“Well, I’m going back out there to be with my friends,” she said while looking around briefly. The discomfort on her face was evident as I continued to block her path to the lounge area. She didn’t want to be in the dark space alone with me, and that much was written on her face. “I hope you come back Saturday,” she said with a smile that unleashed her double-set dimples on me again.
Her smile not only made the blood pump faster through the chambers of my heart, but it also made my dick jump in my pants.
“I most definitely will be back,” I told her, returning a pleasant smile.
She wiggled her hand out of mine. I was reluctant to let her go. I never wanted to, not now that I had her again.
She sidestepped and moved out of my grasp, leaving me with a sudden empty feeling. I watched each step as she walked away from me. As much as I wanted to believe she was mine, a blind man could see that her movements were much looser than Raven’s. The spunk Alise had on stage vibrated through her footsteps and traveled up to her nice, round backside.
I willed myself not to look at her ass, but how could I not? I wanted to go after her, spin her around, and steal a kiss from her lips while gripping all of her voluptuousness into my hands. Oh, how I longed for one last kiss from Raven. One last chance to make love to her. Or did I want this all from Alise?
I had to find out more about this beautiful songbird. It was a must.
Chapter Two
Alise
Heart Connections
I slowly became alert as the sound of my phone went from a low hum to my ringtone blaring loudly. As soon as I opened my eyes, the piercing daylight shined through my thick blue curtains and stung them. I didn’t feel rested. I was tired as a two-dollar stripper.
“Hello,” I groggily answered the phone to quiet the noise.
With my vision blurred by my brain’s desire to go back to sleep, I frowned and waited for the person on the other end to announce themselves. Lord, they had better have something good to say. I didn’t get in until after two in the morning, and it took me a few hours to wind down after that.
“Hey,” Jayne finally spoke up.
“Oh, hey, Jayne. Why are you calling so early?” I asked. Once the blurriness in my eyes had cleared, 8:31 a.m. was sitting prevalently on my screen.
“Are you still sleeping, sleepyhead?” Jayne asked, sounding as if she had been up for hours. But why… just why had she been up for hours?
I rolled my eyes.
“No, my voice is just raspy because I ate a box of rocks for breakfast,” I answered sarcastically. “Of course, I was sleep, Jayne. We just left the club a few hours ago. So, unless your house is on fire, you got hit by a train, or you want to go feed the hungry, why are you calling so early, sis?”
“Bruiser must’ve come over and waxed you,” she averted the question and went to her usual love connection mode.
“Ha, funny. I don’t want to laugh this morning. I want to sleep. Besides, why would Bruiser come over here?” I sat up in the bed as if saying his name required me to be erect so that I could think straight.
“I don’t know. Maybe because the man couldn’t seem to keep his eyes off of you when you were at the club last night, and… even though you masked it damn good, you looked like you were about to drool when he walked you to the table. Oh, and he watched you through the window at the end of the night as you walked to your car. Y’all are like a regular Lifetime Movie. So romantic, girl.”
“You’re tripping about me drooling, Jayne. And if he was watching me, he was only doing his job. He is security, you know?”
“Yeah, he’s security on the nights that you’re there, but on other nights, not so much.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“He lets his employees work the club when you’re not there. He doesn’t even come out of the security room on those other nights,” Jayne said.
“And just how do you know this?”
“I have ways of knowing things.”
“Even if that is true, you’re putting too much into it, Jayne. We’re not feeling each other like that.” I began twirling a loose coil of my hair, then caught myself and stopped. “Wait, this can’t be the reason you called me this morning. It is entirely too early in the morning to be talking about Bruiser. Why are you calling so early? Tell me that.”
“I just wanted to talk to my bestie. You better be glad I let you sleep this long. I’ve been up since five this morning, and I started to come over there because, well, I just needed to talk.”
I yawned and stretched my arms as I did. Why did I have to have a best friend that called so damn early in the morning? A few more minutes of sleep would have done my tired bones lovely.