Free From This Day Forward: Multicultural Romance by Cassandra Black Page B

meeting Loretta, something changed. Something about her presence made all those fears disappear.
     
    He wanted to get to know this woman.  She’d breathed life into him again -- and hope … hope for love -- and maybe hope for a future with someone who seemed to adore him as much as he’d come to adore her.
     
    Loretta had no idea how her invitation had made him feel. There had been a loneliness in Alonzo for a long time, and outside of the occasional sex he afforded himself by partaking in a long-time sexual arrangement he’d setup in a village forty miles away, he craved companionship and a real connection on a different level.
     
    Loretta made him want that even more. 
     
    There was a natural easiness to their interaction, and there was commonality in their experiences as parents that he didn’t realize he’d appreciate someone understanding until he met her.
     
    Their children were around the same age, and they were all immersed in their own young lives, as they should have been. But through their conversations, he knew Loretta felt that unique loneliness as a result of children growing up and moving on that he, too, felt as a single parent living in a suddenly empty nest. 
     
    Alonzo didn’t associate with too many people in town. It was just his way; he preferred his work over socializing. He found that he felt most at home on the vineyard, working with the crew, than he did in formal settings socializing for the sake of socializing -- which made his attending Velma and Malachi’s gatherings even more of a treat because they were casual and genuine.
     
    But Loretta made him light up. Being around her made him happy, and it made him desirous.  His loins were suddenly filled with wanton, borne from an unspoken connectedness, respect, and growing friendship, and stoked by the carnal hunger of a man lusting for a woman who makes his thunder rise just by being within earshot of her voice.
     
    He found himself longing to hold her, talk to her, listen to her, caress her gently, kiss her until her lips were swollen from his probing … and yes, longing to make love to her until she was tender from his passionate strokes. The fullness of her curves made his manhood throb with dizzying sensation.
     
    Little did Loretta know, he’d already taken her sweetness over and over again in his thoughts before he drifted off to sleep, and in his dreams many nights in his bed.
     
    He longed to feel her body under his probing strength.
     
    But Saturday, maybe a kiss, if she’d allow him. Loretta’s lips parting to his and the feel of her bosom pressed against his solid embrace could hold him. Just a kiss would satisfy him, for now.
     
     
     
     

Chapter 12
    The next morning, Loretta was awakened by her cell phone blaring.  Glancing at the clock on the nightstand next to her bed, she could see it was barely five a.m.
     
    She picked up the phone, still in a foggy haze. It was Brianna’s number. Her heart sank as she pressed the green button to answer.
     
    Something had to be wrong.
     
    “Brianna, what’s wrong baby?” Loretta said, sitting up on the side of the bed.
     
    “Nothing, mom, I’m fine,” her daughter sang.
     
    Loretta put her hand on her chest and exhaled. Thank God.
     
    She glanced at the clock again.  “Well what’s going on, Bri’?” she said, knowing it had to be important for her to be calling before daylight.
     
    “Mama, I’m so excited, I can barely sleep!”
     
    “Well what’s going on?” Loretta asked, wide awake now.
     
    Brianna took a deep breath and began.  “John wants me to come to Martha’s Vineyard for the summer, to meet his parents!” Loretta could hear glee in her daughter’s voice, as if she were talking to some of the girls in this new clique she’d joined on campus.
     
    “Well, that’s nice, Brianna,” Loretta said, not fully understanding. 
     
    “Mom, it’s more than nice . It’s the prelude to a marriage proposal. He wants me to meet his