The Hot Spot Read online

  “No, that’s okay. We came home to go to a party at the Armory,” Meena said. “And, no, you cannot go—before you even ask.”

  Zaria shrugged one shoulder. “I had no plans to party this weekend . . . as you both clearly saw.”

  They groaned.

  “I thought I had seen the last of those when we were breast-fed,” Neema said in droll tones.

  Zaria laughed as she took the pot of corn off the stove and poured out the steaming water from the pot. “Thank God they snapped back to life once I got the two of y’alls greedy behinds from tugging on them.”

  Neema threw her empty juice bottle into the recycling bin. “You and that silver-haired man serious?” she asked, placing the half-cooked corn on the cobs into a freezer-safe plastic container.

  Zaria thought of Kaleb and smiled dreamily, even as she shook her head. “We’re just friends. Nothing serious,” she said honestly.

  “Looked pretty serious to me,” Meena said. Zaria grabbed a dish towel to wipe down the stove. “Trust me, that was fun. All fun.”

  “So no stepdaddies who are just a few years older than us?”

  Zaria eyed them both as if they were a pair of crazy aliens. “Trust and believe, the last thing on my mind is marriage.”

  She watched as they left the kitchen and headed back to their bedrooms.

  They’d ruined her evening and they hadn’t even come home for her. They were hunting up a party with their friends at the Walterboro National Guard Armory. And her first weekend off in a minute.

  She strolled into the living room and plopped down onto the couch, grabbing the remote to turn on the television. But soon she bored of flipping through the channels—especially when she thought of having nothing else to do all night but channel surf.

  When I could have been surfing Kaleb’s—

  “Mama, we’re going.”

  She looked away from some reality television show about brides competing for a wedding. They were in the same clothes with overnight bags on their shoulders. “You’re not staying here tonight?” she asked.

  Meena shook her head. “We’re going back to our apartment. We both have to work tomorrow.”

  Zaria frowned. “I hate y’all riding that road all times of the night,” she said, rising to her bare feet.

  “We’ll be fine, Ma,” Neema said, coming over to kiss her cheek.

  Meena followed suit. “And, no, we won’t be drinking. We get high off of looking as good as our mama.”

  Zaria smiled at them as she walked them to the front door. “All right now,” she said. “You know that’s right.”

  As soon as they pulled off and flashed the lights at her, Zaria closed the front door and rushed over to snatch her phone from her purse.

  She wondered just how far Kaleb had gotten as she dialed his cell phone number.

  Kaleb picked up his cell phone from the passenger seat where he’d tossed it. At seeing Zaria’s number, he set it back down and pressed his foot to the accelerator. Moments later, his phone vibrated and he knew she had left a voice mail.

  Still, he pressed on toward Holtsville. Not even his curiosity made him return her call or check the message. His brain was filled with other thoughts, and he didn’t want to process new information. Not yet.

  Zaria’s age.

  Zaria’s ex-husband.

  Zaria’s grown children.

  Zaria’s blasé attitude toward life.

  “Shit,” he swore, his eyes pensive as he slowed down to let a deer shoot out across the road. Late at night, deer were infamous for unexpectedly shooting from the woods and into the road, either crashing into oncoming traffic or causing unsuspecting drivers to swerve and wreck.

  He checked to make sure it was alone before he accelerated forward. Kaleb was glad his thoughts weren’t so filled that he had crashed.

  Just as he entered the Holtsville town limits, his cell phone sounded off again. He ignored it as he came up on Donnie’s Diner. His stomach grumbled as he remembered his feast of both food and Zaria had been interrupted by her daughters. Her adult daughters!

  Shaking his head, he turned in to the small dirt-packed parking lot and shut off the engine. He was climbing out of the SUV when he spotted Jade’s yellow Jeep Wrangler already parked. As soon as he walked into the diner his eyes searched the crowded tables for his brother Kaeden and Jade. He saw Jade but she was sitting with her mother, Deena.

  When they spotted him, he headed in their direction, acknowledging those he knew from the small town with a nod before claiming a seat at their booth.

