Heartbeat (8 page)

I frowned at Kesha’s choice of words. It reminded me that I was on the rebound from Rick and at the thought of Rick, made my stomach turned upside down.

A few other people in the VIP section pulled Amir away. He said he’d be right back and I watched as he interacted with everyone. He was damn near perfect. He was wearing grey-black jeans that fell low on his waist although a black Gucci belt was supposed to be holding them up. He had on a simple black, long sleeve shirt that was accentuated by the thick chain around his neck that was bright enough to light up the entire VIP section. I was intrigued by his every move and how everyone seemed to be bidding for his attention, particularly a short girl with an auburn pixie haircut. While he shook hands, and hugged people, she seemed to be on his heel with every step he took.

“He’s Mr. Popular, huh?” Lake said, reading my mind.

“I guess so.” I tried to swallow the rising jealousy. I’d only come out to this club tonight because Amir invited me. Although I didn’t expect to get his undivided attention, that didn’t stop me from wanting it.  

I turned away from watching him and walked over to the tall glass windows that looked over the entire club. It was packed down there tonight and I was glad to be in the VIP area. One of the main reasons I hated going out to clubs was because there was hardly ever any breathing room. Plus, Club Aqua was one of the hottest clubs in Dallas.

Kesha walked over to me and looked down over the club. “Everybody and their mama in here tonight.” I nodded my head in agreement and to the beat of the music. “His boy, Marcus, is trying to get at Lake,” she said. “He’s cute though.”

I looked back at the biggest table in the VIP area where Marcus was seated. He was being greeted by a scantily clad woman with a long ombre weave but his attention was on Lake. He was definitely Lake’s type but she couldn’t see anyone but Greg. She stood by Marcus’ side and gave us a look that said “rescue me”.

“Girl, Lake don’t know what to do with that man,” I laughed.  

Finally, the waitress returned with the drinks and Amir walked back over to Kesha and me with drinks in hand. As soon as I got mine, I took it straight to the head knowing that was a bad idea seeing as though I hadn’t eaten anything other than a bag of potato chips earlier today. Not to mention, I was drinking heavy liquor on top of the pill I’d gotten from Lake. That had to be a no-no. But I didn’t care about any of that. Not tonight, at least. I was going to let my hair down and do all the things I never did when I was someone’s wife.

Amir quickly signaled for the waitress to bring another round of drinks and Kesha left the VIP section for the dance floor downstairs once one of her favorite songs came on.  

Once she was gone, Amir took her place next to me. He leaned in close and said, “Sorry about that. I haven’t seen a lot of these people in years. I just moved back here from the H.”

I nodded my head and felt foolish for feeling jealous earlier. “Well, everyone seems happy to see you.”

He shrugged, sipped his beer, and looked me up and down, “I’m happy to see you.”

“Well, thanks for inviting me.”

“You look beautiful,” he said.

I could feel my cheeks go hot. “Thank you.”

He shook his head and chuckled but didn’t say anything else.  

“What?” I had to know what was so funny.

He looked like he was about to say something but the waitress returned with another round of drinks. A second waitress stood behind her with a tray full of shots ordered by Marcus. After I drank the second drink and the shot, I felt like I was floating.

Lake walked up to us with two shots in her hand.

“Marcus is cool,” she said to Amir.

“He likes you,” Amir said with half of a smile.

Even though the club was dark, I could tell that Lake’s cheeks were flushed. She took her shot and then looked at me, “Where’s Kesha?”

I nudged my head in the direction of the dance floor.  

Lake pulled out her cell phone and frowned, “I’m going to try to find Denise. I think she’s having trouble finding the place.”

I nodded as she walked off leaving Amir and me alone again. A song I never heard before played and everyone in the club erupted. Amir came up behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist. I gasped in response to his strong arms around me. I didn’t know if I should blame it on the liquor, or the unprescribed medication, but I turned around and kissed him on the lips. His startled lips took a few seconds to respond but when he did, everything inside of me felt like I’d just been lit on fire by a match.  

