Rivals in Paradise (7 page)

Judging from the fresh paint outside, the beautiful sign that read Margie's Rum Shack and the artfully decorated interior, Chase's mom must have let him spend a good bit of money on decorating and upkeep. The place was small but stylish. It wasn't the typical dive.

The color scheme and decor were warm and welcoming, with soothing greens and blues making up the bulk of the walls. The space was accented in bold oranges and reds. The tables, chairs and barstools were all a deep cherrywood. The floor was
a bleached-blond plank that made the other colors pop. Pictures of various reggae and calypso singers graced the walls. Some of them were signed, and a woman who must have been Chase's mom was in some of them with the famous singers.

“Well, look what the cat drug in. I haven't seen this one since Jesus was a baby. How are you, Chase?” An older gentleman with a shock of gray hair stood up as they entered and walked over. He shook Chase's hand and they embraced.

“Mr. Frank, it's good to see you, as always. I'm fine. It's good to be home. This is my friend Cicely.” Chase moved aside so that Cicely could shake Mr. Frank's hand.

“Hold the phone! My son brought a woman home? Get out! Well, I don't believe it!” A tall, plump woman in a beautiful tropical-colored silk short set came running from behind the counter carrying a white terry cloth towel with her. “San, watch the bar while I go and check this out for myself, because I don't believe it.”

“Margie, you're gonna embarrass the boy. No wonder he never brings any girls home for you to see.” Mr. Frank shook his head as he made his way back to his seat at the bar.

“Man…know my place and mind your business! This is my son. If I want to embarrass him from here to the countryside of Dahinda, I can do it. I'm the
one who went through a whole day of labor to bring him into this world.” Chase's mother rolled her eyes at Mr. Frank before turning her attention back to Chase and Cicely.

Chase pulled his mother into his arms. “Don't start, Ma. You know Mr. Frank is the only one who can put up with your mood swings. If he gets tired of you, what other man will have you?”

Margie squeezed Chase in her arms before popping him upside the head with her cloth. “How can you come here with your girlfriend and not give me any warning? You know I have to fix myself up to meet my future daughter-in-law—”

“Ohhhhh, nooooo!” Cicely found the correction falling out of her mouth before his mother could even finish what she was saying. “We are just friends…. I mean, we're not dating or anything like that.” She was shaking her head so profusely she hoped her French twist didn't fall out.

Margie gave her a once-over. “She's pretty, though. Sweet enough, but not too sweet on you, it seems, my handsome son. Not too bright though…if she doesn't see what a catch you are!” Margie chuckled and shrugged. “I like her, though. If only she knew she's the first woman you ever brought here, so that must mean you have designs on her that she doesn't know about.”

Margie laughed a deep belly laugh that would
have been contagious and made Cicely join her if she didn't have a gut feeling the laugh was on her.

Chase had turned to look at Cicely when she blurted out her very loud “ohhhhh, nooooo,” and Mr. Frank was watching her closely, too. In fact, it seemed like all the eyes in the small rum shack were now firmly planted on Cicely.

“Cicely's just a friend, Ma.” Chase's voice was picking up more of the island cadence as he interacted with his mom. “I went to school with her and met up with her on the plane. She's a Yankee, and I felt it was only hospitable for me to show her around our beautiful island. Everyone, this is Cicely Stevens from Miami. Cicely, this is everybody.”

Margie eyed her son suspiciously. “Mmm-hmm. If you say so.”

She took Cicely's arm. “So, Cicely Stevens from Miami, come to the bar and let me chat you up a bit. I need to learn everything I can about you just in case…”

“Ma…” Chase warned.

Margie sucked her teeth in a long, lyric way. “What? I just want to get to know the girl like I know all my customers here in Margie's Rum Shack. Man, leave me alone, hear? Know my place before I kick you out of it.”

Chase laughed at that as he followed Margie and
Cicely to the bar. “You wouldn't kick your only beloved son out of here.”

Margie laughed. “In a heartbeat, you rascal!” She reached out her other arm and pulled Chase along with her. She sat them side by side at the bar and started walking toward the back room. “I'm going to fix you each a plate, and then I'm coming back to learn all about Miss Cicely from Miami.”

