Kept Secrets (Secret, Love & Betrayal Novel Book 2) Page 9

  Ari marched toward Maci; Jay was pushing Adrianne on the swing. With every step he made, his stomach churned and he had to breathe in order to keep his lunch from making a comeback.

  Maci turned to give him her attention.

  “I’ll do it,” was all Ari said, and he snatched Adrianne from the swing and held her to his chest.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Taylor was sitting outside the one place she knew she shouldn’t have been. Glancing over at Kalon’s loft, she shook her head. After kicking Kalon out her house, she had padded around her home wearing nothing but a flannel shirt and pants for days, satisfying her never-ending appetite with ice cream and pickles. Whoever knew those two foods tasted so good together. At night she pleasured herself with her vibrator. No one ever told her that your hormones would be like a raging bull. If only he had apologized. The nights she had lain awake thinking of him, he was probably thinking of someone else.

  “I’m not doing this,” Taylor muttered.

  She refused to be the first person to apologize. Kalon was still a player, but she loved him. For Pete’s sake, he was the father of her unborn child! She rubbed her tummy once and smiled. She hoped that she had a boy so he could be as handsome as his father, but after the accident she really didn’t care what she had as long as it was healthy. Right now she just needed self-healing, and Kalon gave her that every time she was with him.

  Taking her cell phone out of the center cup holder, Taylor keyed in a few numbers.

  “Hello,” Libby answered after the first two rings.

  “Can I come over?”

  “Huh? Ummm … I’m on my way out right now,” Libby responded.

  Taylor let out a breath. “A’ight, talk to you later.”

  Taylor needed her friend to talk her off the ledge. Libby was the most critical about her relationship with Kalon; and if there was anyone who could reason with her, it was Libby.

  Swallowing the lump in her throat, Taylor went into Kalon’s lobby, entering the elevator and pressing the button to the eighth floor. She thought about calling him first, but was too afraid that he wouldn’t answer … or worse, he would tell her to lose his number.

  She still had the key to his loft and coming to his house unannounced was a risky move. However, she hadn’t made it this far in life without taking some chances.

  Taylor unlocked the door and entered the spacious area, glancing around. The house was dark and only the city’s illuminated skyline put a little light in the place.

  “He could be here with another woman,” she mumbled softly.

  Love pushed her forward and she slowly wandered down the long, black hallway. She lightly tapped the door open and Kalon’s soft snore drifted across the room. She stood there for a second, listening to the sound of him sleeping, remembering how it was when he would wrap his arm around her waist and nudge his dick against her ass. She instantly became wet.

  Advancing on him slowly, she tiptoed over to his bed, praying that she didn’t startle him awake. Or that he would be frightened enough to snap her neck.

  Taylor tossed her maxi dress to the side, slid her lacey green thong down her legs, and unfastened her matching bra. She crawled on the bed, her breasts dangling heavily as she perched herself behind his back.

  He rolled over in a smooth motion that caused her to freeze. Taylor scooted back just a little to give him room. She had a naughty thought, and maneuvered to the foot of the bed. His dick wasn’t as hard as it could be, but it was still calling her name. Aiming her mouth to take him in fully, she flicked her tongue across the top, then swallowed him whole. Kalon aroused from his slumber with a start, and he grabbed hold of Taylor’s head with a blank look in his eyes. She raised her head slowly to stare into those gorgeous eyes.

  Kalon loosened his grip on the back of her head, and his head titled back the moment Taylor went back to giving him oral pleasure.

  She loosened her jaw muscles and deep-throated his dick.

  Kalon let out a roar she was sure was unknown to man. His penis grew larger as she worked to bring him to his highest peak of satisfaction. His body went into a convulsion and he trembled uncontrollably.

  Taylor smiled. In her lifetime she had never had any man to receive this much pleasure from her head game. She took her last suck and Kalon jerked his manhood out of her mouth. She placed herself on top of him, allowing herself to slide down his semi-soft member.

