“Are you done looking?”
Brick blinked in surprise at her annoyed tone.
“I think I can take my time to look if I want to,” he snapped. “So, what’s the story?” he sighed.
He slipped his hands into his jeans to ensure he kept his hands to himself. She had been all he had been thinking about. He couldn’t risk giving into the desire to touch her. Making a mistake in a dark room was one thing, but doing so in the light and in his right mind was another.
“My father,” she groaned.
“Yes, I’ve heard he can be pretty pushy.”
She rolled her eyes. “That’s putting it lightly. He’s willing to do whatever to save face and his crumbling business, even if that means marrying me off to a geriatric old man in another country to do so. That’s why I arranged for the pictures to be taken to bring shame upon the union.”
“Although I can understand your desperation, did it really take doing all of what I did to you to gain your freedom?”
She stared at him oddly for a second before she laughed. “Oh, that was just tequila and a little fun,” she waved, nonchalantly.
It was a good thing she looked away, or the expression that flashed across his face would have given her pause. He didn’t like her response at all.
“Listen,” she said at last, getting serious, “I know I’ve said it enough, but...I am so sorry. I’ll take care of my dad and put this to bed.”
“Hmm, you sound so sure.”
“Because I am.”
“And next time, what are you going to do, a threesome?” he snarled.
“That’s for me to figure out, not you. When our families meet, I’ll fess up to it being my plan and you just stepped into it,” she promised.
A strange silence came upon the terrace at the moment. It was as if the insects and the birds all retreated to leave the two alone. She tilted her head to look at him at a better angle.
“Why are you looking at me that way?” he smiled.
His grin had a strange effect on her. She noticed her body temperature had spiked.
“I was just thinking how nice looking you turned out,” she admitted.
He had forgotten how straightforward she could be. That was one of the things he liked about her. She wasn’t a bullshitter.
“I hope I didn’t hurt you when I…well, you know.”
“There is a lingering tenderness, yes,” she teased. “I guess what they say about the height of a man being a good indicator of his…” She let her words trail off as she took in his towering frame.
Brick tossed back his head and laughed. Her sapphire eyes widened. There was no expression he could have on his face that would make him look ugly. The murderous look from last night, to the stern look from today, to now the relaxed, giddy expression he had, all did nothing to tarnish his handsome looks.
In the sunlight, his ginger highlights that were mixed in his dark brown hair blazed brightly. She was happy that he wasn’t a full blown red head. She liked how his tanned skin complemented his green eyes. His perfect facial structure was manly with his tapered beard adding to his sex appeal. His hair was free of styling product which caused his hair to fall over his forehead and into his face. It was cut short on the side and back, with it longer on top like many men wore it. However, Brick wasn’t like many other men, she realized, as her eyes examined him from his head to his bare feet. The black V-neck t-shirt seemed to sigh as it stretched out over broad shoulders, a muscular chest, and arms. It was if he had been built for a comic live action movie or at least a male modeling campaign on the runways of Malian.
“Is that a tattoo?” Lakyta didn’t really want to see it. She just wanted an excuse to touch him.
He watched her as she reached out her hand. She ran her fingers slowly up his arm to push back his shirt.
“I have a few. It would be my pleasure to show all of them to you.”
Her hand froze while her eyes moved to lock with his. He reached out and drew her to him.
“There’s that look again,” he grinned.
“I’m glad to see that you’ve learned to say what you want instead of beating around the bush.”
His eyebrow went up at her meaning. He would have asked her to explain herself, but his dick was throbbing to the tempo of the blood rushing through his head.
“There are a lot of things I’ve learned over the years.”
“Oh?”
“Like I hate being teased. This back and forth is cute, but I really would prefer shutting you up with my tongue in your mouth or if you follow me, I could fill it with something that I promise to damn near choke the life out of you.”
Brick followed the tip of her tongue with his narrowed gaze. He let out a deep moan. He lowered his head as he captured her head to receive his kiss. She knew it was coming and she was more than ready. It was like flipping on 10,0000 volts of electricity when their lips touched. A kiss that started with his lips moving slowly over hers as he kissed her deeply, changed quickly into a frantic, passionate one. A chill ran down his spine when she began to suck on his tongue before she bit it.
The sound of someone’s voice in the distance started to annoy him like a bee that was buzzing around his head. Even still, he continued to enjoy Lakyta as she did him. He felt her body melt against his.
What the hell? the voice in his mind said. What the fuck is that?
That’s when he noticed that the bee that was buzzing wasn’t an insect, but a person. A person that was pulling back on his shoulder.
“Fuck! What the hell is it?” growled Brick, letting Lakyta go. It took him a second to come back to Earth to acknowledge the short man that was glaring angrily at the both of them.
