Set: A Novella (Them Boys Book 1)

by Alexandria House

  “Yes, Set…I do. I love you.”

  “Shit.” His voice quivered.

  “What?”

  He sniffled. “I ain’t think you loved me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m…I thought I wasn’t good enough for you. I thought you still saw me like everyone else does.”

  I moved closer to him in the darkness, so close that his body heat surrounded me. I kissed him, felt his tears as they rolled onto our lips. “Set, you are a wonderful man, a little savage, but wonderful, successful, caring, protective, and that dick? That tongue? I will cut a bitch over them.”

  He chuckled.

  “You’re laughing, but I mean it.”

  “Kareema?”

  “Yes?”

  “How long have you loved me?”

  “Probably since the first time you touched me. So, three years.”

  I felt him wipe his face. “Me, too. I’ve loved you that long, too.”

  “So you do love me?”

  “With my whole fucking soul, Kareema.”

  “Who else did you tell about us?”

  “Shu. Just Shu and Jah. I needed someone to know. I had to tell someone. You mad?”

  “No. I’m…I’m flattered.”

  “Good.”

  “Set?”

  “Yeah, baby?”

  “I’m glad you love me.”

  “I’m glad you love me, too. Now lay on top of me.”

  With a smile, I said, “Okay.”

  Set

  I woke up to voices, Kareema’s and someone else’s. The house wasn’t all that big and she’d left the bedroom door open whenever she left the bed, so instead of getting up to see what was going on, I stayed in the bed and let my ears do the work. But when I heard her say her daughter’s name, I threw on my sweats and a t-shirt and left the room, finding Kareema and her younger twin in the kitchen.

  “Morning,” I said.

  Two heads shot in my direction. Kareema’s concerned eyes softened when they fell on me. “Good morning. Set, this is my daughter, Tori. Tori, this is Set, the man I just told you about.”

  That shit made my heart skip like four beats. “‘Sup, Tori? Good to meet you.”

  Tori turned to look at me, and her mouth dropped open. “Wow, I mean, good to meet you, too!” She turned and mouthed something to Kareema that made her giggle.

  “And this is my grandson, Apollo,” Kareema informed me.

  I smiled at the sleeping little boy in her lap.

  “Apollo, Greek god. I’m named after a god too. A fucked up one, but you know.” I shrugged.

  “Sit down and join us, Set. I made breakfast. I can fix you a plate,” Kareema offered.

  “I got it. I don’t want you to wake the baby up.”

  Breakfast was cool, and evidently, they’d worked shit out before I got in there, because they were being real friendly with each other. All I cared about was that Kareema seemed happy. That was all that mattered to me.

  After Tori and Apollo left, I asked, “Y’all good?”

  “Yeah. She apologized because her getaway driver told her to. Guess he had second thoughts after helping her vandalize my property. He’s going to buy me a new set of tires. I’m not sure how, though, since he’s unemployed.” She sighed. “Anyway, she and him and his baby mama all sat down and talked last night, and all is well. Tori promised not to act up anymore.”

  “You believe her?”

  “No, but I threatened to take custody of her son if she doesn’t stop acting a damn fool. She’s actually a good mother to him, now. It took her a while to get the hang of being a mother but she’s good with him. Still, I’ll take him if I feel like I need to.”

  “Where was he when she pulled that shit yesterday?”

  “With his other grandmother. She’s a good woman, spoils him more than I do.”

  “Where’s his father?”

  “In the pen. Drugs.”

  “Damn.”

  “Yeah. Set, she said someone beat her dad up. You know anything about that?”

  “Word? Naw, I don’t know shit about that.”

  “I know you’re lying.”

  “Why I gotta be lying?”

  All she did was smirk at me, and I smiled at her.

  Shaking her head, she stood from the table and started gathering the breakfast dishes. I stood and grabbed the rest of the dishes, putting them in the sink and stopping her when she tried to go back to the table, turning her to face the kitchen counter and stepping behind her.

