Make You Mine (16 page)

Caress shivered instantly as she cleared her throat and smoothed her hand over her curls. “In ten minutes?” she asked.

“Make it five.”

 

Jordan walked up to Dwayne, Tamara, Kendrick, and Mia sitting in Julius's reception area. “Has anyone seen the man of the night? His agent and publicist are looking for him.”

“I'm not sure where he is but Caress must be with him,” Tamara said, stroking the back of baby Justin as he lay across her lap sleeping.

“They wouldn't,” Jordan said, voicing everyone's thoughts of a rendezvous.

“Why not? We have,” Mia asserted as she looked up at her husband like she would love to slip off with him right then and there.

Jordan dropped his head with a smile as he massaged the bridge of his nose under his glasses.

Tamara handed the baby to Mia. “Bet I know where they are,” she said, rising to her feet and heading to Julius's office.

 

The steam on the bathroom's mirror was caused by pure body heat.

Caress sat back on Julius's lap as she straddled him. She smiled down at him with her eyes glazed and dazed from their steamy encounter. “Will it always be this good?” she gasped, still out of breath.

Julius nodded and swallowed over a huge lump in his throat as he massaged Caress's buttocks beneath the dress pushed up around her waist.

“What's the matter, Julius?” she teased as she eyed him still fighting for control.

Knock knock
.

They both froze as the doorknob rattled.

“Julius? Caress?” Tamara hollered through the door.

Caress held her finger to Julius's mouth as she climbed off his lap, being sure to keep her dress high until she cleansed herself.

“I know you two are in there.”

Caress rolled her eyes.

Tamara rattled the door knob again.

“What, Tamara?” Caress finally snapped in irritation as she stepped over Julius's lap to step next to the door.

“What are you doing in there?”

Julius wiggled his brows suggestively.

“Something's griping my stomach,” Caress lied.

“Well tell him to pull that something out, you couple of freak nasties.”

Still holding her dress up, Caress stepped over Julius's lap again to reach the sink. She frowned. “Mr. Perfection doesn't have any washcloths in his bathroom?”

“I have no reason to wash at my office.”

Caress dropped her eyes down to his now limp member lying against his strong and muscled thigh. “That's good to know,” she drawled.

“Shut up, girl.”

Grabbing a ton of paper towels and soap, Caress got to work while Julius looked on in amusement. “This is so not funny.”

He just bit back a smile.

 

“I want to thank you all again for sharing this night with me,” Julius said, looking out among his friends, loved ones, and business associates gathered in his honor. “I've spoken to just about all of you concerning how important my trip to Africa and this book are for me. Hopefully many others will understand, appreciate, and enjoy my vision of
Julius Jones: My Africa
. Thanks.”

Everyone applauded him before raising their flutes in a toast.

Julius's eyes sought Caress and it was her face filled with pride that meant the most to him. Life was good. He had the career of his dreams, a woman who completed him, a son that fulfilled him, and friends that supported him.

He truly felt blessed.

Two Weeks Later

Caress parked her car at the corner and quickly hopped out to gather Justin from his car seat. She just wanted to grab some diapers for the baby and head home to start dinner. To celebrate the one-year anniversary of their first date—and the night they conceived Justin—Caress was cooking dinner for them.

Her motives for staying in and not going out were twofold. Besides it being more intimate and casual, she wanted to help Julius deal with her insistence on not moving in with him. She was happy in her little apartment and he needed to deal with it. He had come up with every excuse he could think of including acting like the area wasn't safe enough.

Caress held Justin's carrier with one arm and entered the corner store that was convenient because of the location and the fairly reasonable prices.

“Hey, Mami,” Danny, the short Puerto Rican storekeeper, called from behind the counter.

Caress waved to him, avoiding the long, flirtatious stares he threw at her. She kept it moving, trying her best to maneuver through the cramped store with Justin's carrier. “Damn,” she swore as she looked up at the diapers on the top shelf. She set the carrier on the floor at her feet and tried to lift up on the tips of her pumps to reach one of the packages.

“Mami, you need help?”

Caress looked over her shoulder at Danny. “Yes, please,” she said, dropping back on her heels and stepping aside. “I want one of the green ones.”

Danny used a long pole with a handle to knock the package from the edge. It landed in his open hands. Caress smiled her thanks when he handed it to her.

She ignored the silly wiggling of his thick brows and turned to pick up Justin's carrier from the floor. She gasped in horror because the spot where he peacefully sat was now empty.

