Forbidden (War Book 1)

by Trevion Burns

  “Worth it for the spicy tuna alone.” Stella threw a wistful smile across the car.

  DJ Armstrong lifted a perfectly arched blonde brow across the console—her blue eyes alight.

  Stella studied each of DJ’s eyes, back and forth, breathing deeply. “I can never decide which one is bluer.”

  “Pretty sure they’re both the same.”

  “You look just like him.”

  “Yep. That’s the funny thing with twins.” DJ rolled her eyes, leaping for the passenger’s side door, throwing it open, and jumping down onto the cobblestone driveway. Tomboy to the core, DJ moved at the speed of light, her form-fitting gray sweatsuit hugging every inch of her petite body like a glove.

  Stella killed the engine and stepped out too, her red bottom heels clicking on the cobblestone. Breathing in the scent of freshly cut grass and roses that permeated from her meticulously landscaped yard, she grabbed the hem of her knee-length Gucci day dress and did a little wiggle to re-adjust it on her body. Her stomach still jutted out ever so slightly, but no nowhere near as much as it had a few months ago. Circling the car, Stella continued studying DJ’s silky blonde hair, her ski-slope nose, her slightly tanned skin, and her angular features longingly. She pursued DJ like a lion stalking its prey. Her Louis Vuitton heels pitter-pattering after DJ’s Air Jordan’s as she followed her up the steps that led to the double doors of the house.

  Like prey that was perfectly aware they were being stalked, DJ froze at the front door and cut her eyes over her shoulder.

  “Um, Stella?” Her face went blank.

  Stella froze in mid-step, silencing the click of her heels. “Look, just because you hate talking about him—hell, even thinking about him—doesn’t mean the rest of the world does.”

  “Um, no…” DJ deadpanned, before nodding toward the car. “Blue?”

  Stella’s mouth fell open, eyes widening. She sputtered for a moment, shoulders going stiff, before shooting a quick look over her shoulder at the Range Rover. Her fingers tightened around the handle of her red Yves Saint Lauren handbag. Laughing breathily, she looked back at DJ with a sheepish smile.

  “I know!” Stella squealed, voice two octaves higher. “You think I would forget my own daughter? I was just about to go… go, get her.”

  “Oh, okay.” DJ raised both eyebrows high.

  Stella stumbled backward down the steps, holding DJ’s eyes—which were shining with skepticism—as she made a tripping, clumsy journey back down to the truck. She scoffed and clicked her tongue all the way to the back door as if she’d just been falsely accused of double homicide, even as her heart raced.

  DJ followed, lingering behind Stella at the back door of the truck.

  “Come on, baby.” Stella pulled open the door. “You ready for your nap? Huh?”

  The wiggling bundle that greeted Stella and DJ from the car seat in the back couldn’t look further from a nap if she tried. Baby Blue’s chubby legs kicked wildly from where they jutted out of her mustard-colored onesie the moment she caught sight of DJ. As usual, all four of Blue’s fingers were shoved as deep in her mouth as she could get them, thumb hanging out, making lips that were already fit for a Gerber baby look even more plump and adorable. Blue screamed around her fingers, glistening with saliva, and her big gray-blue eyes lit up. Her yellow onesie was the perfect compliment to her dirty-blonde curls, as well as her caramel skin, making her look like something the setting sun itself had planted and bloomed from the most beautiful depths of the earth. Stella could still hardly believe something so beautiful could’ve ever come from her.

  “You know your mommy would never forget you, don’t you?” she whispered, her heart still lingering somewhere at her feet as she released Blue’s seatbelt.

  The moment Stella reached into the car seat, Blue’s eyes shifted from where they’d been trained on DJ as if seeing Stella for the first time. As Stella took Blue under the arms and lifted her up, the smile vanished from Blue’s face, slowly crumbling until it had curled into a cringe and a soft whimper had escaped her lips. One whimper turned to two, then three, and in seconds, Blue was wailing.

  Stella’s eyes fell closed as she set Blue on her hip, letting her screams pierce her eardrum as she found herself encased with the scent of baby powder and Jergens. Blue’s legs kicked even harder and faster, as if dancing in time with her cries, as she reached her clawed hands out for DJ over Stella’s shoulder.

