Restoration of Love Read online

  “Sorry, Momma,” she said looking at the phone as she put it back in the cradle, “But I’m living for me now.” Nikki picked up the phone again and called Carlos.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  It was almost six forty five and Carlos was due to arrive at seven. It had taken quite a bit of persuading before Carlos relented and said that he would join her for dinner. Nikki put on a sheer black pants outfit with silver rhinestone sling-back heels. She had the plates warming in the oven, the wine chilling in the fridge and was just about to light the candles when she heard the doorbell ring. Carlos was early.

  When Nikki opened the door, the man standing before her once again took her breath away.

  “Hey, beautiful,” he said, looking apprehensive.

  Nikki smiled and went toward him into his arms. She held onto him as thought her life depended on it. She didn’t even care who saw them standing in the doorway.

  “Well, this is certainly not the welcome I expected to get,” Carlos said when she finally let go of him.

  “I told you on the phone. I’m a changed woman.”

  “What brought all this about?

  “Let’s just say a good friend knocked some sense into my head.”

  “I like that friend,” Carlos said, hugging Nikki again.

  Nikki took Carlos’s hand and guided him into the living room. “I hope you’re hungry, because I have a meal fit for a king.”

  “I am hungry, but not for food,” Carlos said, pulling her onto his lap. “Girl, you feel so good.” He leaned close and kissed her cheek and then her neck. It was at that moment that she knew that all she wanted right now was this man. This man who looked so good, this man who stood up to her and told her how he felt. She knew that she wanted him and he wanted her right back. She kissed him on the lips softly at first and then her kisses became more urgent. She slipped her tongue into his mouth and didn’t say a word. She would let her body do the talking for her.

  As the intensity of their kisses increased, so did Carlos’ manhood. He took Nikki’s hand and guided it to his zipper. “Nikki, feel this. If you are playing with me, this would be a good time to stop.” Nikki could not ignore the desire in his eyes or the desire she felt. She kissed him again, passionately, and moved his hand to her breast.

  “Does it look like I’m playing?” she breathed in his ear. She stood up and took Carlos’s hand. He stood, also, and then lifted her effortlessly and carried her to the bedroom. She was glad now that she had decided to take a chance earlier and light candles and spread scented rose petals on the bed.

  Carlos laid Nikki on the bed as he planted soft kisses on her face. Nikki knew when she looked into his eyes that she could not stop. He easily slipped off her silky top and as he unhooked the black lace bra, he stopped to marvel at her perfect breasts. He gently kissed and suckled each one as if he were a baby. He gently trailed kisses from her breasts to her navel. Before he removed her black panties, he looked up at her as if to say, “Are you sure you’re ready for this?” She touched his cheek as he continued. She moaned in delight as he slid the panties down and gently kissed the center of her womanhood. He moved slowly down her legs, moving his tongue lightly against her thighs, kissing softly until he reached her feet where he took each toe in his mouth and sucked it gently. Nikki thought that she would die from the sheer passion that she felt.

  Carlos stood to take off his own clothes, never taking his eyes off of Nikki. She could see in the candlelight the desire in his eyes. When he removed his pants, she gasped, knowing that she would soon be the recipient of what she saw. Nikki thought he would enter her right away, but instead he opened her legs and continued to taste her liquid as if she were a fine wine. As Nikki tried to reciprocate, he held her hands to stop her. He told her that this night was all about her and he wanted only to please her. Nikki felt as though she might pass out from the intensity of what Carlos was doing to her. Then, finally, he entered her, moving slowly at first, finding a common rhythm between them. Then, when he could no longer contain his passion for her, his strokes became intense and deliberate. She moaned with ecstasy. Never had she experienced such complete joy making love.

  Carlos found places on her body she didn’t know existed. He explored, he touched, he tasted and he wanted to make love to her again and again. As soon as Nikki had reached her peak and thought their lovemaking was over, Carlos would pull her body close to him and they would start again.

