Heavenly Match Read online

  HEAVENLY

  MATCH

  Niobia Bryant

  Infinite Ink Books

  www.NIOBIABRYANT.com

  Heavenly Match

  Published by Infinite Ink Books

  Copyright © 2004 by Niobia Bryant

  First mass-market paperback printing: August, 2004

  First e-book printing: August, 2015

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the author, accepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  Cover Design: Hot Damn Designs

  Table of Contents

  A Note from the Author

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Epilogue

  Newest Romance Release

  All Romance Books by Niobia Bryant

  About the Author

  Heavenly Match

  Teaser

  “You live down South, Deshawn. What’s the use?” Anika asked.

  Deshawn’s stomach knotted. Was this finally a break in that armor she kept around herself? Or was it another trap to assault him verbally? Sliding across the floor, he sat on the sofa by her feet, pulling them onto his lap to massage. “There’s something between us that I can’t ignore, Anika. You’re in my blood.”

  “Deshawn—” she began, as a tingle began in her toes and rose to the spot between her thighs.

  “No, let me finish,” he interrupted, removing her socks to place his warm hands on her feet. “Let’s keep it real. We only have this week, let’s enjoy it.”

  Don’t fall for it, a little voice in her head said, as he nearly lulled her into a zone with his rhythmic massaging motions.

  “You’re begging for something that might get you hooked,” she teased, her voice languid as she closed her eyes.

  “I think you’re scared that I’ll hook you.”

  “Oh, really?” Anika asked, laughing lightly as she removed her feet from his all-too-warm grasp and rose to a sitting position.

  “Really.”

  Anika looked at him and their eyes locked.

  Deshawn moved to his knees on the floor to kneel between her legs. “Believe me, I’m good. Damn good.”

  Anika forced herself not to press back against the couch for some distance, as her heart pounded wildly. “So am I,” she countered blatantly, not about to let him outdo her. “I’d have you speaking in tongues.”

  Deshawn smiled wolfishly. “Hell, let’s be good together,” he urged, his voice low and deep.

  And she knew a sexual encounter between them would be good. Just the thought of his large manly hands on her body gave her more sexual awareness than she had had in months.

  Almost as if in a trance, with their eyes locked, Deshawn lowered his head toward hers.

  Curious as to how a real kiss between them would be, Anika raised her head to meet his lips with her own, her eyes drifting closed as well.

  A Note from the Author

  This book was originally written back in 2004 and I have chosen, in celebration of my 15th Anniversary as a published author, not to update it and present it just as it was back in the day. Please keep that in mind as you read and enjoy the classic love story of Anika and Deshawn.

  Also, each chapter of Heavenly Match is headed by the title of a Mary J. Blige song. The reason? I have transplanted my own love for Ms. Mary’s music into Anika. And our heroine relies heavily on this diva’s music to get through the blissful good and the hellish bad times in her life.

  Prologue

  What’s the 411?

  Holtsville, South Carolina

  Chloe and Devon both glowed with love in their wedding attire as they entered the hall where their reception was being held. The entire ballroom erupted with congratulatory applause of their legal and spiritual union. And what an attractive couple they presented. She, a semiretired supermodel with a slender and graceful elegance. He, tall, muscular, and obviously athletic in his rugged good looks and appeal. An African warrior and his honored princess. Everyone who looked upon them basked in their beauty and love.

  But it was not congratulations that were on Deshawn’s mind. Devon’s identical twin brother strode purposefully toward the couple, moving with strength, confidence, and urgency through the multitude waiting to reach them. His strong arm cleared a path as he went.

  “Why haven’t you ever told me how fine she is?” he asked Chloe, his voice deep, resonant, and playfully scolding. “What’s the 411 on her?”

  Chloe caressed Devon’s strong, assuring right hand where it rested on her hip. She smiled up at her charming new brother-in-law, who was as equally gorgeous as her husband in his tailored black tuxedo. “Welcome to the family, Chloe. Why, thank you, Deshawn,” she mocked.

  Devon smiled at his wife’s obvious acerbity.

  “Welcome to the family, beautiful,” Deshawn said with all his infamous charm and dimpled smile, before kissing her upraised smooth amber cheek. “And congrats, brother.”

  Devon nodded his head slowly several times in acknowledgment as they shook hands. “Thanks.”

  “Now, who is it you want the info on?” Chloe asked, reaching up to playfully tweak his long wide bridged nose with sisterly adoration.

  “Her.”

  Curious, they both turned their heads toward the direction in which Deshawn pointed with no shame. And there stood Anika Foxx, Chloe’s very best friend and maid of honor, resplendent in the strapless lavender muslin gown that draped her tall, voluptuous sable figure.

  Chloe looked quickly from her best friend, who was gorgeous and undoubtedly one of the most beautiful women she knew, to Deshawn. One of her finely shaped brows raised slightly in surprise when she saw the intensity in his coal-black deep-set eyes as he watched Anika attentively. Those were eyes that flickered with her every move: a smile, a touch, a slight shift in her stance.