  DJ cooed at her. “What’s the matter with that baby? What’s wrong with Auntie’s baby?”

  Stella carried a hollering Blue to the front door as Blue fought for freedom, craning and angling her body into shapes that would give a Cirque du Soleil performer a run for their money, all the while screaming at the top of her lungs. Stella could feel DJ’s eyes burning into her back as they made their way into the five-bedroom estate, but didn’t dare look over her shoulder to confirm.

  As if anticipating their arrival, the living room phone began to ring the moment they stepped into the house, bouncing off the foyer’s vaulted ceilings and joining in with Blue’s cries, as if they were working as a team to drive Stella to the brink of insanity.

  “Wait. People still have house phones?” DJ laughed, closing the front door behind her. “Has that phone always been here? If it has, I’ve never heard it ring.”

  “Which is probably the reason most people don’t have house phones anymore.” About halfway into the living room, arms growing tired under Blue’s Herculean strength, Stella surrendered, sighed heavily, and turned to DJ. “Can you please take her? God, just take her.”

  DJ took baby Blue from Stella’s arms with a soft chuckle.

  And, just like that, silence filled the room. The tears that had been on their way down Blue’s face seemed to freeze in mid-fall, glistening on her chubby cheeks under the bright lights of the crystal chandelier sparkling overhead.

  “Oh, sure,” Stella mumbled to Blue. “It isn’t as if you lived inside me for nine months, rent-free, working slowly and meticulously to destroy my body, one inch at a time. Tagging it with cellulite and stretch marks like a delinquent who happened upon a bare wall in the hood.”

  Appearing to listen intently, Blue reinserted her fingers back into her mouth as Stella ranted; sucking furiously as the frozen tears on her cheeks continued to dry. The corners of her lips lifted into a giggle when DJ bounced her on her hip.

  “Aw, the happy mommy and her baby,” Stella grumbled, turning away from them and making her way into the living room once more. “Might as well take her home and raise her for the next 18 years. Doubt she’d mind, seeing as she hates me so much.”

  “She doesn’t hate you; she just loves her auntie. And who could blame her, honestly? I’m pretty awesome. God, are you gonna get that?” DJ paused mid-gloat to frown toward the ringing phone.

  “The answering machine will get it.”

  “People still have answering machines?”

  “Only the ones whose babies hate them.” Stella’s heels made music on the white marble floors as she made her way to the white U-shaped section in the middle of the room, dropping her bag on the couch before plopping down too.

  DJ and Blue sat down beside Stella a moment later, both women breathing a sigh of relief after a long day.

  “You know, Blue isn’t the only thing you forgot from the truck.”

  “Didn’t forget.”

  “Uh huh. We should probably go and get the bags,” DJ said as her head fell back on the plush white cushions. “Louis, Prada, Fendi. Pretty big names to have peeking out the back window of a car. Hate to see it get stolen.”

  “I’d hate to lift my head from this couch even more.”

  “Amen to that.”

  “Besides, the windows are tinted, and it’s Cascade Hills. The only things getting stolen in this neighborhood are souls, dreams, and third husbands.”

  A loud beep filled the room moments after the phone stopped ringing and Stella tilted her head on the couch to look at Blue—who was cuddled into DJ�
��s bosom with heavy, contented eyes—just as the answering machine clicked on.

  A female voice fluttered from the speakers. “Yes, this call is for Stella Armstrong. This is Cynthia from Miriam Wallace Collections calling—again. As you know, we’ve made several attempts to—”

  Leaping from the couch, jetting across the room and throwing her body on the sitting chair in the far corner—Stella reached for the machine with a pained groan, the tips of her manicured fingers hitting the stop button and silencing the condescending voice. Standing tall, gasping for air, she adjusted the dress that had shifted on her body while smiling bashfully toward the couch.

  DJ and Blue both watched Stella with mouths agape, as if they’d just witnessed an Olympic sprinter who’d gotten desperate enough for the gold to dive past the finish line.

  “Damn scammers.” Stella breathed out a laugh. “No idea how the hell they get my number. So annoying, right?”

  DJ’s chin sank into her chest, looking up at Stella from under her hooded brow bone, blue orbs soaked in cynicism.