  Kalon let out a low growl before flipping Taylor on her back.

  She positioned herself to take him fully inside. Kalon didn’t move, but had her pinned down by the wrist as he towered over her. His gaze never faltered and neither did hers. She saw it again, suspended deep in his eyes that faint sparkle of love, but with Kalon’s history she could never be too sure.

  Kalon inserted his index finger in her core, finding her wet and ready. She reached between their wet bodies and stroked his dick fast and hard. He instantly became hard. Kalon entered her tiny frame, and as it happened before, no words were exchanged. The aroma of sex filled the air.

  The slapping of their bodies was the only sound in the room. His thrusts became urgent, and when she thought she was about to fall over the cliff, he brought her back, bringing her to the edge over and over again.

  Kalon kept her body in a frantic spell as he did with it what he wanted. He dominated their moves, kisses, and touches. The way he was pounding into her core, it was as if he was saying, Taylor had the nerve to bring her ass in my house unannounced and now I’m going to show her who’s boss.

  He rocked her back and forth, and when she tried to touch him, he positioned her hands back over her head.

  “Keep them there,” he warned her in a husky tone.

  She liked his dominant style, and just when she felt him losing control, she flipped him on his back. Taylor took him all the way inside of her to the hilt and rode him like she was riding a wild stallion. She bucked and pounced as her head stayed tilted to the ceiling. Kalon guided her hips to work with her rhythm, but Taylor was transfixed in her own world. She slapped his hands away and screamed her pleasure.

  Kalon climaxed as he held Taylor in place, and she stayed on top of him as they both shivered from their orgasms.

  She fell forward on Kalon’s chest. Wrapping her into his arms, he let out a long sigh.

  As he ran his hands through her tousled hair, she parted her lips to say something else, but what accidentally slipped from her mouth was, “I love you.” She cringed. She hadn’t meant to utter those three magical words; she needed to hear it from him first.

  ***

  Kalon let out a long yawn as he stretched his arms wide to loosen up his muscles from sitting at the computer so long. Hitting the backspace key, he deleted the last sentence he had typed for a new proposal he was pitching to a magazine company. He drummed his fingers on the glass desk and soon his gaze drifted to the side window, overlooking Lake Michigan.

  He couldn’t concentrate. Just when he thought he was making progress with Taylor, she reminded him that they were still at step one.

  Waking up this morning to an empty bed had left him frustrated. The late night creeping into his bed and the way she escaped that morning was leading him to believe she still didn’t fully trust him. This was the second time in their relationship that she had made a mad dash for the finish line while he was still jogging along. Maybe she felt the chase was over.

  Kalon scratched his beard, and then massaged his fingers through the short stubs. They still hadn’t talked about her marriage.

  Shit, I might be thinking ahead.

  Kalon still wasn’t sure if she wanted to continue in a relationship with him. She loved to have sex with him, but having something serious was still debatable. However, he still couldn’t shake the last thing she said as she drifted into sleep.

  The words I love you still rang in his ears.

  Maybe she was saying she loved the sex. Because she definitely couldn’t love him with the way she ran out last night.


  “Geesh,” he muttered, focusing his attention on his laptop.

  Kalon’s secretary, Emily, practically knocked his door down as she sashayed right up to his desk. Swinging a newspaper in her hand, she said, “You need to see this.”

  Kalon tilted his head to the side. “What? We’re not knocking anymore?”

  Emily slung the paper down in front of him.

  TMT Gossip Rag newspaper was known for celebrity gossip. It reported all the juicy, hot topics around the Midwest. The TMT Gossip Rag headline read: Mayor Briggs’ daughter recovering from the hospital with her lover. The huge picture below was of him kissing Taylor in her doorway.

  Kalon slapped his forehead. “Shit!” He snatched his suit jacket off the back of his chair and plucked the article off his desk. “Hold my calls and reschedule my evening meetings.”

  Emily wrote hastily on a yellow sticky note that was sitting on Kalon’s desk.

