TornByLove by Marilyn Lee Page A

biggest blowout. After I tossed his loser friend and the hooker out of my house, things nearly got out of hand when he took a swing at me. I came within a breath of knocking him on his ass and kicking him out of my house.
    I wrestled him to the floor and promised him that if he ever took another swing at me, he’d be picking his teeth off the floor—after I’d pried my size twelve foot from his ass.
    Although I suspected he was probably as scared as he was angry, he didn’t back down. Neither did I and that was one long night. Somehow we survived it and the tense days that followed.
    We continued to have confrontations because he continued to challenge me. However, none of them carried the same level of danger we faced and overcame that night. Each challenge we survived strengthened our relationship. Before I knew it, he was eighteen and graduating from high school. And I couldn’t have been any prouder when he finished first in his class if he’d actually been my nephew.
    Much of the two years I’d spent battling with Mark had been hell but the pride I felt seated in the audience, made nonsense of all those rough times. Me, a guy who never wanted any kids or responsibilities had guided a rebellious, angry teen to graduate first in his class.
    He could have attended college anywhere he wanted. I wouldn’t admit it to him, but I was thrilled when he chose to stay in Philly and attend Temple University. I’d been half afraid he would decide to go to school in California in the hopes of connecting up with Dan again who we’d heard had married and had a baby on the way—all while pretending Mark no longer existed.
    The next years passed in a blur. And I was determined to give Mark what I didn’t have—a college degree. I worked long hours of overtime to put Mark through college so he could start his adult life off free of the burden of student loans. He repaid me by studying hard and graduating early, third in his class.
    Although he called me Uncle Paul, by that time I felt more like Daddy Paul, and I think…I know he felt the same. So what happened later was something neither of us expected. I couldn’t have loved him anymore if he’d been my natural son. So how had I come to hurt him so badly that his love and respect for me turned into hate?
    It happened when I met Marlena. When I did, my entire world turned upside down. When I met her all the so called truths that had led to my losing good women to other men ready and willing to commit to them were shot to hell. I fell so hard for her that I did the unthinkable—I damaged my most cherished relationship with Mark.
    The first time I saw Marlena Stevens, the last woman in my life had ended our relationship because I didn’t want to settle down, get married, and have a couple of kids with her. I’d been without a woman in my bed for several months so I was more than a little horny at the time.
    It happened in the supermarket of all places. I rolled my cart into another aisle and there she was. Every tall, beautiful, long-legged, big-breasted inch of her. The alluring white short set she wore highlighted what looked like miles of beautiful, dark skin the color of barely creamed coffee. Not quite full-figured, she had curves and pads in all the right places.
    She looked up and she might have walked out of my most secret and horny fantasies and into my heart.
    Her deep brown eyes seemed to look right into my soul and set it, my heart, and my passions on fire. And she had this sexy, beautiful smile that made me feel as if I were the only man in the world that mattered.
    Although I’d always had a thing for women with dark, luscious skin and deep brown eyes, I had very conventional parents. They weren’t prejudiced but just felt a mixed-race marriage started off with more problems than a same-race one. I guess a part of me kind of agreed with them so I’d never really done anything about my attraction.
    But when I looked at her, it was like looking at my fantasy