  Stella ran her fingers through her hair, nearly tugging the black strands straight from the scalp as she tittered and shuffled her feet under DJ’s unrelenting gaze.

  “Stella. It’s none of my business but, are you… alright? I mean, like, financially—” The phone rang out again, cutting DJ off in mid-sentence.

  Stella snatched it before it could ring a second time, voice shrill. “Armstrong residence!” As she listened to the voice on the other end of the line, her previously tightened shoulders sank. So did her face. Her mouth popped open, and she jammed her eyes shut. Scratching her forehead, she nodded. “Uh huh, I understand. See, the thing is, I have my daughter and…” Whoever was on the other line cut her off in mid-sentence, saying something that made her brown cheeks go almost ashen. “Okay—no, I’ll be there. I’ll find a way. Give me an hour.”

  Hanging up, Stella looked back up at DJ, nibbling her bottom lip.

  “Another scammer?” DJ teased.

  “No.” Stella’s voice took on a pleading tone. “But I do need you to watch your daughter Blue for the next a few hours.”

  DJ’s face fell, frowning even as she continued bouncing a gurgling Blue on her lap. “I thought this was supposed to be a relaxing day off for you? And, contrary to popular opinion around here, Blue isn’t mine—she’s yours.”

  “Let’s just consider it practice for when she’s an angry teenager that will inevitably tell me she hates me and wants to go live with you anyway.” When DJ didn’t joke back, Stella’s shoulders fell even more. “You know I just started this job, and I’m still on probation. I can’t risk saying no. If my boss says jump, I have to say how high. At least for the next six months.”

  “What kind of office job calls on your day off? At six p.m.?”

  “Like I said, my boss is a hard ass. It was supposed to be a normal 9-5, but the jerk treats me like I’m on call anyway. It sucks, but it’s money. Good money. All I want in the world is for my daughter to have the same amazing life I had. The best home in the best neighborhood that keeps her in the best school zones. I want her to have absolutely… everything. I want her to have the same life she would’ve had if… if … if her daddy was still here. How else am I going to keep this roof over her head? Food in her mouth? The Fortune 500s aren’t exactly banging down the door of a 28-year-old college dropout.”

  “Maybe buying a little less Gucci-Gucci, Louis-Louis, Fendi-Fendi, Prada and a little more Target, Shoprite, Goodwill?”

  “You know how long it took me to find this job, and the search almost killed me. I can’t do it again, especially not in this economy. Can you please just watch her for tonight?”

  “I can’t.”

  “I’ll make it up to you, with interest. And you can eat all my sushi—if it ever gets here.”

  “No, I mean I really can’t. You know I’d stay if I could, but I’m working night shift in an hour, remember? Only difference is my boss isn’t some Hitler-esque jerk-off who calls me at the last minute.”

  “Your folks sure choose a hell of a time to go on a summer trip through Europe. Once upon a time, they were begging me to watch Blue.” Stella’s cursed under her breath, staring off into the distance. “I can’t lose this job. I can’t.”

  “You know who to callllll,” DJ sang.

  Stella shot DJ a look, not even dignifying that with a response.

  DJ shrugged. “He never says no.”

  “But I do. Watch this. No.”

  “Guess you’re out of a job, then. That Gucci-Gucci, Louis-Louis, Fendi-Fendi, Prada’s looking further away than ever… Should we go ahead and cancel that expensive-ass sushi? Return all those shopping bags sitting in the back of the Rover? Hell, should we go ahead and sell the damn Rover altogether? That alone would be enough cash recouped to pay the mortgage on this place for the next year! Hell, since you don’t wanna swallow your pride and call him, let’s sell this place and buy a more affordable house outside Cascade Hills. In a neighborhood that’ll keep baby girl in the absolute worst school zones, forever!”

  Stella clenched her fists as DJ’s words sank in, biting down on her tongue so hard she nearly drew blood, and then rolled her eyes so far back into her head they almost fell out of their sockets.

  Then, she reached down and snatched up the phone.

  2

  Rocco stood tall, bare chest heaving, and wiped the moisture off his mouth with the back of his hand. The sticky essence clung to his skin like wet sugar, gleaming off the last remnants of the setting sun filtering into his bedroom window almost as much as the droplets of sweat glistening on his rock hard pecs.

