Show and Tell Read online

  Praise for Niobia Bryant

  “[Admission of Love is] a well-crafted story with engaging secondary characters.”

  —Affaire de Coeur

  “Three Times a Lady . . . this sneaky little romance heats up gradually, and then sizzles until done . . .”

  —Doubleday/Black Expression Book Club

  “Heavenly Match is a wonderfully romantic story with an air of mystery and suspense that draws the reader in, encouraging them to put aside everything and everyone until they have read the book in its entirety.”

  —The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers

  “Sexy as sin describes [Can’t Get Next to You] this provocative novel to a T.”

  —Romantic Times

  “Run to the bookstore and pick up this delightful read. This reunion story is touching, warm, sensuous, and at times, sad. But just try to put [Let’s Do It Again] down.”

  —Romantic Times

  “Niobia Bryant has penned an awe-inspiring tale of finding true love no matter the consequence. Thoroughly enjoyed and highly recommended, Heated is sure to please.”

  —The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers

  “[Count on This has] . . . sassy humor and sexy scenes . . .”

  —Romantic Times

  “In Bryant’s first mainstream fiction offering, she does a great job of bringing forth characters that are feisty, diverse, and interesting . . . Bryant establishes well-developed characters. Live and Learn is a pleasurable reading experience.”

  —Romantic Times

  Other Books by Niobia Bryant

  ROMANCE

  Admission of Love

  Three Times a Lady

  Heavenly Match

  Can’t Get Next to You

  Let’s Do It Again

  Count on This

  Heated

  Hot Like Fire

  WOMEN’S FICTION

  Live and Learn

  Show and Tell

  ANTHOLOGIES

  You Never Know (novella: “Could It Be?”)

  SHOW and TELL

  NIOBIA BRYANT

  KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.

  http://www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Praise for Niobia Bryant

  Other Books by Niobia Bryant

  Title Page

  Dedication

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Part One - “Once Again, It’s on”

  Prologue - Ladies

  Chapter One - Cristal

  Chapter Two - Alizé

  Chapter Three - Dom

  Chapter Four - Moët

  Chapter Five - Cristal

  Chapter Six - Alizé

  Chapter Seven - Moët

  Chapter Eight - Dom

  Chapter Nine - Cristal

  Chapter Ten - Alizé

  Chapter Eleven - Dom

  Chapter Twelve - Cristal

  Chapter Thirteen - Moët

  Chapter Fourteen - Alizé

  Part Two - “Keep on Movin’”

  Chapter Fifteen - Dom

  Chapter Sixteen - Cristal

  Chapter Seventeen - Moët

  Chapter Eighteen - Alizé

  Chapter Nineteen - Dom

  Chapter Twenty - Moët

  Chapter Twenty-One - Cristal

  Chapter Twenty-Two - Alizé

  Chapter Twenty-Three - Dom

  Chapter Twenty-Four - Moët

  Chapter Twenty-Five - Cristal

  Chapter Twenty-Six - Alizé

  Chapter Twenty-Seven - Dom

  Chapter Twenty-Eight - Moët

  Part Three - “Life is What You Make It”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine - Cristal

  Chapter Thirty - Alizé

  Chapter Thirty-One - Dom

  Chapter Thirty-Two - Moët

  Chapter Thirty-Three - Cristal

  Chapter Thirty-Four - Alizé

  Chapter Thirty-Five - Dom

  Part Four - “It Ain’t Over ’Til It’s Over”

  Chapter Thirty-Six - Moët

  Chapter Thirty-Seven - Cristal

  Chapter Thirty-Eight - Alizé

  Chapter Thirty-Nine - Dom

  Chapter Forty - Moët

  Chapter Forty-One - Cristal

  Chapter Forty-Two - Alizé

  Chapter Forty-Three - Dom

  Chapter Forty-Four - Moët

  Chapter Forty-Five - Cristal

  Chapter Forty-Six - Alizé

  Chapter Forty-Seven - Dom

  Chapter Forty-Eight - Moët

  Chapter Forty-Nine - Alizé

  Chapter Fifty - Cristal

  A READING GROUP GUIDE - SHOW AND TELL

  Discussion Questions

  Copyright Page

  For every little ghetto girl with big dreams.

