by Autumn Stone
His cool tongue pushes into me slowly, so slowly it’s torturous. My body begins pushing against his tongue and he increases the pace as he clasps my thighs.
I never imagined doing such a thing. It’s dirty and so hot.
Then, he leaves me and I moan in protest.
“I need you.”
Looking back I see hooded green eyes looking at me. He moves again and sucks me hard making me shriek loudly.
One finger slowly moves inside me and then he places two inside me. I’m so wet that all I can hear are the wet sound of his fingers fucking me until he pulls them out and sucks them.
“Tastes like strawberries.” He says.
Shifting again behind me he holds himself and then places his penis right where I want him. Teasing me he rubs himself at my entrance and along my vagina.
Then, he begins to press in. Thank God!
And, with a sense of relief, we fuck, make love and drown in one another.
It is beyond anything that I ever could imagine.
Then, he pulls out and flips me onto my back while lifting my leg up so that he has better access to me.
Oh.my.goodness.
He pushes harder and harder inside of me until he cums.
“You’re the love of my life Cree. Don’t you ever forget it.” He says it as if it’s a benediction.
As we lay in a tangle of sweaty limbs again he reaches for the strawberries and pulls out a small box and opens it.
A huge diamond ring sparkles from inside as the light of the fire hits it.
“I didn’t know that I wasn’t living until I met you. You healed my soul and gave me hope and happiness. You rescued my daughter from her quiet hell, and bore my son.
You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met, body and soul. I will spend the rest of my life working to make sure that you’re happy, loved, and secure. Cree Johnson, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”
“YES!!” I scream and hug him so hard it feels like we will become one.
He places the ring on my finger and we intertwine our fingers together. I can’t wait to start our life together.
Epilogue
We decide not to wait too long to get married. Liliana brings the kids back from their vacation and I resist the urge to ask her about Gage. Instead, we connect over wedding plans.
I decide to take the kids shopping with me as I focus on wedding preparations. I wish I had a best friend to shop with me. I’m working on my shyness, but I still haven’t had a chance to make friends with all of the moving around and having 3 kids kind of complicated things as well.
Walking into Valleygirl, my favorite store in Breckenridge, I’m hoping that I’ll find something. I feel a little nervous in the store even though the saleswomen are super nice. Wandering around for a few moments I get an idea of what I like but then get stuck on how the heck I’m supposed to try things on with three little kids hanging with me.
Then, Giovanni begins to cry with hunger. Shit, now I’m going to have to nurse in the store.
At the same time I notice a stunning black woman, pre-teen and toddler enter the store.
Everyone seems to know who she is. I’m jealous of her confidence and wished I could be so self-assured. She holds the little boy’s hand and the pre-teen confidently wanders around the store looking at me curiously.
It’s then when I realize that the girls are about to wreck havoc on the store while I’m distracted.
The woman smiles at me and introduces herself. “Hi! I’m Summer. My little dude who is staring at your daughter is J.C. and that’s Kat.”
“I’m Cree!” I awkwardly shift so that I can shake her hand.
“Do you need to nurse? I remember those days! We can watch the girls if you would like to do it from the dressing room.”
“Thank you so much. It’s complicated when you have three. I thought he would sleep for most of the day and he woke up earlier than expected.” I explained ruefully.
Summer laughs “That’s mom life! What are you looking for in the store?”
“Well…I’m getting married this weekend and I wanted to pick up a few things.”
“Congratulations!”
She felt sad for a moment.
“You seem a little sad.”
“Well, I feel a little like Meghan Markle. You know, with only her mom at the wedding, but no mom. I don’t have any close friends.”
Summer gives her a hug. “You do now.”
“I know this is weird, but would you like to go to the wedding?” For some reason Cree feels like making this request.
“You know, I feel like we’re supposed to meet too. I would love to celebrate you wedding. Is it ok if I bring the munchkins?”
“Of course. Let’s take a picture because this is so random.” With that, they take a selfie.
“Want to go eat?” Summer asks.
“Yes, I’m starving.”
“Let’s go to Blue River Bistro-I love that place.”
“Shoot, I just need to contact my fiancé really quick so they know where we’re at.”
“Sounds good.” Summer says.
I quickly text my security detail where we will be and the selfie, never knowing what would happen next.