“Get your filthy hands off of my daughter!”
“Brick.”
He glanced past the man to find his father standing in the opened French doors. He could tell that his father found the situation to be quite amusing.
“This is Cedric, Lakyta’s father,” smirked his father.
**
Brick sat across from the man at the large conference table in his father’s office. It didn’t surprise him that he instantly took a disliking to him and it wasn’t just because the man was trying to push him into signing away his freedom by marrying his daughter, but it was the way he treated Lakyta.
“I think that what we have just seen on the terrace proves that your son has violated my daughter.”
Olivia leaned across the table. “What happened?” she demanded to know.
“It was nothing. We were—”
“You were getting ready to fuck my daughter again, and this time for all to see, as if having those pictures circulating of you rutting around between her thighs isn’t bad enough.”
Brick’s gaze shifted to Lakyta sitting next to her father. He could see she was doing her best to keep her cool as well as her dignity.
“That might me so, but your daughter isn’t a little girl. The fact that she was even there proves her intent,” interjected Brick’s mother.
He glared down the table to stare at her before he glanced at his father. Forester’s jaw clenched to keep from embarrassing his wife by calling her out.
“Why Mother, I’m happy you have a change of heart and decided to be on my side,” said Brick dryly.
“Well, after what you said, I thought about it and realized you were right,” she responded, sheepishly.
“Humph,” he replied. He knew there was more to her about-face.
“It doesn’t amaze me that you all are closing ranks, but it won’t work. Now that she has been shamed publicly, and she might be with child—”
“I’m not pregnant,” shouted Lakyta, joining the conversation at last.
“And how would you know that?” spat Cedric. “You were drinking – no, drunk.”
“Because I was interrupted before we were able to finish,” answered Brick.
Forester took note of the change in his son’s voice and the heated glimpse the two of them
shared.
“I believe there was another man involved in all of this. What are you planning on doing to him?” questioned Forester.
“Oh, you need not worry yourself about that coward Dustin Ripley. I’ll make him pay for forcing my girl into doing what she did.”
“That was Dustin, from school? Shit, I thought he was gay,” chuckled Brick.
“I can promise you that he isn’t gay,” she remarked, hotly.
Brick pinned her with his gaze. “And how the fuck would you know that?” he grunted.
“I think we’re getting off topic. I want—”
“And he was just helping with my plan. He had—”
Cedric pulled on her arm, hard, to stop her from speaking.
“Shut up,” he whispered in her ear.
“I won’t let you do this. You know damn well that I—”
“That you set this up to undermine me. Oh, I know that it was all your plan, but if you fuck this up, I promise you, you won’t be breathing long enough to try another one.”
She backed up a bit to get a clear view of her father’s face.
“I can’t believe you would do this to me. You have two children, Father,” she cried in a low whisper.
“Yes, you keep reminding me of that, Lakyta. I have a son that I’m trying to pass on what I have worked so hard to build, and then I have you,” he replied in disgust. “A no good daughter that won’t keep her mouth or her legs closed,” he tilted his head and narrowed his eyes. “I don’t know why you were given to me, but I have you, so I’m going to make the best of you being here on Earth.”
“By selling me off to the highest bidder to save your ass and your pride?”
“That’s right,” he hissed. “And if you can’t do that, then there’s no need for you to continue to take up space.”
Cedric saw that she got the hint. He saw the fear in her eyes.
“What do you think my Muslim family will do back home when I send them the picture of you fucking that man, huh? Some of them follow that backwards teaching of the faith, so they won’t think twice of ordering your head to restore the family’s honor, and if they can’t find you, then they’ll just use another woman to stand in your place…a cousin, an aunt, or your grandmother.”
Both Forester and Brick watched the two as they mumbled and whispered to each other. They couldn’t catch every word, but they did hear enough to know that the man was threatening her to do his bidding. Forester glanced down the table at his son. He could see that Brick was close to jumping over the table to kick the shit out of the man.
“Lakyta,” Brick called out.
She leaned back from her father slowly to sit upright in her chair. When she turned back around, Brick saw the heartfelt apology in the depths of her blue eyes. He took a deep breath for what he was sure was coming next.
She focused in the grain of the polished wooden table as she spoke.
“I was drinking last night, so I wasn’t in my best of judgement. If I had been, I never would have ended up in the room with…” she paused to swallow hard. “In the room with Brick and in the compromising position we were caught in. Now, the marriage that was arranged for me has been called off, and my honor is in shambles. I know it doesn’t mean much to you, but it means no respectable man is willing to marry me.”
