Heated (12 page)

Life was changing, and she had to wonder what other changes were in store.

“Are you sure this is what you want to do, Bianca?”

Bianca looked from Dr. Harry Henley and Dr. Susan Levine, the two vets she hired on to assist with her practice. Her eyes rested back on Harry, the one who asked the question. “Yes, and I wanted to discuss it with you and see how you both felt about my decision to move to Holtsville? I’m thinking of selling the practice and I wanted to know if I did would either—or both of you—be interested?”

“Bianca, isn’t this a little sudden?” Susan asked, her face round mocha face concerned.

Bianca rose from the chair in front of Harry’s desk and paced a bit. “Yes, and I’m still feeling my way through everything, but I’m ninety percent sure this is what I want to do.”

“When will you be one hundred percent sure?” Harry asked, his reddish spectacles contrasting with his pale
complexion.

“I should make a firm decision in about thirty days. I’m going to hire someone to appraise the value of the business, check out its worth. I still need to tie up some loose ends in Holtsville, and then there’s my house—”

“So you would be selling your home here in Atlanta as well?” Susan asked.

Bianca crossed her arms over her chest and looked down at her colleague, seeing her clear interest. “With a move back to Holtsville? Definitely.”

Susan just nodded and stroked her chin with her slender fingers.

“I guess right now what I am asking for is some time,” Bianca began. “For now I need at least another month in Holtsville and if you guys could pick up my slack around here I would appreciate it.”

“No problem, Bianca.”

“Got you covered.”

Bianca smiled warmly at them both. “Thanks. I really appreciate it. I’ll come back and forth during the month, of course, so I won’t be dropping off the face of the earth all together.”

Harry and Susan shared a look and Bianca knew they were seriously considering ownership of the practice. It was a viable and thriving business—she made sure of that. The transition would be very easy for either—or both—because they were already practicing at the clinic.

“I’m gonna go to my office and catch up on some things.” Bianca walked to the door. “You both know how to reach me.”

She walked out and headed down the corridor to her large office at the rear of the building. She found Kahron sitting behind her desk playing solitaire on her flat screen computer. “Hey you,” she said, closing the
door behind her.

Kahron looked up as Bianca came to stand beside him and go through the stack of mail on her desk. “You’re beautiful, B,” he said.

She bumped his shoulder with her hip. “Thank you. You ain’t so bad yourself.”

“And you know what else?” he asked.

“What?”

“I’m proud of you.”

Bianca looked down at him as he turned in the chair to face her, leaning back as he looked up at her. “For?” she asked, touched by the compliment.

“All of those awards at your house and this practice. I mean you did all of that by yourself and I, I mean, I’m really proud of you.”

She saw the truth in his eyes and moved to sit down on his lap, her arms snaking around his neck. “Thank you,” she told him, with a brief press of her lips to his own.

Kahron hand rested comfortable on her hip. “This facility is awesome and Holtsville can use something just like this. I mean, Holtsville is… getting something just like this, right?”

Bianca rubbed her hand against his silver shadow of a beard. “Is this your way of asking If I’ve changed my mind about moving back to Holtsville?”

Kahron slid his hand into her back pocket and let it rest against the warmth of her bottom. “That house, this practice, your life here. It’s a lot to give up, B.”

“Yes, yes it is,” she admitted.

Kahron raised his hand from her pocket to lightly rub circles into her lower back. “If you do half as good with your father’s ranch as you did with this clinic, I know everything will work out.”

Bianca outlined his lips with her finger. “So I’m not setting myself up for the biggest disappointment of my life?”

Kahron shrugged lightly. “Not when it comes to me, B. Anything else I can’t guarantee.”

Bianca met his eyes, searching.

“This right here. You and me. This is good to go. Trust me.”

She smiled as he kissed her fingertips.