  His phone beeped from the nightstand, but his green eyes remained lowered to the bed before him, where a long, lean redhead writhed all over his white sheets, still coming down from the screaming peak he’d helped her to with his lips and tongue. Her blue eyes were heavy, appearing seconds from closing completely, body frozen at the awkward angle she’d thrashed herself into somewhere around her third orgasm. The crown of her tousled head was pressed up against his upholstered white leather headboard, the static making a few runaway strands float in mid-air.

  Rocco waited patiently on the side of the bed as she curled and writhed, letting the aftershocks work their way through her body, noting that she looked close to the verge of collapse. Purring, she laid her cheek on the bed and let her eyes flutter closed.

  His expression grew pinched, and he sighed loudly enough for the sound to reach the ceiling. When that failed to wake her up, he rolled his eyes, leaned forward, and seized her arm. He could’ve wrapped his long fingers around her slim arm twice, and the grip he got on her was enough to startle her back to attention with a squeal, her blue eyes wide. She looked up at him, big eyes filled with confusion.

  The corner of his mouth lifted into a smirk as he lowed his expectant gaze down to his dick, which was straining just as hard against his jeans as it had been the moment she’d come giggling into his apartment earlier that night. He kept his gaze locked on his raging erection for a long moment before re-claiming her eyes. Then he looked down at himself again, and back up, over and over, to make his point clear.

  His phone dinged again, and this time he let his impatient eyes fly toward the nightstand to take in the text message on the screen.

  Cynthia: I wanna taste your cum.

  He cocked an eyebrow high. Evidently, he’d responded to the wrong text message that afternoon and had definitely invited the wrong girl over.

  Attempting to take advantage of his distraction, the girl who certainly wasn’t Cynthia whimpered up at him from the bed and tried to reclaim her arm, presumably so she could fall back into the bed and attempt to go to sleep once more.

  The smirk fell from his face, and he tightened his fingers farther, giving her arm another little tug while letting his gaze fall to his engorged cock once more.

  No way in hell he’d just spent the last thirty minutes putting in work between her legs without he
r returning the favor. Clearly, she thought the fact that he’d been after her for years actually meant something. That her constant rejections had worn him down to the quick, leaving him a complete shell of himself, with zero self-respect, desperate enough to give her his all without receiving anything in return. The hell he was. He’d tasted her cum like a champ, and he’d be damned if she left that apartment without getting a taste of his too.

  “I’m tired, Rock…”

  “Just like a female. Always expecting 80/20. Not in this house, cupcake. In this house, we go 50/50.” He released her arm and nodded down at his hardness.

  Still pouting, she began a lackadaisical crawl over to the edge of the bed like he was leading her by chains around the neck to her own execution. Once she was kneeling at the edge, she placed her splayed fingers on his hips for balance, dug her nails into his blue jeans, and gave him one last pleading look.

  His phone dinged from the nightstand, and she cut her eyes toward it. “Can’t even turn your phone off for me but expect me to suck you off, huh?”

  “You were all about my phone when I was sucking your clit a minute ago, weren’t you? Let’s keep that same energy.”

  Lips puckered, she lifted a lazy hand up to the button of his jeans. “Guy gets a new gig, all of a sudden he’s a fuckin’ badass.”

  Butterflies filled his stomach. “Haven’t gotten it yet.”

  “You will.”

  “Don’t jinx it.”

  She rolled her eyes up to meet his, fingers still fumbling with the button of his jeans.

  He nodded, waiting patiently for her fumbling fingers to pop it open.

  Just as she lowered his zipper and his manhood popped out, the phone on the bedside table began to ring. He moaned softly, not sure if it was in response to the ringing phone or the incredible sensation of her warm lips and tongue wrapping around the swollen head of his dick. Her lips strained around his girth, their pink hue going pale as his massive size stretched them to the brim. His abs tightened at the incredible sensation, the eight-pack becoming more pronounced, swelling hard like they were trying to tear through his skin. He thought about ignoring the ringing phone, but something prompted him to lean over regardless, length still down her throat, and pick it up.