Sunday

12. Cedar

Cedar

“ H ere you go, baby.” I set the plate in front of Sunday where she was curled up on the window seat in the breakfast nook. She set her book aside and smiled up at me.

There was a weariness in her eyes. I’d noticed it was there all week, ever since the day that I spotted her coming out of the Perennial Hotel.

“Thank you.”

I’d prepared Belgian waffles, Spanish omelets, turkey bacon, and homestyle potatoes for our brunch today. I handed her a glass of milk while I took orange juice.

“You good?”

She looked up as if she’d just noticed me standing in front of her. “Yeah, I’m cool. Why’d you ask?”

“I’on know. You seem like you’ve got something on your mind. You’ve been kinda quiet the last few days.”

“I’m fine.”

“Quit saying that.”

“I am.”

“If you’re not telling me you’re fine, then you’re saying you’re just tired, or thinking about work shit, or the baby. What’s going on, baby?”

“Nothing, baby. I’m genuinely good.”

“I can’t help you if you don’t talk to me, Sunny.”

“I’m good,” she insisted.

I let her make it because I knew her little ass was lying to me. We dug into our plates and busied ourselves with eating. She grabbed her book halfway through the meal and read while I opened my phone to review an email about changes to some schematics for a project at work.

When she finished eating, Sunday closed her book, hopped up, and took her plate to the dishwasher. I turned around on my seat slowly and chewed my bacon while watching her rinse her plate.

Sunny had always been a slim girl with curves, but her frame was filling out the further she progressed in her pregnancy. I told her that I’d done construction work on her body because nothing was the same since I’d filled her with my seed.

Those hips had rounded out rather shapely, and those thighs were no longer slim and muscular like runner’s thighs. She still had some tone to them, but they definitely had meat on them. The biggest change was in her ass and titties.

Them things had transformed into milk jugs as they prepared to feed my little homie when he arrived. And that ass had me loving the way she bounced it on me when I drove deep inside of her from behind.

That was another thing that changed. We couldn’t have sex in all the positions we did in the beginning.

Now that her belly was getting bigger, she was limited in the number of comfortable positions she could find.

Our favorites were her riding me or having her bent over the bed with me driving into her from behind.

I knew that shit would only last so long, though, because the more her belly grew, she wouldn’t have space to rest it comfortably on the bed.

“Come here, Sunny.” I called out to her when she placed her cup in the dishwasher and closed it.

“Baby, I was going to lie down for a while. I’ve got a headache.”

“C’mere for a second. I ain’t gon’ keep you long.”

I patted my thigh when she walked over to me, indicating that I wanted her to sit down.

“CJ, you know your leg is gonna go numb,” she whined.

“Sit ya ass down and quit whining.”

When she did as I asked, I drew her closer to me and rubbed her back gently. I placed small kisses on her forehead and the top of her head.

“What’s really going on with ya?”

“I’m scared. I want to be the best mama that I can be.”

“And you will be. We’re gon’ learn this thing together, baby.”

“I know, but I’ve also been tired. Being pregnant has taken a toll on me, and it doesn’t help that my family isn’t here for me the way I need them to be.”

“Thought you said you and your mama were talking again.”

“I mean, we do, but not like that. She talks to me a little bit, but for the most part, if my daddy comes around, she ends the call. Just the other day, she hung up the phone in the middle of me talking. She sent me a text saying he’d just walked into the room like my feelings didn’t even matter. I wish she would stand up to him.”

“Listen, you want me to holler at them?”

“No. You know that would only make things worse.”

“Yeah, I feel you. I don’t like to see you moping around here, though.”

“I know. I’ve made up my mind that I’m gonna call my daddy and talk to him. Nils told me the other day that Daddy admitted that he missed me. I just wished he wasn’t so stubborn, you know?”

“Man, I get it. You know my peeps mean the world to me, and I don’t know what I would do without ’em.

You got my mama and sisters shopping for my li’l homie every chance they get.

And the old man stays calling me, offering up advice about being the best pops I can be for our kid.

So I know you gotta be missing your family, especially your moms. This is the time you need her most.”

“Yeah. But like I said, I’ll call and set things straight. I have to make a stand for myself, and my daddy needs to see that he can’t continue forcing his wants and decisions on me. I know he’s hurt, and I get it, but still, I’m grown.”

“Well, let me know if you need anything.”

“Thank you, baby.”

She turned her face to me and brushed her lips against mine. I slid my hand up the back of her shirt and rubbed her back before pulling it around to the front. I pinched her nipple, and she moaned in my mouth.

“You make me so horny, but I really do need to lay down for a while to relax.”

“You got it, baby.”

The minute she stood, I called her name.

“Sunny.”

“Yeah, baby?”

“What were you doing at the Perennial Hotel the other day?”

I watched as Sunny’s back stiffened, and she slowly turned around to face me.

“What?”

“Ya li’l ass heard me. Don’t be trying to think of no excuses either.”

“I don’t need an excuse for anything.”

“Well, then explain why I saw you coming out of the hotel in the middle of the day when you were supposed to be going to your doctor’s appointment.”

The day that I saw her at the hotel was the one doctor’s appointment that I couldn’t make.

We had a meeting with the city council about some permits they were stalling on.

I couldn’t get out of that meeting, no matter how badly I wanted to.

The project we’d been working on had already passed certain deadlines, and we were off track.

There was no way that we’d be able to move forward without getting those permits.

So, the minute I saw her, I wanted to bolt out of the office that I was sitting in, but I couldn’t.