1
2

Hours later, Bianca and Kahron rushed back to her house to get ready for Mimi’s impromptu dinner party. After a greasy and oh so good lunch of ribs and baked beans at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack on Piedmont, the couple did it up around Atlanta in true tourist fashion. They respected the history and the magnificence of The King Center on Auburn Avenue, and then headed to Auburn Street, where they strolled and enjoyed the many African-American–owned businesses on the street known as “Sweet Auburn.” When they returned to Bianca’s parked car they had bags filled with books, jewelry, and clothing. Last, at Kahron’s request, Bianca took him to the Centennial Olympic Park, where children enjoyed running through the dancing fountains shaped like the Olympic symbol of five rings.

Bianca saw parts of Atlanta in one day that she never sought out during all the years she called the city home. She was glad she shared that view of Atlanta with Kahron.

They discovered even more about each other. Both were knowledgeable on black history and black consciousness, enjoying the writings of Cornel West, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Michael Dyson. Kahron was more
of a clothes horse, whereas Bianca craved jewelry. He wanted five kids or more; Bianca thought two—one boy and one girl—was better. They both were generous, gladly giving offerings to less-fortunate souls who panhandled at the park.

They had broken through to some of the many layers that made them unique, yet both knew they were many more layers to discover, and that came with time and commitment—something to which both were open.

“B, what should I wear?” Kahron hollered to her in the bathroom.

Bianca walked to the open bathroom door, her arms behind her back as she undid her bra. “Dressy casual,” she told him.

“Isn’t that like saying ‘dry wet’ or ‘cool heat’, B?”

“Ha, ha, ha.”

Kahron glanced up and caught a swift glimpse of Bianca’s smooth bottom and endless legs as she finished undressing. He dropped the striped shirt he held and moved across the room to lean in the doorway to watch his woman as she turned on the shower.

Bianca stood beneath the showerhead hanging from the ceiling, letting the water plaster her loosely curled hair to her head before flowing like waterfalls down every inch of her body. She reached for a bottle and quickly shampooed the rest of the straw set curls from her hair.

Kahron felt that familiar stirring as suds drizzled down her shoulders to coat her breasts until just the hard tips of her nipples peaked through the white foam.

Bianca rinsed the rest of the suds from her hair and then her body. She reached for a bar of soap, rubbing it in circles across her body. Each full breast. Arms. Stomach. She bent to do her legs—left and then right. She rose to
slide the bar between her legs.

That’s when her eyes locked on Kahron.

Nothing was more erotic to him than that moment as Bianca stood there, naked, wet, and sleek as the steam swirled around her like a shifting fog. He knew that image would stay locked in his memory for a long time.

He stripped off his clothes in record time.

The shower door opened and the steam escaped to surround his sculptured bronze nakedness as he stepped inside to pull Bianca’s body against his with a moan of pleasure. Their lips locked hungrily as water poured down upon them. The steam caressed their back, buttocks, and legs like a third member of ménage á trois.

They caressed each other, the water making their hands glide over each other’s bodies with ease as their heads moved from left to right with each kiss. They inhaled deeply of the refreshing steam as it thickened.

Kahron took the soap from Bianca and began to lather her body. Dropping the soap, he turned her and drew her back to him so that his erection settled upward between her buttocks, cupped like a hot dog in buns. As he let his hands glide down to squeeze her breasts and lightly tweak her chocolate nipples, he lifted up on his toes to pump his hips. His penis glided up and down between her buttocks, the soap suds made the movement sleek and intensified.

Bianca shifted her hand down to press her middle finger to the swollen bud between her legs. She gasped at the feel of her own touch as she began to shake her finger across the sensitive flesh.

Kahron tilted his head to the left and leaned back to look at the motion of his penis as he moved his hands down to grasp Bianca’s buttocks tightly. That tightened the friction of her flesh against his flesh and his mouth
formed into an
O
as he kept pumping until he felt his thighs quivering with the rise of his climax.

Bianca began to shiver and she increased the light friction against her bud as she felt that spiral of pleasure. One of his hands rose to cup her breast tightly, his thick thumb and forefinger rolling her nipple—she cried out hoarsely and flung her head back. The water filled her mouth.

