Lover Man Read online

  “You mean,” Karma, who had been quiet for the most part, suddenly sprang to life, “the song ‘Eighth Wonder’?”

  “That’s the one!” Crystal clapped her hands together.

  That’s funny, Karma thought to herself. It was the very same song that had been streaming through her mind since she’d left CJ last night.

  “‘Eighth Wonder’?” Zahn had a lost look on his face.

  “Yeah, it’s such a sweet song—” Crystal started, but Karma interrupted.

  “She’s singing about being in love with the eighth wonder of the world—which just happens to be her man.”

  “Awwww,” Zahn and Noah cried in unison.

  “Karma has a wonderful man too,” Geneva happily announced. “But she ain’t giving up any info.”

  “Huh.” Karma’s head bounced and the expression that appeared on her face resembled that of a child with her hand caught in the cookie jar.

  Zahn quipped, “Please, do tell.”

  The three of them leaned in, their eyes hungry for information.

  Karma blushed and stammered, “Well, um, I wouldn’t call him my man—”

  “Seems they had quite a time at the Pierre Hotel last night,” Geneva interrupted.

  “The Pierre Hotel,” Noah crooned, “veerrry nice. Sounds like he has money?”

  “Well, I don’t—” Karma started, but Geneva cut her off again.

  “Flew her to New Hampshire in his private helicopter.”

  Karma glared at Geneva.

  “Tell it, tell it all, girl.” Noah laughed, snapping his fingers.

  Crystal crumpled a napkin and threw it across the table at Geneva. Amazingly, it landed right in her mouth.

  They all broke down with laughter.

  “Serves you right, you and your big-ass mouth,” Crystal cried, “telling all of Karma’s business like that!”

  The joyous uproar continued and so no one heard Claude walk into the kitchen.

  “Tell me the joke, I want to laugh too,” he said.

  34

  Claude thought he was seeing things and so closed his eyes and willed Karma’s face to disappear from the room, but when he reopened them her shocked expression was still gazing at him.

  Crystal had her arms around his neck, her lips pressed into his cheek, and then she had him by the hand pulling him toward the table of strangers and Karma.

  She was talking, he could see her lips moving, but he couldn’t hear a word she was saying. There was a loud buzzing sound in his ears and it was growing louder.

  Claude would later swear that someone had pulled the floor from beneath his feet, and that the earth had opened its mouth and sucked him down into its grimy depths, and then he would remember the phantom blow to his stomach and how he’d wrenched his hand from Crystal’s grip and fled from the room.

  He barely made it into the bathroom before the last two meals he’d consumed came tumbling violently from his mouth.

  Claude’s worlds had finally collided. But how had it happened? He’d been so careful, so fucking careful!

  His stomach bubbled, and he braced himself for the next wave of sick.

  He’d been too cocky, too sure of himself, too greedy?

  Perhaps it was all of these things.

  Crystal was at his side, he could see her calves, her beautiful lean calves, and he could hear her worried questions, feel her hand on his shoulder and finally the cool cloth she pressed against his forehead.

  “I-I think I ate something bad,” he said as she helped him to the bed. “Please apologize to your friends for me,” he managed before she slipped his shoes from his feet and pulled the comforter over him.

  Back in the kitchen Geneva had already filled the kettle with water and set it on the lit burner.

  “Where’s your tea?” she said, already opening cabinet doors.

  “Peppermint would be best,” Zahn added as he stood to help.

  “In the, um …” Crystal’s words trailed off.

  “Don’t worry, baby, we’ll find it,” Noah said.

  They were treating her as if she was the sick one. She gathered her thoughts and went to the cupboard to retrieve a coffee mug, and that’s when she happened to look over at Karma, who was sitting stark still, her eyes wide as saucers and her mouth gaping open.

  “You okay, Karma?”

  Karma hadn’t moved an inch. If she had, her heart, which was galloping a million miles a minute, would have burst from her chest.