When I pulled away from him, I burst into embarrassed laughter except I wasn’t embarrassed enough to regret the kiss. I hadn’t kissed a man other than Rick like that since I was 18, and I never felt so alive in my life. His lips tasted like Dos Equis, but at the moment it was the sweetest taste I’d ever been lucky enough to get a sample of. I stood on my tippy toes in the six inch spiked shoes and wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him again. This time I wanted him to feel
my
passion.

It was his turn to pull away from the kiss. He looked at me with confusion embedded in his beautiful face and said, “What was that all about? You drunk, Ma?”

I was. In fact, I was very drunk, or high. Or both. I didn’t know or care. All I knew was I felt like I was floating and I loved the way his lips tasted. I smiled at him hoping the smile didn’t look as goofy as it felt. I shook my head no although that was a complete lie.

He offered me half of a smile in response and said, “You sure about that?”

“I like you, Amir,” I blurted out with no regard. “And I want you.” Even in my drunken state, I knew I’d regret saying that in the morning. But I didn’t care about any of that because I did want this beautiful man. Badly.

He gave me a look that I couldn’t describe. He draped his arm around my shoulder and rocked his head to the beat of the song playing. I had to admit the beat was infectious and before I realized it, I’d grabbed Amir’s hand and began walking downstairs onto the dance floor. At first he was hesitant, but once we were on the dance floor he gave in and I was grinding on him like I’d known him longer than I really had. I inhaled the sweet yet manly, smell of his cologne and thought how I hadn’t smelled anything so sexy before in my life. The intoxicating smell of his cologne made my head swirl. For a split second, my mind went to Rick and what he was doing but then I looked back at the gorgeous, tall, green eyed, man I was dancing with and the thought of Rick evaporated.

When 2am hit and the lights came on inside of the club, I had to fight to keep my eyelids up. I looked around for Kesha and Lake but hadn’t seen either of them since they’d left the VIP section hours ago.

Amir seemed to read my mind when he said, “Where’s your homegirls?”

I shrugged my shoulders and dug inside my clutch for my cell phone. As soon as I unlocked it I saw a text from Kesha,
I had to take Lake’s drunk ass home, she got sick. Sorry! But I’m sure that fine ass Amir would LOVE to take you home.
☺

“They left,” I mumbled.

“They left you?” Amir’s facial expression matched how I felt. He pulled my body close to him and it made my legs turn to jelly. “How far do you live from here? I’ll take you to ya’ crib.”

I would like to think it was the liquor mixed with Lake’s pills that made me look up into his beautiful hazel-green eyes and say, “What if I don’t wanna go home?”

He wrapped his arm around my waist and we walked toward the exit of the club. Before we walked out he made sure he was looking me directly in my eyes. “You sure about that, Charlie?”

I nodded my head. There was no turning back now. Not that I wanted to turn back. At that very moment, there was nothing I wanted more.  

After saying goodbye to most of his friends, we hopped inside of his Buick and headed to his place. He placed his hand on my thigh and kept one hand on the steering wheel as he navigated his car on the highway at a high speed. He kept glancing over at me like he expected me to disappear into thin air and I kept looking over at him unable to believe I was really going home with this fine specimen of a man.  

When we pulled up in front of a gated apartment complex, the nerves finally hit me. Time seemed to move slower than a sloth as he drove inside of the complex. My palms went sweaty and my throat got so dry I thought I wouldn’t be able to open my mouth again. Amir pulled his car under a carport, gave me a look that I wished I could capture with a camera, and then shut his engine off. I gave myself a quick pep talk and got out of the car. I followed him to a first floor apartment.

We stepped inside of the dark apartment and he flipped the light on and I looked around the minimally decorated apartment. There was a black recliner and a matching black sofa with a small glass coffee table in the center of the room. A magazine was being used as a coaster on top of the coffee table. I didn’t even want to guess what was in the glass because it looked like it had been sitting on the table for a while. And just like any bachelor pad, he had an oversized flat screen on the wall across from the sofa.

He dropped his car keys on the glass coffee table and I jumped at the sound the impact made. My nerves were all over the place.

“You want something to drink?” Amir asked.

The last thing I needed was some more alcohol because the last shot I took, hit me heavy on the ride here. “I’ll take some water,” I managed to say although my throat felt like sandpaper.  

He returned with a bottle of water and said, “You look outta’ there.”