Mr. Frank moved from his previous seat and came and sat on the other side of Cicely. The older man took a sip of his drink and then asked, “So, how long you staying, Chase?”

“I'll be home for two weeks. Long enough for you all to get good and tired of me.” Chase chuckled.

Mr. Frank nodded. “That's good. It's good to have you back.”

Chase nodded, too. “Good to be back.”

Margie came out with two plates of steaming hot food that smelled heavenly. Cicely tried to strategize a way that she could tear into her food and still maintain some kind of cuteness, but there was just no way. The scents of curry, cumin and spicy peppers assaulted her nose, and her mouth had to strike back.

She dug in. But at least she also got around to telling Margie that the food was delicious and thanking her for it before she was too far gone.

“Nothing like a woman who can appreciate a good meal,” Mr. Frank offered with a wide grin.

“Yes, I like Cicely from Miami.” Margie seemed to be studying her with appreciation. “So, Cicely, you knew my son from his college days, huh?”

Cicely swallowed and wiped her hands on her napkin even though she wanted to lick the juices of the delectable food off of her fingers.

“Yes, he was a little ahead of me. But we were both at FAMU around the same time. We had a little rivalry going, though. So we weren't exactly the best of friends.” She took another bite of her food while she could.

“What? A woman on this earth who didn't like my Chase?” Margie let loose one of her big belly laughs again. “Now, that's a first. This boy has had women and girls running after him ever since he was twelve, maybe even eleven.” Margie went behind the bar and fixed Chase a drink. “What are you drinking, Cicely?”

“I'll take a Dandy. In the bottle is fine.” Cicely noticed that both Margie and Chase's eyes lit up when she asked for the island's locally brewed beer.

“Well, look at her. Chase, I thought you said she was a Yankee and didn't know anything about Dahinda! Look at how she's coming in here just as smooth as you please, asking for our beer!” Margie chuckled as she pulled out a nice frosty bottle of Dandy, opened it and placed it in front of Cicely.

“Girl, what you know about a Dandy?” Chase
laughed. “Dandy may sound like a light and fun drink, but it's not like those weak Yankee beers. You better watch yourself. We make them strong here.”

Cicely let her eye wander to his bulky and very muscular forearms and thought,
you ain't never lied….

“So, Cicely, tell us a little more about how you know Chase. You met in school and you didn't care for him too tough, huh? What happened next, he wore you down and you dated for a while before breaking up, and then you saw each other on the plane and realized that you wasted too much time apart—”

Laughing, Chase shook his head. “Ma, you need to lay off the soap operas. It's not even that deep. She's just a friend.”

“Exactly! Really-really new friends at that…” Cicely felt the need to clarify further. “I mean…well…we're just starting to build a friendship after years of not liking one another. I don't even know why he's being nice to me. I almost think he's setting up some kind of trap. That's what he did when we were in college and I ran against him for student government president.”

Margie's eyes went wide, and she pointed at Cicely with her mouth open. “Hey, hey, wa-it! Are you the one who beat my Chase in the election for student government president in college?” Margie seemed to be momentarily awed. “Well, I never thought I
would meet you. Girl, you had my son so distraught, hear. He'd never lost anything at all until he lost that election to you.”

Cicely took a swallow of her beer and gulped.

Uh-oh
was all she could think as she felt Chase stiffen beside her.

She hadn't known it had been
that
deep for Chase. She almost felt a little guilty that she had beaten him.
Almost.

“Personally, I think it was good for him to finally lose something. He needed to see that he didn't have to win all the time,” Margie opined.

“I don't believe this! My own mother…” Chase's eyes were wide with feigned shock. “This is a sad day, people of Dahinda, a sad day, indeed.”

Cicely laughed. “Clearly, the universe had to send a little message to Mr. Overachiever and used me to do it.”

Chase glared at Cicely when his mother let out another belly-busting laugh.

“Hey, don't shoot the messenger.” Cicely placed her hands up in mock innocence before going back to her plate of food.

After she polished off the plate of rice and peas, fried flying fish and fried plantains, she couldn't help rubbing her stomach in satisfaction. “Ms. Yearwood, this food was amazing. You're going to have me coming back here every night for dinner! This is
probably the best Caribbean food I've ever had, and I live in Miami, so that's saying a lot.”

