Lover Man Read online

  “I learned real quick to just keep my mouth shut. Shit, half the time people ask me what it is I do for a living I tell them that I’m a checkout girl at Wal-Mart!”

  Crystal laughed in spite of herself. This Shenelody chick didn’t seem all that bad.

  “I really don’t think they believe you. I mean, you’re driving a 2008 Mercedes—”

  “Honey chile, I don’t care if they believe me or not, that’s on them. If they want to stay up all night trying to figure out how this bald-headed black woman is sporting a fierce ride on a Wal-Mart salary, let them!”

  Geneva floated all the way to the train station. Shenelody had given her three T-shirts, two hats, and four mugs, plus her entire catalogue of books, personally autographed.

  Crystal could still hear Geneva’s demands:

  “Okay, Shelly. Can I call you Shelly? Okay, Shelly, in this one put ‘To my best friend and number one fan’ …”

  But the pièce de résistance was the invitation to lunch at Shenelody’s home. Geneva had almost pissed herself with excitement.

  “Did you have a good day, girl?” Crystal asked as they started down the subway steps.

  “The best!”

  22

  Karma arrived ten minutes early. She didn’t want a repeat of last time. Truth be told, she didn’t know why she was even there. He’d been a real dick on the phone, but he’d assured her that he had a big dick. Maybe that’s why she was there.

  She had a fondness for big dick men. And he was cute. And apparently very well-to-do. The entire package.

  Isn’t that what women wanted? The entire package?

  “Why are you standing outside?”

  CJ had caught her musing.

  “Just enjoying the scenery,” she said.

  He bent down and pressed a soft kiss on her cheek before taking her by the hand. “Shall we?”

  “Yes.”

  Karma turned toward the restaurant door, but CJ was moving in the opposite direction.

  “Hey,” Karma wailed, “where are we going?”

  “It’s a surprise.”

  She followed him toward the waiting black sedan.

  “So you’re really not going to tell me?” Karma inquired as the sedan snaked its way through the busy New York City streets.

  CJ shook his head.

  “Okay.”

  Karma watched the traffic for a while and then looked down at the four inches of leather seat between them. “Why don’t you come a little closer?” she suggested, patting the seat.

  CJ smiled and inched over until their hips touched. He placed his hand on her knee.

  “Fresh,” Karma exclaimed, shoving his hand off.

  He quickly placed it back, this time allowing his middle finger to make tiny circles on her flesh. Karma felt a slight thrill streak through her body.

  She placed her hand over his and guided it up her thigh, bringing it to halt at the hem of her skirt.

  “Tease.” Claude laughed, and bent over and kissed her.

  “You taste good,” he said, his lips inches from her face. She could feel his hot breath on her lips.

  “So do you.”

  They kissed again with a bit more urgency. CJ’s hand slipped beneath her skirt, up her thigh, and settled between her legs. He pulled air between his teeth and jerked his head back in surprise.

  She didn’t have any underwear on.

  Karma grinned wickedly.

  Claude smiled back, leaned in, and began kissing her again as his fingers explored her damp den.

  He rubbed his thumb rhythmically against her clitoris, and Karma’s back arched in gleeful response.

  “Oh, oh, CJ,” she moaned as she spread her legs wider. He inserted his finger and began to move it in a come-hither motion.

  Karma’s head rolled against the leather headrest.

  “Ah-oh-ah-ah-ah,” she whimpered as she scaled Climax Mountain. “I-I-I …”

  Claude pressed his mouth against hers, muffling her orgasmic screams.

  The sedan came to a halt and Karma, pulling her skirt down, brushed her hair from her face and saw that they’d arrived at a heliport. Her eyes popped with surprise.

  “Just where are you taking me, Mr. CJ?”

  “New Hampshire,” Claude responded as he retrieved a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped Karma’s juices from his fingers.

  “New Hampshire! In that!” Karma squealed, pointing at the helicopter.

