Chapter 6 Judah
JUDAH
TWO WEEKS LATER
“Inever thought that I would say this, but I’m ready for wedding season to be over with.” Alex groaned.
“What are you going to do then?”
“Probably plan retirement parties and birthday parties for old folks. They’re a lot less dramatic.”
I laughed. “I wouldn’t count on that, baby girl. They can be a bit to handle too.”
“Yeah, but nothing like our families.” She sucked her teeth and rolled her eyes.
“Listen, you have to realize that these attitudes are coming from a place of concern. If they didn’t love and care about you, then they wouldn’t react the way that they are.”
“We’re just sitting together like we did at the ceremony; we haven’t done anything wrong.”
“Not yet,” I mumbled.
She lifted her eyebrows. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Shrugging, I replied, “I’m just saying, if this night ends anything like the wedding night of my brother, you’ll be doing a whole lot of wrong, but you’ll do it oh so right.” She dipped her head, and I reached out and lifted her chin with my fist. “Stop blushing, beautiful.”
“I just don’t know how to receive a compliment about my sexual performance, especially not when I’ve been ridiculed in the past.”
“And now you doubt your abilities.”
“Doubted,” she stated, pointing a fork at me before she stuck it into her au gratin potatoes again.
“Glad to be of service,” I replied with a wink and then cut into my steak.
“We’ve spent a lot of time together this week.”
“Mostly because you’ve planned your brother’s wedding to a tee, and you oversaw everything. I just volunteered to be the assistant.”
“I think that I deserve to have a good time without my brother, your brother, and your ex-wife giving us the stink eye. I didn’t realize that she would be here.”
“I did. She’s Tyra’s best friend. Still, I hoped that she wouldn’t show up.”
“Miracles have been known to happen,” she responded.
“Are you two all right?” her mother asked with her father on her arm.
We both looked up from our plates and stared in confusion. “Is there a reason we wouldn’t be, Mama?” she asked.
“It’s just . . . there are appropriate times for things and there are inappropriate times for things.”
“Mama, would you stop beating around the bush and say what you mean,” Alex scolded.
“Honey, let’s leave them alone. They aren’t bothering anyone.” Her father chimed in.
Her mother shook her head and hissed. “I thought that I raised you better than this, Alexandria.”
“It depends on what you mean. There were quite a few things that I raised myself on,” Alex stated.
Her mother gasped and hurried away from the table. Alex rolled her eyes, and I reached out my hand to take hers. “Are you good?”
“Unfortunately, no. I’m never good enough in their eyes; well, Mama’s anyway.”
“This is the second time they’ve been by our table. I think if there’s something that they’re worried about, we should bring it out in the open, don’t you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Let’s dance, beautiful.”
She was hesitant, but I took her hand in mine and pulled her away from the table. I stopped at the deejay’s table and asked something low enough for no one to hear but him. As we headed to the dance floor, Alex asked, “What was that all about? What did you ask him?”
Just as the music switched from Beyonce’s version of “Before I Let Go,” I pointed up in the air.
“This,” I stated.
Bonnie Raitt’s “Something to Talk About” was playing. Alex’s eyes widened as the proverbial record scratched when the deejay changed the music.
She looked around and whispered, “People are still dancing, but they’re staring at us.”
“Wasn’t that the plan, beautiful?” I asked, wrapping one arm around her waist and pulling her hard up against my body.
I smoothed my hand over her bare shoulder, loving how satiny her skin felt.
I imagined what it would be like to remove the olive-green dress from her body after the reception.
She was clear that nothing would happen between us, but I wasn’t so sure.
Not that something had to happen, but it was in the energy that I had been picking up from Alex all day.
The subtle glances during the vow exchange, the way that she bumped her knee against mine, how she leaned into me when we conversed with other people, as if we were a couple, and how I caught her staring at me on several occasions.
All the little things that told me that she might be open to exploring another night like the weekend we shared at Issachar and Princess’s wedding.
As the music stirred up, so did Alex. She wound her hips as she grinded against me. When she looped her arms around my neck and stared into my eyes, I couldn’t help but lean down and press my forehead against hers.
Before I could gently sweep my lips against hers, she pulled back slightly.
Not enough that anyone would have noticed but me, but I did notice it.
While she wanted to tease her parents and family for giving her hell, she wasn’t ready to take it all the way yet.
She didn’t want to fully confirm to them that something was going on between us.
She simply wanted to piss her parents off, and she was using me to do it.
I didn’t give a damn about what my brother, who served as the best man, thought. Neither did I give a damn about my ex-wife, Jessica, who I managed to avoid all day. But I was concerned about Alex’s parents and how they might treat her because of our behaviors.
I calmed down just a little. “Are your folks going to be okay with what just happened here?”
“No.”
“Then maybe we should head back to the table.”