  Anika flung her pretty, well-shaped head back in laughter, making her lovely round face even more open and alive, transforming her to an even greater beauty. Chloe actually heard Deshawn swallow over a lump in his throat. Never had she seen her philandering brother-in-law in awe of any woman.

  Still, Deshawn was an infamous charmer who could smile his way into the bed of any woman he wanted. Chloe refused to take him seriously because she doubted Anika would anyway. “I forgot you and Anika haven’t had a chance to formally meet each other. Every time she came to Holtsville for visit you were out of town.”

  Chloe waved her hand in the air to get her friend’s attention. Anika immediately excused herself from her admirer and moved with cool confidence, poise, and grace toward them. She seemed to glide with her dress billowing behind her.

  Deshawn smiled wolfishly as he watched her closely.

  “Congrats, Chloe.” Anika sighed, her voice husky and soft like warm mocha as she hugged her friend quickly, but with much feeling. She then turned and embraced Devon as well. “And you too, handsome.”

  Deshawn inhaled deeply of her sweet fragrance, his nose flaring as he did. It made him light-headed. He was invigorated by the sweet, fru
ity smell. Was it apples or peaches? He inhaled again. Definitely apples. He wondered if she tasted as sugary as she smelled.

  A wild vision of her full-figured, voluptuous body, nude and draped across his bed as he buried his head between apple-scented thighs, intrigued him with a sharp intensity that stirred deep in his loins. Would her nectar flow down his throat like ambrosia?

  His heart pounded in his chest as she turned, casting an enchanting smile upon him. She’s gorgeous . . . just look at those eyes.

  The bronzed mocha of her skin was unblemished and smooth, vibrant and healthy. Deshawn craved to feast upon a well-defined kissable mouth made even more alluring by a flat mole just below her bottom lip. Large expressive eyes of a soft and sultry mocha were luminous and mischievous in a perfectly round face. When she blinked, her lush lashes, long and full, lightly caressed high, regal cheekbones. He felt himself drawn to her like a moth to flame.

  “Anika, this is, of course, Devon’s twin, Deshawn. Deshawn, this is my girl Anika Foxx.”

  “The pleasure is all mine,” Deshawn said, low-keyed and with honest feeling, taking her soft

  manicured hand in his before turning it over to kiss smoothly. “You are gorgeous. Chloe should be mad at you. ”

  Anika boldly returned the intense look he cast into her eyes. “Oh, really? Why’s that?” she asked, her tone curious as she tilted her head to the side and looked up at him.

  “The bride’s supposed to be the most beautiful woman on her wedding day.” His words were

  smooth, low, and disarming, meaning to glide over her senses with ease. A lethal nonphysical arousal.

  “Thanks, Shawn,” Chloe said dryly, earning a soothing kiss on her brow from her husband.

  Anika raised one carefully shaped brow as he rubbed circles on her palm with his thumb. “Will you do me a favor?” she asked with saccharine sweetness and innocence, never once looking away from the handsome man standing before her.

  “Anything.”

  “Could you wait right here? I want to go find a pair of boots so that I can wade through the bull you’re dishing me.”

  Chloe bit back a smile.

  Devon stifled a laugh in his throat.

  Deshawn’s handsome lean face slowly changed from confidence to confusion. His charm failed? How? He could snap his fingers and have a woman at his side.

  Anika deftly removed her hand from his grasp with a slight tug. Using a manicured finger, she

  touched his square chin. “Close your mouth, baby, you’ll catch flies,” she said, her throaty unique voice low, intimate, and mocking.

  With one last tap of her finger against his masculine jawline, Anika laughed softly before moving away with a walk that was meant to dazzle the man she left behind.

  Devon clapped his stunned twin on the back soundly, his face bemused. “Oh well, bubba,” he

  said, using the southern nickname for “brother.” “It’s rare but even you win some—”

  “And lose some,” Chloe finished, her beautiful smile indulgent as she leaned back against her husband.

  Deshawn’s deep-set ebony eyes remained locked on his new conquest, squinting with determination. “But the game has just begun.”

  Chapter 1

  Real Love

  One year later

  Anika Foxx had a secret. A secret that she had told absolutely no one. Not her loving family. Not her best friend. No one. It was a secret that had mostly faded into her distant memory. Of late, she had taken to dreaming of it vividly clear, awakening drenched in sweat.

  Just like tonight.

  Flipping onto her side in her king-sized bed, Anika squeezed her luminous eyes shut tightly. “Lawd, quit,” she moaned into her pillow, pleading with the Great One above as she often did whenever she thought He was giving her more than she thought she could handle at one time.

  In the velvety darkness of her bedroom, her sanctuary, Anika forced herself to breathe deep and slow even as tears of frustration threatened to fall. It was an effort to relax herself enough to lull her body back into slumber. A futile effort to finally forget the past that chased her endlessly.

  The soulful sound of music from the CD of Mary J. Blige, queen of hip-hop soul, filled the air as Anika finished dressing. The sounds of the songstress’s throaty voice were a constant in Anika’s home. She easily identified with the pain and joy so clearly reflected in the music. In fact, she owned two copies of all of Ms. Mary’s CDs, one for the house and the other for her car. Oh yeah, Mary was her all-time favorite. No doubt about it girlfriend could sang.

