Her words were cut short by the sliding doors that closed behind me after I walked out of the lobby and into the cool night air. On instinct, I wrapped my arms around myself because it was a tad bit windy. Those Santa Ana winds were already starting to pick up, and it was only the beginning of September.
I looked back at the scene I’d just left and could see a couple of the hotel’s security guards trying to get Riana to calm down. By the way her arms were flailing around and her mascara was running down her face from crying hysterically, I could tell that she was still in her feelings about seeing me and about what had just gone down. I almost felt sorry for her, because I was the reason why she was now fatherless. Technically, it wasn’t I who had killed Doug, but I had had a hand in it. She’d never be able to prove it, though, and neither would anyone else, so I didn’t take her little threats seriously.
I stood there watching how everyone’s attention was now turned to her. Those same prying eyes were now focused on her instead of me. When a bystander started pointing in my direction after one of the security guards asked Riana a question, I quickly turned my head and started walking down the winding walkway that led to the parking lot, trying to get as far away as I could from the commotion and Riana’s crazy ass.
I scanned the crowded parking lot, in search of the SUV we had arrived in, with so many thoughts running through my mind. I made a mental note to tell Fee about the little confrontation Riana and I had just had in the middle of the hotel lobby. I had a feeling that Riana would be a problem in the future if we didn’t get Proof and his crew to handle her ASAP.
The cool night air caused me to shiver a bit. I wrapped my arms around myself again and sniffed the nippy breeze as it passed me by. After scanning the parking lot, I walked in circles for about twenty minutes before finally spotting the car that Fiona and I had ridden in. The driver was leaning against the driver’s door, smoking a cigarette and playing on his phone, when he noticed me walk up. He stood up straight and went to put his cigarette out, but I stopped him by shaking my head before he had the chance to throw it on the ground.
“I just need to get my purse out of the back,” I said and held my hand up.
He gave me a friendly smile and nodded his head, then opened the rear door for me. After grabbing my clutch from the backseat and checking to make sure all my things were still in it, I headed back to the party, though I did not really feeling like going back.
I’d just stepped off the curb near the hotel entrance when a blacked-out Tahoe swiftly passed me by, causing me to stumble back in the process. The driver slammed on the brakes, causing a crimson hue to light the space in front of me. When I lowered my eyes to read the license plate number and memorize it so that I could have Cowboy hack into the DMV’s system and suspend the license of the asshole who was driving the Tahoe, I noticed the truck slowly backing toward me.
My guard immediately went up, but it came right back down when a thought crossed my mind. Maybe this is a sign from God, telling me not to go back into the event. I mean, from where I was standing, I could clearly see the hotel entrance and the lobby beyond it. The little scene Riana had caused was now cleared up, and everyone was back to mingling. Something in my gut kept telling me that I needed to skip the festivities and head home, so that was what I decided to do. Even if this wasn’t my driver, I was willing to pay whoever was behind the wheel anything he wanted to get me out of here.
The car stopped in front of me, and without a second thought, I walked up to the back door, opened it up, and hopped inside.
“Can you please drop me off in Woodland Hills, off Broadway and Abagail? I’m willing to pay you whatever the charge is if you can do this for me,” I said.
Knowing that money talked, I didn’t even wait for a response from him before I leaned my body against the door, looked out the window for a brief moment, and then closed my eyes. My body was still covered in goose bumps, and I didn’t know why. That little mishap from earlier had scared me, but not that much. I had sat in silence for a few moments, wondering why the driver hadn’t begun to drive, when my stomach started to flip around wildly. The fine hairs on the back of my arms and neck began to rise, and my heart started to skip a few beats. An intoxicating fragrance I hadn’t noticed when I first got into the truck took over my senses and caused a low moan to slide from my lips.
I clenched my thighs together to slow the light thumping of my clit and to prevent my arousal from seeping out. What was really going on? The last time my body reacted like this was when I was near . . .
My eyes popped open, and I immediately sat up straight. I tried to calm my breathing and my thoughts, but nothing I did seemed to help. My first instinct was to run, but then I could sence a presence I hadn’t noticed before all over the back of this truck. I reached for the door handle, but a soft, warm hand lightly grabbed my wrist and pulled my hand back.
When I raised my head and looked into the rearview mirror, my gaze connected with a pair of eyes that I knew all too well and that had often invaded my thoughts of late.
With a dry throat and a trembling voice, I managed to say only one thing.
“You.”
Roman
I didn’t know if someone was playing a cruel joke on me or if God was really looking out for me. The minute she opened the door and slid into the backseat of the truck, my dick had strained to get out of these dress pants so that it could enveloped by her wet mouth or by the warmth I could feel radiating from her sweet core the minute her body reacted to mine.
My driver, Mike, and I had just pulled up to the charity event when I decided to ditch the whole thing altogether at the last minute. Surely, my father and my stepmother would have something to say about my absence, but I’d be willing to take a thousand tongue-lashings if it meant that I’d be in her presence again.
Those gray eyes stared into mine through the rear-view mirror and almost took my breath away. The light makeup she had around her eyes only made the green specks in her eyes pop out even more, pulling me deeper into this hold she already seemed to have on me. When she licked her lips, I damn near came on myself just from that gesture alone.
