"Oh, sweet Jesus," Trish's mother's voice could be heard through the door.
Her eyes darted to look at Trish. A sickened expression came over her daughter’s face.
It all makes sense,
the voice in her mind cried.
Her mind kicked into overdrive as she began to rewind every conversation, every touch, every meeting. She felt her feeling of shame return a thousand fold, but this time it brought another feeling it. She felt like a damn fool. He didn’t really want her. It wasn’t his desire to get with her, to be with her, to love her as he said since day one. It was just a set-up to turn her head over heels in love with him and fuck her, just so he could get back at her ex for what his nasty, broke down ass did to his sister.
“Did he just say that? Damn, he ain't scared," Kandace whispered.
For the first time, George had second thoughts about coming over to start trouble. The man wasn't reacting like he thought he would upon seeing him. He didn't even seem to care that he was there at all. He took note of Brayden's state of fitness while he had let himself go, not to mention her two brothers and her crazy ass sister that was still in the house.
“Well, you can have her dried up cunt. Shit, she's the reason why I didn't go pro. Now she thinks she's the shit cuz she's gone and got herself a white boy. Fuck it, you can have all of them...her and the kids. She already got them walking around here thinking they're better than everybody and shit,” spat George.
Brayden bit the bottom of his lip to keep from saying something. He didn't want to make the scene even worse for the children as they looked on while their father cursed their mom and said he didn't want them.
“Get the fuck out of my house before I get my gun!” Trish's father shouted as he pushed George toward the door leading back into the house.
Brayden glanced over his shoulder and demanded the kids to stay outside as he followed close behind the old man with her brothers following behind him.
Brayden knew that it was only words that George was saying. He knew that he couldn't change what happened to his sister, or all things that caused her to lose her actual mind, but the look on Trish's face did something to him. While George was in mid-sentence, he walked up to him. He landed three hard punches to his mouth and face. Blood flowed like a stream onto tile flooring as it ran from his nose and mouth.
“I should put a bullet in your head after I tie you to a car battery to shock the shit out of you,” he snarled. He stomped on his face a few times before her brothers pulled him off. The floor was covered with blood and teeth.
George stumbled to his feet. He wouldn’t dare look at anyone other than Brayden as he backed out of the room, slamming the door on his way out.
“I'm sorry. You don't think the kids heard that, do you?” he asked with a deep frown on his handsome, tanned face.
“No, I don't think so, son,” responded the old man while he nodded his head in approval. “You see how he did that? He waited until he was in the house to kick the motherfucker’s ass, so the children wouldn't see it. I see you can teach these two a lot...fighting, manners, and construction. Can you cook, too?”
“Yes,” mumbled Brayden.
He knew that the man was trying to lighten the mood, which he was thankful for, but the look on Trish’s face reflected the pain that he had been trying to avoid.
“I’ll start cleaning this up,” she stated.
She wouldn’t look at him when she breezed by him to go get the cleaning products.
Brayden let out a deep, frustrated sound. He pulled at his hair in anger. It was just like he had feared.
“You didn't tell that part about your sister,” her father remarked awkwardly.
He just shrugged.
“I hope that wasn't the reason you went after her in the first place,” the old man voiced the same thought that had crossed all of their minds after they heard what George had done to his sister back in high school.
“Honestly, when she walked into my gym that first day—”
“Wait a sec. Your gym? You own the gym, too?” Kandace asked dumbfounded.
“Yeah, that’s why her membership has never been processed. I wanted her to keep coming back,” he stated matter-of-factly. “At first when I saw her, I thought about it, but then I realized just how childish that would be to get her feelings involved over something she had nothing to do with. Especially after I called around and heard how messed up her life had been. I had been watching her for a little minute before I decided to give it a try,” he confessed, his
Barry White
voice sounding like thunder in the still, quiet room.
“That might be true, but I can tell you right now that she has a good reason to not believe you. You just fucked the pooch, son. You were the
first
person that had gotten this far with my daughter, only for her to find out that you had a darker reason for running her down. That shit looks bad…real bad,” explained her father.
