To Buy a Vow

by Chencia C. Higgins

  “Wait a minute.” He grabbed me by the hips and pulled me into the space between his legs. “Lemme see something real quick.” Then he shocked the shit out of me by rolling up my dress and tucking it under my bra, effectively exposing me to him. He slid off the couch, onto the floor then reached around me to palm my ass and bring me even closer to him.

  With his nose brushing the apex of my thighs, he lifted one of my legs and swung it over his shoulder. I gasped as my center of gravity shifted and brought my hands to his head for leverage. It wasn’t hard to guess what he had planned, and I was torn between curiosity and flat-out stopping him. I wasn’t a big fan of receiving head since Chris was never successful at it, despite my coaching, but I just wanted to see if Jermaine was about to waste my time.

  I didn’t have to wait long. Within seconds of me regaining my balance, Jermaine slid the crotch of my panties to the side and spread me open, peppering several lazy licks to my puffy lips. Occasionally, he would stiffen his tongue and dart it inside of me and I would gasp at the sudden intrusion but for the most part, he concentrated all of his attention on my outer stickiness.

  He took his time, moaning against me and devouring me unhurriedly as if he had nothing to do and there was nowhere else he’d rather be. I was slowly dissolving into mush right in front of him. Not only did it feel fantastic, but his obvious enthusiasm and expertise heightened my pleasure. He was slowly stoking the fire inside of me and finally decided to pour gasoline on it when his thick tongue brushed my clit. I nearly swallowed my own tongue and tried to jump back, but he held me tight against his face.

  “Uh uhn,” he murmured. He glanced up at me and held my gaze as he sucked my swollen flesh into his mouth. I cried out and my knees buckled, but once again, he held me firmly. His eyes fluttered closed as if he tasted the sweetest ambrosia, and I shook my head at the sensual image of him feasting between my legs.

  This was too much. The raging fire inside of me was building up to an explosion, and I didn’t know if I could handle it. I went from pulling his head toward me to trying to push him away. If he didn’t stop, I was guaranteed to die right here. He shook my hand away, and I gasped as he continued with the motion while dragging his tongue back and forth against me. My abdomen started convulsing, and I couldn’t stop the scream from clawing its way out of my throat as my orgasm hit me like an ocean wave. I collapsed against him and my last thought before I blacked out was that I understood completely what my granny meant by a man being dangerous.

  When I came to, I was in the most comfortable bed I’d ever lain in. I stretched and tried to observe my surroundings, but the room was pitch black. I sat up in a panic and hastily recounted my last memories.

  Oh yeah.

  The best head I’d ever received made me come so hard that I’d passed out. Jermaine deserved an award or a medal or something because that was some shit for the history books. My lips curved into a satisfied grin. Wait until I tell my girls about this. I scooted to the edge of the bed and reached out until my fingers brushed what must have been a nightstand. I felt around until I came across the familiar leather of my cross body bag. I snatched it up and searched inside until my fingers brushed my cell phone. A press of my thumb brought the display to life and informed me that it was just after one in the morning.

  Damn! I’d been knocked out for almost two hours.

  I turned on the flashlight and moved my phone around until I noticed the lamp on the nightstand. I switched it on and turned to get a look at the room I was in. It was a large but sparsely furnished room, with only the bed, two nightstands, and a sofa to break up the empty space. It might have been a guest room since there were no personal touches or mementos. I looked behind me to the other side of the room and swore when I saw a shape on the bed.

  I jumped down so fast that I felt a sharp spike of pain shoot up my ankle. The bed was on some sort of platform that raised it about two feet above the floor and the distance caught me by surprise. I limped backward and—putting my hand on the nightstand for balance—rotated my foot a couple of times to see if I’d done some real damage. Satisfied that I’d live, I brought my gaze back to that shape.

