Chapter 13

As we got dressed for our cousin Marco’s funeral, Pee-Wee and I both moved in silence. At only twenty-four years old, he fell for the wrong man’s wife and was shot twice in the chest with a sawed-off shotgun. I was devastated when I got the news; I’d always looked up to my big cuz. Whenever he gave me advice, I listened. Even when he told me to watch Ren and Jasmine, I took him seriously - I just didn't follow through the way I should have. Marco left behind four children, two boys and two little girls, and all of his kids had the same mother. Marco and Jayla met in junior high and started having babies soon after that. Jayla was the kind of girl that everybody liked, including me. I had the utmost respect for her. Not too many women would put up with Marco’s cheating and late nights out with the fellas, but Jayla hung in there like a soldier.

“Boss, I can’t take yo money.” Jayla tried to pass the large envelope full of cash that I’d placed in her hand back to me. “There has to be ten or fifteen thousand dollas in here.”

“It’s twenty grand, and it’s for you and the kids. Marco was my cousin; that makes ya’ll my family - and I take care of my family.”

“I don’t know how I’m gonna raise four kids by myself.” She threw her arms around me and squeezed tight. “What am I gonna do without him?”

The church was empty except for me, Jayla, the kids, Pee-Wee, and my cousin’s body. Everybody else had long gone. All that remained were lost souls. We didn’t know how to move on. It was like being stuck inside a bad dream, one we were never waking up from.

“Jayla, you know my number,” I said, finally allowing myself to squeeze her back. “If you need anything, I got you. My cousin loved you. I know he fucked up sometimes, but you were his heart.” I tried my damndest to hold bknost to hack my tears, but I lost the battle. It finally hit me: my nigga was gone, and he wasn’t coming back. Jayla continued to hold on to me as I cried for the cousin I lost.

After the funeral, Pee-Wee and I headed up the block to Kitty's with the majority of the people who were at the service. Kitty’s was a local bar owned by one of the baddest bitches alive. Katrina Jacobs was twenty-eight years old with the face of an angel and a body created to make grown men cry. She was a half-black, half-Dominican beauty born in the city of Santo Domingo. She moved to the United States with her family when she was just four years old. Over the years, they moved from Miami to Atlanta, then to Memphis, before eventually settling in St. Louis, which had been Kitty’s home for more than twenty years of her life.

“Kitty, when you gon’ let me wife you up?” I toyed with the sexy vixen while she stood before me, refilling my shot glass with Patron.

“I don’t know.” She put her free hand up on her bangin’ hips. “Maybe when you quit fuckin’ with all these other hoes and come at me like you got some sense.”

Pee-Wee laughed so hard, he damn near fell off his barstool. My cousin knew I’d been wanting Kitty every since the first time I saw her. Her dark bronze skin and slinky black hair looked so good together. She was about five-foot-nine and somewhere around a hundred and sixty pounds. I studied her silhouette. She was thick as hell; just the way I liked. Her breasts sat perfect, and her round ass looked soft enough to bite. Everything about her drove me crazy – and it had been a while since I felt like that.

“At least come over to my place tonight and have a glass of Moet with a nigga.” I came at her like I never came at any chick before. “I know you can appreciate a nice bottle of champagne.”

“I prefer Cristal.”

“I thought you might.”

She was hard to get, but she wasn’t playing. In the all the years I’d been coming to Kitty’s, I never once saw a nigga get so much as a cell number. She owned her own business, dressed to kill, drove a hot ride, and always looked her best. She was a Boss Bitch, and she belonged with a Boss Nigga.

“I don’t close ‘til two,” she reminded me. “I ain’t goin’ nowhere ‘til then.”

And neither was I. I waited patiently for her for damn near six hours; for Kitty, I think I would have waited a lifetime. I recognized the hustler in her. She had enough workers there that night to cover her, so she could have left anytime she was ready - and I knew it. She just wanted to seeytianted t if I would actually sit there and wait all that time; it was a game I would have played myself. Kitty was in a whole other league than the broads I was used to bangin’. She had class and a bank account big enough to support that classy lifestyle without having to come up off of some nigga. It was time for me to step up my game.

It was a quarter to three when we finally stepped out into the cool night air. I opened the passenger side door to my carbon black metallic BMW 750 Li, but she wasn’t having it. Kitty was the type of chick that had her own and liked showing it off. So, I did the gentlemanly thing and walked her to her ride. Her two-door Aston Martin coupe was killing the parking lot. Watching her slide behind the steering wheel in those tight curve-hugging jeans was torture to my dick. It was time to get up.

We were both doing at least ninety on the highway. There was no traffic out at that time in the morning, so the highways flowed smooth all the way from the riverfront to the lake area. It didn't take long to make it back to my place. Kitty couldn’t believe my house, and it did my pride some good to finally have something that impressed her. That was my opening.

As I began to give Kitty a tour of my kingdom, I popped a bottle of Cristal and handed her a glass. She went in and out of every room but one: my bedroom. I couldn’t even get her to step one foot inside the door. She was going to be a bigger challenge than I first thought. If I didn’t think she was worth it, I wouldn’t even have bothered - but I knew she was my Boss Bitch...all I had to do now was get her to realize it as well.