  “Well, hello, stranger,” Jade said with a big and bright smile. “You ever meet my mom, Deena?”

  Kaleb’s eyes took in the woman who looked more like Jade’s older sister than her mother. “No, but I’ve seen pictures,” he said, thinking everything about the woman reminded him of Zaria—even the look of interest in her eyes.

  “Where have they been hiding you?” she said, extending her hand to him, her gold-painted nails flashing beneath the overhead lighting.

  Jade sighed heavily.

  “What?” Deena said innocently, taking great pleasure in sipping from the straw in her glass of lemonade.

  Thinking one sexy cougar in his life was more than enough, Kaleb gave her a polite smile and turned his attention to his future sister-in-law. “Where’s Kaeden?” he asked, looking up as the waitress came up to hand him a menu.

  “He’s at the house,” she said. “He just called me.”

  Kaleb nodded. “I’ll just have whatever dinner special y’all have,” he told the waitress.

  “Whatever you want, Kaleb,” she said softly, looking at him directly with soft eyes that were filled with invitation.

  He gave her a friendly smile and ignored the invite. He felt ashamed that he just remembered they’d shared a steamy one-night stand in the parking lot of the state fair in Ladson last October. “Good to see you,” he added, feeling like a heel.

  “It’ll be good to see you again,” she said, tucking the menu under her arm and sashaying away with lots of back-and-forth motion of her ample hips.

  Kaleb turned to find two pairs of almost identical eyes looking at him in amusement. He just smiled bashfully and shrugged, knowing the women had peeped his connection to the waitress. “Anyway,” he stressed.

  “You Strong brothers are some bad boys,” Jade said. “I’m glad I have mine locked down, ’cause the women flock like flies to shit.”

  “I want to get locked down,” Kaleb insisted. Jade’s eyes widened.

  Kaleb held up his hands. “Not with you,” he said defensively. “My brothers and I don’t share women.”

  Jade relaxed visibly. “Sorry.”

  Deena reached across the table to stroke his hands. “I have some keys that can lock—”

  “Mother!” Jade snapped.

  Kaleb deftly moved from her touch without it seeming apparent. Being hit on by his brother’s future mother-in-law was very awkward. No matter that she looked just as fine and over forty as Zaria.

  Deena just chuckled like she enjoyed his discomfort.

  “So when do we get to meet the young lady stealing you away damn near every weekend?” Jade asked.

  Kaleb shrugged. “I don’t know if it’s that serious,” he said, shifting in his seat at Zaria being referred to as a “young lady.”

  Jade eyed him. “I thought the talk of the Strong clan was your search for Mrs. Right,” she said. “Why waste time with Ms. Right Now?”

  Kaleb looked away from Jade’s inquisitive eyes. He watched Donnie, the owner and head cook of the diner, lumber his large frame over to the antique jukebox in the corner. Soon the sound of Roberta Flack and Donnie Hathaway filled the air.

  Kaleb was an old soul when it came to music, and he recognized “I Who Have Nothing” instantly. Several of the diners rocked in their seats to the slow bluesy ballad that was love and soul and heartbreak all at once.

  “Slow down, Donnie,” someone called over to him.

/>   Donnie just pumped his fist in the air and made his way back to the kitchen.

  Kaleb looked out the window at the traffic slowly moving through Holtsville. He thought of Zaria. He remembered her undressing and then removing his shirt to press her body to his as her hands came up his back, her nails slightly etching his skin as she pressed one palm to the back of his head to pull his head down into the sweet groove of her neck as she pressed kisses to his shoulder.

  They had stayed like that for the longest time, swaying back and forth, just lost in each other. Just swept up in their fire. Just enjoying the intimacy. No music. No words. Neither were needed.

  The tender moment had come to him many times over the week. There was something in her caress that was beyond sexual. He could have stood there in her embrace, with her lips pressed to his flesh, all night.

  He was glad when the image faded along with the song.

  “If you miss her that much, why aren’t you with her?” Deena asked softly.