Kahron’s grip on her buttocks deepened and the water sprung from their bodies from the furious contact. He bit his bottom lip as his brows furrowed, working furiously for the nut. The cords in his neck strained as the first climatic squirts of his release coated Bianca’s back and buttocks and his stomach just before the water washed it away.

“Whew,” Bianca sighed as she turned to grasp Kahron’s penis and squeeze the last of his release from his member.

“Do we have to go to Mimi’s?” Kahron asked, as he reached for another bar of soap and a washcloth.

Bianca released Kahron now limp member. Raising her arm playfully she let him wash her. “Yup.”

“What about your hair?” he asked, as he rubbed the rag in circles over her back and buttocks.

“My straw set was too through, so I’m going to blow dry it and bump the ends.”

She winked as he even lifted one leg to clean her intimacy thoroughly. She loved their comfortable nature with each other.

“Okay, all done,” he told her.

Bianca stepped around him and opened the shower door.

“Hey,” he called out. “My turn.”

“Next time,” she told him with a laugh.

Kahron used the wet rag to lightly tap her buttocks.

She flipped him the bird before closing the shower door behind her. “And hurry up, Kahron, we don’t have all day,” she called to him teasingly.

Kahron just shook his head and finished his shower. He truly felt like climbing into bed and sleeping until his body recouped from all the day’s activities—in and out the shower.

He turned off the shower and stepped out, wrapping his towel around his waist as he did. Bianca was standing nude before the sink as she finished blow drying her hair. He moved to stand at the other sink to brush his teeth as he allowed the majority of his body to air dry.

Kahron brushed his teeth, but his eyes were on Bianca’s reflection as she raked her fingers through her hair. Auburn locks that was now straight and thick, flowing to her shoulders.

He never thought she looked more beautiful. Her face was free of its usual light make-up, and her features were more prominent without the hair to distract from it. She caught his eye in the mirror and smiled at him.

Damn, I love her
.

The phone rang.

“I bet that’s Mimi,” Bianca said before leaving the bathroom.

Kahron looked at his own reflection. His face was slightly surprised at his own thoughts. He loved Bianca?

No, man, not yet
. Kahron bent down to rinse his mouth, rising to stare at his reflection again.
Right?

Bianca strolled back into the bathroom. “Mimi said move it or lose it, pretty boy. Oh, and that is a quote.”

He turned to stare down at her.
Do I love you?
It was to soon. He thought he knew Shauna, but what he knew and what he thought he loved had been an image. The
real Shauna—the insecure, jealous, and vindictive one—didn’t show her true colors until later.

Love?

They met in their usual place, a deserted and decrepit barn in the middle of a dense, overgrown area. The floors were nothing more than dirt. Field mice and spiders called it home.

But it was
their
place.

Atop that lone air mattress on the floor he let his woman, his Kitten, take his hardness into her mouth until the coarse hairs of his crotch touched her lips. She was just teasing the tip with her tongue when his cell phone rang.

“Damn,” he swore, not wanting to answer it, but knowing that he had to.

He reached over onto the dirty floor for his cell phone, his Kitten followed right along with his slightly shifting hips, his erection planted deeply within her throat.

“Yeah.”

“You alone?”

“Yeah,” he lied.

“And you know what to do with the stuff?”

His eyes shifted to the boxes in the corner. “Yup,” he said, his teeth clenching as her lips suctioned him harder.

“Call and let me know when it’s done.”

“Yeah.”

He dropped the phone once the call ended and let out a holler that floated to the worn roof as his body jerked with each spasmodic release of his seed.

Armand stood in the corner of Mimi’s dining room, his eyes locked on Bianca and Kahron. He hated the jealousy that he felt. He honestly had wanted Bianca for himself, but she never took him seriously. Never seemed interested in welcoming a man into her life. At least that’s what he thought.

“She’s really happy, isn’t she, Armando?”

He looked down at Mimi’s petite figure standing beside him in a crimson pantsuit. He just shrugged, not bothering to remind her for the umpteenth time that his name was
Armand
.

