Alex Avery and Journey Moore’s stagnant love relationships are unexpectedly tested when they each, upon happenstance, meet two men, who seem to incredibly possess all of the qualities the women seek in their perfect mates. Yet, it is soon realized that no one is perfect when the women discover that their knights in shining armor are closely connected to their current lovers.
Alex Avery, a career-driven, savvy-business consultant, and her daughter’s father, Steven “Sway” McCoy, maintain a unique ‘friends-with-benefits’ relationship that suddenly comes to a halt after Alex is introduced to and immediately captivated by Derek Minor, a handsome, ex-thug turned legitimate businessman. Alex and Derek connect on every level to solidify the kind of relationship she yearns for, and, as time passes, he appears to be the man of her dreams. Derek, however, is keeping a secret from his past that may prove him to not only be too good to be true, but could sever the unique relationship Alex shares with Sway, forever.
Journey and her husband Tiny own and manage a fitness gym and live comfortably, and, on the surface, appear to be the picture perfect couple. Yet, behind closed doors, Journey is the helpless recipient of Tiny’s verbal and physical abuse. When Journey starts to suspect that Tiny is being unfaithful, Journey decides that she has had enough. And, with the help of an enticing, sexy, younger man, Journey rediscovers her self-worth as well as her explosive sexuality. Yet, she knows that in order to be set free, Tiny would have to let her go, which he would not do willingly, especially since Journey’s younger lover is the son of his best friend
Excerpt
Sway drove in silence back to his place because Alex had fallen asleep as soon as she settled into her heated seat. He glanced over at her every time he stopped at a red light to admire her natural beauty. He loved her and often wished that they met under different circumstances. It had been almost five years since their first encounter on 125th Street on that hot summer day. Romeo wanted her, and Alex wanted Sway. He could tell by the way she stared at him from the back seat of his Legend while he gave her a ride to work. I miss that car, he thought to himself as he turned onto Park Avenue. He knew from the moment he saw Alex that she was special. However, what he did not know was that she would become the only woman he would ever fall in love with. He never expected that she’d be the one; otherwise, he would have never started off their relationship on such a strict ‘no commitment’ basis.
Over the years, he found that Alex had been able to maintain the ‘non-exclusive’ bond he created, and, although he knew that she loved him, he also knew that she could not trust him. She was the dream he could never make come true, so he focused on business and money instead. Sway was all man. He prided himself for being a self-made millionaire before turning forty years old. His legacy was already established for his two children to inherit. He was thankful for many reasons that Alex had entered his world. He deeply believed that Alex played a dramatic part in his successfulness.
He pulled into the underground parking lot of his apartment building on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and gracefully backed into his reserved parking space. He sat quietly looking at a peacefully sleeping Alex one last time before calling her name. He smiled to himself and started to get excited thinking about how he was going to make love to her. He felt slightly rejuvenated and called Alex’s name softly. She responded by turning her head towards him and opening one eye. For a moment she forgot where she was.
“Mmm,” she moaned sleepily. “We’re here?”
“Yeap,” Sway said as he opened his door. He quickly ran to the passenger side of the car to aide Alex in stepping down from the truck.
The twosome slowly walked arm in arm through the brightly lit underground parking lot over to the stainless steel set of elevator doors. The heavy doors parted just as Sway pressed the button, as if it was waiting for his arrival. They eased in, and the doors closed behind them. Sway swiped his elevator card key to gain entry to the penthouse suites. The elevator traveled nonstop to the top and came to an abrupt halt. Alex followed Sway out of the elevator holding onto his coat tail. When they reached the double doors to his three bedroom suite, he turned to Alex and asked, “Are you going to go to sleep on me?”
“That wasn’t my intention,” she seductively answered looking into his dark brown eyes.
Holding onto her words, he slid the card key into the key slot and turned the doorknob. He reached for the dimmer switch on the wall and rotated the dial until the room became illuminated with a candlelight like glow. His suite was spacious and immaculate. And, like the house Alex now lived in, this place was elaborately decorated with displays of artifacts and possessions collected during his worldwide excursions. His living room was covered with a smoke grey carpet he purchased from Persia, and it was an unspoken rule that all footwear was to be left at the door upon entering. To accommodate his infrequent visitors, he had several pairs of slippers neatly stacked in the coat closet for his guests. Alex kicked off her shoes as soon as she walked over the threshold. She immediately relished in the comfort that her feet felt from the soft Persian carpeting. She walked barefoot over to the burgundy Italian leather sofa and plopped down onto the soft cushion.