  “Ever been in one?”

  She shook her head no. And she wasn’t sure she wanted to be in one now. Planes were fine, but a helicopter?

  “Come on,” he said, grabbing her by the hand and pulling her from the car. “You’ll love it.”

  CJ strapped her in and then himself. The noise from the whirling propellers was deafening until he fitted the headset over her ears. “Can you hear me?” he asked, speaking into the mouthpiece of the headset.

  Karma nodded her head.

  “Don’t be nervous, it’s perfectly safe. I’ve done this a million times.”

  He tapped the pilot on the shoulder and twirled his index finger.

  Up they went.

  For the first fifteen minutes of the flight, Karma’s eyes were squeezed tightly shut. One hand gripped the side of her seat and the other held fast to CJ’s hand.

  She could hear him offering words of comfort through her headphones, but it did little good. Her heart was racing a mile a minute.

  Twenty minutes in she was able to convince herself to open first one eye and then the next. The view below was staggeringly beautiful. “How long will it take?”

  “Just another hour or so.”

  They set down in a clearing of dense forest about one hundred feet from a log-cabin-style mansion.

  “CJ?”

  “Yes,” CJ responded, removing his headset and turning to look at her.

  “Who are you?”

  It was an honest question. One that needed to be asked. She didn’t know this man from squat and no one knew that she was with him or that she was even in New Hampshire. If that’s where they really were.

  He could realistically slit her throat, feed her into a wood chipper and sprinkle her remains in the forest, and get away with it.

  “Why,” CJ gave her an earnest look, “I’m the man of your dreams.”

  A short balding gentleman with the bluest eyes Karma had ever seen greeted them at the door.

  “Welcome back, sir. And welcome to you, madam.”

  Karma straightened her back. She hadn’t been referred to as madam since she left Europe.

  The house had to be six thousand square feet and sure did look like it cost a good chunk of change.

  “Do you own this?” Karma asked in open amazement.

  “Yes.”

  She followed CJ and the butler through the foyer, if you could call it that. It was more like the expansive lobby of a five-star hotel.

  Each room she passed seemed grander than the last. And although Karma was no art collector, she knew the great ones when she saw them. And CJ had a number of Rembrandts and Degas.

  The butler showed them out onto a sweeping veranda that offered unparalleled views of a sparkling blue lake and the woods beyond.

  There they enjoyed an intimate lunch, served by the small butler, who had donned white gloves for the occasion.

  “Are you impressed?” CJ’s eyes twinkled knowingly.

  She was, very much so, and nodded her head yes.

  She supposed he would be expecting sex. She didn’t mind. He deserved it. Especially after his performance in the car. She could imagine what he’d be like in the bed.

  But she was concerned. He had been nothing but a gentleman the entire time and she wondered if CJ had a Jekyll and Hyde personality.

  “When’s your birthday?” she asked suddenly.

  CJ set his water glass down and smiled at her. “Why?”

  “Are you a Gemini?”

  “Again,” he said, leaning back into his chair, “why?�
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  Karma continued to ignore his question. “I think you might be a Gemini, because this man sitting across from me is similar to the man I had brunch with two weeks ago, but nothing like the man on the telephone earlier this week or the naughty finger-fucker in the car. Hence my vote for Gemini.”

  CJ laughed heartily before using the linen napkin to dab the corners of his mouth. “Oh, that,” he said, and Karma was sure she saw him blush. “That was just a little wicked foreplay. I thought women liked foreplay? Maybe I was wrong.”

  With that he gave her a penetrating look. One that left her feeling stripped bare. She felt herself falter, as if she’d stumbled on the catwalk.

  Dropping her eyes, she said, “No, you weren’t wrong.”

  CJ grinned smugly and lifted his water glass to his lips. He could see right through her. He knew that she had not always been the beauty she was now. She didn’t wear it the way the ones who’d owned their beauty from adolescence wore theirs—like an old familiar coat.