“You know I always thought you were a good friend to our little Bianca, Sweetie, when you weren’t trying to French talk her into bed.”

Armand remained silent, frowning as Kahron pulled Bianca to him for a quick hug.

“And I know you have enough class to be happy for a friend and not sulk in a corner like a, huh, what… spoiled Frenchman, that’s right, Sweetie.”

Armand looked down at Mimi, a woman he never took seriously.

“And I know I wouldn’t want a party full of people knowing that my friend finding happiness bothered me so much, but hey, everybody’s different, Frenchie.”

“Point made, Mimi.”

“Good.”

Bianca was standing on the balcony leading from Mimi’s elaborately decorated ballroom, her flute of sparkling cider nearly forgotten as she took that moment to think through her life.

The Atlanta landscape was beautiful, but it wasn’t home. It never really had been home. Her father wasn’t here. The ranch where she grew up and nourished her love
of horses wasn’t here. Kahron wasn’t here… usually.

And the robbery, the vandalism on her car, someone trying to run her father out of business—it all brought out that don’t “f” with me attitude. She wanted to stand and prove to them that Kings didn’t scare easily. She wanted to meet the challenge and bring the ranch back to what it used to be. She wanted to go home and stop running.

Sighing, she took a deep sip of her cider, wishing for a minute that is was something stronger. She never had been a drinker before, and with her father in rehab, Bianca made the choice to stop drinking all together. Her silent support of his struggles with alcohol.

“
Je vous manquerai, beau
.”

Bianca turned just as Armand strolled out onto the balcony.

“You know what, Armand, I can honestly say I’ll miss you, too,” she told him, reaching to lightly touch his hand where it sat on the wrought iron rail.

“So you’re really moving, huh?”

Bianca thought about it and nodded. “Yes. Yes, I am,” she said, as if answering her own question as well.

“Just call me if you need anything. Anything at all,
mon amour
.”

“I might take you up on that,” she joked.

They fell silent, both nursing their drink and absorbing the beauty of the summer night in Georgia.

“
Je vous aime, Bianca. Je toujours vous ai aimé
.”

Bianca looked up to find Armand’s piercing eyes looking down on her. “No, Armand. You do not love me. You have never loved me. You love the chase. Every woman from here to the moon loves that face and that accent. They throw themselves at you, while I offered you something you hadn’t received in along time…
a challenge.”

He started to speak but she shook her head. “You don’t love me and you know it, Casanova. You just hate that another man got your prize, you big spoiled baby.”

He smiled. “Okay, you’re right. I’m not
in
love with you.”

Bianca nodded in satisfaction.

“But I do love you and I wish you the best, Bianca.”

“Now
that
I’ll accept,” she told him, allowing him to pull her into his arms for a quick hug.

“I had fun tonight.”

Bianca left the bathroom rubbing moisturizer on her face as she smiled at Kahron’s words. “Good,” she told him, as she kicked off her slippers, turned off the lone lit lamp, and crawled into bed beside him. “Mimi’s going to come to Holtsville for the big grand opening of the ranch.”

Kahron turned on his side and pulled Bianca’s body back against his with one strong arm. He enjoyed the feel of her satin pajamas against him. “I can’t picture Mimi on a ranch,” he mused, lightly kissing her neck before he settled his head back onto his pillow. “It’s good that she wants to come support you.”

Bianca snorted. “Mimi’s reasons for coming to the ranch are not
that
honorable, trust me.”

“Well, what’s the reason?” he asked, his hand resting comfortably against her belly.

“Oh, no, I’m not saying.”

“Why?”

“Because you gonna thinks she’s… odd.”

“Too late for that.”

Bianca nudged him with her elbow.

“Come on, she is…
different
.”

“She’s unique and I love her to death, Kahron.”

“Why does she really want to come to the ranch?”

Bianca rolled her eyes heavenward and looked over her shoulder at him, as if she could really see his face in the darkness. “You’re like a dog on a bone.”

“More like a dog with a bone,” he told her, pressing his penis into her rear.