The way her smooth chocolate skin felt on my fingertips only made me want to explore her body even more.
She opened her mouth to try to say something again, but she was still struggling to speak.
I cleared my throat. “If you need a ride home, I’ll be more than happy to have my driver drop you off.”
She dropped her gaze from the rearview mirror to her wrist, which I was still holding, then looked back up at my face.
“I’m . . . I’m so sorry. I thought . . . I thought that this was my car.” She tried to turn and open the car door again, but my grip on her wrist tightened, causing her to stop.
“The offer to drop you off still stands. I don’t mind,” I said.
“I’m pretty sure you need to be inside the party, guarding your employer. I don’t want you to get fired because of me.” She looked me up and down with lustful eyes. “By the way, you must have some outstanding perks. Your suit looks like it cost a grip.”
My eyebrows furrowed. “Guarding my employer? Perks?”
“I’m assuming this must be the car that just dropped Roman Black off at his charity event, since you’re in here,” she said. “You are his bodyguard, aren’t you?”
Because I had decided to skip the party, I’d already removed my tuxedo jacket and thrown it in the back. The bow tie had been next to go, after I’d rolled up the sleeves of my white dress shirt and unbuttoned the top three buttons. I looked more like I was on my way to happy hour with some coworkers than to some fancy shindig. Had I had on some loafers instead of the patent-leather wing-tipped Dolce & Gabbana dress shoes, I would’ve assumed that I was an office worker. But a bodyguard? I couldn’t help the laugh that escaped from my lips.
“What’s funny?” she asked, pulling her arm from my grasp. I could tell by the look on her face that she was already missing my touch, but sh
e tried to quickly cover it up with a deep but cute scowl.
“No disrespect, but I highly doubt Roman Black firing me would ever happen. I mean, unless I decided to fire myself.”
She reared that beautiful head back, with a confused look on her face. “What?”
After turning my body toward her some more, I reached out my hand and officially introduced myself. “Roman Black.”
“Roman Black? Stop lying!”
“Last I checked, that was the name I was given at birth.” I still had my hand out, hoping she’d place hers in mine. I was missing her touch too, and I needed it now.
“Wait one minute.” She shook her head. “You can’t be Roman Black. I don’t remember the picture in the fi . . . ,” she said, trailing off.
“The picture where?” I asked, with one eyebrow raised.
She bit her bottom lip and looked out the window. “I don’t remember you having blond hair in that picture in Finance Daily.” She turned and looked at the top of my head. “Do you dye your hair or something? I thought you had dark hair.”
I felt the rumbling in my belly this time as I laughed. “To answer your question, no, I’ve never dyed my hair in my life. Always been blond and always will be, thanks to my green-eyed and blond-haired Russian mother. Now, who you might have me confused with is my brother, Benjamin. He’s the other half of the Black brothers, but with dark hair. He was also featured in that same magazine, but a month later.”
I could tell by the look on her face that she was thinking about something. Even when her lips started moving as she talked silently to herself, she was inwardly battling something, and I was curious to know what it was. However, that thought had to take a backseat right now and get brought up at some other time. I was more interested in getting to know her right now and seeing if she too felt this connection that we shared. The girl who had haunted my every thought since I first laid eyes on her was sitting right beside me, and I wasn’t about to let this chance slip away from me again.
“By the way, you look beautiful tonight, Mel.”
Her eyes snapped to mine. “How do you know my name?”
As I poured myself a shot of the scotch Benji had given to me as a congratulations gift this morning for the deal I had closed with another overseas investor, I told Melonee how I had come to know her name.
“So why didn’t you say something to me that day in the mall?” she asked as she accepted the shot I had poured for her. By the way she downed it in one gulp, I could tell that she was still nervous to be in front of me.
“Honestly, I was feeling the same way you were,” I said as I poured her another shot.
She tipped back the crystal tumbler and held the second shot of scotch in her mouth for a second, then swallowed hard. “What do you mean?”
I placed my crystal tumbler back on the bar and looked at her. “Does your stomach do somersaults whenever you’re near me?”
She slowly nodded her head.
“Does your throat get dry, your palms start to sweat, and the hairs on your arms begin to rise whenever we’re close to one another?”
Melonee nodded again, then poured herself another drink. “Arm hair and neck hair,” she noted before she downed her third shot.
I scooted closer to her, closing the small gap between us. “If I wanted to kiss you right now, would you stop me?”
“I don’t think—”
Before she could object to my request, I grabbed the back of her neck and pulled her face toward mine. When Melonee tried to say something again, I crashed my lips into hers and felt a jolt of electricity shoot through my body. I knew she felt it too, because the second it happened, her eyes opened wide, before resuming their sexy gaze.
Her lips were as soft as pillows and tasted so sweet to me. I couldn’t get enough. I deepened the kiss, then stopped when I felt her open palm run across my chest, then start to push me back. At that moment I knew that what could be the best kiss of my life was about to end, and after sampling those luscious lips one last time with a quick peck, I finally returned to my side of the seat and just stared at her.
