Millionaire Wives Club (24 page)

“Chaunci.” He tapped her leg as she lay asleep on the couch, with papers in her hand. “Wake up.”

“I’m up.” She stretched. “You guys have a nice time?”

“Yeah.” He smiled. “That’s Daddy’s girl.”

Silence.

“How did we end up here?” Idris asked.

“End up where?”

“Here. I never dreamed of this, but it feels so good that I don’t know how I didn’t.”

“Okay, that’s interesting,” Chaunci said curtly.

“You’re pissed as hell with me, aren’t you?”

“Idris, don’t ask me the obvious. Friday is your next visit. Now good-bye.”

Chaunci turned away and Idris grabbed her by the hand and turned her around. He kissed her on the cheek. “Good-night.”

J
aise sat at her formal dining room table dressed in a low-cut flowing cranberry red Dior dress. Her bare feet were crossed at the ankles beneath the table, and she watched Bilal and Jabril eat the dinner of cube steak, gravy, and baked potato she’d prepared for them.

She could see the camera’s reflection in Bilal’s eyes, and she wondered when would be the right time to ask him about making love or if she needed to ease into the conversation. “So what do you think of Sarah Palin giving interviews all over the news circuit?” she said to make small talk.

“What?” Bilal gave her half a grin. “You wanna tell jokes this evening? Sarah Palin is wasted space, politically anyway.”

“You think?” Jaise said, not really giving a damn. What she really wanted to ask him was “When will you be fucking me?”

“Do I think? Listen, I can’t entertain nonsense from someone who campaigns in front of a turkey being slaughtered. I’d much rather talk about the chances Governor Patterson has to be reelected.”

“Umm-hmmm, yeah,” Jaise said in the most insincere voice, “me too.”

“If he loses I think Elton John should run,” he said, testing to see if she was listening. “What about you?”

“Perfect.”

“You didn’t hear a word I said.”

“Well, hmph, I nominate Lil Wayne.” Jabril laughed. “Then everybody can smoke weed.”

“You lost your damn mind?!” Jaise snapped at Jabril.

“It was a joke.”

“You’re not a comedian.”

“Jabril,” Bilal said, getting his attention, as Jaise raked her fork across her plate. “Wassup with school? How are your subjects coming?”

“Huh?” Jabril said, obviously caught off guard. “School?”

“Yeah, that place you go when you leave here in the morning.”

“Oh, you funny,” Jabril laughed, “yeah that.” He looked at the clock. “As a matter of fact, I’m on my way to go help a friend of mine out with some homework.”

“And what friend is that?” Jaise asked.

“Big tittie—I mean, um, Christina.”

“Why are you always running over there to help some little girl? I have told you about these li’l girls,” She pointed her finger toward his face. “Don’t bring no damn babies or any diseases back in here because you out there doing a two-step with your li’l-bitty dick.”

“Ma!” He pointed to the cameras. “You don’t know what I wanna be in life. Don’t be saying that on TV!”

“I’m just keepin’ it real.”

“Could you keep it real subtle?” Bilal gave her half a smile. “We don’t wanna embarrass him.”

“Listen to the man with the gun, Ma,” Jabril said. “Calm down.”

“Don’t test me, Jabril,” Jaise warned him.

“Ai’ight.” He stood up. “I’m ’bout to bounce.”

“Good-bye,” she said as he slid his coat on.

“Good-bye?” Bilal said low enough for only Jaise to hear. “Are you going to tell him what time to come back? It’s a school night.”

“Be back here in a few hours,” Jaise snapped at Jabril. “And I mean it.”

“Yo, my man,” Jabril said to Bilal, “whatever you did to this chick, please make up so she can act right by the time I get back, ’cause she buggin’.”

“You are buggin’,” Bilal told Jaise as he watched Jabril leave. “I don’t mean to get into your business with your son,” he said as Jabril closed the door.

“Then don’t.”

“Slow down.” He gave her a warning eye. “I do think you need to keep a tighter rein on him.”

“Jabril is a good kid. He is just like every other teenager out there. For the most part you can’t do nothin’ with ’em. But I have seen worse, believe me.”

“I didn’t mean for you to make excuses for him. I understand that he’s your son. But on the outside looking in, you’re a little loose with him.”

“So what do you want me to do? Put a gun to his head, slap some handcuffs on him, Detective?”