Sway darted off to the kitchen and was opening a bottle of wine when the phone rang. He rolled his eyes in annoyance of whoever was calling him at this hour. They were not adhering to his house rules. He knew it was not business, nor any of his friends because those calls came in on his cell phone. Only his lady friends called his land line. For some reason, a woman feels special and in a class by all her self by having a man’s home number. Sway did not care one way or the other because he always made it a point to let all of his women friends know that he was a single man. By giving them his home phone number held no weight. Yet, since he always treated his lady friends like they were the only one when he spent time with each of them, they all thought otherwise. Sway’s lady friends loved being treated like a queen. They each happily played his game, hoping to one day to be chosen as the one. Unfortunately for them, Alex held that position, and the irony of it all was that it was a position she did not care to have. She and Sway started out the same way he always started out with his women, as friends who ultimately had sexual benefits, and, because of the non-exclusiveness of their friendship, Alex could never trust him the way she wished she could. Instead, they enjoyed each other at times like the present evening.
The phone rang a total of three times before Sway’s answering machine picked it up. Alex showed no reaction to the phone ringing at that time of night; instead she looked at it, chuckled under her breath, and grabbed the remote to Sway’s fifty-two inch plasma screen television that was neatly tucked inside the wall surrounded by a built-in bookshelf. Sway had an eclectic array of literature ranging from books about African American history to books on entrepreneurship and money management. Alex channel surfed and waited for Sway to return from the kitchen with her wine.
“You could have answered that!” she yelled at Sway from the living room.
“Please, Alex. You know me better than that. No one should be calling my house this late unless it’s you or Carmen calling about my kids.”
Alex chuckled and shook her head back and forth. She wondered why women put up with Sway’s inability to commit. In her eyes, Sway was the type of man who could never have too much of anything, and that included women. Alex learned from the onset of their love affair that Sway would never be husband material. Yet, she accepted Sway for who he was because beneath his womanizing persona, he was a good man. She hoped that one day she would meet a man who wanted to share the same kind of monogamous relationship she craved, but, for now, she adapts like a chameleon to her current situation, and changes to the nature of Sway’s environment when necessary.
Her mind drifted off as she snuggled up with one of the throw pillows on the sofa. For a split second she thought of her high school sweetheart Malcolm and how she once believed he was that special someone. He was her first and only real love. They were soul mates. As she continued to drift in her private moment, she accepted that time was the past. Both she and Malcolm were young and inexperienced. She sometimes wished that she and Malcolm could have rekindled their high school romance when they briefly reconnected during her pregnancy, but she had finally come to terms with never living out that dream. Alex still possessed the heartfelt letter Malcolm left for her the day after she gave birth to her daughter. And, although the last time she actually read it was almost three years ago on Journey’s wedding day, she could recite it word for word if someone asked her to. Tears formed in her eyes at the thought of Malcolm walking out of her life, but she also understood his position. She had not seen nor heard from Malcolm except for a brief moment at her father’s funeral. However, Malcolm made sure that he stayed ever present in her mind by sending her flowers every mother’s day. And, although she knew that she would always carry a torch for him in her heart, presently, raising her daughter and getting her business established were her only priorities, making the current set up she had with Sway work out just fine.
Sway returned to the living room pulling Alex back into reality and handed her a half-filled glass of red wine. She wiped her eye to erase the tear that had escaped as a result from her jog down memory lane, and nodded her head partly to thank him and partly to shake the memory of Malcolm back into her subconscious.
“Mmm … ,” she moaned.
“I like the way that sounds,” Sway said sitting down beside her, and taking a sip of his Hennessy. He knew that ladies preferred wine, so he kept a full stock. He, himself, was a cognac man. They looked at each other lustfully and drank their un-inhibitors in silence. Alex smiled as she finished off her wine and placed the empty glass on the coffee table in front of her. She stood up and stretched her arms.
“I’m going to take a shower, you comin’?” she asked as she turned and walked towards Sway’s master bathroom quarters.