  “What reason should I give, Mr. Knight?” Emily yelled after him.

  “I don’t care.”

  Kalon made it down to the lobby as Ephraim was coming through the double glass doors, gesturing for him to go back inside.

  “You don’t want to go out there, Kalon,” Ephraim cautioned him.

  Kalon pushed past him and kept moving. “I’ll holler at you later, E. I got to take care of something.”

  The minute he cleared the glass doors, a crowd of reporters rushed at him.

  “There he is,” a female reporter shouted.

  Microphones were pushed toward his face from every angle, along with questions that came in rapid succession.

  “Are you the man in the photo?”

  “Did you know Mrs. Gallagher was married?”

  “How long have you been having an affair with Mrs. Gallagher?”

  Kalon turned and ran back into the building. The building’s security hurried past him to keep the reporters from storming the building.

  “I told you not to go out there, man,” Ephraim said.

  Kalon could only glare at Ephraim because he was too shaken and winded to say anything else.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Taylor worked from home. Morning sickness prevented her from getting out of the bed and to her office, but it certainly hadn’t kept her from wanting to be with Kalon. She had no excuse for leaving Kalon’s bed that morning. She woke up in a panic, so she grabbed her clothes and escaped like a squirrel chasing his nut.

  Sitting in an Indian position on her bed, she flipped open the laptop and scrolled to online sites to find medication to tame the queasiness. Taylor noted the medications on her iPhone so she could request them from her doctor on her next appointment.

  A reminder for her one o’clock appointment with her hairdresser flashed across the iPhone screen. After the sinful things she had done with Kalon the other night, her curls had sweated out and she could swear there was even more new growth. Picturing his sweaty body in between those sheets made her clit throb. Grabbing her water off the nightstand, she took a sip.

  Her stomach had grown another inch and she was sure someone was going to notice her protruding belly soon. She made a mental note to make a stop at The Motherhood Store to pick up some larger tops. She had to definitely dress in a disguise, if she was going to go into a maternity store. The longer she could keep her pregnancy a secret the better. Her divorce needed to become final, and then she would start planning her future.

  The ringing phone snapped her from her reverie. Taylor peeked at the caller ID.

  Damn!

  Her father’s office number flickered across the display, and she wondered why he was calling. He hadn’t spoken to her since she returned back home. Taylor picked up on the third ring. “Hello.”

  The bass of her father’s voice rang over the speaker. “Taylor, I need you to come to my office now.”

  She didn’t like the tone, but it did sound urgent. She sat up and slipped to the edge of the bed. “Is everything all right, Dad?”

  Mayor Briggs barked into the receiver, “Get here now, Taylor!” And then the line went dead.

  Taylor pulled the receiver from her ear and hit the end button. Her father had just hung up on her. He had never done that before. He was always calm, mild, and easy-going. Her mother was more of the irrational one and a loud talker. Taylor racked her brain on what could be so urgent to cause her father to act this way.

  “Oh well,” she mumbled on the way to the walk-in closet. She rifled through her clothes and picked out a grey sweat suit. Since this wasn’t one of her special dinners with her father, a casual outfit would do. When she slipped into her tennis shoes, she frowned, thinking, What could be so damn important?

  ***

  An hour later, Taylor sat fuming in the waiting area outside her father’s office. Usually she walked right into his office, but today, for some strange reason, she was being treated like a visitor. Mr. Fox had greeted her at the door and told her, “The Mayor will be with you shortly.”

  She didn’t know what was up with the formal introductions. Her father’s lawyer had always been nonchalant, but everything seemed odd.

  Even the office décor had changed. Now a few Chicago monuments hung from the walls—such as the Willis Tower, Buckingham Fountain, and Navy Pier—instead of the usual boring black and white paintings from unknown artists. Also, the wall colors were changed from beige to white.