  Karma’s coat hung a little slack.

  She was like a little girl playing grown-up.

  He and his dick would show her what real grown-up was like.

  “Listen,” he said, looking down at his watch. “I do have an important business meeting to attend before we head back to New York.”

  Karma just looked at him. Surely he wasn’t going to leave her there?

  “I’m going to be gone for an hour or so. You’ll be perfectly fine with Winston. And if you want you can take a swim,” he said, nodding his head toward the lake. He was already out of his chair.

  “Watch a movie in the media room, play any number of games in the game room, or just take a long walk.”

  Karma was speechless as he sauntered over and kissed her gently on the forehead.

  “Okay?” he said, looming over her, hands stuck deep into the pockets of his slacks, his face a mask of seriousness.

  “Okay,” Karma heard herself say.

  23

  The trees whisked by at nearly seventy miles per hour. Claude liked speed; he liked power; it got him excited, got him hard.

  He rubbed at the ever-growing stiffness between his legs and a sharp thrill climbed his spine.

  He chuckled to himself as he threw the car into fourth gear. The candy-apple-red Porsche leaped forward like a wild animal. CJ tightened his grip on the wheel.

  A Kanye West tune banged out of the surround-sound speakers, and CJ bounced his head to the beat.

  He pushed the gear stick up, shifting the car into fifth gear; the speedometer climbed to ninety-five.

  He was on top of the fucking world!

  • • •

  The New York Times bestselling book The Secret had recently had a ripple effect on the world’s population, and they’d all had a collective “Aha” moment.

  But Claude had been a participant in the power-of-attraction game for a very long time now. Which is how he’d accumulated so much wealth in so little time. He was just a couple of million dollars away from being a billionaire.

  Money attracted more money.

  There would never be a lack of pussy, no matter that Jill Scott threatened it in one of her songs—you born and find pussy, you gonna die and leave it here—his mother always said.

  Claude had decided that he wanted the sex, but also he wanted love and commitment. Which is why he began collecting wives.

  Black men talked about how back in the days of ancient Africa, men were allowed to, expected to, have multiple wives, and that was their inherent right, even now in the twenty-first century.

  They talked that shit, ignorant of the fact that all of the wives were to be treated equally, and that ran the gamut—housing, finance, love, and sex.

  These knuckleheaded brothers nowadays just wanted unlimited access to a variety of pussy and none of the responsibility that went along with it.

  And so CJ and his brothers in clandestine polygamy had found a way to have their cake and eat it too!

  With his lifestyle there was hardly ever a bad family day. All of his wives were housed in fabulous homes with a nice allowance and late-model car.

  His children, of which he currently had six, with one on the way, were all in private school.

  They were his future and he had to admit that he felt like God whenever a new little Justine came squealing into the world.

  CJ was a man, like many other men, and he knew very early on that no one woman would be able to satisfy him on any level, and so the decision had been made to acquire a number of women who, put together, composed the perfect one. So far, it was working out just swell.

  His wives were always happy to see him and he made sure he planned his visits around their menstrual cycles so he could always look forward to passionate welcome-home sex.

  But he was still a man, and while he did philander, it wasn’t at the rate he would have if not for his many wives.

  Claude rehearsed his story again and again until it rang true even to himself. Nadia was smart; she listened well and had almost tripped him up a few times. But that was before she had the twins, Jackson and James, and got the pug called Danish. Now she had her all-American dream, husband and lavish home included.

  Claude suddenly snapped his fingers, shifting the gears from fifth to fourth and down to third; he felt safe enough to take one hand off the steering wheel and reach into his attaché case.

  Pulling out a diamond-encrusted wedding ring, he slipped it on just as he guided the Porsche into the driveway.

  Nadia was standing out front, her hands on her slim hips as she scrutinized the dwarf roses around the edge of the house.