  Squinting, I realized that the shape was Jermaine, and I released a silent, relieved sigh. He was on his back with one of his arms bent behind his head and the hand of the other resting comfortably on his crotch. My eyebrows rose at that, but I couldn’t judge; I’d woken up with my fingers smelling like my precious kitty more times than I could count. Jermaine’s face was relaxed, and his breathing was even; he’d been asleep for a while, and I didn’t want to wake him.

  I dropped my eyes to the floor by my feet. I was barefoot, and I needed to find my shoes. They weren’t anywhere around the bottom of the bed, and I started getting frustrated. What the hell did he do with my damn shoes? After a couple of minutes, I just said fuck it and switched off the lamp, using the light from my phone to make my way to the door in the center of the wall opposite the bed. Once in the hallway, I was surprised to see that it was illuminated. There were small fairy lights along the baseboards, similar to those I’d seen lighting the stairs in a darkened movie theater. To my left was a dead end, so I turned right and moved as quickly as I could without making any noise.

  I came upon a wide set of stairs and descended them without hesitation. At the landing, I realized that I was just outside of the kitchen and a few feet away from the door that led to the garage. The light above the stove was bright and allowed me to see my way around the kitchen. The only problem was, I didn’t know where to go. From the outside, Jermaine’s home hadn’t look terribly large, but he didn’t give me a tour, so I had no clue of the layout.

  I willed myself to think of a solution and tried not to be distracted by the Bundt cake taunting me from under a glass dome in the center of the island. Oh! The garage was located to the side but near the front of the house. If I took the hallway in that general direction, I should hit the front door.

  Moving swiftly, for reasons that I didn’t understand but felt vital at the moment, I headed toward what I hoped was the front of the house. When I saw the front door by the light of my phone, I could have cried with relief. I disengaged the locks and pulled open the heavy door before stepping outside onto the porch. As soon as I gently pulled the door closed behind me, the gust of wind from the fifty-degree weather reminded me that my jacket was hanging in the mudroom.

  I swore and started walking down the drive, grateful that it was paved—since I was still barefoot—and wondering why the lights weren’t on. With one hand in my purse, wrapped comfortingly around my .380 and the other tapping furiously at my phone, I fumed as I realized that no rideshare was in service in this part of town at this time of night.

  “You gon’ have these white folks thinking you’re escaping a cult or robbing the place, barefoot and without a jacket.”

  My heart leapt into my throat as the low voice sounded right behind me and I jumped five feet in the air, turning around with my gun in my hand as I landed.

  “Whoa, shit! It’s just me!” Jermaine’s hands went up in surrender and his eyes widened in surprise.

  As soon as I recognized him—and my shoes and jacket dangling from his hands—I gasped, quickly replaced my gun and held a hand over my racing heart.

  “Oh my god, I’m so sorry! Are you crazy? Why would you sneak up on me like that? I could have shot you!”

  He shoved my stuff at me, and in a voice that was decidedly calmer than I would have expected after having a gun pointed at him, he said, “After watching you try to Mission: Impossible your way out of my house, I figured I’d better hurry up and get your home. Plus you forgot your things in my room. Thought you might want them, even though you left them.”

  “Thank you.” I quickly shrugged on my jacket and used his offered hand as support while I stepped into my tennis shoes. He nodded behind him, and I glanced over at the open garage.

  “C’mon, let me run you home.” Without waiting for me or ensuring that I wa
s following him, he turned and walked to the garage, climbing into the same car he had picked me up in.

  Although outwardly he seemed fine, somehow, I knew that he was upset and I realized that I fucked up again. I’d tried to bounce in an attempt to be on my fuck niggas, get money steez, but this hadn’t been that type of situation. Jermaine had brought me into his house, introduced me to his family, and trusted me not to exploit his privacy. Not to mention, he literally blew my mind with the best head on this side of the loop. He deserved better than this.

  I climbed into the car and waited until he was on the highway before I spoke.

  “I apologize. You showed me a really good time tonight, and the way I tried to sneak off was foul.”

  He didn’t say anything for a few miles, and I thought he was going to ignore me.

  “I appreciate you saying that.”

  I frowned. That was dry. “Do you accept my apology?”

