Love Knows No Boundaries 3: Pandora's Box Read online

  She laughed at his comedic ways, then questioned him disbelievingly. “You’re shittin’ me, right?”

  There was no way that Elias “I Got All the Hoes” Dupree was being serious in her mind. He had to know wanting her required monogamy.

  Elias got up on his elbows and faced her. “Why? Is that a bad thing? Me wanting yo lil’ skinny ass to myself.”

  She blushed and buried her chin into her chest. “No. It’s not a bad thing. After all, I am wantable, feel me?”

  He muffed her forehead and she went backwards.

  “Hey!” She yelled out as she balanced herself from falling all the way back. She then got on top of him, covering Eli like a spider monkey. “You wanna play games, huh? Huh? You wanna play with me?” She laughed.

  He chuckled at her play punches before he pulled her body flatly on his. “Nah, I’m being for real. I want chu unless, that is, you don’t want me.”

  Her giggles went mute as she searched his eyes. It had only been a few months since they’d been kicking it virtually every day but something inside of her told her that there was no bluff in him. “I been wanted you.”

  “So, it’s official?”

  She shook her head up and down, giddily. “It’s official,” she confirmed.

  It was then that they shared their first kiss. A kiss that would seal the deal of a union Elias wasn’t sure he was ready for but nonetheless a chance he was willing to take. She was too amazing to stand by and watch another man have. He’d been there already with Samiyah.

  What started off as her pressing her lips upon his in repeat motion turned into a sensual lustful dance between their tongues.

  It felt incredible to him. He’d never been kissed so passionately before. Humming noises escaped her mouth as he began to pummel her ass, grinding it against his already hardened dick. The pressing need to take it there grew the deeper, the longer they were orally intertwined.

  After a few minutes of tantalizing tension, they broke their oral connection.

  He stared into the smile parading around in her eyes and asked in the sweetest way he knew. “Now you gon’ give me some of that cutty?”

  She burst out laughing. He knew how to go from Romeo the prince to Kermit the frog in the span of a second.

  Still on top but now sitting up, she sweetly said, “Wait for it. I’m worth it.”

  If his past with La’Tasha was going to come to light, he thought he should be the one to tell her. But how?

  It was obvious the sisters beefed over the smallest things and there was no telling how big this cat would be once released from the bag given La’Tasha’s need for theatrics and Blu inability to ignore them.

  He shook his head. He knew it was an omen to get into a relationship especially since his uncle tried to convince him to leave it alone.

  “You’re in a relationship?” His uncle squinted his eyes and uglied his face like he smelled something putrid. “Son, why you gon’ go and do something silly like that? You tryna protect the pussy or something? Make sure no other cat can lay pipe in it but you? You do know you don’t have to wife no bitch to make her pussy answer to you only, right?”

  “Nah, Unc, it ain’t like that.” Elias grinned because he could relate to his line of questioning and why his face held a look of shock. Choosing to make Blu his girl fucked him up in the beginning too. “Don’t trip. She cool peoples.”

  “Cool peoples?” He mimicked, shaking his head disappointingly as he walked up on his nephew sniffing around his collar.

  Elias leaned his head back and looked at him oddly. “What you doing?”

  Flint stood in front of him and grabbed his shoulders while looking him in the eye. “You smell pussy whipped, boy. Is ya?”

  “Never dat!” He answered quickly.

  Elias definitely wasn’t P-whipped because he had yet to break her off. However, he was caught up. She gave him the same school-boy feelings he had when he and Samiyah first started kicking it.

  He brushed those foreign spirits off of him back in the day and denied them heavily the longer he and Yah remained friends. And as a result of not keeping it all the real with himself and her, she was now married to another man.

  He reasoned it was probably in her best interest although it bothered him to officially see her chained to another by God’s law, but he also knew he wasn’t the jump the broom type of brother and she was the kind of chick that wanted a ring on it.

  Learning from his past, he didn’t want to make the same mistake with Blu, so he chose to make her his. Besides, it was too late to make noise over Samiyah now if he wanted to.