  Before they knew it, daylight was attempting to break through the dark curtains in her room and Nikki knew that this would be the start of a wonderful new day for her.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Carlos left at the break of dawn, but the sweet, musky smell of lovemaking mixed with his cologne lingered on her sheets and in her bedroom. She clung to her pillow for as long as she could, trying not to lose the magic of what had taken place.

  When she finally got out of bed to get ready for work, she actually sang with the radio as she dressed.

  As she was about to walk out the door, the phone rang. It was Carlos.

  “Good morning, pretty lady.”

  “Good morning, yourself,” she said, smiling and caressing the phone.

  “I would ask you how your night was, but I think I know.”

  “Yeah, I spent it with a certain handsome, younger man.”

  “ Oh, did you? I trust everything was to your liking?”

  “Way beyond anything I could have imagined,” Nikki said, closing her eyes, remembering.

  “I just wanted you to know that last night was special for me, too. One night of many, I hope. Have a good day at work and I will talk to you later.”

  “You, too, Carlos. Bye for now.”

  All morning at work, Tia kept trying to get Nikki to tell her how her evening with Carlos had gone, but Nikki had two legal briefs to type up and didn’t have time to talk. She invited Tia to lunch instead.

  They barely sat down at the table at the restaurant and ordered their food, when Tia began squirming in her seat like a child who has to go to the bathroom. She begged, “Come on, Nik, tell me what gives. You’ve been acting strange all morning. I thought I even heard you humming to the radio. You can’t keep a sis in suspense like this.”

  “Can’t you wait until we get our order? You have to know right now?”

  Tia pretended to pout, so Nikki figured she’d better start giving her some of the details of the night before. “All right, all right. Last night Carlos and I,” Nikki paused like she was back in high school and had to whisper what she was about to say. “Carlos and I did the wild thing and wild is not an exaggeration.” Nikki put her hand over her mouth, waiting for Tia to say something. Instead, Tia looked at her as if she had just told her she had a deadly disease.

  “Tia, what’s wrong?”

  “Girl, I’m so happy for you that I am just speechless. First of all, I can’t believe you finally took the wrapping off the package and second, how was it? Did you rock that boy’s world? You know younger might be better for some, but age has wisdom and I hope you put it on that young thing so good that he won’t want to ever look at a young chick again. He will be walking around in the dark saying ‘has any body seen Nikki? I want my Nikki’.” Tia was laughing out loud.

  “Girl, you are too crazy, and lower your voice. You’ll have everybody in here looking at us. And for your information, he was the one that put it on me.” Nikki pretended to fan herself furiously and laughed, “Girl, I swear, I have only been with two other men in my life, but Tia, what I experienced with this man was like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. Even all the years I was married to Trent, it never came close. It was passionate beyond belief. We did things I thought people only did in trashy novels.

  “I can see that young thing put it on you and got your nose all open at the same time.”

  “Tia, I feel like I’ve been in a cave, hibernating. Then this man/boy comes out of nowhere and wakes me up, and Tia, don’t laugh, but I feel like I’m alive again. I mean I
know that I’m somebody’s mother, but this man really makes me feel like a woman.”

  “Nikki,” Tia looked at Nikki suspiciously, “ Have you gone and fallen for this boy?”

  “First of all, he is not a boy you even said that. Secondly, I don’t know, T. I mean you get comfortable thinking your life is one way. You’re settled in and then along comes someone or something that shakes you to the core. Yes, I would like to share my life with someone. Being alone was never something that I planned or saw coming. But, I thought that the man I would be with would be a certain way, look a certain way and I never, in a million years, thought he would be so much younger and of a different race. I don’t know if I’ve fallen for him, but what I do know is that he made me feel something again that I thought had died.” Watching Tia’s face, she added, “So, after all the advice you’ve been giving me, you’re going to judge me now?”