“Don’t you think I know that,” snapped Brayden.
“Hold up…where you going?” cried her mother.
“For a walk,” he tossed back over his shoulder.
The structure of the house shook from the force of him shutting the door.
“He ain’t running no game,” said Kandace.
Brayden tried to bend over backward to get Trish to talk to him, only to come up short every time. He decided to give up over dinner. He knew that all he had to do was bide his time. Her children were spending the night with her parents, which meant they would have time to talk on the way back to his home. She had stopped removing the hand he kept placing on her leg under the table. His constant attempt to pull her out of her thoughts and feelings was making it very hard for her to disconnect herself from him. She had already decided that she wasn’t going back with him. While still at the dinner table, she made her plans known. The kids had left to go watch TV a few minutes earlier. She crumbled up her napkin.
“Come on, Candy. I need you to drive me back,” she ordered.
She felt Brayden’s hand squeeze her leg. Everyone at the table settled in for the showdown.
“Get your goddamn hand off my leg,” she hissed, pushing his hand off.
He turned in his chair to face her. “If you do this, I promise you it won’t end with you winning like you did with my mother,” he warned in a cold tone.
She leaned over into his space. “FUUUCCCKKK YOOOOUUU,” she growled.
His jaw flinched. He tilted his head to the side. A wicked smile formed on his face. The fact that she was showing her anger meant she still felt deeply for him. He could work with anger. He would ride every shout, every curse, even every hit until he made her understand. He pushed back his chair to get to his feet.
“I see,” he smirked.
He tossed down his napkin unto the table.
“Thank you all for the wonderful evening,” he began to say, which made her heart sink into the pit of her stomach.
He’s going to leave me. He never wanted—”
His deep voice invaded her thoughts.
“I see I have a night full of fighting, followed by some Earth-shaking make up sex. Get your ass in the car,” he growled.
Trish stumbled back to keep from falling on the floor when he jerked the chair from under her. She swirled around to face him. He grabbed her by her shoulders.
“I’m not leaving without you, Trish. So shut your mouth and let’s go. I don’t want to have to spank you but I will, so do it for the kids and get
yo
ass in the goddam car,” he finished slowly.
The others at the table watched as she marched out of the dining room with him in step behind her.
“I think I just had my first real orgasm,” groaned Kandace.
**
Neither one spoke for a while as he found his way back through the large suburban neighborhood. He kept stealing glimpses of her. She was doing her best to ignore him. He just wanted to get the talk over with. He knew he wasn’t going to lose her.
“When are you going to stop letting that voice in your head fuck you? Tell me what you’re thinking,” he pushed gently.
Needless to say, he wasn’t ready for the way she swung on him. Her explosive response had him second-thinking his thought of pushing her to talk while on the busy road. His desire to have worked everything out upon reaching his house to ensure a night of unbridled lust was coming back to bite him in the ass.
“Talk, yeah…let’s talk,” she snapped, turning in her seat to face in. “You’ve been saying no bullshit, but all this fuckin’ time that’s all you’ve been spittin’. You’re the king of shit,” she yelled.
Trish pulled back her hand. She punched him hard in his muscular arm one…two…three times. “Ugh! I so wish you were a bitch. I would bust your ass up,” she threatened through her clenched teeth.
She straightened up in her chair to continue her rant, completely unaware of the rage and hurt that was coursing through him. Brayden decided to let her be. There were many times his grip tightened on the steering wheel. He chose to bite his tongue instead of correcting her of all the false things she was saying about him. He had no idea of the deep hurt and insecurity that she had been carrying around with her that was just lurking under the surface until now. In spite of that, it was true about what his motives had been at first, but it hurt him that she actually thought that the feelings he had developed for her now were all a lie. She finally went quiet for the last fifteen of the forty-five-minute drive.
His SUV was still in motion when she opened the door and jumped out. Brayden quickly turned off the vehicle, hopped out, and was there just in time to block her path to her own car.
“Move,” she demanded.
