Chapter 18
Dante
“Just let me pay for the coffee.”
I pushed away her money and pulled out of the drive-thru. “Put your money away, honey. It ain’t any good with me.”
She huffed and shoved it into the empty cup holder. “You don’t need to pay for everything for me.”
“I’m not hurting for money. A four-dollar latte isn’t going to break the bank for me.”
She held the cup up to her nose and inhaled deeply. “Well, thank you but don’t tell Molly. She’ll probably beat us for not getting coffee from her.”
“If she had a drive-thru, we would have stopped there.” Plus, the café was five blocks out of the way from Kennedy’s apartment.
It was just after seven, and we were on the way over to Kennedy’s after sleeping on the couch all night. Our twenty-minute nap had turned into five hours and a stiff neck for both of us.
My couch was amazing, but it wasn’t better than sleeping in an actual bed. I rolled my head from side to side trying to work the kink out of it. “You got any plans tonight?” I asked as we pulled into her apartment complex.
“I’m pretty sure I’m going to sleep all day, after that, I have no idea.”
“Well, I’ll call you later.”
She glanced over at me and laughed. “I think I’m supposed to play hard to get for a couple of days before I answer your call.”
I pulled in front of the door and shifted the car into park. “You do that, honey, and you’ll see my skills in knocking down your door.” I grabbed her by the neck and pulled her across the center console, meeting her halfway. “Answer the phone when I call,” I ordered.
She leaned in, her lips connected with mine, and her hand cupped my face. “I guess you’ll just have to see what happens when you call,” she spoke against my lips. She may have started the kiss, but I was damn well going to finish it.
I slanted my head, my tongue probing her mouth and my hand threading through her hair.
We were both panting heavily when I pulled away, and I was wondering if I had time to run up to her apartment and kiss her properly without anything in between us.
“I’ll answer the phone,” she whispered.
“That’s my girl. Now run on up before I decided breaking in your bed is more important than training.”
She gave a small yelp and quickly opened her door. “I still need a little more recovery time,” she said as she slid from the truck.
“You got about six hours to recover before I’m back,” I threatened.
She cocked her head to the side. “I’ll be ready.” She threw a wink at me and slammed her door shut. I waited ‘til she had the door open to shift the truck into drive but didn’t move.
She glanced over her shoulder at me and gave me the sexy little smile that I was waiting for. She disappeared into the apartment, and I pulled out of the parking lot and headed to the studio.
I had plans to kick Kellan and Tate’s asses for the next couple of hours, run home for a nap and a shower, and then I was headed back over to Kennedy’s.
I was far from done with her.
**********
Kennedy
“Well, well, if it isn’t Cinderella home from the ball. Finally.”
I jumped ten feet off the floor and tossed my keys up in the air. “What the hell?” I shouted.
Karlton was sitting on my small patio off the living room with his feet kicked up on the railing and a cup of coffee from the café in his hand.
“I came over to see how your night was and to apologize for pestering you so much these past few weeks. Imagine my surprise when you weren’t here, but your car still was. One can only wonder where you spent your night last night.”
I picked my keys up off the floor and tossed them on the kitchen counter. Thankfully, I had managed to keep my fingers wrapped around my cup and had not tossed that all over my kitchen. “I never should have given you a key.” If I had known that he was going to use it whenever he damn well pleased, I never would have handed it over to him.
“Oh hush, sugar, and come tell Uncle Karlton how your night and morning was,” he said with a wiggle of his eyebrows.
I kicked off my sandals and headed down the hallway to my bedroom. “First, let me change,” I called.
After I slipped on my comfy pajamas, I tossed my hair up into a sloppy bun and padded my way out to the patio, grabbing my coffee from the kitchen counter on the way. “I had plans to sleep when I got home,” I mumbled as I sat down in the chair next to him.
“You can go to sleep after you tell me how your date was last night.”
“It wasn’t a date.”
“Oh, for crying out loud. You’re still saying that you aren’t dating him? Sugar, you spent the night at the man’s house last night. You’re dating him, whether you like it or not.”
I cleared my throat and looked out over the balcony. “We agreed that he’s my decoy with benefits.”
Karlton’s jaw dropped. “Why, you little hussy. I never thought you would be friends with benefits with anyone.”
“Well, I thought of it out of nowhere, and Dante was all over it when I suggested it.”
Karlton snickered and took a sip of coffee. “I bet he was all over it. That man has been all about you since he heard about you needing a decoy.”
“I still can’t wrap my head around that one.”
“Sugar, wrap your head around it because that man jumped through all of the hoops I set out before him, and he came out smiling on the other end.”
“Hoops?” I asked. What in the heck was he talking about?
“I had to make sure he was good to go.”
I looked over at him and quirked my eyebrow. “Are you trying to explain what you mean by hoops? Because all you are doing is confusing me even more.”
“Well, first he had to go through my interview of important questions.”
