, without any warning or announcement, Patrick swooped down and covered her lips with his. And this wasn’t one of those soft, fleeting brushes he’d been priming her up with. No, this was a long, savoring, marking kiss.

She opened to his demanding mouth and let her tongue taste what it real y wanted to taste. Him. She licked her ful lips, giving as good as she got.

He pul ed her off the sofa and onto his lap, continuing to devour her with his hot, scalding mouth. She had started something by licking her lips that he was clearly going to finish. Al the places she had just licked were now covered by him, remarked and claimed as his territory and his alone. She felt her lips spread into a gleeful smile as his hands roamed her breasts. With just a few swipes of her nipples she felt herself coming undone.