  As I buried my face in her neck and reached around to squeeze both of her titties, she whimpered, “Set…”

  “Hmm?” I asked, as I moved one hand from her titty and slid it into her pajama bottoms, finding her hot pussy and slipping a finger inside it. I moaned into her neck, my dick trying to drill a hole in my pants. “Your pussy feels so good, baby. I could play with this motherfucker all day.”

  “Uh!” she whined.

  I slid my finger out of her pussy and stroked her clit, making her jerk. “You gonna come for me, Kareema?”

  “Ohhhhh!”

  “Come for me, baby. I want you to squirt all over my hand. I want this pussy soaking wet when I slide inside it.”

  “Set!”

  I pressed my mouth to her ear as I stroked her clit faster. “Come, Kareema. Come, baby. Do it. Do it, baby. Come for me.”

  Her breathing was loud before it stopped altogether as she let out a hard grunt, and shouted, “Shhhhhhit!”

  Then she made it rain all over my hand, and I snatched her pajamas down. “Bend over, baby,” I growled.

  She did, and I drilled my way inside that pussy of hers that always made me work for it. Once inside, my damn knees buckled a little, but I held it together, leaning over her back to ask her, “Whose pussy is this, Kareema?”

  “Yours, baby!”

  “Whose?”

  “Yours, Set! Yours! Oh, shit, it’s all yours!”

  I fucked Kareema until sweat started dripping from my face to her back, not wanting it to end and wishing I could stay inside her until the end of time. I loved her so damn much it made my chest tight, so when that nut hit my ass and there was no turning back, I screamed, “I love you-I love you-I love you-I love you-I love youuuuuu!”

  “I-I-I love you, too!” she cried in response.

  14

  Kareema

  “…and this is Tori’s classroom when she’s not calling in. She teaches the four-year-olds,” I said, waving at Tori through the window on the door.

  “Aw, now. You gotta believe in her more than that, baby,” Set said.

  “I know. I’m trying.”

  Tori opened the door with a smile and chirped, “Hey! You caught us eating our snacks. Say hello to Ms. Kareema and her friend, everyone!”

  “Hi, Ms. Kareema,” the kids chorused.

  “Hey, everyone! This is my friend, Mr. Set,” I replied.

  “Hi, Mr. Set!” they sang.

  “What’s up, y’all?” Set greeted them with a grin.

  “Ms. Kareema? Guess what I wanna be when I grow up!” a very talkative little girl named Ashton asked.

  “What?” I said.

  “I wanna be a rock so I can throw myself in the ocean!”

  “Oh, wow! That’s…interesting, sweetie,” I replied.

  Set softly muttered, “The fuck?”

  “Ms. Kareema? Kaden said you having a baby,” little Undray informed me.

  Damn, I wasn’t exactly skinny, but I didn’t look pregnant, did I?

  “Well, Kaden is mistaken. I’m not having a baby,” I assured Undray.

  Kaden hopped his little yellow self up and ran to me. “Uh-hunh! You having two babies! See? One, two!” he advised, as he pointed to my breasts.

  “Kaden, go finish your cinnamon roll,” I said, quickly shutting the door and leading a laughing Set down the hall.

  “It wasn’t that funny, negro,” I hissed.

  “Yeah it was! Damn, little man said two babie
s!” He stopped, doubling over and clutching his stomach.

  “I can’t stand your ass,” I gritted, stomping away from him.

  “Wait, I’m sorry. Show me the rest of the place.” He was wiping tears from his eyes.

  Rolling mine, I responded, “That’s it. That’s all there is to see if my little daycare.”

  “This ain’t little, Kareema. It’s nice, real nice, but I knew it would be. I knew you was about your business.”

  Grinning, I grasped his hand. “Thank you, Set.”

  “You welcome, Ms. Two Babies.”

  “Ugh!”

  More laughter from his overgrown ass.

  Once in my office, he sat in the chair in front of my desk and slid down, opening his legs and propping his elbows on the arms as he watched me take my regular seat. “Hey, can we talk about something, baby?” he asked.

  “Not if it involves my titties being babies.”