  When Eli came out of his own thoughts, he caught the tail end of his uncle’s sermon on women and why they were only good for a night or two.

  “Relationships are cancer, son. It starts in your heart but then it travels up to your head and makes you stupid as fuck if you don’t cut that thumping lil’ piece of shit out of you before it spreads.”

  Since a youth, Elias took every word his uncle said as gospel and he listened to music that further perpetuated a ‘love them and leave them’ lifestyle. So, choosing to settle down was undoubtedly going against every code he grew up respecting and clearly violating every verse The Geto Boys told him about bitches, but he had to go with his gut.

  Besides, Willie D, Bushwick Bill and Scarface were speaking of hoes and La’Tasha, not Samiyah—and not Blu.

  “I hear you, Uncle Fly, but ya boy got this.” Elias laughed as he extended his hand to G-dap the old pimp, pulling him into his square.

  Flint knew Eli better than Eli knew himself, so he felt, and that meant he was in no way a one woman’s man. Flint believed he could try to convince himself that he could be, but the truth was just going to have to set him free. He was a Dupree and Dupree’s were intended to fly the coop not be pigeon trapped in one.

  He shook his head one last time and then wrapped his free arm around his shoulder, hand still interlocked with his. “Relationships are the devil, son.”

  “Eli?” Blu tapped his arm. “Your phone has been going off non-stop. Aren’t you gonna see who it is?”

  He snapped out of his thoughts and looked at her blankly because he didn’t hear her question. “Huh?”

  She pointed down toward his side. “Your phone? Are you gonna answer it?”

  He then noticed the vibration on his hip and heard the faint buzz alerting him of a call. “Excuse me for a moment,” he said when he noticed the caller was Samiyah. He stood up from his seat and stepped off to the adjacent room for privacy.

  Blu watched him as he excused himself from the table, shaking her head at how weird he was acting. She wasn’t sure if it was his nerves getting the better of him or if it was something else. She’d ask him about it later but for now, she continued to carry on conversation with the family.

  “What’s up? My G-baby doing better?” Eli referenced Lil’ Acacia, his god-child. He knew Samiyah had been at Children’s Hospital all day and she would be calling to give him updates on her status.

  “Nooooo,” Samiyah broke down crying. “Shit just went south. Way down south.”

  Elias’ brows wrinkled and he stared off intently as he probed her for clarification. “Stop crying and tell me what’s up with my baby, man.”

  Samiyah’s body trembled so vibrantly her voice quaked as a result. “What’s up is neither Gerran nor I was able to give blood for her transfusion.”

  “Why the hell not? What’s going on?” He unknowingly raised his voice as he became worried for the baby he affectionately called Peaches.

  She took a deep breath and went full speed ahead. “I’m pregnant so I can’t do it and Gerran’s not,” she hesitated and then grabbed at her shirt, clutching it as if it would reduce the speed of her racing heart, “he’s not the father.”

  Eli’s eyes widened with surprise but before he could respond, Blu walked into the room and cautiously asked, “Boo, is everything alright?”

  “Hold on,” he addressed Samiyah and lowered
his phone. “I’ma step outside,” was all he said to Blu as he hustled through the house and out of the front door. He walked down the porch steps and stood out on the sidewalk. He put the phone back to his ear. “What you mean he’s not the father?”

  “It means exactly what I said. He’s not the father because—” she stalled. That made him antsy.

  “Spit it out, Yah!”

  She took a deep breath in and on her exhale she blurted, “Because you are!”

  Elias was flabbergasted. He didn’t want to hear her repeat herself so in full shock, he quickly removed the phone from his ear and sent it crashing to the pavement, shattering it into two separate pieces.

  Chapter 5

  “How the hell?” Elias spoke out loud to himself. He was dumbfounded and totally caught off guard by Samiyah’s shocking reveal. There was no doubt he loved her baby. He adored her as if she was his own but never in a million lifetimes did he expect to have a child.