“Thank you, Cicely. You can come back anytime you want. You're always welcome here. And call me Margie, girl. We don't stand on ceremony here at Margie's Rum Shack. Now tell me, what can we do to make you like my knuckleheaded son? He's real hardheaded and can work your nerves more than a little bit. But I think you're just the one that can finally tame the
so-called
Wolf.” Margie let out another laugh and reached over to touch Chase's face lovingly.

Chase allowed his mother to stroke his cheek, and Cicely thought it was the most endearing thing she'd ever seen. She smiled at the two of them. Mother and son, it was too cute!

When Chase looked at Cicely, his eyes narrowed ever so slightly. If she wasn't so attuned to him, she might have missed it. His expression was a mixture of the desire she'd seen a while back, a hint of irritation and something else she couldn't name.

“Well, Ma, if Cicely thinks she's up for the task, I'm more than willing to see if she can
really
tame me.” Chase offered his sexy, cocky little smile-sneer thing along with that look of his.

This time she could clearly name the something else she saw in his gaze…

Challenge!

The only question was…was she really up for taking on his challenge?

C
hase watched Cicely on the small dance floor with his mother, Mr. Frank and a few other customers. She was teaching them how to do the cupid shuffle, of all things!

He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen his mother dance. She looked happy, and he supposed he should be happy about that. And he would have been if Cicely didn't have the entire rum shack, filled with all his friends and family members, eating out of the palms of her hands, her sexy, sexy little hands.

Watching them all doing the cupid shuffle was just that margin over too-damn-much…. He had watched the line dance craze take off when the reggae version
of “Electric Boogie” came on, and he tolerated it when his mother pulled Cicely onto the dance floor and they all did the electric slide. He grinned and bore it when Cicely got the deejay to put on the O'Jays song “Living for the Weekend” and taught them all another line dance. But when she had the deejay find “Cupid Shuffle” and taught them the dance…well…that had been the last straw.

His mom and everyone else seemed to love Cicely, and Cicely seemed to be having the time of her life. Chase was irritated and frustrated, and he couldn't figure out Cicely or how he felt about her. He was still vacillating between putting the past behind them and pursuing her or keeping his hard-won and well-nourished resentment firmly in mind and not trusting her as far as he could see her.

The only problem was, what he could see of her bouncing happily around the dance floor looked too damn sexy and made him want her too damn much.

He took a sip of his drink just as the “Cupid Shuffle” went off and saw Cicely laughingly make her way over to the deejay again. He rushed over before she could tell the man to play whatever she was going to tell him to play.

“How about a slow jam, Donnie?” Chase asked the deejay.

He pulled Cicely into his arms before she could
complain and held her close as the deejay put on a slower song.

His mother rolled her eyes at him and was making her way back to the bar when Mr. Frank pulled her into his arms.

Margie and Mr. Frank whispered to one another and laughed as they danced and watched Chase and Cicely. Chase really hoped that one day his mother would give in and break away from whatever it was that was making her too scared to accept Mr. Frank's many proposals of marriage.

Mr. Frank had been around ever since Chase had been a preteen, and he hadn't gone anywhere yet. The man was the closest thing Chase had to a father figure.

“Hey, I was about to teach them the cha cha slide,” Cicely complained, but she didn't pull away from him. If anything, she melded closer into his arms.

“You can teach them another time. Don't think my mother will let you leave this island without coming back to see her. My family really seems to like you, Cicely.”

“Well, I hate to be conceited, but most people do tend to like me, Chase. I'm highly likable. If a person doesn't like me, then that person, nine times out of ten, has issues.”

He narrowed his eyes at that until he saw the
telltale smirk on her face that said she was probably joking. He laughed and pulled her closer.

“So, what's this nonsense with you going out of your way to downplay our friendship to my folks?”

“What? We barely like each other. We're bitter rivals and probably will remain bitter rivals until the end of time. The only thing keeping us from a fight to the death is that the stakes of a student government president campaign from years ago just aren't that high. But I know you didn't really mean it when you said we had a truce.”

“Yeah? And how do you know that?”

Her smile radiated sunshine and warmed him from the inside out. “Because I didn't mean it. I still blame you for that picture and for using that kiss and obvious slip of my standards to ruin me.” She tried to pull away, clearly trying to escape.