After the tour, I poured us a second glass of champagne and led my guest to the dining room, where the Italian feast I’d ordered earlier that night was waiting. I knew the owner of Mariono’s well; I scratched his back, and he scratched mine. He never kept his kitchen open past eleven and rarely delivered his fine cuisine - but this was a personal favor. He owed me one; actually, he owed me a few - but if this went the way I saw it going, I’d be sure to invite him to our Boss wedding. A nigga was just that sprung; I hadn’t even gotten the pussy yet, and I was already trying to wife her up.

“You do this for all yo women, Boss?” she tried to act like she wasn’t impressed, “or you gonna try and convince me that I’m special?”

I pulled out her chair and waited until she took a seat. She didn’t need me to tell her she was special; she already knew she was. She carried herself like she had royal blood running through her veins. It was the pedigree I wanted in my bloodline. She was the kind of woman I wanted to be the mother of my children. I was starting to think about shit like that. What good was all money, the big house, the cars, and all the other perks if you didn’t have anyone to share it with? usere it wNow that we were alone in my home, I had the chance to pick her brain and see if the vision I had for my future was anywhere close to the one she had for hers.

I kept the dinner conversation light. We talked enough about ourselves to keep it interesting, but not too much that it got entirely too deep for a first date. It felt good to be in the company of an intelligent woman. Kitty had been places I’d only seen in magazines, and I listened like an adoring fan while she told me all about her adventures. She made me think about taking my own trips.

After our three course meal, we took the conversation into the living room and let our tired bodies relax on my custom ordered caramel leather Natuzzi sectional sofa. Kitty looked good lounging in my usual spot, and I didn’t mind; I’d have let her sit on my lap if that’s what she wanted.

Our third glass of champagne veered the conversation in another direction. I sat back and listened while Kitty told me everything I needed to know about her. She was married before (that much I already knew), but what happened and why she was now alone was still a mystery to me. I didn’t ask any questions; I just sat there with an open mind and paid attention while she told her story.

“His name was Christoff." She smiled as she began to reminisce. “Everybody called him Chris. He hated that name, ‘Christoff.’” She looked at me and laughed at what was obviously an inside joke between her and her husband. “I met him when I was seventeen. My mother hated him,” she laughed again, “but then again, my mother hates everybody.” Suddenly, the look on her face went from one of joy to one of pain. “Anyway, Chris was twenty years older than me, but our birthdays were on the exact same day. When I turned eighteen, he turned thirty-eight.”

“That’s why yo mama hated him,” I said, offering up my first comment on her history. “That’s a big age difference.”

“Yeah,” she agreed with me. “She thought he was too old for me, and she was probably right - but I didn’t care. I fell so hard for him so fast.” Tears began to well up in her eyes. “He saw something in me that nobody else did. He believed in me. He supported my ideas,” she said, wiping away the tears as quickly as they fell, “no matter how silly they were.”

For the first time since I’d known her, I saw the real Katrina. ‘Kitty’ was her front; she took her out and used her when somebody tried to get too close. It was the same exact way I used ‘Boss.’ He and Kitty were a perfect match; they were both coss.were bold and withdrawn. Katrina and Malcolm were different, though. They wanted more. I knew if I wanted something like I’d never had before, I was going to have to do something I’d never done. It wouldn’t be easy, though, to convince her that I was the nigga for her - not the way Christoff had her spoiled.

“We got married when I was nineteen,” she continued. “Two years later, he was gone.”

“How?”

“A brain tumor.”

When I felt she needed comforting, I took her hand in mine. The moment was perfect, and I could have made my move - but something stopped me. It was respect. I didn’t want to take advantage of her; she deserved better than that. If somebody was going to decide to take things a step further, I thought it should be her - and I was shocked when she actually did.

Kitty ran her hand up the back of my neck, then behind my head, then she slowly pulled me closer to her. Her lips felt like butter melting into mine; she had the softest mouth I’d ever had the pleasure of kissing. I leaned back and braced my body weight on the arm of the couch, pulling her back with me. She then climbed on and straddled my body. My dick was rock hard; her kiss was hypnotizing, and it didn’t take her long to pull me in. She was so passionate and emotional, two things that make a woman an incredible lover. There was so much heat between the two of us, I thought we were going to explode.

“Uhmmmmmm...” she moaned like a virgin when I finally pushed my dick inside her, “...go slow.” Her moans encased her request like two heavy, supportive bookends.

I was prepared to fuck her any way she wanted me to; if she liked it slow, then Boss was going to give it to her nice and slow - but as soon as she wanted more, I was going to give it to her like a Boss Bitch. She could handle it; she was already doing a damn good job.

Kitty began to roll her hips quicker and more deliberately. Soon, she was bouncing up and down on my dick like a professional porn star. I had never been fucked so good in my life. Girls were okay, but this grown woman pussy was the shit. If I’d known this all along, I would have been fucking older women way back in the day.

The dick was just as good to her; I could tell by the look of ecstasy on her face. We were both good on our own - but together we were like firewo ec like frks: we lit up the entire sky.

That morning, Kitty and I drank two entire bottles of Cristal. When that was gone, we moved on to something greener; she even made smoking weed look sexy. I had to fuck her again. That time, we took the party upstairs and went at it in my big comfortable-ass bed. She put me to sleep like a baby. When I woke up later on that morning, she was gone. For a moment, I thought I was trippin’ and had just imagined the entire thing; it seemed too damn good to be true. Women like that didn’t fall for niggas like me; it just didn’t happen.

But then I saw them: lying on top of my snow white satin sheets, I found her sexy little red lace panties - and knew I wasn’t trippin’. She was really there.

A nigga was grinning from ear to ear.