Bilal pushed his plate from in front of him and looked at Jaise. “What’s the problem?”

“I don’t have a problem.”

“Liar.” Bilal nodded his head. “When you start this?”

“Look, I just find it strange that it’s been a month.” She hesitated.

“A month and what?”

“And you haven’t made love to me. Are you gay?”

“Am I gay?” Bilal looked at Jaise as if she were crazy. “You lost your mind asking me something like that? It’s been a month, not
a year. Your problem is you’ve been dealing with these lowlifes in the banks and the boardrooms and you don’t know how to act when a real man is sitting in front of you. Be loved for once, appreciated, and treated like a lady. You want me to be your man? Or we just hittin’ it and quittin’ it?”

“I want you forever.”

“Then let me treat you like a lady and not a ho. Believe me,” he said, looking her dead in the eyes, “when the time comes I am more than willing, able, and endowed to handle the situation the way it needs to be handled. But I’m thirty-eight years old and at this stage of the game there’s more to a woman for me than pussy.”

Jaise felt like a fool, especially since he’d just put her in her place like no one else ever had. She wanted a man, and now that she had one she didn’t know how to act. “I guess you’re going to leave now?” she said.

“Are you putting me out?”

“No, I want you to stay. I just thought that since, you know, we just had it out that you would use that as an excuse to end this.”

“We didn’t have it out, we had a discussion, and even if we did have it out, where am I going? I’ve been here every day for a month, and I see myself wanting to be with you for years to come. But you have to let me be your man without thinking I have something to hide. Now, come here.”

Jaise walked over to him, her dress clinging to her every curve. Once she reached him, Bilal placed his hands on her hips. “Let what has happened to you before go. That’s the only way you’re going to make room for me to love you.”

Bilal’s hands felt like sweet heat on her hips and Jaise felt a series of electric chills shoot up her spine. “You’re right, we should love each other first,” she admitted. “And, hell, who would believe you could really be in love after a month? Talk about truth being stranger than fiction.” She gave a nervous laugh.

“Why don’t you ask me what I believe?” He pulled her onto his lap and started kissing her softly on the lips.

Because I’m scared of what you might say … or might not say
, Jaise thought as they began to kiss passionately. As she started unbuttoning Bilal’s shirt and kissing down his chest, Carl cleared his throat loudly.

Immediately Jaise and Bilal looked up, realizing they’d forgotten about the camera being there. Before Jaise could say anything Bridget squinted her eyes and looked at Carl. “You keep it up, Carl, and you will be out on your ass. I’m so tired of you interrupting the drama when it’s getting started!”

As the camera crew and Bridget packed up to leave, Bilal looked at his watch and decided it was time for him to go as well. Jaise hated that he had to leave; he hadn’t even walked out the door and already she missed him. It was true that they’d been going strong for a minute now, but the fear in her heart kept telling her that certainly the time would come when he wouldn’t come by in the morning to bring her a cup of light and sweet coffee, or bring her lunch. She was certain she’d talked him to death about estate sales, salvage yards, and auctions, and she could only imagine that he really wanted to go straight home after work instead of stopping by here to eat the nightly dinner she’d been preparing for him. Jaise was sure she could cook, but certainly Bilal hadn’t grown accustomed to her southern way of cooking.

“Jaise,” Bridget said to her before they walked out the door, “see you in the morning.”

“I know you will,” Jaise grumbled as she waved and watched Bilal walk out behind Bridget. “I’ll call you,” he said. He hugged her and kissed her lightly on the neck.

After everyone had gone Jaise sat down on the couch, every nerve in her stomach told her that she’d messed up tonight with some of the comments she’d made, but the truth of the matter was that for the first time in her life she wanted to make love to Bilal for the sake of making love.

She knew her feelings were foolish. She had to be crazy. Love took months, hell, sometimes years, and here she was trippin’ after four weeks.

She looked at the clock; it was a quarter to ten. As she decided to go to bed her doorbell rang. “Jabril, you better stop losing your keys,” she said, opening the door only to find Bilal standing there. “Bilal…” she said. She couldn’t stand that she could never fight off blushing around him.

“Why didn’t you ask me if I loved you?” Bilal asked Jaise.

Jaise paused and then admitted, “I was scared of what you would say, or wouldn’t say.”

“Ask me.”