  He glanced at me quickly. “If you need that, then sure.”

  “I need you to say it.”

  “I just said it.”

  I shook my head. “You said ‘Sure’. I need to hear you say the whole thing.”

  His eyes were trained on the road, but I saw his brows furrow, probably as he tried to figure out what my deal was. I don’t know what was wrong with me. I was feeling very needy right then and I couldn’t let him get away from me tonight without me making sure that I was good with him.

  “I accept your apology.”

  Turning my head to face the window, I smiled. “Good.”

  “You sure? Was that good enough?”

  Ignoring his sarcasm, I started to nod then hesitated. It was quick but he must have glanced at me at that exact moment because he caught it.

  “What else do you want me to say?”

  I chewed on my bottom lip for a second and glanced over at him. “I want you to say that you’ll invite me over again.”

  He tugged on his goatee. “I don’t know if I can say that. It didn’t really end too well the first time.”

  I sat up in my seat; that wasn’t at all what I wanted to hear, and I panicked a little bit. The little information I found on him said that he never went out—not rarely, but never—so the chances of me running into him again were nonexistent. The possibility of that was…undesirable.

  “Well, I never got my dick so…”

  He chuckled lowly. “Well, you had multiple opportunities so…I figured you didn’t really want it.”

  “But that’s not true!” I whined.

  He pulled into the driveway of Shanice’s house and put the car in park. With his head against the seat, he swiveled his neck and blinked at me slowly. I could see the exhaustion in his eyes and gratitude for him bloomed in my chest. He’d gotten out of his bed and driven me across town after I’d disappeared on him without a word, a note, or a text message.

  “That’s how it looked. I don’t make the rules.”

  I stared at him as he blinked once, twice, and a third time before his eyes stayed closed. Oh, hell no. I reached over and pressed the button on the dashboard to turn the car off. Immediately, his eyes snapped open.

  “What are you doing?” he slurred.

  I got out of the car and rounded to his side, opening his door and tugging him out.

  “You’re way too tired to be driving back. I can’t let you do that.”

  He blinked at me owlishly, and I thought he was going to argue but he just pushed his door closed and pressed a button on his key fob, causing the car to chirp.

  “You’re right. Just don’t think that this means you’re getting some dick. That ship has sailed for you.”

  I rolled my eyes, and I pulled him up the porch steps and into the house.

  “Okay, Jermaine. I’m just trying to keep you from falling asleep at the wheel and dying on your way home. We can talk about the dick you owe me tomorrow.”

  He chuckled and followed me into my room. Neither of us said a word once inside, just stood there staring at each other. Finally, he turned his back to me, and I quickly slipped out of my dress and into the oversized t-shirt I used as a nightgown before crawling into the queen-size bed. When I turned around, Jermaine was standing shirtless at the foot of the bed, wearing a pair of basketball shorts. His eyes closed, and he let out a yawn so loud, I heard his jaw pop. I grabbed his arm and pulled him down to the bed. If he fell out asleep, there was no way I’d be able to pick him up off of the floor. I pulled the duvet over both of us and rolled to my side.

  The bed shook as he valiantly tried to make himself comfortable in a bed that was entirely too small for him without touching me “too much”.

  “Just bend your knees,” I admonished quietly, with my back to him.

  He did as I said, turning on his side and bending his knees so that his feet only hung off the edge of the bed from his ankles down. His knees were right up underneath my ass, cupping my cheeks like his lap was a seat made just for me. My breath halted in my chest.

  “I can sleep on the couch, you know.” His words were drowsy, and I knew he would be asleep soon.

  “I don’t want you to,” I whispered. I wanted him near me.

  I pressed my hips back slightly and sighed contentedly when his arm snaked around my waist and pulled me flush against him. His chin rested in the middle of my head and his warm, spicy scent enveloped me.

  “Good night, Jermaine.”

  “G’night, Misty Knight.”

