Chasing Darien ~ J.M. Stoneback

by J. M Stoneback

  I go to my son’s room, pack his stuff and place it by the door. I plan to give their clothes to Goodwill and leave the house to his grandma. I pack up the scrapbooks and pictures and place them in the trunk. As soon as we are finished, I drive to my lonely apartment. I never lived out on my own. It feels new not having someone to come home to, but it’s peaceful. I can take the time to learn more about myself. As I make my way to my door, Darien leans against it.

  “What do you want?” I say.

  “You.”

  “Not good enough.” I take my key from my purse and stick it in the hole.

  “Please.”

  “Darien, you don’t get to tell me when you want to deal with me. Or when we get to be together. Everything has to be on your terms. And if that’s what our relationship consists of, then I don’t want it.” I turn the knob on the door. “Now if you would excuse me, I would like to grieve alone!” I slam the door in his face.

  “Do you understand the math problem?” Tate asks me. We both sit at the dining room table, staring at my laptop screen. I invited him over because I remember a while back he told me that he volunteers to tutor undergraduates at NYU. I am struggling with college algebra, and he is good at math. So I decided to reach back out to him. We haven’t spoken since we hung out at the museum and he graduated back in December. Now he’s working for a firm as a corporate attorney.

  “I think I do. Don’t understand why I would take that class online in the first place.” I shake my head.

  He chuckles and says, “You’re brave.”

  I grab a strand of my hair and begin to play with the ends. There is an awkward silence.

  “I’m sorry about your ex-husband.”

  As soon as Charles died, friends and family flooded my timeline on Facebook with their condolences. It got so annoying that I deleted the app from my phone.

  “I’m fine. Are you seeing anyone?”

  “Yeah, but it’s not serious. Casual dating. What about you?” he asks.

  There is a loud banging on the front door, so I stand up from the dining table and pad to the door. I look through the peephole, and my heart beats fast as I see Darien. What the hell does he want?

  “Alana, open up the door. I can hear you.”

  I shift on my feet as my eyes burn with tears. God, I missed him so much. It’s been two weeks since I saw him. The one thing I hate about love is that the feeling doesn’t go away. And right now it’s flooding my chest, suffocating me.

  He pounds on the door again and says, “Sweetheart, please.” His plea pierces my heart. I exhale as I turn the lock on the door and open it. We stand there, looking at each other for a minute too long.

  “What, Darien?” My voice is barely a whisper.

  “I’m sorry, sweetheart, so fucking sorry.”

  Tate comes to the living room, and he looks between the both of us. “Is everything all right, Alana?” Tate asks.

  “Why the fuck are you here?” Darien’s jaw twitches and a vein pops in his forehead.

  “Darien, you need to leave.” My voice is firm.

  “We need to talk alone,” he says.

  “Fine.” I turn towards Tate. “I’ll be back in a second.” I follow Darien into the hallway and lean against the door. “You have five minutes. What is it?” I say, folding my arms across my chest.

  “Why the fuck is Tate here?”

  “Four minutes, Darien Casey.”

  “I made a huge mistake in breaking up with you. I was scared, Alana, that you would choose Charles over me.” His chest rises and fall as he speaks.

  “That’s your fault. You should’ve had more faith in me. You should have known my heart belongs to you, but instead, you took away that opportunity for me to choose,” I say, holding back the tears. “I would never have chosen Charles over you. Charles hurt me beyond repair, and even if he lived through his illnesss, I would have told him no.” I wrap my arms around myself. “You put me in the category of your mom and Mia, and you know how bad that hurt my feelings. To know that you don’t have faith in me.”

  “I’m sorry, sweetheart. Please take me back.”

  “No, Darien. I tried, and you broke my heart,” I whisper. “So please just go away.”

  Darien’s eyes glisten with tears, but they don’t fall.

  “Goodbye, Darien,” I say, slamming the door in his face. Exhaling, I flop on the couch next to Tate.

  “You want to talk about it?” He pulls me into a bear hug.

  “No.”

  Alana

  CRYSTAL SENDS ME a text message to meet her at a house in New York City. She wants to start house-hunting. Clarence has worked extra shifts ever since Ariel has been born.