  Kaleb shifted his eyes to her. “I don’t think we want the same things in life. She’s older,” he admitted.

  “And?” Deena asked.

  Kaleb leaned back in his chair as the waitress brought his steaming plate of food. His appetite was gone, but he pushed the food around with his fork. Stalling.

  “And?” Deena asked again.

  “She’s forty-two with grown daughters,” he said, setting down his fork and pressing his elbows onto the table.

  “And?”

  This time it was Jade who softly asked the oneword question.

  Kaleb shrugged, wishing he hadn’t said anything. He had barely wrestled with it alone and was far from ready for advice.

  Zaria rose to her feet from her spot on Kaleb’s porch as lights flashed from a vehicle turning into the yard. She felt nervous and anxious as she raked her fingers through her long hair and licked the last of the gloss from her lips.

  She held up her hand to shield the light shining on her like a spotlight on a stage as Kaleb parked his SUV. She smiled, even as the lights remained on and he didn’t move to exit the vehicle.

  She playfully curtsied and bowed, wanting very badly to know what he was thinking as he sat there with his lights on her.

  What seemed like minutes later, the lights turned off and the SUV door opened. She moved down one step and then extended her foot to him. “I have on boots. I thought you could take me for that horseback ride in the morning,” she said loudly as he stepped out of the shadow of the vehicle.

  “What do you want out of this?” he asked, standing at the foot of the steps with his hands pushed deep into the pockets of his jeans.

  Zaria lifted a brow. “What do you mean?” Kaleb came up the steps until he stood on the one just beneath her. His eyes searched her face. “I told you I’m looking to settle down. Have a family. The whole happily-ever-after,” he said.

  Zaria couldn’t help but fidget.

  “Now, I know that you’ve been there and done that,” Kaleb said.

  She nodded. “Yes, that’s very true.”

  Kaleb wiped his mouth. “This is just fun for you, right?”

  Zaria moved to turn away from him, but he quickly reached out to grasp her arm. “I thought this was just fun for both of us,” she told him, easing from his firm grip.

  Kaleb nodded before taking a seat on the top step. “It is, but I wanted to see if maybe there was more that could grow between us,” he admitted, pressing his elbows to his knees.

  Zaria sat down beside him, linking her arm through one of his as she leaned her head against his shoulder. “We’ve only known each other a little over a month,” she said gently. “Isn’t it too soon to be anything more than what it is?”

  Kaleb shrugged. “But I’m looking for someone to settle down with, and if that’s not even a possibility for us, then why even bother?” he asked her, his eyes following the scurrying of some night creature across the front yard.

  Zaria released a heavy breath. “I got married really young to a man a little older than me. He became my life. I was so happy being a housewife and eventually a mother. I thought my life was set, that everything was the way it was supposed to be. Eventually my girls graduated high school, and my husband who I loved a lot told me he was leaving me.”

  Zaria released a heavy breath. “I was devastated for the loss of my marriage and my life as I knew it. Suddenly I was without kids to raise and a husband to pamper and I felt so lost. So afraid. So alone. I realized I was so busy being a wife and a mother that I completely skipped just being Zaria.”

  Kaleb covered her hands with one of his own, his fingers stroking her skin softly.

  “And so I started to live and enjoy all of the things I’d denied myself. I got a makeover, lost a few pounds, and got some new clothes. And I made a point of getting out there and enjoying life to the fullest. I wanted to have fun. To see what if feels like to do whatever I want, whenever I want.”

  Zaria lifted her head to look Kaleb in the eye. “I’m not ready to give that up,” she told him with honesty.

  Kaleb’s eyes searched hers. “So my choice is to take it or leave it,” he said.

  Zaria smiled at him softly. “I don’t want to lie to you or lead you on.”

  “But I’m not ready to say good-bye to you forever,” he admitted.

  Zaria gasped a little at the intensity of his words. She forced herself not to get swept away by them or him. “Then don’t,” she said. “This thing between us may run its course in a month or two. You can put your hunt for a wife on hold until then, right?”

