Rubbing her throbbing temples, Belinda sat on her couch and let her head fall back, eyes closed.
The decision to sleep with Malik had been an impulsive one. She hadn’t thought it through, hadn’t considered all the consequences and repercussions. But she had enjoyed it immensely. And that had been her ultimate goal. Only now, even that felt kind of hollow. As far as changing her life went, Belinda realized she sucked. Her old habits kept getting in the way. Sitting here thinking about Malik instead of being out changing things with Malik was just one example of how hard it was to kick old habits.
As if the heavens heard her thoughts, the doorbell rang. Belinda got up from the couch, walked slowly toward the door. It was her practice to look through the peephole first. If she recognized her visitor, she’d then wait for the second ring to see how persistent they were about seeing her. Next, she would— It didn’t matter. The peep through the hole showed her just the man that had been occupying her thoughts.
How lucky was that?
“Hey,” he said the moment she opened the door. “Dressed for bed at—” Malik paused and twisted his wrist to look at his watch “—at eight-thirty. Man, you’re early.”
“And you’re uninvited,” was her immediate, if not intentionally nasty, reply.
Shaking his head, Malik moved past her into the apartment. He waited for her to close the door then took a step closer, backing her against the door.
“I see I’m going to have to go over the rules with you one more time,” he told her.
“What rules?” Belinda asked, inhaling the scent of his cologne as he blocked out everything else around her, physically and literally.
“The rules of a relationship.” His words were punctuated by the quick smack of his lips against hers.
“Mmmmm,” he moaned, then went in for kiss number two.
This one wasn’t quick and Belinda couldn’t resist. She let his lips cover hers, parted her own and enjoyed the feel of his tongue brushing alongside her own. The feeling was familiar—the spike of arousal that arrowed through her as their kiss deepened. When her hands went to his chest, that too felt familiar. His strength pressed against her, his body filling a space that for too long had surrounded her.
“First rule,” he said, breathing heavily as he finally tore away his mouth from hers. “Greeting kisses like that are always required.”
Not that she was arguing the act of kissing him, but Belinda frowned. “I’ve never heard of rules in a relationship.”
He took her hand and turned, pulling her the short distance from the door to the couch before sitting them both down.
“That’s because you’ve never been in a relationship with me.”
“True enough,” she admitted.
He sat right next to her, his arm going around her like this was their spot. It was silly, she knew, but it was a very comfortable spot, either way.
“Another rule is the sharing thing. I don’t share,” Malik told her seriously.
Tonight he wore all black, jeans—of course—and a T-shirt that looked as if it were a second skin. His pectorals and biceps bulged to the point that her mouth was going to start watering if she didn’t stop staring at him. He looked sexy and intense and...sexy.
“Selfish, are we?” she asked with a grin, trying to lighten the mood that had turned suddenly serious at his words.
“Absolutely. Especially when it comes to you. So while we’re seeing each other, we’re not seeing anyone else.”
“Like Mrs. Martin for instance?”
How dare he come in here and start laying out rules when he was the one flirting with the basketball mom with more breasts and hips than she knew what to do with.
“What?”
He actually looked shocked for a moment. Then he smiled, slow and sexy.
“There’s nothing going on between me and Mrs. Martin.”
“I couldn’t tell earlier today, or yesterday for that matter.”
“She’s the mother of one of my players. I don’t mix business with pleasure.”
“Is that so? Then what’s this between us?” She couldn’t believe she’d asked him that. Belinda knew what this was. It was a step toward freedom, her long-overdue entrance into the adult world. That was the plan, or at least she thought that should have been the plan—if she’d had one in the first place.
“What you saw was me being nice.”
“No,” was her adamant reply. “What I saw was you doing what too many men do. You sucked up the praise, let your ego be inflated by this woman’s interest then played like it didn’t affect you. You’re leading her on and you should stop it.”
“Wow, you even analyze flirting.”
He said it like that was a bad thing.
“I’m just saying that it’s kind of rude of you not to simply tell her you’re not interested. I mean, unless you are interested and are playing some hard-to-get game with her. Which I don’t think is the case. She’s really not your type.”
“And what is my type? Since you’re so busy analyzing everything.”
He’d moved his arm from around her and Belinda tried not to be affected by the act. It didn’t matter, she told herself.
“Flamboyant and overzealous isn’t your style. It goes against your calm personality. You’re much more for the sweet, understated female, the one who’s pretty but doesn’t use that to get her way. She has to be smart—not in how she tries to snag you—but intelligent enough to hold conversations with you and not make a fool of herself.”
“Is that all? Because you seem to know exactly what I need.”
“I didn’t say that.” And she wasn’t liking his tone all of a sudden.
“And I didn’t say that I was interested in Mrs. Martin. In fact, I distinctly told you I wasn’t.”
“And I believe you.”
He nodded. “Good. I’m glad I’ve gotten your stamp of approval.”
“What is your problem?” she asked finally, fed up and coming to stand in front of him.
