by Love Belvin
“Am I missing something here? Did I miss—”
“You’re going to want them one day.” I interrupted with urgency. “It will likely be the next thing for you. For your life.”
He straightened behind me, his frame no longer molding over mine sensually, but he didn’t release me from his hold. Within seconds, I heard his exhale.
“My future consists of me being with you for what’s left of this night, and hearing your screams of pleasure before I succumb to siesta. I haven’t made it past that and you shouldn’t be preoccupied with things that don’t concern you. Okay?”
That minor terse response that would easily wound a typical lover, relieved me. He understood this was only about sex for us. There would be no progression into an idyllic happily ever after. It was just about us satisfying physical expectations for a brief time.
At that realization, I turned lithely in his loose hold, elated by the liberation of his words, and grabbed him at the base of his neck, lifting from my toes to meet his face. When I arrived, carelessly aiming for his mouth, Jackson’s neck swayed from my target, reminding me of his limitation. That nipped. Fortunately, I was accustomed to sex while in emotional disarray and could still perform seamlessly. It wasn’t my usual practice with Jackson, but I could overlook that to receive what I needed from him and that was for him to remind me of the bliss we created together.
I bit his chin, soothing it with a gentle kiss, then started unbuttoning his shirt. Jackson’s eyes remained sharply on my face. Even when I broke from his searing gaze to move on to the next garment until I removed them all, to gain a bit of reprieve from the scrutiny. He was attempting to gauge my state of mind, and I couldn’t allow him that, particularly when I didn’t know where it was myself and was deathly afraid of what it may reveal.
When he was stark naked, I regarded his branding with new eyes.
I gestured with my chin. “So, I now know the origin of it,” I murmured.
Jackson didn’t move. He didn’t react. He simply maintained his searing gaze on me. So many unfamiliar emotions butterflied my chest and mind…desires spun in spades. Without thought, I inched my face to his mouth again and without hesitation again, Jackson reared his head, moving our mouths out of alignment. I stepped back and removed my slip and underwear then took Jackson by his hand and led him to my bed where I mounted him and while standing on my knees, pulled him into me until his legs touched the foot of the bed. I wanted him in my arms where I found comfort. He was here with me where I had a hold on time. Jackson would soon know what’s best for him and move on to his next phase with a better suited woman, but here, tonight, he was mine to hold. Mine to pleasure. Mine to find refuge in. I could hide under his wings of passion and that’s what I needed in that moment.
My tongue explored his neck, tasting traces of his delicious fragrance, down to his chest where I could feel the excited drum of his heart. A silent and satisfied grin broke out on my face as my mouth toured his body. When I arrived at his bed of pelvic hairs, leading to his erogenous zone, my pulse quickened to a speed I could hear. With my lips, I gathered a patch in my mouth and gently pulled, releasing them slowly. Jackson hissed above me. I gathered another patch, softly yanked it with my lips and let them leave my mouth on a slow pull. I was stimulating myself, preparing for the main entrée. Jackson’s extended member stabbed me in the neck several times during my cat-play. When I could take it no longer, I grabbed him with both palms and after one stroke, pulled him into my hungry mouth, twirling my tongue around its bulbous head several times before tightening just below, on the shaft. That was his most sensitive area. I was able to gather this during this brief period of being his lover. Jackson groaned lewdly, confirming my familiarity. I worked him over and over, jerking, swiping, and tightening with intimate skill.
Just when I felt him enlarging in my mouth and having him stiffen in my palm, I pulled back. I stood straight on my knees to observe Jackson panting with a glare. That wasn’t how I wanted him to lift off. To demonstrate my intent, I shuffled backwards on the mattress and turned over onto all fours, arched my back deeply with my sex bared to him. In my own way, I was surrendering to Jackson, yielding to be taken by him because to that extent, I trusted him with no reservation.
“Take me,” I purred, not as in control as my voice executed.