  Believe . . .

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Tony. Mama. Caleb. TJ.

  Selena James. Robin E. Cook. Claudia Menza.

  Kim Louise. Adrianne Byrd. Melanie Schuster.

  Gloria Naylor. Tina McElroy Ansa. Octavia Butler.

  Oprah. Idris Elba. Mary J Blige. Tyler Perry.

  Martin Lawrence. Steve Harvey. Bernie Mac.

  Niobia Bryant News Yahoo Group. My MySpace friends.

  Black book clubs and bookstores.

  And most of all, the readers.

  For many different reasons I thank you all.

  Part One

  “Once Again, It’s on”

  Prologue

  Ladies

  2000

  The four teenage girls walked through the double doors of University High’s cafeteria like they owned the school. They knew without looking that all eyes were on them. Hating them and hating on them. They were used to it and maybe even thrived on it a bit. Popularity. Envy. High school fame.

  Even as they settled at “their” table and began munching on the sandwiches they purchased from the store up the street—of course the cafeteria food was a no-no—people watched them. Wanted to be them. Wanted to be with them. But it was just the four.

  Friends since freshman year, they weren’t looking to enlarge their clique. It was them and only them. One for all and all for one. Even though they all were as different as night and day, they clicked. They had each other’s backs. They knew their friendship would last past their high school years.

  “Did y’all see the new Biggie video last night?” Keesha Lands asked, in the Tommy Hilfiger tank she wore with tight-fitting jeans. Her gold herringbone chain and bamboo earrings gleamed against her smooth dark skin and seemed to glisten in her cat-shaped eyes.

  “Not me,” Latoya James said, looking prim and proper as always in her white collared shirt and ankle-length navy blue skirt with her shoulder-length hair pulled back into a tight ponytail that seemed to make her caramel complexion stretch.

  Danielle Johnson rolled her deep-set eyes heavenward as she applied pale pink lip gloss that perfectly matched her fair complexion and pretty features. “My new foster family let their sickening sons watch Nickelodeon last night,” she said, putting the gloss into her Esprit purse before taking a bite of food. She made sure not to spill a drop on her dark denim dress.

  “Well, I’m an only child and my parents ain’t churchy, so you know I was right there in front of the TV,” Monica Winters said, flipping her thick shoulder-length jet black hair over her shoulder as she flashed them a sassy smile on her cinnamon face. She did a little dance in her seat and winked at Keesha.

  Keesha started rapping the words to “Juicy” and the girls all joined in with her. Even Latoya knew the words, although her parents ran a secular music-free zone. Ever since pulling the shy church girl into their fold, the girls were sure to bring Latoya up to speed on everything fun
and fly.

  They all laughed and gave each other high fives after they finished.

  “Well, I’ve decided to call myself Dom,” Keesha stated with confidence.

  “Dom?” the other girls all asked in unison.

  “Yup, Dom as in Dom Perignon,” she explained with attitude. She pointed to Latoya. “You’re Moët . . . Danielle, you’re Cristal—”

  “What about me?” Monica asked, feeling left out.

  “I don’t know any more champagnes,” Keesha said with a helpless shrug. “But Biggie’s always talking about Alizé. I heard it’s a real sweet drink with liquor in it.”

  “Then that’s me to a tee,” Monica said with satisfaction.

  The four girls all raised their cans of soda and toasted their new names.

  Chapter One

  Cristal

  “Hello, this is Cristal again.

  I have my mind on money and money on my mind”

  2008

  Okay. Let me explain how I feel in my man’s arms—if it is at all explainable. I feel secure. Loved. Cherished. Pampered. Needed. Perhaps most important of all . . . I feel wanted. Growing up as a foster kid and not knowing if my parents were dead, alive, or indifferent, feeling wanted is important as hell to me.