The Rehearsal Dinner and Wedding
Ok, I’m in absolute shock. I discover that Summer is actually Jaxon’s Sienna. The Jaxon who I hooked up with. I’m NEVER going to say anything about that.
What I will tell her tonight is my story. We end up holding up the rehearsal as I shared how I met Dante and how I was his nanny. And that I was desperate for a job after my mother passed away and that I was taking care of my baby sister too.
I don’t talk about his drug use, but I do share that we went through a difficult time.
Then, I tell her that she’s my Maid of Honor and that the kids will be the ring bearer and bridesmaid.
Sienna begins to cry, as she’s so overwhelmed by my gesture. Because she, too, is used to being all alone.
Sienna
The wedding is absolutely stunning and I watch as each of the Sexy Sixx hands off Cree to the next man in front of them-walking down the aisle until they reach the next man standing.
Cree is breathtaking in her dress and the kids are a hilarious hot mess as her attendants.
They are soon pronounced man and wife and wedding shenanigans ensue. And, yes, they did the “In My Feelings Challenge.”
Life was good.
Preview
Daunting Love, The Destructive Love Series, Book 3
Javier de la Cruz and Autumn Jackson
Autumn
She was angry, in fact, she was angry all of the time, at white people, at the racist AF president, her boss, at the world, at black men, and at herself. She never thought that she would become the angry black woman, but she had.
The bitterness hid sadness, the anger hid loss of hope, and the sharp defensive comments were said offensively so that she wouldn’t be caught off-guard when someone dicked her over.
The anger had built up over time.
The black guys who said she was too dark, too ambitious, or too much. Or, the black guys who married white women, why didn’t they give her a chance? So what if they’d never met before, it still stung.
Taye Diggs, John Legend (who gets a pass because we all like Chrissy with her crazy self) Tiger Woods (karma is definitely a bitch) Donald Glover, and Wesley Snipes (even though he’s no longer invited to the bbq).
With each year as white women in her circle had the brown babies that she wanted to have, she got angrier, but the anger was tucked away inside in the deep crevices of herself that she hid during her code switching moments.
In a moment of desperation she decided to give online dating a try. It felt like another job with the constant back and forth of non-committal men who were juggling several other women at the same time.
She tried to be witty, share fun banter, and project joy over the Internet but it fell flat, unnatural, and became t
iring. Then Autumn gave Bumble a try and even thought that was a bit better, she still found herself on the receiving end of an endless volley of messages and never meeting up with the guys she was matched with.
Time ticked by and her dreams of being a wife and having a family began to gather dust.
Instead, she focused on what she could control and slowly accepted that love was not going to come her way.
She stopped obsessively looking at the statistics related to black women and marriage. And instead subconsciously began to protect herself from disappointment.
Her smile stopped reaching her eyes and she unknowingly let the world dull her sparkle.
Instead, she focused the only things she felt she had control over, her work, cleanliness, and her weight.
Working as the operations manager for DigiCorp she was in close and constant contact with Jordan and Jaxon Donavan two of the main shareholders of the company. She had also heard of or met briefly, the Sexy Sixx, six of the most handsome men she’d ever seen in her life.
Unfortunately, they weren’t black. Not that if they were they would even give her a chance or the time of day. Let’s just say it was surprising to her when Jaxon and Dante ended up with black women.
No, it didn’t give her hope. She was a subordinate and a colleague and as depraved as they could be (she’d heard stories) none of them dipped their pens in the company ink.
Her goal was to do her work as perfectly as possible and get the best results because she knew that she had to do things three times better than everyone else.
Everyday she came into the office at 6:00 am (first to arrive) and then worked until she was almost always the last to leave.
Perhaps this wasn’t the healthiest approach to work, but she since she was single she had nothing else to focus on.
In fact, it was a point of pride to see how successful her department was when compared to the other ones.
And, while she wasn’t close to her colleagues, she had a feeling that she was at least really well respected.
Wasn’t she?
Javier
He was exhausted having just flown in from visiting his family in Colombia. They had moved there from Venezuela after the country’s government collapsed and also had a compound in Miami.
His mother preferred being in Colombia to the U.S. right now due to the situation with the President. He didn’t blame her.
Having been born in the U.S. he didn’t worry about his legal status, but the ongoing stress of watching the current President’s shenanigans was emotionally draining.
The meeting was taking longer than expected as they were reviewing candidates for promotions.