  I pull up to a house on the outskirts of the city. Crystal’s car is parked in front of the black mailbox. It stands out in this neighborhood filled with mansions. The mansion has tall windows stretching from the top of the mansion to the bottom. It’s so beautiful. Her family is loaded like Gunner, so maybe they are buying this house for her. I get out of the car and walk up to the contemporary beige stone mansion. I open the chestnut double door.

  A woman’s voice echoes throughout the house as I make it to the kitchen.

  Darien leans against the counter speaking to a woman. My breath hitches at the sight of him. You ever look at someone and think, Gosh, I love him? Love everything about him? Yeah, that’s what I’m experiencing right now. I have it bad for him.

  I straighten up my spine, biting my lips, and say, “What’s going on? Where is Crystal?”

  “Excuse us, Miss Hudson,” Darien says. The older woman with white hair shakes his hand and leaves the room.

  He walks slowly to me, and my heart damn near jumps out of my chest. He pulls me against his body and presses his lips to mine and my stupid knees buckle.

  Pulling away, I say, “What’s going on? Where is Crystal?”

  “Crystal and I had a C and D mission.” He smiles.

  “C and D mission?” I cock my eyebrow at him.

  “Crystal and Darien mission. I got her to help me to pick out this house and to trick you to come out here.”

  “Really? Why would you do that?”

  “Because I want us to live together, if this is okay with you. I don’t want to try to control our relationship anymore. I want us to pick up where we stopped at before Charles came into the picture.” He rubs the back of his neck. “Will you move in with me? If you don’t like this house, you can pick out another one.”

  He grabs my hand and kisses my knuckles. I can’t stop grinning from ear to ear.

  “Darien, I love you. I don’t care where we live as long as I’m with you. And you don’t have to change for me. Just when it comes to big decisions, talk to me, open up. Tell me what’s going on. If we are going to be together, you can’t assume that I will leave you. If you start to feel that, let me know so I can reassure you that I’m not going anywhere.”

  He nods his head and kisses my forehead. “I’m sorry.”

  “Me too. Mrs. Hudson?” I call out. She walks back in. “We will take the house,” I say.

  “You didn’t even look to see if you like it,” Darien says.

  “I don’t care how it looks, we could live in a cardboard box for all I care as long as I’m with you.”

  She hands us the paperwork, and we both sign it. And we’ll move in two weeks from now. She leaves us both with the keys.

  As soon as Mrs. Hudson leaves, Darien swings me around and kisses me. He tears my blouse and buttons fly across the kitchen, clicking on the white granite floor. He unhooks my blue cotton bra and tosses it on the counter. He brings his mouth to my throbbing nipples, and I let out a moan. His hand slides up my skirt, cupping my ass, and the other hand slides in my hair. He props me up on the counter, hiking up my skirt to my belly and removing my panties. My bare ass presses against the cool counter.

  “Darien, what are you doing?” I say, moaning.

  “I’m about to fuck what is mine.” He unzips his pan
ts, freeing his erection, and he slides inside me. God, I missed the feel of his dick inside of me. Missed his touch, his love. He slides his hands through my hair and pulls gently and plants kisses all over my face.

  “You. Are. Mine,” he says, thrusting inside of me. As he fucks me raw, I wrap my legs around his waist and my arms around his neck. I bury my face in his neck, inhaling his expensive cologne. Warmth surges through me as my greedy sex milks his cock. Our eyes connect and I stare in his gray eyes. It’s the most intimate we have ever been. Something about this lovemaking is different, we made love before, but not like this. It’s like we are in tune with each other and our hearts are connected. Darien owns my heart and soul. As I climax, my sex squeezes his dick.

  “Fuck,” he murmurs under his breath as he continues to thrust inside of me. He pulls out and flips me over the kitchen island. My tits are pressed against the cold marble.

  Voice tickling my ear, he says, “Let me fuck you in the ass.” He smacks it and grabs it.

  “Let’s wait until we are married,” I say. “That way we can have something to look forward to.”

  “Okay,” he says. I feel him sliding back inside of me, and he wraps his hands around my hair, pulling tight as he thrusts inside of me. Warm come shoots inside me as he pulses.