  “Karma?” Crystal shook the stunned woman’s shoulder.

  Karma snapped to life. “I have to go,” she said, springing from her chair.

  “Go?” Noah whirled around, the box of peppermint tea in his hand. “Go where, why?”

  Karma snatched her purse from the table. “I have something I need to take care of,” she blurted out.

  “Since when?” Geneva asked.

  Karma didn’t have an answer; all she knew was that she couldn’t spend one more second in that house, no less an entire night.

  “How do you plan on getting home? I know I’m not driving back to the city tonight.” Noah was annoyed.

  “I’ll take a bus, a cab—”

  Geneva came and stood before her. “You will not. We came out to have a good time and that’s what we’re going to do. Now sit your ass down,” she said, and gave Karma a light-hearted shove toward the chair.

  Karma wanted to leap at her and scratch her eyes out. But she controlled the rage inside of her and sat down. “I just thought with, with your—”

  “Claude,” Crystal said, giving Karma a wary look.

  “Yes, Claude being sick, I just don’t think that we … I mean, I should stay. I’m sure he needs all of your attention right about now.”

  She gulped on the last few words. She wanted to cry so bad it hurt. What a fool, what a goddamn fool she was!

  This man, this Claude, CJ, whatever the hell he called himself, had a good life and a good woman. How could he have done and said all of those things last night?

  “It’s okay, Karma, really it is,” Crystal said before heading back up the stairs to Claude.

  Noah considered Karma for a minute before scooting close to her and asking, “Honey girl, is it that time of the month?”

  Claude lay in a fetal position. Waiting. He fully expected Karma to blurt out everything. Every goddamn thing!

  Women and their mouths. Their goddamn filthy mouths! Claude punched the pillow.

  He could just leave. He could get up and just walk right out of his house. Right out of Crystal’s life. He’d done it before. It hadn’t been hard.

  When Kayla’s mother, Denise, started acting crazy, talking madness, accusing him of all sorts of things, telling him that her ancestors had come to her in her dreams and told her of his infidelity, he knew it was time to cut and run.

  And he’d done just that, but not before he admitted her into a psychiatric hospital.

  Kayla was a little more than a year old then, and after a few months she stopped asking for her mother, and Claude simply moved to another part of the state and told people who inquired that Denise had died.

  Simple.

  But now as he lay curled into a ball of anxiety he wondered if Denise’s final words to him had magically come true: “Karma, Claude, karma! She’s a bitch and one day she will have your balls for dinner!”

  Claude reached down between his legs and protectively cupped his testicles.

  35

  Crystal was no longer having a good time as she tried to split herself between her friends and her sick husband.

  Up and down the steps she went. Checking on Claude every fifteen minutes.

  “Can you just tell them to go?” he pleaded. “I really need you to be with me.”

  It wasn’t an outrageous request, and she knew that it was probably the best thing to do, but Zahn, Noah and Geneva had already gone through three bottles of wine and none of them was in any condition to get on the road.

  Although she didn
’t know whether Karma drove, she hadn’t had a drop to drink. In fact, she hadn’t uttered more than two words since Geneva had bullied her back into her chair.

  It was all very odd. Very, very odd.

  They all turned in about three that morning.

  Crystal walked into the bedroom and was surprised to find Claude sitting on the edge of the bed, his head in his hands.

  She went to him. “Maybe we should go to the hospital?”

  He shook his head no.

  “I’ll be fine. Are they all asleep?”

  Crystal yawned. “Asleep, no. Passed out, yes,” she said as she climbed into bed. Within a few minutes she was snoring.

  Thank goodness Crystal had put her on the pull-out sofa in her office. Karma couldn’t have beared being down the hall from their bedroom. Not that being beneath their bedroom was a good thing, but it was better than the alternative.

  She tossed and turned on the thin mattress, her mind dragging her back to the day they met. Some bells should have gone off. Sirens. Something!