  I am Cristal, or Danielle Johnson, and my man is Mohammed Ahmed. He is tall, handsome, and strong with cocoa-scented dreads that reach to his waist. He is everything I ever needed and nothing that I ever wanted.

  Just try to make me leave him.

  “Danielle,” he whispers in my ear with that sexy Jamaican lilt.

  I shiver as he presses his warm naked body above mine. My legs spread with ease as I wrap them around his waist. His body and the bed sandwich me. The feel of his hard dick against my belly makes me anxious. Ready. Waiting.

  As he bends his strong muscled back to lower his mouth—that delicious and skillful mouth—to my breast, he circles his tongue around my nipple. Clockwise. Counterclockwise. He uses his strong hips to prod the tip of his dick between my lips. We both gasp hotly. He circles his hips, pressing his hardness against my walls. Clockwise. Counterclockwise.

  Jesus.

  These moments in his arms and his bed are worth it all. Worth every damn thing I gave up for him. For this. Each stroke delivers my point home.

  The money.

  Pop.

  The fame.

  Pop-pop.

  The fancy houses and cars.

  Pop-pop-pop.

  The glamorous life.

  Pop-pop-pop-pop.

  Mrs. Sahad Linx.

  Pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop.

  All of it. Gone.

  We are in tune with one another. United. Joined. He knows he is making me cum and that makes his dick harder than jail time. And that makes me cum even harder until I am panting. Sweating. Clutching him with my pussy walls and my limbs as he strokes harder and faster inside of me.

  “Yes,” I cry out as he leans up a bit to look down at me with those silky brown eyes I love.

  His sweat drips down onto my titties as each of his pumps makes them bounce up and down. “Dick good ain’t it?” he asks roughly as his face gets intense. “Huh? Huh?”

  “Yes, baby, yes,” I whisper as I reach up to caress his handsome face with my quivering hands.

  His head whips to the right to capture my fingers in his mouth. He sucks them deeply as he slows down his strokes to a lethal grind that brings the base of that dick against my clit.

  Damn. Goddamn. Damn. Damn.

  “Watch this, Miss Danielle,” he says thickly around my fingers.

  I already know what time it is.

  His entire body freezes as he looks hotly down into my eyes. I feel the jolt of his dick against my clit as he fills me with his cum. He smiles as he licks my fingers like the freak that he is. Each pluck of my clit pushes me further over the edge until I am working my hips up and down off the bed to pull downward on my dick. His mouth forms a circle as he closes his eyes and pushes down deeper into me.

  I reach up to snatch off the leather strap holding his hair and his dreads surround our heads like a curtain. “Who the best? Huh? Who?” I whisper up to him.

  “Danielle . . . Danielle . . . Danielle,” he chants as I drain that dick until it is empty.

  With one final kiss to my lips, he rolls over onto his back and then pulls my weak body to his side. I gladly snuggle my face against his chest and take a deep breath of his scent like I can absorb it into me. With his free arm, he reaches over to turn off the lamp.

  “Damn, that was good,” he whispers into the darkness before he slaps my butt cheek playfully.

  “I aim to please,” I whisper back with a smile.

  He laughs a little but soon his snores fill the air.

  Damn, I love him.

  “Good morning, Miss Danielle.”

  I open my eyes and stretch. There he is just as constant as time looking down at me as he lays on his side on the bed. Okay, I love him but I do not do morning breath. Okay? All right.

  I pull the thin sheet up over my nose. “Good morning.”

  Mohammed just laughs at me before he flings back the covers and rolls out of bed. “You have time for breakfast?” he asks over his broad shoulder.

  I hardly hear him. I am too busy letting my eyes skim over the hard details of his back and buttocks. “No, I did not bring a change of clothes,” I finally answer once he turns fully to look at me.

  Mohammed reaches down to open a drawer. “What do we have here?” he says mockingly. “An empty drawer. What should we fill it with? Any suggestions, Danielle?”