  Taylor checked her watch, finding it was almost one, and looked at the closed door for the umpteenth time. She pulled a fingernail file from her Louis Vuitton bag and went to work. A manicure was definitely on her pampering list; right after she saw her hairstylist. Unfortunately, she wouldn’t make it to the hair salon if her father didn’t hurry up.

  She crossed the distance and was cracking the door just enough to see what was going on in her father’s office, when she was startled by the sound of the door opening behind her. Taylor looked over her shoulder and her heart slammed against her rib cage. “Kalon!”

  Mr. Fox almost pushed her into the wall when he opened the door to the inner office and said, “You two can come in.”

  Taylor tiptoed cautiously into her father’s office, and Kalon was right on her heels.

  Mayor Briggs sat behind an oak desk with a phone to his ear. His eyebrows were creased, and at the moment he resembled a pit bull ready to attack.

  Taylor inched forward so she wasn’t too close to Kalon, but questions were rolling around in her head. Why the hell was Kalon at her father’s office? How did her father even know about him? And how come Kalon didn’t seem to be uncomfortable with being here?

  Have they met before?

  That thought quickly vanished from her mind. There was no way her father could know about him. So the question remained, why was Kalon in her father’s office, and more importantly, why was he here with her?

  Mayor Briggs ended his call and stood. He walked slowly around to the front of his desk and perched on the edge. The click of the office door as it closed made Taylor look behind her. Mr. Fox had closed the door and taken his normal position—in the corner of the room with his hands folded—game face intact.

  Taylor and Kalon both stood in front of Mayor Briggs as if they had been called to judgment day.

  “Dad, what’s going on?”

  Mayor Briggs reached behind him and grabbed the newspaper, handing it over to Taylor. She stared at her father for several seconds before glancing at the front page.

  She gasped and her fingers couldn’t keep a grip on the paper. It floated to the carpeted floor.

  “Dad,” she cried, but he waved her off.

  Her father directed his attention to Kalon. “I thought we understood each other.”

  Kalon smiled at Mayor Briggs and asked, “Understood each other?”

  “At the hospital,” Mayor Briggs added.

  “Wait … Wait.” Taylor angled so that she was between the two men. “You two met in the hospital?” She glared at Kalon. “You were at the hospital? Why didn’t you tell me? All th
is time I thought—”

  “It doesn’t matter how we met,” Mayor Briggs interrupted her interrogation. “You’re married, Taylor. I told him to stay away from you.”

  Taylor flopped down on the sofa because the room had started to spin. She grabbed her stomach as her other hand flew to her mouth.

  Kalon ran to her side in a flash. “Are you okay?”

  Taylor removed her hand from her mouth to push him away, and her breakfast landed all over her father’s Persian rug.

  Mr. Fox called for housekeeping as Kalon held her hair back while she continued to heave. Mayor Briggs ran over with a garbage pail to catch the rest, and then handed her a paper towel.

  Taylor wiped the residue from her mouth as two Latina women walked in. Taylor lifted her head to rest on the back of the sofa.

  The two ladies wiped the rug down in a few spots. “That’s good enough, come back later,” Mayor Briggs ordered.

  “Do you need to go to the doctor?” her father asked after the women had left.

  Taylor shook her head. “It’s probably something I ate.”

  Kalon scanned her body, his gaze lingering on her belly. She pulled her hoodie down a little to cover her stomach.

  “I’m fine,” she muttered again.

  Kalon frowned, but helped to prop her up on the sofa. Taylor hesitated at first, but allowed him to help her sit up straight.

  “Why are we here?” Kalon asked.

  Mayor Briggs picked the newspaper up from the floor and turned the front page toward Kalon and Taylor.

  “This is why you here.” Mayor Briggs pointed at them both. “I knew nothing good would come out of you two seeing each other.

  “Now you can expect to be investigated by reporters. Both of you,” he shouted. “Taylor, I’m very disappointed in you. Not only have you shamed yourself, but you have shamed the family name.”

  Taylor lowered her gaze to the floor.

  “I don’t know how this is going to affect my next election. I expected more from—”