“Therefore, your son needs to do the right thing by marrying my daughter; since she was good enough to lay with, then she should be good enough to marry,” Cedric added.
Forester felt his wife’s and Cedric’s eyes on him, but his attention was focused on his son and the girl. He had made a promise that if he felt that his plan was a bad one, he would put a stop to it. He didn’t want to think himself to be cold and greedy like the man that sat at the table with him. That he would be willing to sell his boy out for capital gain. However, after what he had just witnessed, he had another reason to not back away from sealing Brick’s fate. He just hoped that the outcome would be a good one in the end. Now, he needed to get Brick to understand and see reason to go along with him.
Brick didn’t move a muscle when he heard his father agree with Lakyta’s father. His leg was moving in triple time as he shook it. He was starting to develop a headache from the force he was putting on his jaws from him grinding his teeth in anger.
“What did he say to you?” he inquired her in a strained voice, while the others in the room continued to talk all around them, unaware of what he had said. The fact that she just sat there with her head downcast was pissing him off.
“Honey, I thought we were going to discuss this together,” chimed in Olivia.
“As you can see,” Cedric stated in a rush in an attempt to keep Forester from changing his mind, “my daughter is breathtaking with her blue eyes. That’s very rare, I don’t need to tell you. And she’s educated, she has talents beyond what your son has already sampled, and she can cook, too.”
“Don’t forget she has straight, pearly teeth,” fumed Brick.
His father jumped to his feet.
“Why don’t we get a drink. Now that we’ve settled things, we can move into a more comfortable area,” he suggested.
He tapped the tabletop to get Brick’s attention to signal to him to fall back and stay in the room. He opened the door and stood aside to let Cedric out, followed by his wife, then just before Lakyta crossed the threshold, he slammed and locked the door shut.
She jumped back as if she was coming out of a trance.
“Sit down,” commanded Forester, pointing to a chair at the other side of the large room in front of his desk. He strolled over, sat in his big leather chair behind his desk, pulled out a tape recorder, and waited for Brick and Lakyta to take their seats.
“What did that motherfucker say to you?” growled Brick.
“He said enough. I’m so sorry. The truth is that it was all my—”
“I don’t give a fuck about that. I asked you what did he say to get you to change your mind.”
“He basically said that he would put a hit out on me if I tried to mess this deal up.”
“I see,” he answered calmly, free of emotion. “So, this is what you had to deal with?”
“Yes, a father that values the life of his son over his daughter,” she responded, matter-of-factly.
“But, I’ll find a way to—”
“No you won’t!” thundered Brick.
She leaned back to glance at him as if he had lost his mind.
“I know you aren’t going to marry me,” she stated in awe.
His father watched the exchange very closely.
“No, I don’t love you, but I won’t have your blood on my hands. We can come to some kind of agreement,” he replied, slowly.
He couldn’t believe he was even considering marrying her. The voice in his mind was screaming “no”, while his cock was hardening over the thought.
“Okay,” she nodded with a relieved smile. “So we’ll have an open marriage, then,” she suggested.
“Bullshit,” he spat. “If you’re my wife you won’t be fucking around.”
“So, you’re going to be fully committed to me?” she asked, doubtfully.
His father noticed how slow his son was to agree.
“Don’t worry, I’ll save a little for you,” she winked.
“Brick,” his father shouted when he reached out his hand to snatch her out of her chair.
“I want you tested to ensure you aren’t knocked up,” Brick sneered.
Her sound of shock echoed throughout the room.
“You son of a bitch. How could you—”
“You really want to ask that?” he questioned with his one eyebrow raised.
“Fine then, and I want you tested to make sure you don’t have the clap or something else that you weren’t able to wash off with soap and water. You did enter me in the raw when you thought I was that fuckin’ whore.”
Instantly, a wicked grin spread across his lips, making him look deliciously handsome.
“Can we p
lease make out the terms of this arrangement?” interjected Forester, taking opportunity of the silence. He could see that his son’s motives to agree ran a lot deeper and personal than worrying about her safety. Brick wanted the girl so badly, his father could feel it radiating from his body.
“Terms?” repeated Lakyta, in a daze.
“Yes. I don’t want you to have to go through what your father had been putting you through. You may be entering this family with nothing, but when you leave—”
“When?”
He held up his hand to try to keep Brick from letting his temper get the best of him.
“Yes, when…if either one of you choose after the agreed time to end the marriage, she will be a woman of means. I won’t have her tied to another man that doesn’t want her. So, for five years, on your anniversary, you’ll receive 100,000 dollars. You can be happy with that amount or you can use the time wisely by starting a business of your own to have. The choice is yours.”
Sweet Obsessions: His Beauty, Her Beast Page 3