“My problem is you and this act you feel obligated to put on. If you were jealous because you saw me with Mrs. Martin, just say that.”
“I was not jealous!” Okay, maybe just a little bit.
His raised brow said he hadn’t believed her anyway.
“It’s a human reaction, Belinda.”
“Yeah, if you’re in love with someone and deeply committed to them. That’s not what we are or where we are. We just...just...”
“We just what? Had sex? Is that what you’re about to say?”
He was standing now, too, tension sizzling through the room like lightning.
She opened her mouth then clamped it shut. They needed some space, she thought. Stepping back she took a deep breath and released it. “Yes, Malik, we had sex. If I had known it would change things like this—”
“You mean you didn’t know? You didn’t calculate the odds and map out your course? Did you figure we’d have sex then go back to being coworkers the next day?”
“Yes. No. I mean... You’re twisting things around.” And making her headache substantially worse.
The phone rang and Belinda wanted to sigh with relief. Instead she moved past him, her shoulder bumping into his arm, as he wasn’t inclined to move out of her way.
“Hello?” she just about yelled into the phone.
“Tone, Belinda. You have to always be aware of your tone.”
Instead of sighing with relief she wanted to scream with impatience. Her mother had been calling her cell phone all day and Belinda had been ignoring her. She knew what Daisy’s question would be and didn’t want to hear it.
“Hello, Mother,” she said through clenched teeth, her tone significantly lowered.
“I’ve been calling all day to find out if you’ve had a chance to find a dress.”
“I already have something to wear to the auction. I thought I told you that already.”
“But you didn’t tell me what it was.”
Because it was none of
her business.
“I’m old enough to select my own clothes, Mother.” Okay, that was good, even if it wasn’t exactly what she wanted to say. Take a stand, she repeated to herself.
“I’m sure you are. I just want to know that everything is taken care of. Now, how about your date?”
“We also talked about my date the other day at lunch.” With those words she remembered she wasn’t alone and turned her back to Malik.
“Well, the least you can tell me is his name. Where does he work? Who are his parents?”
“Not now, Mother. I really have a headache.”
“It’s stress. You need to go to bed early or you’ll have frown lines in the morning and wrinkles in five years.”
“It’s not stress,” Belinda said, even though it probably was. Her mother just wouldn’t want to hear that she was part of the cause of the stress Belinda carried around like luggage.
“Don’t argue, Belinda. You need to get some rest. Just give me your date’s name and I’ll let you go.”
“I’m not telling you his name.” Because Belinda didn’t even know it. The headache was growing into a full-body ache at this moment and she reached a hand around to the back of her neck to massage the tense muscles there.
“You’re being difficult.”
“I’m not. I just don’t feel good right now. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“I’ll stop by the bakery tomorrow. We can have lunch.”
Oh, Lord, please no.
“That’s not good. I have plans already. I’ll just call you tomorrow. Okay, say hello to Daddy for me,” Belinda said and disconnected the call.
Her heart hammered wildly in her chest as she stared down at the phone and realized what she’d just done. It was liberating and terrifying at the same time. Had she just hung up on her mother?
“It’s okay. You don’t have to let her control every aspect of your life,” Malik said from behind her.
She spun around, her mouth open and about to reply.
Malik held up a hand. “Don’t tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about. I’ve watched your parents manipulate you for years now. I know exactly how good they are at it, and I’m telling you it’s okay not to bend.”
“I just don’t feel like dealing with it right now. I have a headache.”
“And I barged in and made it worse.”
“No,” she said. Actually, for a few minutes that he’d been there it had been better. “You’re fine. I probably do just need some rest.”
Malik shook his head. “That’s your mother talking. What you need to do is have some dinner and let whatever is bothering you go until another time. You don’t have to figure everything out, or know the answer instantaneously.”
She narrowed her gaze at him, then turned to put the phone back on the base. “How do you always know what’s going on in my head?”
He smiled then, as if the argument they’d been having previously was completely forgotten. “It’s magic,” he told her.
Later, much later, Belinda would think his words were absolutely true.
* * *
Pissed off did not begin to describe how Malik felt the moment she’d told him what he should have known she was thinking. What they’d shared last night was just sex.
If Belinda really assumed that, if she for one moment thought he was going to take that excuse and run with it, she wasn’t half as smart as people believed.
He’d been ready to grab her and shake some sense into her when the phone rang. Divine intervention, he would later call it. In those moments she’d been speaking to her mother Malik had a chance to calm himself. Not completely, but enough to understand why she would think the way she did. It was as if she were programmed to downplay anything that she really wanted, and driven to do the things everyone else expected. Hence the way she had dodged her mother’s questioning instead of just saying what she wanted to say and getting off the phone. In fact, he figured she’d been dodging her mother’s calls for a while and had been caught off guard since they’d been arguing and picked up the phone unintentionally this time.
That was all well and good. Malik liked Daisy Drayson-Jones. He liked her husband, as well. But that didn’t mean he had to like the way they always tried to pull their daughter’s strings.