But there was no way he was going to let her get away with that little whopper. He pulled her closer and stared down at her. “So basically we are back were we started? You really believe that I orchestrated the whole thing. I planned to kiss you and had someone waiting to take a picture? And then I planned to use it to somehow try and beat you in the campaign?”

“Yes. After all, you kissed me. I didn't kiss you.”

This was getting interesting.

He stared at her, licking his lips at the memory.
“Oh, you kissed me back, little Cicely. I damn sure remember you kissing me back. Let's talk about this outside where there aren't so many ears around.”

 

Cicely felt the cool island breeze coming over her, and she could hardly maintain her indignation at Chase. He was sooo irritating. Why'd he have to make her dance with him and all that?

She had been doing a great job of pretty much, for the most part, forgetting he even existed.
Well, almost.
How could she really forget with him standing at the bar, watching her with that look of challenge in his eyes? That smooth, sexy predator thing he had going was pretty hard to forget. And now he had her standing outside of the rum shack, away from all her newfound friends and allies.

“I don't know why you want us to rehash this again and again if you're not going to admit to what you did.” She crossed her arms and glared at him.

He sneered. “Because, now that I think about it, I remember more about that night. If your silly soror Sheila hadn't gotten a guilty conscience and called Jonathan, we wouldn't have even gotten the picture in the first place!” He gave her a pointed stare. “She gave us the pictures because, and I quote, ‘I felt what the sorors were doing was wrong and I wanted to try and make amends.'”

“Yeah, right. Sheila was the one who gave us the pictures and let us know what you all were planning.
She said she had a momentary slip and fell for Jonathan's apologies and found the pictures in his dorm room after she heard you guys hatching your plan.”

Suddenly back in that moment, Cicely realized that Sheila was the only one who knew about the meeting with Chase. Sheila had been acting as Cicely's campaign manager and had set up the meeting.

“Sheila.” Cicely muttered the name at the same time as Chase did, and they found themselves staring at one another again.

“Sheila set it up,” Chase mumbled.

“Yeah, but she couldn't have known that we were going to kiss. I mean, we didn't… It was a mistake, a fluke… There's no way she could have planned that.” That was the part that still troubled her.

“You're right. She couldn't have. But she was supposed to meet us there along with my campaign manager. We were all supposed to be going over the debate.” Chase's eyes narrowed, and he rubbed his chin in contemplation.

“After the kiss you ran off, and I hung around to let Steve and Sheila know that we would have to reschedule. Sheila never showed. But Steve did eventually. I'm thinking Sheila showed up when we were kissing and took the pictures then.”

“Sounds plausible. I guess.” Cicely frowned. She
didn't like the idea that one of her sorority sisters could have set her up like that.

“It sounds more than plausible. The only question is, did you have anything to do with it?” Chase mumbled.

“Huh? You mean, did
you
have anything to do with it?”

“I didn't, and I don't think you did, either. I think we should call another truce.” Chase held out his hand. “So how about the two of us form a truce
for real
this time. I feel somewhat comfortable stating that the election and my legacy were roadkill in the Sheila/Jonathan crash of love.”

Cicely took his hand, and a charge of electricity coursed through her. It felt so sweet. She shook his hand and smiled.

“Good.” Chase used his hold on her hand to pull her forward. “Because I have been waiting all night to do this.” His head swooped down and his lips connected to hers.

She felt her lips heat almost immediately, and that heat covered her from head to toe as she opened her mouth to his kiss.

She thought for about a millisecond that she should be resisting this kiss, that she shouldn't be giving in so readily and so completely to Chase's very impressive mouth. Unfortunately, she thought that as her hands inched their way up his chest and
onto his shoulders. Before she could mount up even the most basic rationale for why she needed to run away from the rum shack as fast as her size-seven feet could take her, she was already leaning into his muscular body, feeling the all-too-real impression of his need for her pressing against her. With one touch of his lips she was already in too far—and she didn't care.

Because this kiss…this kiss made that other kiss they'd shared in college seem like child's play. In that other kiss she saw stars. In this kiss, she could have sworn she was seeing universes, freaking galaxies. In that other kiss, she'd been a little nineteen-year-old, shocked that the big man on campus was showing her a hint of attention. But in this kiss, she was a grown-ass woman ready to show the big man a thing or two herself.