  She’d known about Sergio’s women, why hadn’t it been obvious with Claude?

  Now wait a minute, her mind cautioned, you never even asked the man if he was single, you just assumed.

  Karma sat bolt upright.

  But he’d taken her to his home in New Hampshire, and just last night when they were together he suggested that they fly down to Orlando for a few days next month around the eighteenth or so …

  He said he had some business meetings, but would put aside time for them.

  Them.

  He said it like they were an item and Karma had transformed that into US.

  Karma swung her legs from the bed and set her feet down onto the floor. She should march right up those stairs, she told herself, barge right into their bedroom and tell Crystal everything!

  What would he do? Deny it?

  Let him try, she fumed, she had a love bite on her breast that perfectly matched his teeth.

  We could go to the dentist right now, Crystal, if you need further proof!

  Karma gave her head a violent shake. Now she was thinking crazy!

  Claude eased himself from the bed, out of the room and down the staircase.

  He didn’t know what he was going to do or say, he just knew he had to see her. Confront her.

  He moved silently across the Berber carpet, and then across the marble floor of the hallway toward Crystal’s office.

  The door was shut and he stood there for a moment, staring at the dark oak of the door while his heart clamored in his chest.

  After some time he reached out and curled his sweaty palm around the brass doorknob.

  Karma was standing by the window, staring out at the lonely street when the door swung open. She yelped in surprise when the dark figure rushed her.

  “Shhhhh.” Claude wrapped one arm around her waist and he used his free hand to cover her mouth.

  “Don’t you scream,” he ordered.

  Karma struggled, but she was no match for his strength.

  “Promise you won’t scream. Promise,” Claude insisted.

  Karma nodded her head.

  “You son of a bitch!” she spat and slapped him across his face when he finally released her.

  Claude said nothing.

  “You lied to me!”

  Claude smirked. “I did no such thing, Karma. You never asked about my availability,” he said smugly. “And I didn’t ask you about yours.”

  Karma raised her hand to slap him again, but he caught her by the wrist and pulled her roughly to him.

  “You wanted to fuck me and I wanted to fuck you and so we both got what we wanted, didn’t we?”

  Karma wrenched herself from his grip.

  “You women, you all want to play the game and make rules as you go along. But that’s not how it works.”

  Karma glared at him. She didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about.

  “Now,” he continued as he sat down on the edge of the desk and folded his arms across his chest, “what are your plans?”

  “What?” Karma didn’t know what he was talking about.

  “C’mon, Karma, you’re an intelligent woman. You’ve had more than a few hours to think about how you’re going to try and get back at me. Make me feel the hurt that you’re feeling now.”

  Karma felt like she was in the twilight zone. She couldn’t believe that she was standing in her lover’s house having this conversation while his soon-to-be wife was fast asleep in the room right above their heads.

  “You’re fucking crazy, you know that!”

  “Am I?”

  Claude reached for her, catching hold of the flimsy material of her nightgown. He yanked her to him and grabbed her head; holding it tight, he pressed a rough kiss onto her lips.

  Karma fought against his probing tongue until her resolve seeped from her body.

  Claude pulled back. “I want you and I know you want me. This doesn’t have to change anything, we could go on like this forever.”

  Karma started to respond, but he pressed his mouth against her again and then suddenly, during some strange maneuver she would never be able to conceive, her breasts were out and his mouth was on them, hot and hungry, sucking savagely at her nipples.

  Karma flung her head back in ecstasy. Claude’s hands were everywhere, like tentacles, and then his fingers were up inside of her, probing, pushing, and all the while she moaned, “No, no, we can’t,” while she pulled him closer.

  He spun her around, bent her over the desk, and began biting into her back. Karma’s body began to tremble with hot pleasure.

  “Claude—” she whispered breathlessly as he violently tore her panties from her body and without warning rammed himself deep inside of her.