Caress looked left and then right, shoving Danny aside and dropping the diapers as she raced around the store. Her heart hammered. She felt nauseous. She had never been so afraid in all her life.

“What's wrong, Mami?” she heard him ask as she tore out of the store and looked up and down the street like a mad woman.

Her knees damn near gave out beneath her as panic set in.

 

Julius stormed into Caress's apartment feeling strangled by fear. Kendrick walked up to him. “Damn, man. You must've flown from New York,” he said.

“Any news yet?” he asked, his throat tight.

“No, not yet. Come on man. Sit down before you fall down.”

Julius allowed Kendrick to lead him to a chair by the front window. He saw Caress talking to a police detective with Tamara close at her side.

“How could this happen?” he asked again, trying to make sense of his son being snatched right under Caress's nose.

He felt like he was being kicked by twelve mules in the gut and nuts. He looked over at Caress again but then looked away.

“The police want to talk to you too,” Kendrick told him.

Julius nodded as if it all made sense. But it didn't. None of it did.

He thought about his son out there with a stranger. Or worse.

He closed his eyes and lowered his head in prayer for Justin's safe return.

 

The mood of the apartment was somber and as dark as the approaching nightfall. Caress sat unmoving on the sofa with one of Justin's blankets clutched to her chest. She was numb and filled with all of the what-ifs and the guilt and the regrets. It was a horrible, horrible nightmare and she wished someone would pinch her and wake her up.

Caress looked up as Tamara lightly patted her thigh and handed her a cup of coffee. She shook her head in refusal and allowed herself to get lost in the numbness.

The Newark Police Department had nearly taken over the block, particularly the corner store. They were canvassing the neighborhood for any possible witnesses and had already called in the missing persons division of the FBI.

Someone had stolen her baby, and though Caress felt like her mind was slipping and sending her close to the edge of insanity, she knew she had to fight and hold on.

But what if she never saw her beautiful Justin again?

 

“Rock a bye baby on the treetop…”

Her thin hands pulled the baby out of his carrier and onto her lap where she sat on the floor of the sparsely furnished apartment. He cooed up at her and she smiled back, feeling love for him fill her like a hot meal.

“You're all mine now,” she told him in an eerily soft voice, rocking her frame back and forth as she continued to sing to him softly.

 

Tamara eyed Julius and Caress in concern as she stood by Kendrick's side in the kitchen. “They haven't hardly said a word to each other,” Tamara whispered to him.

Kendrick also eyed Caress forlorn and lost within herself on the couch while Julius stoically sat far across the room from her.

It didn't bode well.

Not well at all.

 

“This is Sara Martin reporting here from Santos Bodega where a three month old baby was kidnapped today…”

“Humph.”

Julius grabbed the remote and turned the television off with a click.

Caress's swollen and red eyes shifted from the television to him. “You blame me, don't you?” she asked in a quiet and ominous voice as she looked at him across the dimly lit room.

Julius didn't look at her as he fixed his gaze out the window instead. “It's not the time for that, Caress,” was his hardened reply.

Her eyes blazed and her face twisted in anger as she roughly sat her bottom on the edge of the sofa to point her finger accusingly at herself. “You think I don't know it's my fault, Mr. High and Mighty Julius Jones? And now I have to sit here with your ass playing holier than thou and not talking to me? You think I need your…your…shit right now?” she roared, spit flying from her mouth as tears raced down her cheeks.

Tamara stood up and moved in the center of their line of vision. “Don't do this. You need each other more than ever right now,” she warned them.

Julius leaned to the right to look past Tamara to lock eyes with Caress. “My son needed his mother to keep him safe,” he said coldly.

“Julius!” Tamara said sharply in reprimand.

For an instant, pain filled Caress's eyes. Sharp, piercing, tumultuous pain. Quickly she masked the extra hurt his words caused. “Get out! Get out! GET OUT! GET OUT!” Caress screamed at the top of her lungs as she beat her fists down on the top of her knees.

There was no denying the regret on Julius's face as he rose to his feet.

Caress began reaching for the what-nots on her coffee table and throwing them at him. An angel crashed against the wall before Tamara snatched her arm down.

Kendrick jumped to his feet. “Enough!” he roared, in a rare show of anger that made everyone pause.

The figurine she held dropped to the floor before Caress flopped down to the sofa, covering her face with her hands.

Julius rammed his hands into his pockets with his jaw clenching and unclenching as he paced.

Kendrick eyed them both. “This right here is a family and we all need to stick together.”