She fished around for her keys. His body was unmovable. With her keys in hand, she tried to skirt around him. He snatched the keys out of her hand, flinging them into the darkness somewhere.
“Get your ass in the house, Trish,” he grunted as he moved her backwards with his body.
Her protest turned into a scream. No longer in the mind to wait, Brayden picked her up, tossed her over his shoulder, and made a beeline toward the front door. He didn’t let her down until he had locked the door, kicked off his shoes, and was half way up the stairs.
“I don’t think you’re mad enough to jump, so just keep going.”
Trish danced around on her feet while she debated her options for a few seconds before she angrily walked up the few steps. She stopped outside his open bedroom door, refusing to enter. With a sigh, he shoved her through the door. Once again, he locked the door.
“Will you please put away that mad black woman shit,” he hissed.
“Fuck you!”
He was on her in a matter of seconds. His hands on her shoulders were like steel vices. He shook her repeatedly as he shouted for her to listen to him. Suddenly, he backed away as if he had been burned. He cursed under his breath. He knew he couldn’t allow his fear of losing her to cause him to let his temper free. He covered his face with the palm of his hand. She could hear him taking deep breaths to bring himself under control.
“Please, will you take a seat,” he pleaded in a muffled voice.
“No.”
His head snapped up. He closed the space between them. He picked her up by the waist, walked over to the bed, and tossed her backwards onto it. He stopped her from raising up by straddling her hips, pinning her down. He stopped her fists from hitting him. He captured them to hold them tightly against his firm chest.
“Stop it! Stop it,” he thundered. “I know I’ve hurt you. I realized a long time before the house thing that me trying to get into your pants to throw it back in that motherfucker’s face was childish, but you have to understand that I was hurting. You didn’t see my little sister after she was raped. You didn’t see how she lost weight. You didn’t see the scars on her body from cutting herself,” he sneered.
He could see that his words had finally reached her from the pity that shone in her light brown eyes.
“Her mind is so far gone now that even if I did tell her that she’s dying from AIDS, she won’t even understand,” he whispered.
“I had heard about that happening, but I never knew that it was your sister or that George was involved. I swear. I—”
“I know,” he nodded.
He shifted his weight as he brought her hands over her head. Leaning over, he brushed his lips against hers.
“I don’t want to give any more time to that. It has consumed me for far too long. I need you to understand that I love you, Trish. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have taken you to my cousin’s business knowing damn well he was going to blab to my family. I wouldn’t have tried to resist having sex with you. Shit, I would have made you my bitch without a second thought that night in your house. And I damn sure wouldn’t have spent close to two hundred thousand dollars buying those two homes of yours to make sure you didn’t lose your ass,” he pointed out.
Brayden laughed at the crazy expression that came upon her face.
“Lord, I had you pay full price,” she cried.
“Which I was pissed over, by the way…but I did it happily because I fuckin’ love you,” he said with as much passion he could muster as he rubbed his nose against hers.
The emotional response of his confession was beyond anything she had ever experienced before. If she had to describe it, she would say it was the feeling she felt the first time she held her children. It was feeling of love that she knew was freely given with no strings attached from a person that wanted her, accepted her, and wanted her for just her. Unlike the wasted years with George, she didn’t have to do anything other than open her heart to take the heart he was now pleading for her to receive.
“Say it again.”
“I fuckin’ love you,” he breathed.
He released her hands to touch the side of her face. His eyes focused on hers. He bit his bottom lip and closed his eyes at the feel of her running her fingers through his hair.
“Again.”
When he opened his eyes to stare into her light brown eyes, she could see the sign of the tears that he was fighting back.
“I…love...you, Trish. I will neve—”
She brought his head down to silence him. Their kiss was deep, long, and passionate. No longer upset, the flames of desire took control, causing them to grind their bodies together frantically. Trish pushed his back. Her hands tugged his shirt up his chest and over his head to toss it away.
“Now, is it make up time?” he chuckled while he ripped her shirt open, sending the buttons everywhere.
“You got that right, bubby,” she grunted.