  As I get off the counter, I grab my panties from the floor and slide them on, pulling down my skirt. I grab my bra from the counter, strapping it on, closing my blouse. We are breathing heavy and I watch him tuck himself back and zip his slacks.

  “I can’t walk outside with a ripped blouse, Darien,” I whine. He removes his soft brown cashmere sweater, handing it to me. I wiggle it on and it hangs very loosely on my body, falling to my knees.

  He shows me around our new home. Holy shit, we have twelve bedrooms and eight bathrooms, two kitchens, a man cave and two offices, a pool and a guest house in the back and a father suite for his dad. The mansion is bare, it’s going to take a lot of work, furnishing the place. I never thought I’d live in a house as nice as this one.

  “I want to have at least three kids, maybe four,” Darien says. “And I want the traditional life. Where you stay at home and be with the kids while I bring home the bacon.” We walk into the hallway, passing the mini-movie theater. He turns towards me and says, “I’m sorry. I did it again, making life decisions for us. Do you want kids? Do you want to stay home?”

  I tuck a strand behind my ear and say, “I just love to see you happy. And to answer your questions, yes, I want more kids, and no, I don’t want to stay home. But we can work something out.”

  He wraps his arms around my shoulders and kisses my forehead.

  Eight months later

  I RUSH TO my husband’s office because I have important news to deliver. I no longer work for Gunner, since Darien is helping me start up a comic book studio and my comic should be out later on this year. I don’t have any artist yet, have to interview a lot of people next week.

  I open the glass door to his new office and sit on the suede couch pushed against the wall. He is tossing a blue ball in the air as he smiles and winks at me.

  “I have to go, your sister is here.” He hangs up the phone. “I didn’t expect to see you, wife,” he says as if he still can’t believe we are married. We had a big wedding at the beach home in Ocean City, the place he claimed he fell in love with me. We had our honeymoon in Paris, and we stayed in Europe for a whole month. It was a wonderful experience learning new cultures and meeting new friends.

  “I have something to tell you.” I bite my pinky nail. “We won’t be able to go to Venice for Valentine’s Day like we planned.” I dig through my blue Sailor Moon purse.

  “Why not? I already bought the tickets and booked our hotel. It’s gonna be hell getting a refund. Is there a place where you want to go? We can go to the Bahamas. Heard the weather is nice during that time of the year.” He goes to his computer, wiggling the mouse.

  I slide a piece of paper to him. He quickly scans it. His eyes narrow. I smile so hard that my jaw hurts. He takes a seat on the couch and pulls me into his lap.

  “I’m going to be a f-father,” he manages to say, rubbing the back of his neck.

  We weren’t planning on having kids anytime soon. We made an agreement to have kids five years from now. That way we can do what we want. But I was sick for the last two weeks, puking up my guts, having headaches and stomach cramps. I went to the doctor, and they drew blood, and it turns out I’m eight weeks pregnant.

  Darien always wanted a family, and he tried to have one with Mia, but she didn’t want one. The day before our wedding she stormed into his office saying she wanted him back and made a scene. She is lucky that I wasn’t there to witness it, because she wouldn’t have had any hair left after I was done with her.

  Even though this is our second marriage for both of us, we plan to not make the same mistakes that we did in our first marriages. He picks me up, spins me around and kisses the bridge of my nose. He picks up his phone from the desk and tells Lisa to clear his schedule, because we are going to celebrate our new baby.

  “I love you,” I whisper.

  “I love you too, sweetheart.”

  What is love? Love is beautiful and messy. Love is a drug that you can get high off. Love is not all bad and not all good. When you love, it’s gonna hurt. You just have to figure out who it is you are willing to suffer for.

  The end

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  I WOULD LIKE to thank Mike, Tina, TJ, and Patrick. Y’all are the most supportive people I ever met. I would like to thank my editor, proofreader, cover designer and formatter, without y’all I wouldn’t be able to bring my story to life.

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  Ghoul Kisses Book 1

  Ghoul Kisses Book 2 Winter 2018

  ADULT CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE

  Chasing Darien

  Chasing Gunner (Spring/Summer 2018)