“No, this is all I brought with me,” she said as she pointed out her shoulder bag. “I’m good.”
Hawk therefore escorted her upstairs, past the closed door that he assumed was where his mother was sleeping, and afew doors down to the next largest guest room. He opened the door for her.
As she moved past him to walk inside, he didn’t feel that same jolt he felt earlier. But he felt something entirely different. She brushed past him as she walked into that bedroom, causing an aroma of a fresh, perfumy scent to encircle his nostrils and a hardness to engulf his penis when she brushed it ever so slightly. Which never happened to him. A lady brush past him and he was aroused? That was unheard of for him.
But it was exactly what happened. It was so startling that he checked out her body when she walked past him. Was it that slammin’ hot? Was she that far ahead of all the other ladies he’d known before?
She wasn’t. That was the craziest part to him. She had a nice figure. She had curves and a tight ass. But so did nearly every woman he came into contact with in his line of work. And none of them had him aroused just by brushing past him. Not one of them. In the entire annals of his life, he’d never been a man easily aroused that way. Until now.
And when she surveyed the room and turned around as if she was more than pleased, and when he saw that twinkle of joy in her eyes that she would have a comfortable room for the night, he had an even harder erection. And he realized, in that moment, that he wanted her.
But he was not a man that slept around. His father’s fallacies taught him what not to do in that department. But he wanted to sleep with her. And because she had done to him what no other woman had done, he wanted to sleep with her very badly. The question was: was she that kind of girl?
He didn’t want to test it, but as he looked down the length of her, he couldn’t stop himself. “You can always join me,” he said.
Janita wasn’t going to lie to herself. Hawk Webster was a very alluring man in those bike shorts and jersey. He looked fit and well-built and more than capable to take her on the ride of her life. And she’d already saw how aroused he became when she brushed past him.
But she knew women were this man’s stock and trade. Sleeping with starlets and recording artists was probably how he got his jollies off every day of the week. Social media even said so. No way was she putting another notch in that belt. “No, this room is fine,” she said.
He stared at her until he saw her glance down at his arousal. And then he asked the question that would make or break it for him. “Are you sure?” he asked her.
She hated that he caught her glancing down at his penis, but it couldn’t be helped. “I’m sure,” she said.
He nodded as if it was no big deal to him either, said good night, and stepped out and closed the door. But he was very disappointed. He an itch he wanted her, and only her, to scratch. But she wasn’t that kind of girl. Which blunted his disappointment.
He wanted her still. But a part of him was very pleased that she didn’t want him.
CHAPTER SIX
The next morning, after showering and dressing, Hawk made his way downstairs for breakfast. His home that had been pin-drop quiet overnight was now bustling with activity inside and outside as his maids and butler and grounds crew did their daily work around his home. But when he walked down lower levels of his staircase and saw that same young lady he had thought about all night sitting on his sofa, he stopped in his tracks. She couldn’t see him unless she turned her body at a nearly ninety-degree angle, but he could see her. And that sense that she was completely different than the average girl returned. And captivated him as he stood on his stairs.
It wasn’t her clothing. There was nothing sexy about her clothes. She wore the same thing she wore yesterday, except in a different color: A pair of slacks, a tucked-in blouse, and that same blazer she wore last night. It was like a uniform for assistants, he assumed. But no assistant had him throbbing like he was throbbing just watching her. No assistant came close.
And it wasn’t in her manner either. She wasn’t the nicest young lady he’d ever met.
But it was in the way she carried herself. There was a proudness about her. There was a sense that she might not be on the same level as her employer, but nobody was better than her. She had gravitas in her own, quiet way.
He was also certain that she knew she was in the home of a man who owned a record company. She knew she was traveling in rare air. But it didn’t seem to faze her at all. Becauselast night, despite what he saw was interest in her eyes too, she still turned him down.
At the top of the staircase, staring down, was his mother. She was watching him watch Janita. And that view brought a smile on her face.
The first time she met Janita two months ago, when she was opening the car door for her and she got a chance to look the young lady in her eyes, she knew she was the one for Hawthorne. He was always so exacting like his father. He wanted himself a “pure” woman. Janita wasn’t pure. She saw that early on too. But what woman was? Janita, she believed from the moment she first met her, was the one for her son.
And he needed someone desperately in Reecie’s eyes. More so now than ever after she read about that shooting. That shooting, despite how much Hawk tried to minimize it, scared the life out of her.
She also believed, even before she met Janita, that if any one of her six children were going to get married and give her a grandchild, it was going to be Hawthorne. Somehow she knew it in her bones despite how much he always recoiled at even the thought of marriage. But that was only because he was looking at marriage through the eyes of his parents. His lens was blurred by their trauma. But she believed that Janita, although eleven years younger than Hawk, was strong enough to get him beyond his black-and-white views of marriage. She was the one.
At least that was her hope. That was why she stood there staring at her beloved son as he stared at Janita. There was a spark there. She saw it when his eyes locked onto Janita’s eyes last night. But did they see it?
Hawk apparently did because he was still staring at that young lady like he wanted to eat her, and Reecie was still staring at him. Until a maid on the landing behind her dropped a bucket of supplies. Which caused Hawk to turn around to see what thecommotion was about. Which caused Janita to turn that ninety-degree angle to look up at the staircase too, where she saw Hawk, and his mother further up, standing there.
When they both saw Reecie, she had no choice but to make her way downstairs. “Your maids are loud and clumsy,” she said as she marched down those stairs in her stiletto heels, her smallish overnight bag in tow.
When she made it to the bottom of the stairs, she hugged her son. “Good morning,” she said, which he knew was her way of making up for the tension last night.
“Good morning, Mother,” Hawk said, returning her hug.
His mother, with her arm still around his waist, forced him to walk with her into the living room where Janita sat. Janita stood up by the time they made it up to her.