I quickly drank the water and was thankful that it was so cold. As soon as my thirst was quenched I looked at him and said, “I’m not here because I’m drunk. I’m here because I want to be.”  

But part of that was a lie. Yes, I wanted to be here but if it wasn’t for the courage that the liquor provided, I wasn’t sure I would be sitting on his couch.  

He gave me half of a smile and sat on the recliner across from me. “You can have the bed, I’ll sleep on the couch tonight.”

“I don’t want to put you out like that.”  

“It’s cool.” He grabbed the remote from the coffee table and flipped the television on. But I couldn’t pull my eyes from him to be interested in anything that was showing on the TV.

“Does your husband know you’re not coming home tonight?” Amir asked with a smirk on his face.  

I finished the water before answering, “We’re getting a divorce.”

Amir’s face didn’t register the shock that I thought it would. He was looking at the television but I could tell he wasn’t really watching it. He shook his head and said, “So what you trying to do tonight?”

He got up and sat next to me on the sofa and as soon as he did, I felt like my body was on fire and the only thing that could put it out was him. He didn’t say anything to me, but I could feel his body next to me and the intoxicating smell of his cologne penetrated my nose and made me feel like I was floating. All I wanted at that moment was to bury my face in his chest. I didn’t want to think about Rick, I didn’t want to think about being married on my way to divorce court. I didn’t even want to think about how all my life, I was the good girl. The good girlfriend, the good fucking wife. For once in my life, I wanted to not give a fuck. And that’s exactly what I was going to do, starting tonight,

“I want to forget about my bleeding heart. At least, for tonight.”

Amir looked at me and his face was barely four inches from mine so I kissed him. Just like I’d kissed him at the club except this time he didn’t hesitate to kiss me back. But he did pull away and ask me, “And how you gon’ do that?”

I grabbed his hand and placed it over my heart. “Can you make it feel better?” Under any other circumstance, I would have never been so brazen. Under any other circumstance, I would have never been in this apartment with this man. But here I was and there was something about Amir that I just had to have. I hadn’t been with a man other than Rick in ten years. Only God knew how many women he’d been with. So tonight I was gonna be bad.

It took a minute before Amir answered me. He just sat there looking at me like he was waiting on me to retract what I’d just said. I stared at him daring him to turn my offer down. His eyes went from my pretty pedicured toes, back up to my eyes, then he licked his lips as if that was a stamp of approval. I mirrored the smile he’d been giving me since the day I met him.  

“Ok.” Was all he said before he turned the TV off and stood over me with his hand extended. I placed my hand inside of his and he lifted me from the couch. I hated how loud and hard my heart was beating as he led the way to his bedroom.  

Thump, thump, thump.

There were so many thoughts racing one another in my head but I forced them all to the back of my mind. When we entered his bedroom I noticed the king sized leather bed in the middle of a nice sized bedroom. Across from the bed was a tall brown dresser and a TV mounted on the wall. There was very minimal furniture and decorations so I knew he lived here alone. Every part of his apartment was missing a woman’s touch.

He didn’t release my hand until I’d sat on the bed and he stood over me. Since he didn’t have any curtains over his windows there was a slimmer of street light poking in from the faux wood blinds. For that I was thankful because I was able to drink in every ounce of beautiful perfection his body offered as he took off his shirt and undershirt. I ran my fingers across his six pack abs. He grabbed my hand and brought it up to his lips. When he kissed my fingers I was embarrassed that a moan escaped my lips. I bit my bottom lip and cursed myself for being so anxious to feel this man.

He picked me up and placed me further back on the bed and when his lips met mine, I reactively wrapped my legs around his waist. I kissed him back with a hunger I never knew I had.  There was something about Amir’s lips that made me want to kiss him all night. We didn’t have to do anything more than what we were doing now, and I would have been satisfied.

He pulled away from my lips and began kissing my neck. I bit my bottom lip to keep another moan from escaping them. I shut my eyes, but it wasn’t that easy to shut out my thoughts. Though I didn’t want to I couldn’t help but compare Amir to Rick. The way Amir took his time and kissed every crevice of my neck reminded me how Rick had always been a wham-bam-thank-ya-ma’am.