  He chuckled. “Naw, not that.”

  “What you wanna talk about, then? How you’re about to eat my pussy in my office?”

  He grinned and shook his head. “Freaky ass. But naw, I was just thinking you’re probably gonna miss this place, huh?”

  I frowned. “Why would I miss it?”

  “Because you’re leaving with me. Tomorrow.”

  “Huh? What are you talking about, Set? I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Yeah, you are. I ain’t leaving you here in this fucked-up town. I can’t take care of your ass like that. Only so much Jah can do. Shu works too much to take up his slack. So you gotta come with me.”

  “Set, I’m not leaving my business, my daughter, my grandson! And even if I wanted to leave, you need to ask me, not fucking order me.”

  He cocked his head to the side, those sexy strange eyes glued to mine and making me want to climb over my desk like a cat in heat and swallow his whole dick. “Kareema, I don’t care if we have to bring Tori and the baby with us, you’re coming with me. I don’t care if I have to dig this damn building up and drag it behind a fucking eighteen-wheeler all the way to Vegas, you’re coming with me. I will pack all these little kids up and take them too, but you are coming with me.”

  I opened my mouth, then dropped my eyes to the top of my desk. “You love me that much?”

  I looked up to see him nod.

  “Set…I—”

  Before I could refuse again, he hopped up from the chair, dick swinging in his sweats. “Come on. I want you to go somewhere with me.”

  With my eyes stapled below his waist, I licked my lips, and said, “Okay.”

  *****

  I thought “somewhere” meant he was taking me to my house to screw me into agreeing to leave with him which, sadly, would’ve probably worked. So imagine my surprise when he pulled into a parking spot in front of the Eternal Waters Care Center—a nursing home.

  I was just about to ask what we were doing there when he jumped out of his rental and was opening my door in what felt like seconds. When I climbed out of the car, he grasped my hand and just started walking. The look in his eyes told me to keep my questions to myself. It wasn’t a look of anger or intimidation. It was a look of…fear, of intense trepidation.

  I followed him through the building as he took a path he evidently knew well, ignoring the staff’s greetings and finally ending up at room three-twenty. Then he just stood and stared at the closed door.

  I placed my free hand on his arm. “Set?”

  His head popped up and he turned to look at me, his expression one of uncertainty. He stared at me, his eyes portraying his love for me so purely that I wondered how I’d missed it before. I gave him a smile of encouragement, because something in my soul told me he needed it. In return, he nodded and opened the door, leading me inside to reveal an older man asleep in the bed with a petite woman sitting beside him.

  “Set?!” the woman squealed, but she didn’t move a muscle. Neither did Set.

  “Hey, Mama,” Set said, giving her a tiny smile and gesturing his head toward the man. “How’s he doing?”

  “He’s good! Well, as good as he can be. I’m just glad he’s still with us,” she replied. She was a pretty woman who almost looked too young to be Set’s mother.

  “That’s good. Uh, this is Kareema, my fiancée. Kareema, this is my mom, Charmaine Mitchell.”

  Fiancée? The hell?

  I was ten thousand-percent sure I was looking crazy as I offered Set’s mother a smile and uttered, “Um, nice to meet you, Mrs. Mitchell.”

  She rested a hand on her chest. “Oh, my! Fiancée? That’s wonderful!”

  “Yeah,” Set said, his eyes glued to his sleeping—or comatose—father. “Well, I’ma head out. Just wanted to check on y’all.”

  Still sitting in that chair next to her husband, half a room away from her son, she chimed, “Okay! It was so good to see you!”

  Then we left, my heart breaking for the man I loved as he led me back to the car.

  Set

  “Set?” she nearly whispered after we had climbed back into the car.

  “He has dementia, doesn’t know me anymore, so I’m glad he was asleep. I definitely wasn’t gonna wake him up,” I told her, answering a question I knew she wanted to ask.

  “Oh…”

  “We had to damn near force Mama to put him in there after he pulled a gun on her thinking she was a burglar one night.”