Caress sat back on the sofa and pulled her feet underneath her as she almost blindly reached out for Justin's blanket. She pressed her face into the softness and got lost in his scent. “Oh God, where is my baby?” she wailed as pain and despair weighed her down.

Her pitiful cries echoed in the still silence of the room.

Julius turned away from Caress. He wanted to comfort her but he refrained. Something held him back.

“I'll be back,” he said, feeling his own frustration and helplessness claim him as he strode out of the apartment and jogged down the stairs.

“Julius!”

He paused on the stairs and looked up at Kendrick exiting Caress's apartment. “Don't go, man. I know you're hurting just like she is, but if you leave right now—especially like this—you're gonna break something you might not be able to fix.”

Julius released a heavy breath as Kendrick continued down the stairs toward him. “I wish I could say I wasn't mad at her but I am. She shoulda been watching him.”

“I'm not in your shoes so I can only guess at how you feel, but you know Caress would never do anything to hurt Justin.”

“How in the hell could she not see someone pick up a big ass carrier and walk away with our son?” Pain twisted Julius's face at the mention of his missing baby. He turned and pounded his fist against the wall as he pressed his forehead to it. He regretted lashing out at her but in truth all he could think of was the absolute worst, and those thoughts made him feel like he wanted to get as far away from Caress as he could.

 

Caress welcomed the darkness and quiet of her bedroom. She had feigned being sleepy to be left alone, but now the loneliness was frightening.

Guilt plagued her enough—wondering whether Justin was warm, safe, fed, and loved—and Julius's distance and coldness weighed her down even more.

If only she hadn't stopped at that store.

If only she had watched Justin constantly.

If only…

If only…

If only…

Her stomach growled in hunger, but Caress pushed it aside. She couldn't eat not knowing if her baby was hungry as well. It had been hours since he was snatched.

Caress looked over her shoulder as the bedroom door slowly opened. She knew from the silhouette that it was Julius. “What do you want?” she asked, her voice as lifeless and listless as she felt.

He leaned against the wall by the door, still covered by darkness. “The FBI just left. They needed photos of the baby,” he told her.

Caress just turned and faced the wall, saying nothing.

“Caress—”

“Don't, Julius, just don't.”

He stood there a while longer before turning and quietly leaving the room without another word.

 

She sat with her back pressed to the corner as she eyed the baby sitting crying in his car seat. The smell of his soiled diaper filled the air along with his cries.

She had tried everything she could think of to stop him from crying and nothing worked.

She pulled her knees to her chest and pressed her hands to her ears as she squeezed her eyes shut as tightly as she could. She just wanted the crying to stop.

 

Julius nursed the glass of cognac he was sipping while Kendrick mainly twisted his glass around on the table. It was nearly two in the morning and no one in the apartment was asleep. Tamara was in the bedroom with Caress while Kendrick and Julius were in the living room.

“Thanks for being here with us,” Julius told him.

“We're family, man, and we wouldn't want to be anywhere else when my little godson comes home.”

“If he…if something—”

Kendrick shook his head. “Don't even think that way.”

Julius nodded his head even though the thoughts remained.

“I just can't believe no one saw anything,” Julius said in frustration.

“The person must have run out of the store and right into a car,” Kendrick theorized.

A high-pitched scream pierced the air.

Julius and Kendrick both took off to the bedroom.

Tamara was sitting on the side of the bed rocking Caress in her arms. She looked over her shoulder at them. “She woke up screaming,” she mouthed to them, motioning for Julius to come forward.

He shared a brief look with Kendrick before moving ahead to sit down on the bed on the other side of Caress. He put his arm around her, attempting to pull her into his chest but Caress whipped her head around and glared at him.

The look in her eyes pained him and he knew his earlier accusation had caused this reaction.

“Julius, just go home.”

“Caress, we need to talk.”

Tamara motioned to Kendrick, and the two of them left quietly, leaving Julius and Caress alone.

“Julius, please…please just go home,” she stressed, the anger gone. “Please.”

Their eyes locked.

Hers were filled with pain and anger.

His were filled with regret.

“I'm sorry, Caress. This is a horrible situation—”

“That I caused,” she said accusingly. “Right.”

His eyes shifted from hers just slightly but it was enough for his real feelings to be revealed.

Caress laughed bitterly. “You know sometimes you've made me feel like I'm not good enough for you but I really don't need you making me feel like I'm a bad mother.”

Julius dropped his head. “I never said you were a bad mother.”

“Whatever, Julius. Just get out my face right now,” she told him, lying down across the bed to clutch one of the pillows to her chest.