  Kaleb turned to look out at his farm in the distance. “If I meet a woman I think I can really have something with in that time, then I’ll have to end things with you,” he said, his voice firm as if he was trying to reassure her and himself.

  Zaria thought of Kaleb with another woman, and a sharp wave of jealousy filled her. She’d given him her terms and he’d done the same. “I’m not ready to say good-bye to you forever either,” she admitted softly.

  Although they both struck a deal that put a time stamp on their relationship, Zaria and Kaleb made love with a slow and sensual intensity that brought tears to Zaria’s eyes as she shivered with each climax he gave her. Long into the night, after they lay naked and entwined atop his sheets, they said nothing at all. They laid there with their eyes open and gazing out the window at the star-filled sky, thinking of everything that was and even more about everything that could never be. Both wondering if their time together would ever be enough.

  Kaleb laughed at the sight of Zaria’s body swamped in a pair of his old jeans and V-neck tee gathered at the waist with a huge belt. The addition of her high-heeled boots made the outfit all the more comical. Kaleb laughed until the muscles of his defined abdomen hurt.

  “Not funny, Kaleb,” Zaria said, coming across the bedroom to playfully swat his arm.

  “You should have brought clothes,” he said, holding his hands up.

  Zaria turned and left his bedroom, holding the legs of the jeans off the floor with her hands.

  “I wish I had a camera,” Kaleb said, watching her and thinking that even swamped in oversized clothing with her hair up in a ponytail and her face free of makeup, the woman was still sexy.

  That morning, it had been damn nice to wake up with her in his home. His bed. His arms.

  “Okay, you really need a housekeeper,” she called from the living room.

  Kaleb smiled as he walked out of the bedroom behind her. “I know, but just about every weekend I’m getting a call to come to Summerville and lay up in someone else’s home.”

  Zaria was bending over to fold the legs of the jeans, and Kaleb moved to stand behind her closely, grabbing her hips as he playfully imitated stroking her doggy style. She giggled as she joined him in his play and threw her hips back.

  “Get it, Daddy. Get it, Daddy. Unh!” Zaria chanted.

  “If we don’t stop, I’m going in those big-ass pants you have on,” Kaleb told her, pr
essing his long erection against her buttocks.

  Zaria looked back at him over her shoulder, wide-eyed, before she raced away from him and into the kitchen. She didn’t stop until she was on the other side of the island.

  Kaleb looked over at her face, pretty and vibrant, with her eyes sparkling in humor. She looked radiant and beautiful. “You know we can ride horses anytime,” he said, undoing his belt and unzipping his pants.

  Zaria shook her head and ignored the sight of the length of him against his thigh in his snugfitting boxers. “I am sore,” she told him, raising her hands as he kicked his pants away with a comically lecherous wiggle of his brows as he advanced on her.

  “Nothing like a good massage to work away any soreness,” he told her, coming around the island.

  “Who says I want any this morning?” she said.

  “Yeah, right,” he countered, turning the corner. He stopped dead in his tracks to find that behind the cover of the island, Zaria had already dropped the jeans and her panties down around her ankles.

  She bent over the island as she wiggled her bare bottom.

  Kaleb rushed out of his boxers and came to stand behind her, settling the length of his hardness between her buttocks. “Perfect fit, huh?” he asked, bending down to kiss her neck as he rocked his hips back and forth, sending his dick up and down that smooth and warm valley.

  Zaria nodded in agreement as she circled her hips.

  “Rise and shine, Bubba!”

  Zaria gasped deeply and Kaleb froze at the sudden sound of footsteps and voices. “Not again,” she wailed, using a strong push with her buttocks to back Kaleb away before she ducked down to hide behind the island.

  His three brothers turned and faced him. Kaleb wasn’t happy at all to see them, even though all were as thick as thieves. “I really need to lock my door.”

  Kaleb grabbed the jeans Zaria had on and rushed into them. “Hey, I’ma needy’all to hit me up later—”

  “What’s this about you doing some old lady?” Kahron asked.