Right now they were discussing two final employees in line for promotions: Mark Saunders and Autumn Jackson. They were being considered for different roles, however both had significant issues that needed to be addressed before receiving a promotion.
Mark was a bit of a bro, a bit unimaginative, but a hard worker and dedicated to the company. He needed a lot of prodding and direction but eventually did a decent job.
Autumn was a machine and typically that was a good thing. But, she was literally like a machine. She had no friends, came into work first and left work last.
And, frustratingly enough, did everything perfectly. She was perfect to the point where her subordinates were terrified to make a mistake on any of the work that they did.
She never socialized with them and no one really knew much about her. She never laughed and never shared anything about her life.
The position that they wanted to promote her to would really need for her to connect with her team and as things stood that was going to be difficult of her to do.
In fact, it was as if she was doing an actual impression of being a robot. Autumn wore incredibly modest clothing, a simple hairstyle of a pulled back bun and pearl earrings everyday. Her outfits were always one of two colors: black or navy blue.
The one thing about her that she couldn’t control was her ridiculously sexy voice. Everyone loved to call her, her voice was like sex on heels. It was ironic that a woman as cold as she was could have a voice that hot.
Jordan’s voice broke through his thoughts. “Ok, it’s agreed. We will assign one of us to work with each of the candidates to make sure that we’ve thoroughly vetted them before making our promotion decision. Daniel will work with Mark and Javier you’ll work with the Ice Queen, sorry, with Autumn.” Jordan didn’t even look embarrassed by the slip.
“Sounds good, I will set up our initial meeting and go from there. How long do you want us to observe and work with them?”
“Three months should be enough. That’s enough time for them to make lasting changes to their process as well.” Jordan stated firmly. “If they don’t, they won’t be promoted and will be asked to leave.”
“Should we tell them what we’re doing?”
“No. It’s an eat or be eaten world.” Jaxon said coldly. Everyone else laughed at that truth.
Autumn
For a reason that I don’t understand I was summoned to meet with Mr. de la Cruz tomorrow. I’m nervous so I do what helps me relax: I clean.
There is something oddly soothing about having a clean house. I’ve been told that I take it too far.
My knees are a little sore from scrubbing the corners in all of the rooms and I wipe down the floorboards just in case there’s dust.
I make sure that there are no water spots on anything silver and slowly clean each blind in the living room.
There are moments when I wonder if I have a problem. No one visits me so it’s hard for me to tell if I do.
My family lives in Washington State and we’re not very close because my parents never wanted a girl. My older brothers are their pride and joy and I’m the “oops baby” they never planned for.
My quest for perfection started very young in the hopes that my parents might like me more.
It never worked.
We exchanged holiday and birthday cards throughout the year and that was about it.
Javier
“Ms. Jackson, please take a seat.” She’s moving stiffly as if she has hurt herself.
“The Board and I have decided to take a couple of people under our wing and provide some guidance and feedback. You are one of the people that we’ve picked.” I look for some reaction but there is none. Nothing shows on her face, no shock, resignation, or even anger. It’s as if she’s practiced her poker face for hours and perfected it.
“Yes, sir. When will this guidance begin?”
“Now.” The moment she said yes, sir my pants tightened and I was imagining her saying yes, sir in a totally different scenario.
Fuck.
Bending her head down she subconsciously nibbles on her pen and I wonder what it would be like if she nibbled me?
Her iciness is a turn on and I want to break through that ice and thaw her out.
I begin to dictate what to expect for the next three months and try to get my head back into the game.
Autumn
I don’t understand what I’ve done wrong? The urge to clean has literally begun to drive me crazy and I’m having a difficult time focusing on what Mr. de la Cruz is saying.
The only reason why I would be picked for something like this is if there is an issue with my performance.
I have to figure out the problem.
Finally, he finishes with his instructions and I’m free to leave. I need to get home as quickly as possible after work and begin cleaning.
I’m a couple of hours behind with the work that I wanted to get done. But, I will stay and do it.
There is a sharp pain that has been shooting down my arm every once and awhile, but I ignore it because I know it will go away.
I shake his hand and wonder why he doesn’t stand as I leave?
Heading to my desk I turn my computer back on and begin to type.
Acknowledgements
Thank you to all of the amazing people in my life who contin
ue to believe in my dreams.