Within the distance of a second, Jackson fluidly flipped me onto my back and entered me before I could catch my breath from his rapid maneuver. He filled me to the hilt on the first thrust, causing me to suck in air. Then he slowly reared and returned with grace. Right away, he set a pace of slow and purposeful, plunging with measure and rolling his hips before rearing back. I felt every inch of him, delighted in every moment it took my body to adjust to his mold, although he’d been implanted less than twenty-four hours before. When his hot mouth touched my neck, my pelvis involuntarily spiked to reach his. As his hard frame labored over me sinuously, I heard Alicia Keys’ “Like You’ll Never See Me Again” encasing our smacking bodies.
“Eyes!” he barked, tone very controlled despite his rhythm over me. Inside of me.
My eyes shot open, moans turned audible and I hadn’t felt my release yet. Each time Jackson thrust into me, he injected a numbing agent for the world outside of us. Each time he forced me to acknowledge him while he brought me to this euphoria, I visited a place where no one else existed. Just Jackson and me. He extended my arms astride us and laced our fingers. Jackson’s body seemed to roll over me athletically. We moved this way for a while; observing and performing. Observing and performing. Jackson alternated the direction in the roll of his hips, but never the depth of their drive. When his mouth hit my breast, tweaking my nipple with his firm tongue, I lost control.
“Jaaackso—” I cried…literally howled as my orgasm unexpectedly crested.
And when it did, Jackson seemed to gain a new wave of energy as he started bucking into me with controlled plummets, enhancing my ascension.
“Eyes!”
When he came into view amongst the blurred delirium, I saw the scowl I was accustomed to. I saw the determination…and something more. I felt him grow larger in me and knew he was at the start of his own release. When he did, though still trembling from my own, I clinched his frame and threw my hips into him insanely. I wanted to enhance his ascension, too.
Jackson’s breath turned ragged, but he didn’t call out to me. He tightened every muscle in his body and released himself into me with white-hot force. I could feel him throbbing wildly inside me, filling me with his essence. And though I could discern all of his sexual undergoings, the one I caught most of all was him not being able to let go with me. Jackson didn’t trust me.
The next morning, the first thing my senses picked up was the harsh raps on my window. The comforting tempo resounding in me. Then I felt movement on the other side of the bed revealing promises to come. I literally woke up to my clitoris thrumming.
I rolled my head over, behind my shoulder and saw his sinewy back first. He sat with his feet on the floor. When my eyes traveled down his trunk, I saw the band of his boxers and the loosened waist of his trousers.
I quickly turned back to the nightstand for the time. It was hardly seven in the morning. We may have turned down at four thirty, finally calling it a night.
“Going somewhere?”
Jackson turned to look at me, providing the view of his cell in his hand. His face was handsomely tight, after a long night and a ridiculously early rising.
His brows furrowed. “I didn’t think you’d be up so soon, especially with the rain,” he murmured thoughtfully, but spoke louder when he answered, “Gonna shoot home to shower and then over to Momma D’s in Brooklyn.” He stood and fastened his trousers. “That was Azmir Jacobs. His and Rayna’s flight leaves late this morning and she wants me to join them for breakfast.”
“She?”
Jackson snorted and blinked his brows. “Yeah. That’s Rayna.”
A pang struck my chest. He was leaving�
��and on a whim. Admittedly pathetic was my craving for his homefries. I wanted breakfast with Jackson and now he was leaving me to be with friends; apparently friends who knew another side to him. An endearing side.
“Okay,” I chirped as I gathered the sheet around my breasts protectively.
Jackson’s eyes immediately caught the maneuver, registering its oddity. It was odd. I no longer hid my body from him. There was no need since he worshipped it regularly and made me forget about the ugly battle scars that yielded my impurity.
“Okay,” he breathed casually while reaching over, stretching his muscular wings to capture my neck. “I need to grab a shower, so I’mma head out.”
He applied chaste kisses before releasing me and leaving the bed. Jackson was out of my efficiency three minutes later. The sheet was still caught in the clutch of my arms when the door shut. And I, undoubtedly and foolishly, grieved his absence.
Thirty minutes later, I was in the kitchen, in a trance, still jarred by Jackson’s abrupt departure. I was so lost in my thoughts the trill of the smoke detector tore me from my meditative thoughts about it. I jumped completely around and saw the smoke climbing to the ceiling.