“I didn’t know you could cook,” she said when they were sitting at her dining room table, bowls of fettuccine Alfredo and Caesar salads in front of them.
“I’m a bachelor who doesn’t like to eat fast food all the time. It was imperative that I learn how to cook. Besides, I took culinary classes, remember?”
Belinda nodded, her mouth full of the noodles and sauce he’d cooked. Since this was her first bite, Malik waited for her reaction.
She rolled her eyes. “This is really good.”
He smiled, his ego inflating another notch. Funny how, no matter what Mrs. Martin or women of her ilk said or did to him, he wasn’t in the least affected. But the moment Belinda gave an inch and complimented him for something, his chest poked out proudly like the proverbial peacock.
“It would have been better if we could eat in front of the television. We’re missing the reruns of Big Bang Theory,” he told her.
“I cannot eat sitting on a couch,” she replied. “Besides, that Sheldon character is annoying.”
Malik nodded at that comment. He figured that’s the one character on the highly rated sitcom Belinda would have a problem with. Sheldon was the obsessive-compulsive character who generally annoyed all his friends with his weird rules and outlandish requests, even though he was a brilliant scientist. The similarities, after he thought about it a moment, between Belinda and this character were uncanny.
“He is what he is. His friends know that and accept it.”
“He’s rigid and controlling.”
She stopped the minute she said that last word. “And I am not like him!”
“I didn’t say you were.” Malik looked down at his food, trying unsuccessfully to hold in his smile.
“I just don’t like to eat on the couch.”
“And you don’t like the magazines on your coffee table out of alphabetical order. You also keep your wineglass on your left-hand side even though you’re right-handed. And you hate for your food to touch.”
“So now I’m OCD? I’m some neurotic freak that everybody hates to be around?” She didn’t sound angry, just like she wanted to really know if that’s what he thought about her.
Malik shook his head. “Not at all. You are Belinda Lorraine Drayson-Jones, executive pastry chef at Lillian’s. And I wouldn’t change a thing about you.”
That wasn’t what she’d expected him to say. Malik could tell by the way her mouth opened then closed immediately without a reply. The rest of their meal proceeded in almost silence, then he convinced her to at least take their newly filled glasses of white wine into her bedroom. She’d been hesitant until he’d said, “Come on, take a walk on the wild side.” The follow-up had been a huge grin on his part and a slow chuckle on hers.
“It’s not going to kill me,” she said more to herself than to him, and Malik decided to at least carry the glasses to make the adjustment a little easier on her.
Once they were in the bedroom, he knew that Belinda was expecting sex. Her eyes had grown darker as she’d taken a seat on the edge of the bed. And for as sexy as she was and as willing a participant as he would normally be, Malik decided that tonight was about something else.
“What’s your favorite form of relaxation?” he asked.
She blinked, clearly startled at the question, before answering, “A hot bath or a good book.”
He nodded. “One I can do, the other you’d have to hit the library for.”
Without another word he was up and moving into her bathroom, where he immediately began running bathwater. On the stand across the daintily decorated room he saw several bottles of bubble bath, all of them a different fragrance. He decided to select one that he liked, which meant he had to smell th
em all. With each sniff his erection grew harder. Each scent reminded him of Belinda in a different way—naked and pliant beneath him, that was the jasmine; in the kitchen working, her tight little bottom outlined perfectly in her pants, that was the lavender; sitting quietly, daydreaming as he hadn’t seen her do often enough, that was the chamomile. They all represented one woman, the one Malik was almost positive he was in love with.
He poured the lavender into the running water and went to get Belinda.
“I don’t need you to run me a bath,” she was saying as he ushered her inside the bathroom.
“I know you don’t need me to. I want to.”
She squirmed beneath his touch as Malik reached for the hem of her shirt. It was a cute little move on her part that made her breasts jiggle and him moan inwardly.
“I can definitely undress myself.”
“But where’s the fun in that?” he joked with a raise of his eyebrows.
His fingers brushed along the skin of her stomach as he lifted the shirt up and over her head. She was still giving him a mock pout when he traced a finger along the brim of her bra over the soft swells of her breast.
“See, this is fun,” he told her, his voice noticeably lower.
“Right.” She nodded, her lips twitching with a smile.
Her skin was so soft and so creamy-looking. Malik’s mouth watered with wanting to kiss her there, anywhere.
“Do I get to undress you in return?” she asked when he’d finally reached behind her and unsnapped her bra.
Her breasts sprung free, her nipples already perking at his perusal.
“No,” he answered simply. “Not this time.”
“That’s not fair,” she added with a little pout.
He couldn’t resist. Malik touched a fingertip to her bottom lip. “You are so sexy you’re dangerous.”
Unfastening her pants and pushing them over her slender hips was also a pleasure and he found his face up close with her enticing thighs. Malik kept his lips tight, refusing to give in to the urge to kiss her there, lick her possibly. She’d been wearing slippers when he arrived so it was simple enough to push them off her feet and encourage her to step out of her pants.
Decadent Dreams (The Draysons: Sprinkled with Love) Page 11