“Important questions? What could those have possibly been?” I could only imagine the crazy things Karlton had asked. They all were more than likely inappropriate and none of his business.
He leaned back in his chair and turned his face up to the sun. “I found a matchmaker questionnaire online. I think it was from the seventies because one of them was about jheri curl and whether or not he would ever consider it. He thankfully said no, by the way.”
“Oh, my Lord, Karlton. You are absolutely crazy. Why would you even use that?” I could only imagine what Dante thought with Karlton spurting off insane questions.
“He agreed to the test though, that was the one thing I was worried that he wouldn’t do.”
I folded my legs underneath me and turned my body toward Karlton. “You gave him a test? What in the world were you looking up online? I think I’m going to have to take away your Google.”
“No, missy. The kind of test where he goes to the doctor.”
“You made him take a mental evaluation?” I exclaimed.
Karlton’s head snapped up, and his eyes bugged out. “I think you might need one if you think that’s the kind of test I’m talking about. I meant he went to the clinic to make sure he was clean, dumb dumb. I can tell from talking to the man for five minutes if he was healthy mentally. His twig and berries were a different thing.”
“Oh, my God,” I gasped. The fact we didn’t use a condom last night came crashing down on me. “He passed, right?” I croaked.
Karlton closed his eyes. “Lord God in Heaven above, please tell me this woman does not think that I would let her date a man with the herpes.”
“Just answer the question,” I demanded.
“Of course, he was clean. Although, I am rather surprised that you raw-dogged it last night.”
My eyes squinted at him, and I pursed my lips. “I never said that.”
He tsked me and shook his head. “You are a horrible liar, grasshopper. You’re on the pill, right?”
“Yes.” Not that it was any of his business.
“Not saying have a little ninja running around wouldn’t be adorable, but I think you two need to get past the whole decoy thing before you get pregnant.”
“I’m not pregnant,” I insisted.
Karlton eyed me. “Yet. You might want to make him suit up from now on. I have a feeling those ninjas have super sperm. Karate chop their way into your womb and refuse to leave.”
“Can we please not talk about my womb?”
“No glove, no love, sugar. That’s my motto.”
I covered my eyes with my hand. “I need more sleep if we are going to talk like this.” I was off my game and in no shape to worry about my womb and Dante together.
“You talk to your mother lately?”
Jesus. Another topic I did not want to talk about right now. “She called the other day, but I didn’t answer. She’ll call again tomorrow. I’ll need to answer her then.”
“Gonna set up the meet between her and Silver Fox?”
I chuckled and took a sip of my coffee. It wasn’t comparable to Molly’s, but it did the trick caffeinating me. “You need to stop calling him that because with you saying it all the time, it made me say it to his face.”
“Pfft, ain’t nothing he’s never heard before. He knows he’s a handsome devil.” Karlton leaned closer to me. “Is he, ya know, gray all over?” He wiggled his eyebrows and thrust his hips.
“Oh, my God, no! He’s thirty-nine, not one hundred and five,” I insisted.
“Groomed? Tight?”
I turned my head to the side. “I am not discussing anything with you that is below the waist on Dante.” Any detail I would give Karlton, I knew he would blurt out at the most inappropriate times. I was not about to go there with him.
“And this is how you repay me for setting you up with the Silver Fox.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “I demand to know at least one detail from last night. Hell, you can even choose what you tell me. Just give me something, though. I’m dying not knowing.”
I leaned back my head and looked at him out of the corner of my eye. “Whatever I tell you, you have to promise that you aren’t going to open your mouth about it. I know how you are and half of the time, you speak before you have a chance to think.”
He held up his hand and crossed his eyes. He looked like a drunk boy scout. “I swear on my aunt Pearl’s Gucci bag that I will zip my lips and not tell a soul.”
The fact that he was willing to put his favorite Gucci bag on the line spoke volumes. I chewed on my lip and gripped my cup in my hands. “I really don’t think I should say this.” There was only one thing that came to mind that I could tell him. “You really promise that you will not tell another soul this, right?”
Karlton scooted his chair closer to me and leaned on the arm of my chair. “Oh, child, this is going to be juicy, isn’t it? Am I getting length? Is it girthy? I had a feeling Silver Fox was packing. I had tried to convince him to let me come to the clinic with him and hold his hand during his exam, but he shut me down.”
Jesus. “I really don’t think you should be allowed out in public.”
He waved his hand at me. “I never thought I would say this, but forget about me and tell me your little secret about Silver Fox.”
“He does have a name, Karlton,” I reminded him.
“He does, and while it is a hot name, I’m rather partial to Silver Fox. Now, spill, woman.”
Gah. Why had I agreed to this? “I had never actually seen anything like this in person before.”
Karlton perked up. “Sugar, you got me hanging onto the edge of my seat here. This better be huge and juicy.”