  “You know better than that, Nik. I am happy for you because you are my friend and you needed this. You are the closest thing I have to a sister so that makes me concerned for you, as I know you would be about me. Nikki, you are not like me. You can’t do anything casually, and that includes having a sexual relationship with this man. I know it’s way too soon for the two of you to talk about where this is going, but I also know you. You are going to have to find out if this guy is serious, but putting too much on him too soon will drive him away. What I am saying, girlfriend, is enjoy the moment, live for today, and don’t worry about things that haven’t happened yet.”

  “I am, Tia. For the first time in my life, I am trying not to read something into what isn’t there. I want to just enjoy being with someone. Yes, I have thought about the future, I have. But, until he brings it up, I have promised myself to be silent and just enjoy what we have now.” Nikki hoped that Tia believed what she just said, because she didn’t. To lighten the mood a little, she smiled at her friend and said,” Come on, let’s eat our food before it gets cold.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  For the first month and a half, Nikki and Carlos were together almost every day. On the nights when he didn’t have to work early the following morning, he would stay at Nikki’s. They watched TV, went out sometimes, played board games and yes, made love…a lot. Nikki couldn’t believe how deliriously happy Carlos made her.

  She had not told anyone except Tia about Carlos, and that included her mother. The last thing Nikki wanted was to listen to her mother’s disapproval of Carlos and to hear what a disappointment she had been. Besides, still in the back of her mind was the conversation she had with Tia about the future of this relationship. Tia was right. Nikki was not the type of woman who could do anything casually, especially sleeping with someone. In the beginning, she tried to convince herself that she could. She told herself that if he walked away today, she could let him go with her dignity still intact. But, that thought left a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. She tried not to think about it, but as Tia had reminded her, she needed a certain order in her life. Although her life with Carlos had been fun up until now, she knew that she could not go on unless she knew where they were headed. She decided that tonight would be the night that she and Carlos would have “the talk”.

  She was sitting up in bed, reading a magazine with Carlos spread across the bed at her feet watching TV. Nikki took a deep breath and said, “Carlos?”

  “Yeah, baby,” never taking his eyes off the television.

  “I need to talk to you.”

  When he heard the seriousness in her voice, he turned off the TV, sat up and turned to face Nikki. “What’s wrong, baby? It sounds important.”

  “It is to me,’ Nikki spoke softly, looking down at her hands.

  “Then it is to me, too.” Carlos lifted her face with his fingertips.

  “You know that the time we have spent together has been wonderful. You have brought so much joy into my life. I love the fact that you have taught me that life doesn’t have to be so serious all the time, that sometimes we need to just be spontaneous. You’ve taught me how to laugh at myself when I screw up and to not be so hard on myself. And as happy as I am to have learned that, there is still a part of the old Nikki left and that part has to know the direction in which her life is going.”

  Carlos looked confused. Maybe she should just stop beating around the bush and tell him what’s on her mind.

  “Carlos, I’m not a kid anymore. I need to know where things are going with us. What is this? I need …”

  “Control,” Carlos finished her sentence.

  “No, that’s not what I mean at all. I just need to know that this is not just fun and games for you.”

  “Is that what you think? After all the time we’ve spent together, you still think that I’m playing with you, Nikki? Is that the kind of man you think I am? You think that I am just hitting it and when I get tired of you that I will just move on? Let me tell you something, because apparently I have not made it plain enough. Nikki, you are the first thing on my mind when I wake up in the morning and the last thing when I go to sleep at night. I talk about you all the time to my best friend, Paul. So much so that he gets sick of hearing about ‘my woman’ this and ‘my woman’ that. I haven’t lied to you yet and I’m not about to start. Before we met, yes, I’ll admit I was out there. I wasn’t wild, but if a woman wanted to get with me, most of the time I didn’t think twice. Before you came along, I wasn’t interested in seeing a woman in a serious way. I had my job, school, and friends to hang out with. Life was good or so I thought. Then I saw you at that club, sitting there looking so beautiful, dismissing all those brothers trying to hit on you, and I knew that I had to meet you. Yeah, if you were the type that just wanted to hit it and quit it, I won’t lie. I would have said yes just to get with you, but you never would have heard from me again. But, you were more than that. You had respect for yourself and you made me respect you, too. Any man can see that you’re something special, Nikki. Whether or not I am in your life, you hold on to that and never let it go. You hold it, protect it, and keep it right here next to your heart,” Carlos said gently placing his hand over her heart. By the time he finished speaking, Nikki felt a warmth building in her heart for Carlos that she hadn’t felt before.