Jaise had the question playing in her mind but for whatever reason it wouldn’t come out of her mouth. This was what she was scared of—loving him and him loving her back, or him loving her now and changing his mind later. This was why she had never told him that being in his arms was a beautiful feeling.

Bilal studied Jaise’s face, and when she didn’t say anything he arched his eyebrows and once again said, “Good-night.”

He turned to walk down the stairs and she grabbed his hand. “Do you love me?”

Bilal’s smile lit up the night. “Yes.”

“All right,” Jaise said nervously, feeling like a teenage girl who’d just revealed her first crush. Jaise took him by the hand and led him to her bedroom, where she turned the radio on and the music made love to the air as they slowly danced back and forth, kissing softly and soothingly with each lyric, each bar, and each bridge of the song. Bilal slid the spaghetti straps of Jaise’s dress off her shoulders, causing the gown to snake to the Persian rug.

“Jaise…” He took a step back and looked at her beautiful full-figured body. His eyes caressed her every curve. “I knew you were beautiful,” he said, “but I didn’t know you were this perfect.” He stepped back into her space and kissed her from her neck to her full cleavage, where he enjoyed tasting her chocolate nipples with
the tip of his tongue, down to her wetness, where he opened her sweetness, admired the diamond glaze, and bathed his tongue with it. Sucking, kissing, biting, and licking, over and over again.

It was evident that he wanted it, even more than she wanted to give it to him. He kissed in between her thighs, and once she came he kissed a trail up her body again. Jaise lifted his shirt, revealing his beautiful, carved, and exceedingly exquisite body. He was the epitome of magnificence, the crème de la crème, the very reason why black men, no matter what part of the world they were from, were so beautiful.

His thighs were well toned and the muscle creases alone were driving her wild. By the time her eyes dropped down to his manhood, her mouth inadvertently fell open and he lifted her lip by kissing it. He pulled her to the floor and they lay before the fireplace, as he kissed her body back and forth and back again, whispering in her ear how much he wanted her and how beautiful she was.

The Isley Brothers’ “Don’t Say Goodnight” serenaded them as Jaise opened and accepted Bilal into her wet and creamy world. Jaise winced and moaned as Bilal’s twelve inches entered her. But the way he was stroking her and twirling her nipples with his tongue, and telling her that he wanted to be with her forever made it okay.

Just as Jaise had gotten settled in missionary position, throwing her thighs on his shoulders, her sugar walls adjusting to his size, Bilal flipped her over and started stroking her from the back. She loved it, the pounding, the force, and the way that he held her wrists behind her back.

Jaise loved the feeling of her skin against his, her back against his chest, and his manliness against her ass. And just when she thought they’d almost reached perfection, he turned her over again and placed her on top of him, causing their milkyways to melt into each other.

After catching her breath she laid her head on his shoulder and
ran her hands over his chest. “I know it hasn’t been years … but I feel like this is perfect.”

“Stop counting time. This is me and you. Time no longer exists.” He looked her in the eyes. “I’m here and I’m not going anywhere. Accept that this is real, I’m real, and trust that I have a helluva lot more to give you.” He kissed her on the lips and they began to make love all over again.

“Bilal,” Jaise said, as he stood in her kitchen at the stove, cooking breakfast for her, “Jabril isn’t in his room. And his bed looks as if it hasn’t been slept in.” Jaise sighed. This couldn’t have happened at a worse time. It seemed as if every time Bridget was here and it was her taping day, bullshit reigned supreme. Jaise had yet to showcase her antiquing talent or her etiquette.

“What?” Bilal looked confused. “I thought you said he usually gets up and off to school on his own?”

“He does, but he never makes his bed, ever. It’s always me making it up after he leaves, and it’s made up perfectly.”

“Don’t panic just yet.” Bilal stirred the grits and dropped the catfish he was cooking into the hot and popping grease. “Call his father and see if he’s heard from him.”

Reluctantly Jaise dialed Lawrence’s number and amazingly he picked up on the first ring. “Hello?”

“Lawrence, this is Jaise.”

“I sent your welfare check out yesterday, so why are you on my phone?”

Jaise sighed. She wanted desperately to cut this motherfucker. “All I want to know is have you heard from Jabril?”

“What the hell would he be calling me for? The last time he called here he cussed me, Robyn, and the baby out. Oh no, I don’t deal in that type of disrespect.”