Shit!
I unplugged the toaster oven, opened the door and grabbed my glove to yank the metal tray with burning beef bacon from the box and tossed it in the sink. It sizzled the moment I pushed up on the faucet lever to douse it with water. Then I heard urgent raps on my door.
I sighed as I padded over and pulled it open. I rolled my eyes as I went back to the sink.
“Sweets, what the hell are you doing in here?” Michael asked with alarmed eyes. “Trying to burn us all down?”
“How did you make it over here so quickly?” I barked as I sprayed the sink with the hose.
“I’m just coming in.” He pivoted around the small kitchen audibly sniffing. “Are you”—more sniffing—“were you trying to cook again? Is that what you’re on now?” He grabbed a towel and commenced to swinging it in the air, directing the smoke out of the efficiency. “Need I remind you that you aren’t exactly Betty Crocker, honey? Where’s that delectable piece of ass? I heard he was here at five in the morning when your delirious ass was screaming like a porn star.”
I jumped in his direction. That froze him in place, his thick muscular arms up in the air, mid-swing. “Michael, don’t be a damn creep!”
With an austere expression, he cried, “What?” His brows hiked an inch more. “Oh, please, honey, the way you were yelling, you didn’t have a demure bone in your body. Don’t go overnight-nun-convert on me.” We were both suspended in the small kitchenette. Michael’s brawny frame screamed hetero-masculinity in deafening volumes. In moments like this, you forgot about his varied sexuality. “Honey, if you guys are down for a threesome, I’ve got some shit that would blow both your minds.”
And then you’d recall again.
I shook his obtuseness from my head. I had no energy to fight him on it. I needed to sort things: my kitchen then my head over this confusion with Jackson.
“Heeey,” Michael droned, sensitively as he leaped over to me. “What’s wrong? Did that fucker hurt you?”
My head popped up and forehead balled. “Don’t be ridiculous! It is not that type of party. Me? Hurt?” I blew air. “Never that!”
Michael recoiled. “Okay.”
“It’s just that I wasn’t expecting to cook my own breakfast, if you catch my drift,” I admitted.
“You wanted a morning round before you sent him packing,” he murmured his revelation, reminding me why I entertained Michael.
“Precisely,” I breathed out my relief. He understood. “He got called away for a last minute breakfast invite by his friends who are leaving town this morning. The wife wants to chat before hitting the road.”
“So, it’s not a meal with just his buddy?” Michael keenly observed.
I shook my head with my arm wrapped across my abdomen and my other hand fed my bottom lip to my mouth as I meditated on my dilemma. I wouldn’t be seeing Jackson until Monday. For some unearthly reason, that bothered me.
“Then surprise him,” Michael chirped as he sauntered over to my linen closet. He opened the door, in search of my foot cream, I was sure. “Join them.”
What?!
I opened my mouth to retort, but then quickly shut it the moment his suggestion resonated with me.
I leaped in the air, took several long strides over to Michael at the closet, pulled the jar from the shelf, stuffed it into his hands and closed the door. His face distorted as I started pushing him to the door.
“I’m going to Brooklyn for breakfast. I have to get dressed.” I used all my might to move him until he was out.
As soon as I paced to the door of the small, hole in the wall restaurant, I was met with two burly men posted on each side, undoubtedly, employed by Azmir Jacobs. I rolled my eyes and groaned inwardly, having no time for resistance. I just needed to get to Jackson. I was relieved that after a hard and long regard from the top of my head to the bottom of my Louboutin booties as I approached, they didn’t utter a word.
But inside there was another barrier. Momma D’s restaurant was a small tattered eatery, clearly patroned by devout locals. Though the place smelled marvelous, the leather chair pads were ripped and the laminate floors were tattered, giving off personality. I observed the aged photos of dignitaries framed above the table while I scanned the place for my party. And when I made it to the back of the restaurant, I was met with another brawny figure, who stood broadly, obstructing my view behind him.
“There are available tables in the front,” he informed with wide nostrils. We were in the rear where only three tables were, two of which were occupied.