  Quickly, Anika rushed through her breakfast of a buttered bagel and orange juice, using the remote to regretfully turn off the state-of-the-art radio/CD player in her living room. She left her stylishly decorated two-bedroom town house still humming “Not Gone Cry” as if she could sing.

  Anika was just reversing her silver Camry Solara coupe out of the garage and into the busy street when her cell phone rang. Picking it up from the passenger seat, she steered the car easily with one hand and answered the flip phone with the other. “Anika Foxx speaking.”

  “Sugarplum?”

  She smiled brightly as she recognized her grandmother’s voice. “Gran? How are you this morning?”

  “Good, thank God. I’d be doing even better if my hair was done though. Can you come dye it for me after work?”

  Her grandmother’s voice was deceptively sweet. Granny Bert knew that Anika hated that she absolutely would not give in and be treated for a trip to the beautician.

  Anika made a right turn at the corner, coming to a slow stop at a red streetlight. “I have plenty of time to take you to the Hair Solution,” she hinted, as a handsome and muscular brother in a brown delivery uniform tried to get her attention from where he stood at the crowded bus stop.

  “You know I don’t trust just anybody in my head,” Granny Bert snapped, sounding more like her usual self as she lost that saccharine sweetness.

  “Oh, but you trust a social worker and not a cosmetologist,” Anika said dryly, slipping her Donna Karan shades on to block the sun glaring through the windshield.

  “If you jack my head up I can whip you.”

  Anika winked coquettishly at her admirer as she pulled off at the first hint of green. “You know what, Gran? I love you, old lady.”

  Bertha Daniels laughed. “I know you do. Now say you’ll come and do Grandma’s head for her,” she cooed, attempting to coax the stubbornness out of her one and only granddaughter.

  “You know I will,” Anika acquiesced with a smile to herself.

  “Promise?”

  “On Wesley Snipes’s body, I swear,” Anika said. Anyone who really knew her knew that she loved her some ole Wesley. She did not play when it came to the deeply bronzed and handsome actor.

  “I’ll see you later, Gran, ’kay?”

  “Bye, Sugarplum.”

  She pulled her car onto the smoothly paved parking area of the three-story brick structure housing The Haven, a temporary shelter and counseling center for victims of domestic violence. As she was the executive director, her caseload was heavy and the need for assistance vast. This job was so important to her for so many reasons.

  The Haven was set up through the Bolton Foundation, which Chloe had begun in honor of her mother, who had passed away from cancer. It had initially been Anika’s brainchild, because of her own work in social services and the need that she saw. In turn, when Chloe asked Anika to leave her position at the Division of Family and Youth Services to head up The Haven, she had accepted without pause. Not even Chloe knew just how important protecting and helping women who were victims of abuse was to Anika. It was in fact vital.

  And she was proud of the successes they had enjoyed in just the two years since it opened. Over one hundred women and children were now survivors because of the services The Haven offered free of charge, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, with total confidentiality.

  Those services included a toll-free phone line, safe t
emporary shelter in one of the eight apartments above the offices, victims’ rights advocacy, individual counseling, support groups, children’s advocacy, case management, outreach service, and much needed legal representation.

  Anika, six counselors, a staff nurse, a child psychologist, and a pro bono attorney all worked cohesively to offer the most productive services available to move their clients toward self-sufficiency and survival.

  She retrieved her stuffed Coach duffel sack and matching briefcase from her trunk, the cold winter wrapping around her like an icy blanket as she climbed the stairs into the newly renovated structure. She moved with confidence, and it was evident from her appearance that she was a lover of style. The chocolate leather V-neck top she wore perfectly offset the unique design and color of the long straight wool apron skirt she paired with matching pants. The colors deepened her mocha eyes and burnished her amber skin. Everything was perfectly in place: her hair, her makeup, and her savvy style.

  “Whoo! It is cold out there! ” Anika gratefully closed the glass door behind herself, welcoming the warmth.

  “Morning, Ms. Foxx.”

  “Good morning, Marisol,” she greeted the receptionist. “Any messages for me?”

  “Just one,” she said, moving to hand Anika her daily cup of peppermint tea. “Chloe called but she didn’t leave a message.”

  Anika took a deep sip of the sweet brew. “Thanks,” she called over her shoulder, heading to her office.

  “Phone call from Ms. Bolton before noon, huh?” she mused aloud to herself.

  Anika caught sight of Chloe’s wedding picture on her mahogany desk when she strolled into her of­fice. “I mean Mrs. Jamison,” Anika corrected herself.

  Two years ago, Chloe had met and fallen deeply in love with her soul mate, Devon Jamison, when she moved to her mother’s small hometown in Holtsville, South Carolina. Chloe had been immediately at odds with the dark, brooding man, and he had been just as distrustful of her. Ironically, though, just as equally as they had detested one another, they had been drawn to each other. Now they had a marriage founded on a love that was unshakable, an unbreakable bond.