  Karma cried out in surprise, and that was the last audible sound she made until he was done with her. Claude had clamped his palm tightly over her mouth, muffling her cries. The fingers of his other hand dug deep into her shoulder blade, holding her steady as he pounded mercilessly into her.

  The danger of it all made Claude feel powerful, made him dizzy with it.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he whispered with each angry thrust.

  Karma tried to buck him off, but Claude dug his fingers deeper into her flesh and continued to ram away. He came with a shuddering grunt and immediately yanked himself out of her and used the hem of her nightgown to wipe his dick clean.

  Karma, still bent across the desk, was gulping for air, her eyes slowly filling with shameful tears.

  Claude didn’t say a word; he just turned and walked out of the room, pulling the door shut behind him.

  36

  “Hey, baby,” Crystal greeted Claude, who was stepping out of the shower. “Feeling better?”

  Claude placed a quick kiss on her cheek. “Much,” he said as he strolled out of the bathroom and toward his wardrobe closet.

  Crystal followed him. “Wow, that was a quick recovery,” she stated, a bit baffled.

  “Uh-huh,” Claude sounded as he hit the switch that rotated the clothing racks.

  Crystal shrugged her shoulders. “I guess it was a twenty-four-hour thing then, huh?”

  “I guess,” Claude responded absently as he reached for a pair of khakis.

  Crystal watched him. “Well, I guess Superman ain’t got nothing on you, huh?” she muttered as she turned and headed back into the bathroom.

  “Not a motherfucking thing,” Claude happily sang beneath his breath.

  “Pancakes?”

  Javid’s and Kayla’s heads bounced in agreement.

  “Morning.” Crystal yawned as she walked into the kitchen. “What’s all this?”

  “Your man,” Noah started in his best Come Back L’il Sheba voice, “is making breakfast. Keep him, girl, keep him!”

  “While you were up there primping we’ve been getting to know each other, haven’t we, Claude?” Noah batted his eyes at Claude.

  “Yep!”

  “You’ve got a hell of a
man here, Crystal,” Zahn offered between bites of his turkey bacon. “Any man that makes pancakes like this and is willing to share some of the wealth, is okay in my book.”

  “Share some of the wealth?” Crystal was confused.

  “Stock tips, baby,” Claude said, and then, “Do you want some pancakes?”

  Crystal grinned. “Sure, why not.” Claude poured her a cup of coffee and set it down before her. Crystal took a sip and then asked, “We got two people missing. Where’s Karma and Geneva?”

  Noah huffed, “You know Geneva ain’t getting up before noon, unless of course you have a way to waft the scent of the food upstairs and into her room. That’ll get her up!”

  “And I think I heard the shower running in the bathroom in your office,” Zahn said.

  A few minutes later Karma appeared at the doorway of the kitchen.

  She hadn’t slept a wink and it showed. She immediately unraveled upon finding that the first thing her eyes fell on was Claude’s polo-covered back. She almost turned and ran. But she’d come this far, and Noah had assured her that she’d be back in Brooklyn by midday.

  “Morning.”

  She’d spoken so softly that they hadn’t heard her above their own chatter.

  “Morning,” she said again a bit louder.

  “Morning,” they all turned and responded.

  Claude waited a beat and then he turned around and gave her a broad smile. “Hello, you must be Karma,” he said as he rounded the island and made his approach.

  Karma fought hard to keep the smile on her face in place.

  “So sorry about last night.” He extended his hand and for a moment all Karma could do was stare at it.

  Claude continued, “But I’m much better now.” He seemed to loom stories high. “So nice to meet you. Did you sleep well?”

  Shelly was still laughing when the sun climbed high into the sky.

  It seemed to her that Claude had not changed one single bit!

  He’d gotten so bad that he was bringing women home and fucking them right under Crystal’s nose.

  What a louse. What a trifling, good-for-nothing louse!

  She hadn’t been to sleep. Sleep didn’t even occur to her after she witnessed the scene that took place across the street.