Riding Dirty on I-95 (31 page)

T
hey stepped off the elevator and into Cleezy's suite. It was the largest hotel room she had ever seen. Even bigger than her three-bedroom apartment. It looked like Cleezy had made this room his home away from home. Mercy looked around at all of the shopping bags with items still in them and the clothes all over that place that still had tags on them. Hassim had put Cleezy on hold for the last five days because his people had him on hold, so Cleezy had made himself at home. He did all the things that Miami offered ballers like himself. He had been living like a king, shopping every day funning out of control, Jet Skiing, windsurfing, partying on yachts, eating and drinking the best money could buy. Being able to splurge in Miami came with lots of perks, including the occasional ménage à trois with some of the baddest bitches in the city that didn't cost him an iron dime because he looked and played the part. The broads had the disease to please, hoping to luck up and cash out on him as one of his long-term bitches. They felt like their pussy was crack. Their scheme was to give it away at first, just to hook a nigga, but then he'd have to pay. Too bad broads had it all fucked up, because Cleezy wasn't taking none of them hoes home.

Cleezy and Mercy rented a couple of pay-per-view movies and kicked it about this and that while catching up. Mercy took off her jogging pants and sat next to Cleezy on the couch, then got up to get herself something to drink and turned and asked, “C-Note, what you want to drink?”

“Look, baby, come here for a minute,” he said softly.

She walked over to him. She could tell something was wrong by the look on his face. “What's wrong?” she asked.

He grabbed her and put his arms around her. “Come here,” he said, embracing her with a warm hug.

She could tell that something was on his mind by the way he chose his words. “Look, baby. Please don't call me C-Note. I feel it's a form of disrespect when people call me that name.” He took a deep breath.

Mercy was surprised. She felt uneasy, but she tried to play it off. “I apologize, but when I met you that was your name.”

“Cleezy is my name now, and everybody calls me that, even my momma.”

Downstairs she hadn't really paid it that much attention. But this time the way he called himself Cleezy, with such strength and conviction, got her panties wet. It dawned on her right then and there: She had heard talk all over Richmond how Cleezy's name was ringing, but she'd had no idea that C-Note was the person they were talking about and that C-Note or Cleezy or whoever he was had been living a double life.

“Okay. I really didn't know, but if I am so special why I gotta call you what everybody else does?”

“As a matter of fact, you can call me Conrad. That's my government name, and nobody calls me that. Nobody.”

“Wooowww!”she
said, trying to be funny. “I feel so important.”

“You should always feel important when I'm concerned.” He leaned in to kiss her. Mercy couldn't help but to kiss him back.

Before she knew it his hand was down her shorts. At first, when he touched her private place, Mercy was almost embarrassed. She didn't want him to know how wet she was, how wet he had made her just by being him. He looked up at her.

“Damn, baby,” he said.

Mercy leaned in and began tonguing him to get his mind off of her wetness, but that was to no avail as he continued to play in it, only making her wetter.

“Take these off,” Cleezy whispered as he helped her slide her shorts down her legs and off of her ankles. Still fully dressed, he got on top of her and continued kissing her, his hand separating the two of them as he began fingering her. The faster he plunged his fingers in and out of her, the more Mercy groaned and ground herself against his hand.

Cleezy knew Mercy was on the verge of coming, but he wanted to be in her so she could come on his dick. He undid his pants and pushed them down just enough to pull himself from out of his pants and place it against Mercy's wetness.

“No, no,” Mercy said, pressing her hands against Cleezy's chest and softly pushing.

“What's wrong?”

“This. I don't want it to be like this.”

Cleezy sighed. “I feel you, ma,” he said as he got off of Mercy and zipped his pants up.

“You mad?” Mercy asked, afraid he would think of her as a tease.

“Hell, no. I ain't trippin' like that, ma,” Cleezy said.

“You sure?”

Cleezy looked down at Mercy, who was sliding her shorts back on. He then extended his hand to her to help her up off the couch. “Come on. Let's just go to bed.”

He turned the television off, then led Mercy into his bedroom,
where the two just lay in each other's arms. Mercy had her back to Cleezy's chest, and he had his arms around her. It was dark. Their eyes were closed. Neither spoke, but neither of them was asleep. They were too busy thinking about being intimate with one another. It was a feeling neither of them could seem to control.

Softly and slowly, Cleezy began rubbing his hand up and down Mercy's leg, causing chills to run all over her body. Just his touch made her want to come. She moaned and squirmed against him. She felt his nature rising. His hardening dick against her ass only made her wet all over again. Cleezy's hand managed to find its way down Mercy's pants again to her crotch. Once again, her wetness only made him horny.

“No, don't,” Mercy panted as Cleezy began to remove her pa-jama shorts.

“Come on, I ain't going nowhere. I promise, this ain't no hit-and-run.”

“I hear you, but whatever,” Mercy said doubtfully.

“It ain't about no whatever,” Cleezy assured her, pulling her face around gently, then reaching over to kiss her softly on the lips. The kiss put her over the edge, and it was as if that was the kiss that sealed the deal. Mercy turned over on her back and opened herself up to Cleezy. He dove deep inside her, drowning in her wetness.

“Oh, Cleezy,” Mercy moaned.

Cleezy paused briefly. He quickly rammed himself in and out of Mercy. She tried to throw her hips at him, but couldn't seem to keep up. She still felt good, though, good enough for Cleezy to explode inside of her.