“No. They seldom approve of anything that I do anyway.”
“What do you mean?”
“They wanted me to go to school for law, and I refused to. They wanted me to use my hospitality degree working for a hotel, and I didn’t. They thought I should work on myself to make me better for your brother, and I didn’t.”
“I appreciate the fact that you’ve lived life on your own terms, Alex, and not based on what others think that you should do. Keep giving ’em hell, beautiful.”
She rewarded me with a big, beautiful smile. When the song ended, I walked her back to our table. Jessica stopped by only seconds later.
“I see you’re still up to making trouble,” Jessica declared, glancing between Alex and me.
“I see you’re still nothing but trouble. What do you want, Jessica?”
“I simply stopped by to say hello and see how you are doing.”
“I’m doing perfectly fine.”
“Mm, . . . robbing the cradle and keeping it in the family. I would say that it’s good to see that you’ve finally moved on, Judah, but with your brother’s woman, . . . that’s not a good look.”
“It’s better than being passed around the entire state.
Oh yeah, in case you hadn’t realized it, Jessica, Alex isn’t his woman.
He’s married to a woman, and she’s here with him today.
Please don’t make the same mistake of disrespecting her to her face.
Now if you don’t have anything else to say, I think you should be on your way. ”
“It was nice seeing you again, Alex,” Jessica stated to Alex, whom she hadn’t spoken to before that moment.
Alex didn’t reply to Jessica. She waited for her to leave before she spoke.
“My duties are done here, Judah. I think that I’m ready to leave now.”
I glanced around, and the reception was still in full swing. “Are you sure? I know they’ve got at least another couple of hours to go.”
“I know, but my work is over, and I’m tired. I really want to just go. It’s not like I’m enjoying myself.”
“We were earlier.”
“That was then, this is now.”
“Whatever makes you happy. Do you want to at least tell your brother and Tyra goodbye?”
“I definitely want to do that,” she replied, standing.
I followed her as we made our way around the reception hall telling people goodbye. We hugged her brother and new sister-in-law before wishing them well.
“I have one final stop.”
“What’s that?”
“I need to make sure that Serena and Brielle are good and then we can go. Tomorrow’s the final day of festivities, and they can leave out whenever they’re ready. We won’t need them, unless they want to stay.”
I took her by the hand, not missing the glances that came our way. She found her associates near the bar and had a word with them before we left.
“Where to now?” I asked once we were standing outside the reception venue.
“I’d like to go back to your suite, Judah.”
“Are you sure, Alex?”
She bobbed her head quickly, but I wasn’t sure that she was.
When I lifted her head, I could see the sheen in her eyes again. “You’re not crying a tear over them tonight. No one is worthy of your tears, beautiful.”
I lowered my head and brushed my lips against her cool ones again. She cupped the back of my head, closed her eyes, and lowered her head. “Can we just be like this for a minute?”
“Whatever you need, sweetheart. Take your time.”
We remained in that position for several minutes before she breathed out loudly. Alex lifted her head, squeezed the back of my neck, and pressed her lips against mine. I didn’t have to do anything to get her to open up to me. She immediately opened her mouth, allowing me to savor her sweetness.
“Tonight, I want you to taste me, Judah. Then, I want you to show me what I taste like.”
“You want to taste yourself?”
She nodded. “I do.”
I glanced up and down the sidewalk and noticed we were alone.
Some people were going to their bungalows at the far end of the lot but not close enough to us.
I moved us several feet away to stand behind a large wooden map of the area, and I lifted the front of her dress, slid my hand inside of her underwear, and fingered her.
She moaned, jerked her hips forward, and spread her legs slightly.
“Lord, girl, you’ve barely got anything on.”
“I wore these tiny pieces because I was expecting you tonight, anticipating you, in fact. I wanted to make sure that you had easy access to pleasing me, quenching your thirst, and slaking your hunger.”
“Even after you said the last time was the only time? Told you something was gonna happen.”
“One time with you, Judah, is never enough. You have me craving you and thinking about you at times when I shouldn’t.”
“Then why am I just hearing about this? Why can’t you just let things flow the way they should.”
“Ohh.” She moaned loudly when I thrust my fingers deeper into her flesh. “Mm, . . . because it’s already stirring up trouble with people just thinking that we’re dating. Imagine if we actually . . . ohh shit! I’m going to cum, Judah.”
I worked my fingers deeper into her and scissored her as I bit into her neck.
She rocked her hips forward and slowly gyrated on them until she released her nectar on me.
When I pulled my hands free, I slid them in between her lips.
She sucked them clean, and I dipped my fingers back inside of her.
This time when I removed them, I sucked them clean.
I smacked her on the ass. “Let’s get to my room so I can fill you up with what’s good for you, woman.”
She giggled, but her little ass obeyed.