I couldn’t help thinking those were two good words to describe Dante’s dick. I cleared my throat and put my feet on the floor. “It’s pierced,” I said, although it sounded more like “hefpecd” since I said it with my hand over my mouth.
Karlton grabbed my hand and pulled it into his lap. “Enunciate, woman.”
I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. “It’s. Pierced.”
Karlton squeezed the hell out of my hand and screamed. Like, wake the neighbors, screamed. “I can’t breathe,” he gasped. He released my hand, shot up from his chair, and fanned his face with his hand. “I gave him to you,” he whined. “I gave you the luck of the pierced cock.”
I busted out laughing and slapped my hand on my leg. “Is that kind of like the luck of the rainbow?”
Karlton shook his head. “Much better than the luck of the rainbow. Do you know how freakin’ lucky you are, girl?” He spun around. “Did you take pictures?”
“Did I take pictures?” I giggled. Karlton was completely off his rocker if he thought that I had gotten any photos of Dante’s dick and planned on sharing them with him. “I was a little too busy to pull out my phone and snap a picture.”
“There’s always next time,” he reassured me.
“Um, that would be a negatory on that one, Karl. I hate to inform you, but I will not be sharing those kinds of pictures with you.” Ever.
“I need more details. What kind of piercing was it? Prince Albert? Jacob’s Ladder? Dolphin? Ampallang? Apadravya? Lenny?” he rattled off.
I blinked slowly, realizing I had no idea which one of those Dante had. “Err, it’s a barbell one.”
“Just one?” he asked.
“That’s all I saw.” I’m pretty sure if there was more than one barbell, I would have noticed.
“Through the head or lower?”
Lower? What in the hell? The fact that I was rather naïve about this dawned on me, and I held my hand up before Karlton could ask any other questions. “It was through the head, and it was sexy as hell. That’s all I know.” Hopefully, that was enough information to keep him satisfied.
“Ampallang or apadravya,” he mumbled. “Although it could be a dolphin. Was it underneath?”
“Err, underneath what?” This was really too much.
“On the underside of the head?” he asked impatiently.
“What? No. How the hell do you know all of this? This is not knowledge that every person has.”
“They have it if they want to know it.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “That doesn’t even make sense. Just because you want to know something doesn’t mean you’ll know it.” Have I mentioned that Karlton was whacked in the head? “Can we please stop talking about piercings?”
“Well, you’re the only one I can talk to it about since you swore me to secrecy.”
“Today is the only day you have that you can talk about it. That’s it. If I ever hear about it after today, I swear to God, I will never talk to you again.”
“You’re mean, Kennedy Kramer. Telling me a juicy secret then cutting me off before I can even fully process it.”
“The problem is, you can’t seem to process it silently. In your head, where no one can hear you talking, especially my neighbors, would be best.”
Karlton paced the length of the small patio, his hands propped on his hips. “Well, can we talk about the fact that you did the dirty with the Silver Fox and you don’t seem to be running for the hills?”
I shrugged and sat back in my chair. This also wasn’t something I wanted to talk about, but at least it was better than talking about Dante’s penis. “I’m exhausted and don’t have the time or brainpower to think about all of the reasons why Dante and I are a bad idea.”
“No, sugar, it isn’t exhaustion that is keeping you from talking yourself out of this. It’s the plain and simple fact that deep down, you know that you and Dante are the best thing there is.”
I tilted my head back and closed my eyes. This was the last thing I wanted to think about right now. I knew what happened between Dante and I was amazing last night, but was it something that I wanted to happen again? He was coming over tonight, but I was hesitant not knowing where this was headed.
At the end of the day, he was still my decoy. I needed someone who could throw off my mother and convince her that I was living life the way she wanted. While Dante looked the part, I knew he wasn’t what my mother wanted for me.
He was a successful business owner, but he wasn’t making the kind of money that would put him in the income bracket that made my mother comfortable. There were very few people who made the type of money that could ease my mother’s conscience.
“All I know right now is that I need a decoy, and Dante fits the bill. Do we really need to talk about any more than that?”
Karlton fell back into his chair and grabbed my hand. “Sugar, you’re one of my best friends, and I just want to see you happy. That man will make you happy, I know it.” He squeezed my hand, and I swiveled my head to look at him.
“I agreed to decoy with benefits, Karlton. I think that says enough.”
He nodded and stood. “Then I guess I’ll leave ya to napping and waiting for the Silver Fox to come over later.”
“How did you know he was coming over later?” I asked as I stood up and followed him to the front door.
“I didn’t know for sure, but I figured he wasn’t going to let you out of his sights for too long after finally getting you.” He pressed a kiss to the side of my head and slipped out the door while what he said whirled around in my head.
I closed the door, threw the lock, and leaned against the wood panel.
“What are you doing, Kennedy?” I asked my empty apartment.
I didn’t answer out loud because I honestly didn’t know what I was doing.
**********