  He stared off to the side of him, at nothing. “I’m a baby daddy? That shit don’t even sound right.”

  “What don’t sound right?” Blu walked up on him, noticing his broken phone. “What happened to your phone? What’s going on?”

  Now wasn’t the time to break everything down, and he wasn’t going to attempt to do so. Instead, Elias told her what he needed. “Look, run me to my house to pick up my truck.”

  That didn’t answer her question and based on how short he was being in his reply coupled with the distraught look on his face, Blu knew something was definitely wrong. “What’s the matter, boo?”

  Eli ran his hands down his face and the weight of his stress appeared suddenly. “I need to get to Children’s, ya heard me.”

  The baby! Something’s wrong with Peaches. She immediately understood his bothered disposition. “Why don’t we just go together? We can leave straight from here.” She stretched out her hand to rub his bicep in an effort to let him know he wasn’t alone.

  He moved away slightly as if her touched burned. “Why don’t you just do as I asked? Damn, bruh!”

  Blu looked at him strangely. He was harsh toward her and without good reason to be. She thought to respond to him snapping on her but opted not to. She didn’t want to make a bad situation worse by pressing him for answers. “Let me get my keys, then.”

  The tone Elias took with Blu brought tears to her eyes but she refused to let them fall, especially not in front of her already leery father and most definitely not in front of her hating ass sister.

  The moment she entered the dining room, she concealed her hurt. She headed toward her father, hugging him from behind, she kissed his temple.

  He twisted his neck to face her. “Blue Diamond, I know you’re not leaving already, are you? It’s just 6:41.”

  “I know, but something urgent came up and we took my car so I have to bring him where he needs to go.”

  “Well, do you at least have time for mama to fix you two a plate, baby?” Her mother stood from her chair and attempted to dash into the kitchen to make to go plates.

  Blu blocked her way, opened her arms and gave her a hug while she kissed her cheek. “That’s alright, Ma. We really have to go.”

  “Well, alright. I’ll just freeze you some and you can get it tomorrow or something.”

  Blu smiled and then said her parting words. “Love you, Mama. Love you, Daddy. See you later, sis.”

  La’Tasha pursed her lips. “Bye, La’Toria.” Then in a stuck up manner, she wiggled her fingers to wave bye.

  Blu put a pep to her step as she grabbed her purse from off of the sofa in the living room. “I’m locking the bottom lock,” she called out before she left out, closing the front door behind her.

  Elias was leaning against the passenger door with his arms folded, thinking.

  Yah trippin’ on this one. How could she be mine when I stay strapped? That’s right. We used condoms. Damn straight.

  A smile suddenly creased his lips but then it deflated just as quickly as it appeared when he remembered he did hit it raw to start.

  In an angry manner, he quickly slapped his hands together upon the realization that this wasn’t some sick November’s Fool’s joke. “Fuck!” he groaned out. “I am the—”

  The sound of Blu disarming the alarm on her car cut Elias’ talk to himself short. Without acknowledging her, he opened up the door and got inside.

  Blu rolled her eyes as she shook her head. The part of her that was anxious to know what his malfunction was wanted to drill him but she knew cooler heads prevailed, so she remained quiet as she started the engine and pulled off.

  The ride from her parent’s home in the eastern part of New Orleans to the seventh ward in the downtown part of the N.O. was a very silent one.

  Elias’ mood was melancholy. It was bad enough to discover Blu’s sister was the same broad on his shit list but to find out he was being forced into fatherhood was really blowing his top.

  So many thoughts were swirling in his head, zooming through his mental in the same manner the cars Blu surpassed on the I-10 as she pushed eighty miles to speedily get him home.

  “When it rains, it fuckin’ pours, bruh!” He complained out of the thin air.

  “What does that mean?” She glanced over in his direction but then realized he was looking out of the window and not at her. “Oh, never mind.”