  I give him a sarcastic smile. First a drawer and then some of the closet and then pack up all your things and move in. Nothing doing. The last time I lived with a man he threw me out of his penthouse apartment. Well, he caught me cheating (ahem, with Mohammed) but that did not excuse the fact that if I had not kept my apartment for my friends, Dom and Moët, to live in, then my pretty high-yellow behind would have been homeless. To make matters worse, he kept mostly everything he ever bought me, even down to my lacy La Perla underwear.

  No. I am nicely settled back in my beautiful apartment in The Top in Livingston. I have my best friends to help me keep up the hefty rent. Sure, I had to get used to the lack of quiet or privacy but it is mine and no one can throw me out.

  Plus . . . Mohammed’s house left a lot to be desired.

  “One day, baby. One day,” I promise as I roll out of bed.

  I look at him and I know from the look on his face that he did not believe me. Truth. He is smart not to. I begin to climb back in the Gap charcoal gray turtleneck and pencil skirt I wore to our dinner date to IHOP last night. I wish I had a pair of sneakers to throw on instead of my suede high-heeled boots. As soon as I pull on my black leather trench, I walk over to where Mohammed is lounging across the foot of the bed watching a recap of some football game.

  “Enjoy your day off,” I tell him as I bend down to snuggle his cheek.

  Mohammed is the repair man at The Top. My friends, Dom, Alizé, and Moët, still cannot believe I am with him. Not when my life used to be about men who helped keep me from my life of robbing Peter to pay Paul. Athletes. Celebrities. Wealthy businessmen. I had been on the hunt to be the ultimate celebrity wife. My ex-fiancé Sahad Linx is the CEO of Platinum Records. His money, his fame, and his lifestyle had almost been mine. I let it slip through my fingers like sand so that my hands were free to grab Mohammed.

  He reaches across to lightly touch my face and I get chills. Fuck the money and the fame. I got love and lots of it.

  “See you later?” he asks in that Jamaican accent that has the power to make me wet.

  “Yes,” I whisper against his lips.

  Walking out of that bedroom and leaving my man in the bed naked, willing, and with his dick rising is almost as hard as he is. I try not to judge his house as I grab my hobo from the kitchen table. I can fit half of Mohammed’s entire three-bedroom house inside my living room. It is furnished
just like the bachelor he is. Mismatched this. Tore-up that. Wal-Mart this. Target that. Mohammed likes to say his house has character. Whatever.

  I look inside my Gucci purse (a purchase from my more glamorous days) for my keys and my hand rubs across my “bible.” Forgetting the keys, I pick up the address book. Inside is each and every man I have ever dated or slept with. For each man there is a brief bio and a photo, if I had one. I used dollar signs to rate how free giving they were with their money, and stars to rate how good they were in bed. The more dollar signs and stars the better.

  But this book isn’t me anymore. Since I have been with Mohammed I have not made an entry. I have not called one number. I have good friends. A good man. A good life.

  I am happy. I am.

  Then why do I still have it?

  Ignoring the answer to that million-dollar question, I shove the address book down deep in my bag. I finally close my fingers around the keys before I rush out of the house.

  Chapter Two

  Alizé

  “Whaddup y’all. It’s your girl Alizé. Different day . . . same old bullshit.”

  Ican do this. I have to do this. That’s all there is to it. Fuck it. I clear my throat as I double-check my appearance in the full-length mirror. The navy pinstripe Gucci suit is a far cry from my ghetto fabulous style but I can’t stroll my ass into anyone’s office in booty shorts and gold high heels. There is a time and place for everything. Trust. So this suit is made to instill power while still delivering style. I’m feeling pretty chic but my confidence level is at an all-time low. Not because of anything physical. Shit, I’m cute as hell and I know it. Just try having to face the man you love—ahem, once loved—after he has married another woman. Face his ass. Work with his ass. Try to pretend to his ass that I do not give a shit that he married her just months after I turned down his offer to make our platonic friendship something more. Just try.