I watched as Melonee touched her lips, then looked at her fingers, as if she could lick something off them to savor the taste of our kiss.
“Why . . . why did you do that?” she asked, still in sort of a daze. Those gray eyes remained focused on her fingers, but I could see the hairs on her smooth dark arms rise, right along with some tiny goose bumps.
“Honestly?” I shrugged my shoulders, then shook my head. What I was about to say sounded weird even to me, but I hoped she wouldn’t freak out too much. “Because from the moment I saw you, I’ve felt this pull or connection to you, and it’s only gotten stronger. I’m not sure what it is, so please don’t ask me why,” I said as I reached out and gripped her exposed thigh.
Sometime during that kiss, the hem of her dress had got hiked up, and I didn’t know if it was by my hand or hers. Either way, I didn’t care. I dragged my finger up and down her thigh and then continued on with what I was saying. “There’s something about you that I can’t get out of my body. In all my years, I’ve never felt anything for someone I hadn’t even spoken one single word to. It’s weird, but weird in a good way. Like something deep inside me is trying to tell me that you are the one designed for me.”
She locked eyes with me for a second, then looked down at my lips. I was far from a mind reader, but I had a pretty good idea of what she was thinking about. Subconsciously, I ran my tongue over my lips and regretted it the moment I did. Melonee’s taste still lingered there, which caused my dick to swell two times bigger than its normal size. The combination of the resistance of my pants and the indention of the zipper was starting to become too much. I needed to free my man or get out of Melonee’s presence. I didn’t want to freak her out any more than I might have already, so I decided that the latter would probably be best.
“If you still need that ride to your home, Juan will be more than willing to drop you off,” I said.
“José,” said the Rico Suave–looking driver, correcting me, after clearing his throat and shaking his head at me through the rearview mirror.
“Well, José can still drop you off. Where did you need to go again?”
For five minutes, we sat in complete silence, waiting for Melonee to say something to let us know what she wanted to do. If she chose to go home, I would have no other choice but to respect her wishes and make sure she made it there safely. If she decided to hop out of the car and go back into the charity event, I’d probably follow right behind her and endure the endless handshakes, pictures, and meaningless conversations with the other guests in attendance if that meant I could spend some more time with her during the night. I wanted to see what this connection we had was all about, and I refused to let her slip away from me again.
“Excuse me, Señor Black. I’m not rushing or anything, but has the lady made a choice?” José asked.
We both looked at Melonee, he through the rearview mirror and I from my seat beside her, and waited on an answer.
“Well? Have you decided on what you—” I began, but I stopped when those full, sumptuous, and delectable lips ascended to mine.
“I want to go wherever you want to go,” she said between kisses. When her tongue snaked into my mouth and wrapped around my own tongue, I lost all train of thought and any notion of whatever else was going on in the world.
However, I did feel the truck start to move and head out of the parking lot of the hotel. I was pretty sure José knew where to go, seeing as neither one of us was going to be coming up for air anytime soon. My loft was only twenty minutes away, and it was the only address he had for right now.
Roman and Melonee
I quickly scanned my text messages.
Q: Where are you, man? Everyone’s looking for you.
Benji: If you need me to step in for you, bro, you know I don’t have a problem with saving your ass again. Just say the word....
Dad: Do not embarrass me or t
he family like this, Roman.
Dad: Where are you, boy?
Dad: Maybe I should’ve appointed Benjamin as CEO, since you obviously have better things to do.
Benji: Don’t worry about anything, bro. As always, I saved the day at your charity event. Enjoy that hot piece of ass. I know I would if it were me. LOL
My eyebrows furrowed at Benji’s last text message. How did he know I was with someone? A female, at that? Trying to forget about everything going on outside this car, I tucked my phone back into my pocket after sending Marques a quick text and turned my full attention back to Melonee. My lips were missing the touch of hers, and I wanted to kiss her again, but she was going on about whatever it was she was talking about as my eyes drank up her beautiful features.
“I don’t know why I told you any of that,” she said, looking at me and smiling. Those alluring eyes pulling me deeper into her. “But there’s something about you that makes me feel so comfortable. And that kiss . . . that kiss . . .” She touched her lips. Those gray orbs, which were starting to become my favorite part of her, sparkled in the dimness of the car.
“I don’t want to be the one to brag or anything, but I tend to have that effect on people sometimes.”
She smirked at my response. “I bet you do.”
We silently stared into each other’s eyes as José drove down the coast, heading to my beach house in Malibu. I had decided to take her to my second home, away from the city, thus avoiding any chance of running into anyone who could interrupt this night, like Benji or my parents. Surprisingly, Melonee had gone along with the change in plans. At first, she’d just wanted to go home, but after we’d kissed, then talked for a while and realized that we did not want our night to end until we tried to figure out what this connection between us was, she accepted my offer to have a late dinner at the beach house.
I’d already called ahead and informed my staff about my arrival within the next forty-five minutes. They had strict orders to get everything prepared for us, then to leave the house for the rest of the night. I wanted to continue to enjoy Melonee all by myself, without any interruptions from anyone.
The Black Widow Clique Page 10