“I’m here to meet Jackson,” I cocked my head to the side as I pointed around him.
As he turned to glance over his shoulder, I craned my neck and was able to see a tall man with his back to me on the phone and two others seated at a table. His back was to me as well, but I easily made out Jackson, even with a sweat-hoodie covering his head. After a few moments of hesitation, Big Beefy stepped aside, making way.
It took no time to begin my strut over to their table where I slid into the empty seat next to Jackson, who sat closest to the wall, across from Rayna Jacobs. Right away, I was delightfully assaulted with the conversant aroma of Jackson, mixed with his shower gel. Fighting to react to it, I started wiggling out of my overcoat right away, silently praying my cream cashmere overcoat wouldn’t be stained. Knowing I’d be dining with the renowned A.D. Jacobs and his wife, I decided on the half sleeved chemist overcoat, cropped Hervé Léger Bohemian floral jacquard top exposing my abdomen, blue destroyed boyfriend jeans rolled to my calves, and bone Guerilla 100 spike Loub booties. I didn’t stop there in my preparation when I pulled out my off-white Brea MM Louis Vuitton day bag. I was here to fulfill my curiosities and make a statement while gathering information.
I fought both Jackson and Rayna’s alarming gape as I adjusted myself in the chair, sporting the most cunning smile I couldn’t help. In that moment, I realized I hadn’t a plan. I simply jumped to the idea of crashing Jackson’s breakfast when Michael suggested it, desperate to see him interface with someone other than professional colleagues and his family.
Shit, Elle!
Thinking quickly, my eyes shuffled to Jackson’s half eaten plate. I pulled it in front of me and started casually eating from it before even considering what I was feeding my face. My eyes arrived to a steeply shocked Rayna. She was striking, warm caramel skin, doe eyes, full lips, tasteful light-handed make up, thick long and wild hair framing her diamond shaped face, and simple yet classic large and brilliant diamond studs in her lobes. At first her eyes were hard, attempting to process my covertness. And I wasn’t prepared to observe Jackson quite yet. I started with the easier prospect.
“Rayna Jacobs!” I beamed with wide eyes and smiled broadly with my mouth closed while I chewed. “It’s nice to meet you. Jackson speaks so fondly of you. So
rry you have to shoot out of town so soon. We could’ve had dinner.” I stuffed my mouth again to stop my rambling.
Rayna seemed she couldn’t speak at first. She glanced down at me forking my food from the plate and then over to Jackson. When my eyes followed hers, I saw him reclined in his chair with his head resting on his fingers. His eyes were…amused. He wasn’t angry.
Whew!
My charmed eyes raked back over to Rayna, who was intensely regarding me again.
“Jackson…” I called out tentatively. “I think you should do the honors.”
I chanced a glance over to him again. His expression didn’t falter, but he wasn’t budging. For a while my eyes danced in his regard, imploring him to invite me into this event. This went on for seconds long.
“I’m Jackson’s friend, Rayna Jacobs.” I turned to see Rayna extending her hand over the table. Her eyes were softer, but there was a strong regard behind them. “I guess we can start there.”
I dropped my fork and met her palm. “Elle Jarreau,” I reciprocated confidently, hiding my compromised ego. “I work with Jackson as a Senior Account Manager at Dynamic Branding.”
As I sat back to open myself up to the conversation, Rayna’s eyes roved over my exposed belly. My eyes jumped nervously to Jackson to find him mirroring Rayna’s regard. Right away, I realized my ensemble didn’t align with the title I’d just given.
Okaaaay…
“Anyway,” I breathed, waving off the awkward moment. “What have I missed? You know”—I continued without giving them room to answer—“I’ve been meaning to share with Jackson some ideas I have that could give the ministry charity you’ve initiated recently the boost it needs to go mainstream. Your focus is underprivileged women, reshaping their self-perception and arming them with resources for a new beginning.” I ended on an inspired leer.
The table was quiet. Rayna fought to smile, seeming to be calculating her response. I knew what I was speaking because I’d Google’d her last night while lying in bed, just before Jackson arrived.