Although the sex wasn't mind-blowing like it was with Paula, nor did Mercy have shit on the freaks of the week that he had encountered in Miami, Cleezy didn't care, because he and Mercy had something else. She was smart and funny, and he knew he
had found his true equal in Mercy. He wouldn't make a mistake again. The physical could come later, but it was the mental Cleezy was wrapped up in. They had great chemistry in every other way, and it was a meeting of the minds—a meeting that, if he could help it, would never be adjourned.

T
he next morning Mercy and Cleezy lay in each other's arms. Right in the middle of their pillow talk Mercy's cell phone rang. She looked at the clock and knew that it was Hyena.

“Daggone, I forgot I got to go this meeting,” Mercy said, pressing a button rejecting Hyena's phone call. She wasn't about to talk about work in front of Cleezy—not the work she was doing for Hyena.

“Let's get up and get dressed and go to the meeting, then. I'll roll with you,” Cleezy said in a scratchy morning voice.

Mercy didn't know what to say. Cleezy was pleasure. This was business. “Ummm, you can't go,” Mercy said straight out, not bothering to fumble for words.

“Why? I could just sit in the waiting room,” Cleezy said.

She slowly said, “It ain't that type of party.”

“What do you mean?”

“Look, I want to keep it real with you, but I can't right now,” Mercy said, getting up and going for her jogging pants.

“Mercy, you made me jump through hoops to make you understand how I want to be with you and now you tell me you can't keep it real. Who's gettin' played here?” He sat up in the bed and
looked at her. “This is some real bullshit, you know that, right?” He got up and slipped his boxers on and proceeded to the bathroom.

“No,” Mercy said, feeling bad, following behind him. The last thing she wanted him to think was that she was trying to play him, that she had somebody else she was kickin' it with that she had to get shit straight with.

Not realizing that Mercy was following him, Cleezy went into the bathroom, pushed the door behind him and proceeded to sit down on the toilet and use the bathroom.

“Listen, boo,” Mercy said as she barged into the bathroom.

“It's cool. Keep your little secrets and I'll keep mine. I know how I'ma carry it. It's cool.”

“Nooo …,” she whined.

“Shut the door, so I can shit in peace,” Cleezy ordered, and shot her an evil look.

She didn't follow his cold orders. She stood there as tears came to her eyes. She could hear the frustration in his voice, a feeling that was mirrored in her heart. “Look, my story ain't pretty, but I'll share it with you.”

“I'm listening,” he said. He looked up at her. “You know what? Wait a minute, let me finish this here.”

Mercy waved her hand across her nose, then exited the bathroom, closing the door behind her. She went back into the bedroom and sat down on the bed to try to gather her thoughts.

Her heart started beating fast when she heard the toilet flush and even faster when she heard him washing his hands. She didn't know if she should walk away and let their night together be just that, one night together, or if she should just come clean about who Mercy Jiles really was. That she wasn't the superstar success he thought she was, but that she was a broke bitch getting raped by some broad, her sister at that, who'd sold her a dream. A dream
that she'd bought. That she wasn't a strong stallion at all, but instead some fuckin' mule, a workhorse. It had been a long time since Mercy had given herself to a man, not just physically but emotionally as well, and Cleezy was indeed a mind trip. Did she really want to risk having him think that she was just another chick hiding a shovel behind her back, ready to go diggin' for gold? Mercy decided that she was going to have to tell him the truth. If Cleezy wasn't all talk and really wanted a real relationship with a down-ass chick—not just any chick, but her—then she was about to call his bluff.

Cleezy came out of the bathroom and sat down beside Mercy on the bed. She took a deep breath, then started her unrehearsed, from-the-hip spiel.

“Look, my daddy always told me to never confess to anything in this lifetime,” Mercy spoke.

Cleezy chuckled. “Word?” Mercy nodded. “That's the same shit my daddy told me.”

“For real?”

Cleezy nodded. “Okay, so continue.”

“Well, first let me say this: My daddy was my everything. He died when I was little, and my whole life changed.”

“I feel you,” Cleezy interrupted. “Mine was too. He passed on when I was little, but I remember everything—every single thing he ever told me.”

“Me too. That's sometimes what keeps me going. I know he's watching over me.” Mercy knew she had to change the subject because she was already on an emotional roller coaster. “Like I said, I don't confess to a damn thing. But since I'm trying to build something with you, I guess there can't be any secrets, right? But at the same time I don't want you to take what I'm saying to you and try to use it to your advantage.”

“Come on now, be real!”

“No, I'm just saying.”

“A'ight, well, just say it then.”

“Look, the people I signed the deal with, my script and all, they just basically fucked me. I'm broke. It's plain and simple. The fame always comes before the fortune. And with that being said, I had to do some things that I had no business doing in order to eat, you know.” A weird look passed across Cleezy's face. Mercy sucked her teeth and said, “No, nothing like that, nasty.” Cleezy let out a sigh of relief. He wasn't trying to get caught up in no déjà vu mess that would make him reminisce over Paula.

Mercy continued to speak, telling Cleezy the story about her dealings with Tallya and Benjamin from start to finish. He listened attentively as Mercy told him everything from the hotel scene with Raheem and him snitching, to the whole hotel episode when they tried to rob her.

Cleezy sat for a minute trying to take everything in. Mercy didn't know what to think. She didn't know what was running through his mind about her. After she was done, to Mercy's surprise, Cleezy took her into his arms. His embrace seemed to say: “Don't worry about it, ma, I'm going to take authority over the situation” and let her know he had her back.