  I started the car and heard her say, “I’m sorry about your dad, Set. Why didn’t you tell me before now?”

  I looked over at her. “I don’t like thinking about him like that even though he fucked me up.”

  She lowered her eyes. “I understand, but uh…fiancée?”

  “Yep.”

  “Is that your way of asking me to marry you?”

  “I guess you could say that.”

  “Okay, but why would you tell your mother I was already going to be your wife?”

  “Because you are, ain’t you?”

  “Um, I…Set, I don’t…uh…”

  Reaching over to lift her chin so that she was looking at me, I asked, “You ain’t gonna marry the nigga you been in love with for three damn years, Kareema?”

  “Why did I tell your ass I loved you? I knew you were gonna use it against me…”

  “Yeah, you fucked up, but so did I. Now you know I love you and that you got my nose wide-damn-open. I can barely sleep when we’re apart. I’m ready to slit Shawn Thomas’s throat over you and to adopt and re-raise your daughter. Shit, you could ask me to cut my dick off and give it to you and I’d actually think about it for two or three seconds before telling you fuck no. You gotta marry me, Kareema. And you gotta move to Vegas with me.”

  “Well, if we were married it wouldn’t make sense for us to live in different states, but—”

  “See, that’s what I’m saying. So we gonna do this, move and get married. Or get married and move. The order don’t matter to me, but we doing it. We doing both.”

  “Set Mitchell, you are the most frustrating man I have ever known! How do you think you can just tell me what we’re going to do?! I’m a grown-ass woman!”

  “Naw, I ain’t the most frustrating man you’ve ever known. I know that ain’t true.”

  “Okay, second most frustrating.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I told you I don’t want to get married, Set.”

  “What the fuck does that mean? I said the same thing, but I’m about to marry your ass, ain’t I?”

  “Why can’t you move here?”

  “You know you don’t wanna be here no more, Kareema. I can tell you don’t.”

  “How?”

  “I just can.”

  She sighed.

  “I love you, Kareema.”

  “I love you too, but…”

  “But what? And the what better not be some bullshit about you not leaving with me or not marrying me. That’s not negotiable.”

  “Not negotiable?”

  “That’s what I said, ain’t it?”


  She blew out a breath. “Fine, I’ll go to Vegas with you. I can hire someone new or promote one of the teachers to run the daycare.”

  “And?”

  “And, where’s the ring, Set?”

  “What kind you want? My credit score is eight-thirteen. I got you, baby.”

  “You don’t already have a ring?”

  “Nah, I ain’t know we was getting married until I found out you loved me back.”

  “How’d you miss that?”

  “The same way you missed the fact that I will swim through lava for your ass.”

  That’s when she started crying, and I frowned. “What is it? What’s wrong, Kareema?”

  Shaking her head, she whimpered, “I never thought this was possible, that I could feel this way about a man and he’d feel the same way about me. I love you so much and…yeah, I want to leave this damn city and that job I feel trapped in. I love Vegas and your place and your gym and…why’d you want me to come out there so bad after we had agreed not to visit each other’s homes?”

  Damn, she was all over the place, so I reached for her, hugging her across the center console. “I don’t know. I guess I wanted to know how it would feel to have you in my space, my bed.”

  “How was it?”

  “Obviously, it was good, perfect. Uh, Kareema?”

  “Yeah?” she said into my chest.

  “I really gotta get a ring for you to say yes?”

  “No, but you do have to promise you’ll stop fighting.”

  “Fighting?”

  “The underground fighting you told me about? You gotta promise to stop that, because if you get hurt, I don’t know what I’ll do.”

  I squeezed my arms tighter around her. “Aw, baby. With you in my life full time, I won’t need to fight.”

  “Okay, then I’ll marry you.”

  “Good. Kareema?”

  “Uh-huh?”

  “You gotta stop crying so I can take you to your house and eat your pussy while I put my finger in your ass.”

  She laughed as she backed out of my arms and wiped her face. “You are so damn weird.”

  I grinned. “I know.”

  15

  Kareema

  Two months earlier...