Sway, without hesitation, placed his empty glass on the coffee table, turned off the television, and followed Alex like a lost puppy dog. By the time they reached the bathroom, their bodies were bare, and his muscles flexed in the oversized mirror above the double sinks. The glass encased shower held no privacy as he watched the shower rain over Alex’s lovely body before joining her. He was mesmerized by the way the soap clung to her honey soaked skin. He watched the soap suds wrap around the curves of her body followed by the water beads washing the foam away. He slowly opened the shower door and slid in behind her. He grabbed the soapy loofa sponge from her hand and proceeded to wash her back with it.
Alex stood still and enjoyed the soap enhanced body massage Sway was giving her. She turned around so he could massage the front of her body, and he proceeded with pleasure. As the water made the soap disappear from their bodies they embraced each other, and Sway told Alex that he loved her. He had gotten used to saying those words over the years, and they both knew he meant it. Alex leaned into his body and kissed him slowly. As their soft tongues passionately wrestled with one another causing their body temperatures to rise, Alex’s nipples hardened against Sway’s chiseled chest. The glass shower doors began to steam. Sway lifted Alex with ease, so she could wrap her petite legs around his firm chiseled waist, and she held on tightly to the back of his neck. Their lips never parted as he entered her moist flesh causing her eyes to open. He was already looking at her and smiled at the lovely expression her face made while he glided in and out of her body. With one hand he reached for the shower knob and turned off the water. Holding her body with ease, he pushed the shower door open and carried her to the double sinks where her warm wet nakedness adhered itself to the cold porcelain sink. Sway looked at himself through the mirror as he pumped steadily. He took pride in knowing that he could still make a woman feel this way. Alex floated into her personal heaven as he put every effort into making her feel like this experience was all about her. She made short, breathy sounds as she came all over his being. Sway looked at her as she smiled with her eyes closed, and he reveled at his accomplishment.
He lifted Alex from the sink and carried her to his king-size bed in the adjoining master bedroom. While still inside of her, he placed her body down gently on the bed and continued to make love to her. He stroked her as if they would never see each other again. After an hour of love making, using different parts of his body to penetrate her inviting body, Sway finally climaxed inside of her. Completely exhausted, Sway rolled over beside her and smiled. Drenched with the moisture from their extensive love making session, Alex threw her arm across Sway’s solid chest and thanked him once again for a job well done. He laughed and told her ‘anytime’.
“Sway,” Alex said, hoping he was not dozing off. “Are you ever going to tell me about this?” she asked as her index finger traced the bullet wound that scarred his stomach.
Sway opened his eyes and could feel her soft touch drawing circles in his stomach. That wound was his reminder to stay on the straight and narrow, and to never fall victim to the streets again.
“That’s the exit wound from the bullet that almost paralyzed me,” he said flatly.
He tried not to show any emotion, but the thought of that night was seared into his brain, and the incident remained etched in his memory as clear as the present moment. He knew that one day he would have to tell Alex what happened. She was the mother of his child, and she should know everything about him, but he still couldn’t talk about it without becoming angry. Instead, Sway closed his eyes again, and his mind flashed back to that cold night at the drug spot on Amsterdam Avenue. It was Sway’s thirtieth birthday, and his boy, D-Money told him that he needed to “re-up” on their supply, and he promised that it would only take a minute. After that, they could stop by the strip joint before going to the club. Sway’s best friend assured him that it was all good, and after they knocked off this pack they would be tenfold richer. Back then everyone knew that money was Sway’s only motivator. It was his only one true love next to his son. D-Money knew that Sway would be down for anything that generated dollars. What Sway did not know was that D-Money had a hidden agenda. D-Money’s true intent was that only he’d be ten times richer, and snatching up Carmen was the added bonus. D-Money disapproved of the way Sway dismissed her. It did not help that D-Money cared deeply for Carmen, and he needed to finally be rid of his competition, to see if she was the one.
D-Money masterminded an elaborate scheme with Sway’s street competition. The plan was to remove Sway from the drug game completely. The end result would be that D-Money would split Sway’s massive territory among his rivals, making everyone richer, and making D-Money the new ‘man’.
Sylvia Masters, a hot fifty-two year old widow and CEO of her husbands company is challenged by her own instincts, family and friends when the Lieutenant investigating the murder of her ex-fiancee ask her to dinner. After a tumultuous beginning, the