  I had no idea who that was, but I chuckled anyway. His whole body relaxed, his arm becoming heavy around me, and I knew he had fallen asleep. I should have done the same, but I couldn’t get over how comfortable I was, being wrapped in his arms like this. This was a dangerous place that I was in. Trusting a man so implicitly that I’d just met that I’d be at my most vulnerable around him was crazy.

  I didn’t even do sleepovers with Chris until he announced to everyone that we were a couple, and by that time, we had been having sex for two months. With Jermaine, I didn’t even hesitate to put him in my bed, and I was almost offended when he offered to sleep on the couch.

  Crazy.

  I was crazy.

  He was definitely crazy.

  Not only was I trusting him, he was trusting me, a woman he had just met, and he had far more to lose than I did. He didn’t know me from Eve. I could be one of those attention-seeking women who would video him asleep in my bed and post it online for the world to see. I could take the loving family interaction that I witnessed earlier and sell the story to the highest bidder. Someone would pay big money for that. I’d done an internet search on him before he picked me up. He was essentially a hermit in the entertainment world. No one knew anything about his life outside of what he did on the court. For a man who valued his privacy the way that he did, he invited me into his life without so much as a conversation about do’s and don’ts.

  He was crazy as hell.

  Had to be.

  Maybe even more than me because I was coming out of a relationship I had been in for almost half of my life, and he could only be one other thing if he kept dealing with me.

  A rebound.

  ♥♥♥♥

  When You Take What You're Owed

  I woke up before him. Honestly, I don’t know how he slept at all because he’d rolled onto his back at some point and his legs hung off the end of the tiny queen-size bed almost up to his knees. There was no way he could be comfortable sleeping like that. He’d adopted what I assumed was his regular sleeping position; one arm was behind his head, but instead of cradling his crotch, the other had stayed wrapped around me, keeping me tucked against his chest. I’d turned over as well, throwing one of my thick thighs across his waist and resting my hand over his heart.

  His hard planes and masculine scent coupled with the memory of his tongue between my lower lips had been doing wicked things to my uterus, and I couldn’t sleep through the constant clenching transpiring below. I tilted my neck back and observed him quietly. He’d told me last night
that the dick ship had sailed and I’d missed the boat, but he wasn’t leaving this house until I emptied his balls.

  I trailed my fingers lightly down his chest until I reached the waistband of his shorts and came back up. He didn’t move. Flicking my eyes back up to his face, I stretched and placed a soft kiss on his jaw.

  “Jermaine,” I whispered.

  Nothing.

  I tried again. “Jermaine.”

  He grunted. “Huh?”

  I almost laughed. His lips hadn’t even moved. The word came straight from his throat. He probably thought he was dreaming.

  “Can I have some dick now?” I punctuated my question by reaching down to gently squeeze the flaccid penis in his shorts.

  That got his attention. One of his eyes popped open, bearing into me.

  “Huh?” he repeated.

  I squeezed his now inflating bulge once more. “Can I have some of this, please?” I assumed adding a magic word would seal the deal for me.

  “You sure that’s what you want?”

  The early morning gravel in his voice was doing nothing to reduce the heat in my loins. I nodded my consent.

  He stretched and pulled his arm from around me to run both of his hands down his face. “I don’t know, man; this dick come with strings.”

  I froze mid-squeeze. “What do you mean? What kind of strings?”

  He hit me with the full intensity of his sleepy, chestnut gaze. “The kind you can’t run out on in the middle of the night.”

  Ah, shit. I deserved that shade because I’d definitely committed the crime but also… “I apologized for that.”

  “You did,” he acknowledged.

  “But?”

  He sighed and raised his gaze to the ceiling. “Do you remember when Fred said I was celibate?”

  I gasped, remembering the moment clearly because Ashton followed up with some BS that I threatened to shoot her for. “Are you seriously celibate?” I wasn’t going to judge him for it, but if true, it was definitely problematic because just as his dick continued growing in my hand, so was my own arousal.

  “Nah, he was fucking around with that shit. But it’s been a while since I’ve gone there with someone because I don’t do that casual shit.”