  Nadia was the product of a Senegalese mother and a Scottish father. She was the most exotic woman CJ had ever seen.

  She spun around at the sound of the wheels crunching over the gravel and then her face brightened and the smile that first stole his heart appeared.

  “Hey, baby,” she greeted him, throwing her arms around his neck and hugging him.

  He hugged her back, taking the opportunity to cup her small round bottom in his hands.

  “Look who’s home, boys,” Nadia sang as Claude followed her into the family room, where the twins were sitting opposite each other, eyes locked and motionless.

  CJ stopped in mid-stride. “Something new?” he turned and asked Nadia.

  “Yeah, about a week now.”

  Claude shook his head. His twins were a little freaky. But every doctor he’d taken them to said that they were normal, healthy two-and-a-half-year-olds.

  “Hey, guys!” Claude exclaimed as he came and stood over them.

  The twins did not acknowledge his presence.

  “I think they do things like this just to upset you, Claude.”

  “What?”

  “Well, you’re never here. I think they resent not having their father around.”

  “Oh, that’s just silly, Nadia.”

  “Is it? I know I resent not having my husband around.” Nadia’s tone was wounded.

  “I thought we were beyond this, Nadia?”

  “I guess we’re not.”

  Claude walked to her and wrapped his arms around her. “I told you when we got married that my plan was to be a billionaire by the time I was fifty. After that, you and the boys will have me all to yourselves all of the time. But in order for me to make that billion-dollar mark I have to work, and unfortunately my work keeps me on the road and away from the people I love the most.”

  Nadia nodded her head. “I know I’m being silly, but can I help that I miss you?”

  “I miss you too, baby.” Claude bent and kissed her neck. “That’s why I flew in from Arizona just to spend a few hours with you and the boys,” he added, and slipped his hand beneath her T-shirt.

  Nadia’s whole body began to quake. It had been nearly a month since they’d last had sex.

  “We’re still going to take the boys to Disney World next month, right?” she whispered as Claude unhooked her bra.

  “Yes, e
verything is booked. We leave on the sixteenth.”

  “Lori!” Nadia yelled for the nanny as she grabbed Claude’s hand and started toward their bedroom.

  “Yes, ma’am?”

  “Watch the boys while me and my husband get reacquainted.”

  She’d sulked all the way back to New York, even though CJ had apologized profusely and tried everything to get her to crack a smile.

  How could he have done her that way? Leaving her in a strange house with not one but two strange men—the butler and the helicopter pilot!

  And CJ hadn’t returned until midnight. Midnight!

  “This is my life, Karma. If you want to be a part of it, you have to know that sometimes things like this are going to happen.”

  That was his lame explanation.

  When he dropped her off at her apartment it was nearly three in the morning. The car had barely come to a stop before Karma flung the door open. She had one foot on the ground when CJ caught her by the wrist. “You’re being childish, Karma.”

  Karma just glared at him.

  “If you don’t want me to call you again, just say so.”

  She hadn’t said a word, just turned and stormed into the building.

  Why hadn’t she said, “Don’t ever call me again, you stupid fucking dick!”

  Why hadn’t she said that?

  Karma turned roughly over in her bed. It was nearly seven in the morning and she’d not slept one wink. The question haunted her and every time she closed her eyes it glowed bright in the darkness of her mind.

  24

  Crystal rolled over and was surprised to find Claude standing over her.

  “Hey, baby.” She sighed and reached out for him. “I wasn’t expecting you back until tomorrow.”

  “It is tomorrow,” Claude said as he climbed into bed beside her.

  Crystal looked over at the digital clock. It was just after four in the morning.

  Taking her into his arms, he held her close against his chest and kissed the top of her head. “Do you know how much I love you?”

  Crystal felt she did and so responded, “Yes.”

  “No, I don’t think you do,” Claude said, and his chest heaved with emotion. “I can’t wait to make you my wife, Crystal Atkins.”