I lost focus on the shit they were telling me, but luckily, Shawn had been sitting right by my side.

He sensed the moment I’d zoned out, and while he hadn’t known what happened, he definitely paid attention, took notes, and caught me up later.

“I did go to see Dr. Vance. Everything went well.”

“I know that shit. I saw the ultrasound pictures, and you recorded his heartbeat so I could hear it later. I want to know what the hell you were doing in that hotel later.”

She sighed. “I had another appointment, CJ. Nothing important or stressful.”

“An appointment with who?”

“Just a friend.”

“What kinda friend?”

Sunday was what I called a little lite-brite, thanks to her mixed parentage. Her face turned beet red as I questioned her.

“A female friend. What do you mean, what kind of friend?”

“I just wanted to know why you were meeting someone at the hotel.”

Sunday slowly walked back to me and tried to sit on my knee again. I wasn’t with that manipulation shit. I blocked her with my arm.

This was the shit that I always feared and why I hadn’t become involved in another relationship after divorcing Taylor.

I knew trusting another woman and letting her in would only hurt me in the end.

She was lying to me, the same as Taylor had done, and now she was trying to gloss over that shit by being affectionate.

“Oh, I can’t sit on you right now?”

“Not till you tell me what you were up to at that hotel.”

Sunday tilted her head to the side and dropped her mouth open. She took a seat on the opposite side of the table.

“Cedar. Are you serious right now?”

“Dead ass.”

“I would never do anything to hurt you intentionally. You know this, right?”

I smacked my hand on the table with each word.

“What. The. Fuck. Were. You. Doing. At. The. Hotel?”

“I told you I went to have lunch with an old friend. She was in town and staying at the hotel. That’s why she asked me to meet her there because it was convenient for her, and she wasn’t familiar with Cherokee Springs like that.

It’s someone who I used to know in high school.

It was no biggie and nothing you should be worried about. I wouldn’t cheat on you, CJ.”

I dragged my hand down my face. When I didn’t say anything else, Sunday stood and walked around the table. She moved my arms and sat on my lap.

Her soft, cool hands caressed my face, and she stared into my eyes.

“I love you, daddy. I promise that you mean the world to me, and all I want is you. No one else makes me feel the way you do. I need you to know that.”

“I know that, but I need you to make sure that you know it. I ain’t fucking around with you, Sunny. My heart can’t take that shit. I might fuck something up the next time a woman thinks she’s gonna play in my face. I don’t give a fuck if she’s fucking with a nigga or a woman.”

“Baby, trust me, I’m strictly dickly.”

“Yeah, and my dick betta be the only one you’re riding or sucking.”

She moved off my lap, grabbed her chair, and pulled it around to face me. She sat down, pumped her hand upward several times, and ordered, “Get up.”

I did as she said, and she kicked her foot out, knocking my chair over backward.

“Damn, you think you could’ve asked a nigga to move that shit back?”

“Shut up and drop them draws, CJ,” she demanded as she grabbed the waistband of my basketball shorts.

“Oh, you ’bout to hook a nigga up?”

“Yes, because I need my man to know that he’s it for me.”

“If you wanted to suck a nigga off, all you had to do is say that shit. Up here playing games and getting a nigga all in his chest over your li’l lite-brite ass and shit.”

She grabbed my dick and stroked it as she stared up at me.

“Ain’t nobody playing games, CJ,” she muttered before licking her thick lips.

Before I could offer a rebuttal, she had my dick in her mouth.

Everything I wanted to say and every attitude I wanted to hold went out the window.

I gripped the top of her head as my fingers tangled in her curls.

I slowly pumped into her mouth. She slobbered down my shit, and the more she did, the harder I became.

I took out my aggression about her odd behavior in her mouth.

I pumped hard until she gagged, and tears leaked from the side of her eyes.

She pulled back and worked the head over before she spit down my shaft.

Sunday sucked me in again and slowly worked me to the back of her throat before she increased her speed and intensity.

She twisted one hand back and forth along my shaft, moving in alignment with her mouth. With her other hand, she stroked and caressed my balls. I pulled on her hair until she hollered out around me. When she pulled back, she mugged me.

“Damn, CJ. You ain’t gotta snatch me bald.”

“Shit feels good, Sunny.”

She smirked and lowered her head. Pushing my dick upward toward my belly, she spread her legs wide to make room for her belly. Then she grabbed my nuts and sucked on them.

“Aww fuck, Sunny.” I groaned as my toes pressed into my slides.

This was something that Taylor hadn’t liked to do.

The number of times she’d scraped her teeth over my shit was enough for me not to expect it again.

But Sunday was something else when it came to giving head.

From the very first time she’d done it, she’d blown my mind.

She had a nigga forgetting his name. Hell, she could make a crackhead give up his dope and go clean.

She pulled my nuts out of her mouth and slid my dick back in. She slobbered up and down my shit until I felt my eyes crossing. I heard bells ringing, and my vision blurred before I saw little spots and shit went dark.

The slurping noises she made and her hands and mouth at work on me at the same time were all I could take. I gripped the sides of her head and exploded down her throat. Sunday slurped and slurped until she’d drained my vein.

When she finished, she looked up at me with a grin. She licked the remnants of my nut off her lips and asked, “Is that the work of a woman who’s not into you?”

I pulled her up, smacked her on the ass, and replied, “That’s not my concern. Li’l ass better not be into anyone else.”

She stuck her tongue out, replied, “Only you,” and headed upstairs to our bedroom.