  It was clear his statement was an outburst and not a pathway for conversation, so she officially left well enough alone. Blu pressed on the accelerator, hiking the speedometer to eighty-five to get him home and give him the space he silently and rudely demanded.

  Less than ten minutes later, she pulled up in front of his house. She wasn’t even able to place her gear into park before Elias opened the door.

  “Well, damn!” she blurted. What started off as concern, turned into anger. She couldn’t believe how tightly he was holding his lips. “What happened that pissed you off that’s making you take it out on me?”

  Eli paused for a moment and looked at her, really looked at the confusion displayed on her face. For the first time since hearing the news, he registered the shoulder he was giving Blu was cold. He wanted to apologize right then and there when he saw her eyes glisten with a layer of tears but he knew there was more to be sorry for, so he’d wait until later to say everything all at once.

  He leaned over and kissed her lips. “I’ma holla atcha, ya heard me.”

  Appalled by his reply, she stuttered. “Wha—what?” She then threw her hands up in a that’s it? kind of way.

  With his keys in hand, he got out and closed her door.

  Chirp. Chirp.

  The alarm to his truck sounded off before the shut of the door slammed behind him and the roar of his engine came to life. Blu watched him back out of his driveway and onto his street as he sped off with no apparent regard of the clueless state he left her in.

  She wiped away the one tear that slid down her cheek with the back of her finger as she shook her head slowly. Blu sat a minute longer as she made a call. Two rings and her best friend picked up.

  “House of Beauty. This is Cutie. What’s up, lil’ ugly?” Kanari joked as she blew a cloud of blueberry into the evening’s air.

  “Where you at, best friend?”

  Kanari detected the trouble in her voice. She placed her bong on the table and stood to her feet. “Somebody fuckin’ with us?”

  “No—no.” That brought a smile to her face. “I want to come by if you’re at home, is all.”

  She sat back down on her patio furniture, grabbing her Heineken as she folded her legs and sat on them. She took a swig. “Oh, I was ‘bout to say. But, yea, I’m home. I’m in the backyard so just come straight to the back.”

  “Alright. I’m on my way.” She pressed the end button and then slid her phone between her thighs.

  Blu looked over at Eli’s house for a moment, shaking her head as disappointment filled her chest before pulling off. She couldn’t believe how he danced around her questions but she’d
be damn if he two stepped the very next time they talked.

  Chapter 6

  G’Corey barely made it out of the park and down the block where the crack head rental he scooped from a clucker was stationed. Had Munch continued his chase, he would have been a dead man because he was fatiguing and growing dizzier by the minute.

  G’Corey tossed the empty gun into the bushes before he reached the car. He had no concerns of a ballistics’ team finding his prints because he wore gloves and the gun was hot, so no heat would come Black’s way for supplying him with the steel.

  Finally reaching the beat up four door, he slid into the Toyota Tercel and grabbed the keys he left in the ashtray.

  “Ahhhh! Fuck!” he groaned as he crossed over his body with his right hand to close the door. It felt like a bomb detonated inside of his shoulder.

  He started the engine then bit down on his bottom lip as his adrenaline decreased, his pain became blatant.

  He needed to get to a hospital but he couldn’t risk going to the closest one, so he swerved out onto the street to set out for a further one.

  Driving in the city was stop and go, considering the red lights and casual drivers on the road. Becoming very impatient with typical delays in traffic made G’Corey cross.

  “Come on, man. Fuck!” He yelled at the driver in front of him. His nerves were on short supply.

  “What the fuck was you thinkin’, bruh?” G’Corey asked himself out loud when he glanced at himself in the rearview mirror. Looking at his disheveled reflection, it was then he knew he hadn’t thought at all.

  He had no plan, only an impulse which led him to do irrational things he now had to make right if he was to win her back. And regardless to how slim his chances were, he still had hope.

  Killing Yuriah ruled out the possibilities of her moving on for now. And with much convincing, she would have no choice but to return to him. G’Corey wasn’t oblivious to Minnie being petrified, initially, but he decided he’d make her see that in a twisted way he did it for love.