She pressed in farther and twirled her tongue in his mouth, using it like a heat-seeking missile. And every inch of him was hot. The electric shocks that she'd felt when she touched his hand felt like they were racing through her body. It made her feel so alive and invigorated. And his lips were like soft cushions that grounded the charge of the kiss and kept her from exploding or rocketing into the stratosphere.

His lips pressed and pulled and puckered in just the right way, at just the right time. All she could do to counter the impact was draw him farther into her,
devour everything he was giving her and delight in being able to do so. When his hands traveled down her back and landed on her behind, pulling her closer, she tried to get even closer still. She moved her hands from his neck, across his shoulders and down his muscular arms. She'd been thinking about touching those arms all evening. She felt her nipples tighten, and they strained through the material of her dress as if they were trying to get closer to him.

It was as if her nipples knew what the rest of her body seemed to be screaming.

He felt good.

Kissing him was too damn good. It was too much. She didn't know if she could take any more.

She pulled her tongue away, and he tightened his grip on her behind as he softly nipped her bottom lip, pulling it before he dived back into her mouth and found her tongue. Their tongues danced, and she was pretty sure she could have continued kissing him forever.

“Chase! They said you were back, but I didn't believe it. I just knew there was no way you'd set foot back on this island and not give me a call, cousin.”

She managed to pull away from Chase at the sound of that male voice.

Chase pulled her back and held her close as he glared at his cousin for a moment. “I was going to call you, man. I've been busy. Tony, this is Cicely.
Cicely, this is my cousin Tony. He has always had the worst timing, and I see that hasn't changed.” Chase let her go for a moment to embrace his cousin.

The two men hugged quickly before Tony turned to her.

“I can see why my cousin is so irritated with me right now. Hello, Cicely, did anyone ever tell you that you look exactly like the little girl from that Will Smith show, a grown-up version of her? I can't think of her name right now. But you look just like her.”

Cicely shook her head, even though she knew exactly who he was talking about. People told her all the time that she and Tatyana Ali, who played the younger sister on
The Fresh Prince of Bel Air,
favored one another, but she didn't see the resemblance and she didn't encourage the comparisons. “Nope. Never.”

“Well, you do.” Tony held out his hand and she shook it. “Nice to meet you, Cicely. I'm going to go inside and get some food. I'm sure my cousin would like to get back to what he was doing.”

They watched Tony head back into the rum shack, and Chase pulled her back into his arms. Thankfully, Tony's appearance had given her time to clear her head, and she was not going to allow a repeat of the kissing.

Chase traced her kiss-swollen lips with his thumb ever so gently and oh, so seductively. She took in a
sharp breath and was already forgetting the intrusive, interrupting Tony and her vow not to kiss Chase again. His thumb felt amazing on her mouth, and it made her wonder what his other fingers could do to other parts of her body. She shivered at the thought.

“So, I guess all that, ‘Ohhh, nooo! I don't even like Chase. I could never like Chase. Ohhh, nooo! I'm not attracted to that egomaniac, Chase' was just an act.” Chase took creative license with her words as he mimicked her. His eyes were still hooded and still sexy, but his voice, the one that just a few minutes earlier could have talked her into even more daring public displays of affection, now had an edge to it that dripped of sarcasm.

Cicely's eyes narrowed as she ripped herself out of his arms and away from him and his stupid sexy thumb. “Do you mean you did all that kissing me just to try and prove some kind of point? Or to prove I was lying when I told your mother that there was nothing going on between us?”

“I'm saying you didn't have to be so quick and forceful and outright indignant with your outrage and denial! Really, Cicely, a brother has feelings.” He playfully tried to pull her back into his arms.

She sidestepped him. He'd given her the wake-up call she needed. Never trust The Wolf.

Never, ever, ever, trust The Wolf….

He chuckled and placed his arm around her shoulder. “Don't get all salty now, Cicely. I didn't get salty when you acted like being in a relationship with me would be the equivalent of being in a relationship with the Attila the Hun.”

“No, you didn't get mad. You just got even by once again using a kiss to make some kind of score.”

Chase threw up his hands. “Oh, please, tell me we're not back on that again.”