  “So you think of me as your woman?”

  “Out of everything I just said to you, that’s the only part you heard?”

  “Yes,” Nikki said with the innocence of a child.

  “Have I answered your question, Ms. Control Freak?”

  “In more ways than you know.”

  “Come over here, crazy woman, and give daddy some sugar,” Carlos said, wrapping his arms around her.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Carlos made the transition of Brandon leaving the nest much easier for Nikki. Although she missed her son terribly, Carlos took up a lot of the time that Nikki feared would be lonely, empty hours. In fact, the time went so fast that, before Nikki knew it, it was time for Brandon to come home for Thanksgiving.

  She decided that right now would probably not be a good time to introduce Brandon to Carlos. It wasn’t that she was ashamed of Carlos or their age difference. She thought she had come to terms with that and decided that if anyone, including her mother, had a problem with it then it would be their problem. However, with Brandon, it was a little different. After all he had been through with the divorce, she just wasn’t ready to put this on him just yet.

  On the one hand Nikki wanted to shout to the world about her relationship with Carlos, but another part of her wanted to keep it just between them. She felt it was just easier to avoid repercussion at this point.

  So, Nikki would wait to bring Carlos and Brandon together. Maybe Christmastime would be better. However, the problem was that Carlos kept asking about Brandon and when he would get to meet him. So, when he overheard Nikki talking to her mother about Brandon coming home for Thanksgiving, he naturally said, “So, I’ll finally get to meet the other man in your life.” Nikki smiled, but didn’t respond. As Thanksgiving drew near, Ca
rlos continued to drop hints about meeting Nikki’s family and she meeting his. She grew increasingly concerned about how she was going to handle this situation.

  Nikki was cutting up potatoes to go along with the roast she was preparing for Sunday dinner, when Carlos came up behind her and put his arms around her. He gave her a squeeze and said, “Oh baby, that looks so good. But, I think I’ll steal a piece of this chocolate cake over here. The roast won’t be done for a while.”

  “No you won’t. You’ll spoil your dinner.”

  “Yes M’am,” he said obediently, licking chocolate off of the knife he had already started to cut with. “Speaking of dinner, you haven’t said much about Thanksgiving dinner. I was hoping that you and Brandon would be able to come over and meet my family.

  Not now, Nikki thought to herself. I really don’t want to get into this right now.

  “Well, honey, I don’t know. Don’t you think that Thanksgiving is a rather personal time? Do you really think it’s a good time to bring two new people to play ‘meet the family’?” She pretended she was busy wiping the counter so she did not have to see Carlos’s reaction.

  “Whose playing?” Carlos said, stopping to look at her. “Nikki, is there something wrong? I’ve noticed that every time I mention meeting your son and you meeting my family, either you remain quiet or you change the subject. Now stop playing me and tell me what’s going on with you.

  “Carlos, I just don’t know if it’s the right time. I mean holidays can be pretty tense and having new people drop by…I just don’t think it’s the right time, that’s all.”

  “Nikki, does your son even know about me/”

  “He knows that I am seeing someone very special.” In one respect, Nikki had not totally lied. She had told Brandon that she was seeing someone, but she had not gone into details and only laughed along with Brandon when he joked that old Mr. Miller at church had finally gotten his mom to go out with him. “That’s why he was always offering to take me to all those football games,” Brandon had teased. “I knew all along he was trying to get next to you. Well, go on with your bad self.”