“Good evening, Pleasure. I was returning your call,” she said coolly.
“From last week,” he slid in smoothly.
“I couldn’t imagine what you possibly had to call about,” she explained. “I checked the house and you didn’t leave anything behind. I paid you. We did the deed. To me, our association was over. Curiosity just got the best of me tonight.”
Pleasure closed the passenger door and opened the driver’s to climb in. “I want another go at you—”
“That sounds appealing,” she said dryly.
He started to hang up on her. In the Rock, Paper, Scissors game of life, ego sometimes won over pride and common sense. “I want another chance to show you just why I live up to the name Pleasure . . . and it’s on me,” he added, cranking his truck and eventually reversing back from the pale peach building that was peeling in spots to reveal the putrid green paint beneath it.
The line remained quiet for long moments.
“Hello,” he said, making sure she was still there.
“Listen, what purpose does this serve?” she asked. “From my understanding, you have plenty of women wanting your brand of sex. Why do you care what I think?”
Pleasure pulled to a stop at the red light. “This is my business, and I am just offering you an exchange of sorts.”
“There’s more to you than just muscles and a big dick,” Assefa mused.
“Trust me, there is,” he assured her as he sat back in his seat and tapped the wheel with his long fingers.
“Okay, fine, if you insist,” she said with a sigh. “When? Tonight?”
“It can be.”
“Be here in an hour.”
Beep.
She ended the call.
Assefa liked control. That was clear.
Glancing at the clock on the wood grain dashboard, he knew it would take most of the hour to make it to Bridgewater. He passed on going by his house first.
As he made the drive, his mind wandered back to Miss Prim and Proper Pearls. He couldn’t believe that in a crowd of close to two hundred women, he had so clearly noticed her absence. Not that they had ever shared a word or seen each other outside the club, but still it was hard to deny that seeing her every month had become a ritual of sorts.
Pushing away thoughts of her, he turned the music up and listened to the sounds of Hot 97 as he ate up the miles to Bridgewater.
Bzzzzzzzzz . . .
Feeling his personal phone vibrate against his thigh, he leaned over a bit to pull it from his front pocket. “Yo,” he answered.
“Yo, Pleasure, you left already?”
It was Hunter, one of the newer dancers at the club. Unlike the vets before him, Pleasure tried to offer help to the newbies. There was plenty of money to go around. No need to be selfish. He tucked his cell phone between his ear and his shoulder as he navigated the highway traffic. “Yeah, I had something to handle. Why? What’s up?” he asked.
“We all were headed to the diner down the street, but go handle your handle,” Hunter said, the noise of the club still booming in the background.
At that moment, Pleasure pulled up in front of Assefa’s house. “Wish me luck,” he drawled, eyeing her porch through the windshield.
“A’ight. Let’s hit the gym tomorrow morning.”
“Cool. I’ll call you.” He ended the call and left the phone inside his glove compartment before easing out of the truck.
Just as he stepped on the curb, he noticed her neighbor’s curtain fluttering closed. Pleasure ignored it and continued up the steps. He wanted no parts of their soap opera.
The door opened before he could even ring the doorbell. He was surprised that Assefa was fully dressed in a sleeveless maxi dress. She stepped back and waved him in.
“Hello, Pleasure.”
“Hi.” Without the distraction of her nudity, Pleasure quickly took in the warm brown and rust colors of her living room. He glanced away from the pictures lining the mantel and found her leaning against the back of her sofa looking at him as if she was bored.
He moved over to scoop her up into his strong arms before heading up the same stairs she’d led him up before. The door to her bedroom was open and he strolled right inside to lay her down on the middle of the crimson bed. He stepped back and began to undress slowly.
Assefa sat up on her elbows and crossed her leg with her foot swinging.
He frowned. His eyes shifted down to the foot. It reminded him of that time he’d auditioned for Vera and sent her into boredom.
Assefa tilted her head to the side as she continued to eye him . . . continued to wait for more.
Pleasure reached for the waistband of his pants.
Assefa held up her hand like she was stopping him in the name of love. “Because this is a freebie, I am going to do you a favor, Pleasure,” she said, rising onto her knees.
Pleasure fought the urge to push her back down onto the bed, fling her dress up above her head, and give her The Dick until she cried for no more.
“Come, sweetie.” She beckoned with her hand.
Shirtless, he walked over to her.
“No, you wait. I’ll come to you,” she said, climbing off the bed.
Pleasure stopped, pressing his hands to his hips.
“See, not every woman wants to be fucked, Pleasure, some want to make love,” she said, caressing the contours of his chest as she slowly circled his body. “Some want to be freaked. Slowly and sweetly. It is your job to figure out who wants what and deliver.”
His body tingled as she stroked his taut nipples with her fingertips. “Take every moment—every chance—to stroke, caress, and kiss her,” she whispered against his skin as she dipped to lick a trail from just above his buttocks and up his spine, ending with a kiss and a suck just below his shoulder blades. “You remove the clothing. You pamper her. You do the work.”
Pleasure felt goose bumps race across his skin and he tilted his head back as she eased his pants and his boxers down over his buttocks. He gasped lightly when she lightly bit each ass cheek before she spread them and blew a stream of air up the divide. His eyes opened in surprise and pleasure.
“Kiss and touch every part of her skin. Leave nothing without your attention.” Assefa came around the front of him and shifted the clothing over his erection as she sucked the hard groove between his biceps and then licked a trail hotly from one hard nipple to the other. “There is so much more that should happen before you slide this big dick inside a woman,” she said, tilting her head back to lock eyes with him as she stroked the length of it from the root to the smooth brown tip before she lightly fondled his tight balls.
Pleasure’s ass clenched at the feel of her touch.
“Everywhere,” Assefa insisted in a whisper, leaning to the side to place a row of kisses from the side of his hard buttocks and up his rib cage to just below his armpit. She leaned to the left and replicated the move.
Pleasure shivered, fighting the urge to pick her up and toss her on the bed to fuck her hard. He couldn’t deny she was schooling him because his anticipation was building.
“And talk to her, Pleasure. Tell her what you feel and convince her of what she should feel,” Assefa said, working his pants down until they fell atop his Jordans. “Make love to her mind. Let your words fuck her up too, baby.”
She smiled at him and wrapped her fingers around his dick to lead him to the bed. Bringing her hands up high, she caressed his shoulders before bringing them down, her nails lightly raking his skin while she lowered her body until she knelt before him. Hard and curving inches were now above the curls of her hair. She stroked his dick as she leaned in to lick, kiss, and bite the sensitive insides of his thighs.
“And trust me, the longer you pay attention to the little things, the more she will enjoy—and the more she enjoys it, the more you will enjoy it.”
Pleasure sat down on the bed as she stepped out of her maxi and revealed she was completely naked underneath. “Damn!” he swore.
She
smiled and opened the box to remove a condom. “Now, I’m not saying everyone deserves oral, but for the ones you do bless, take your time to get to know the pussy,” she said, opening the foil and bending again to settle the latex on his throbbing thick tip.
“Nah, I don’t eat pussy,” he protested, his dreads shielding his face, as she sucked the condom-covered tip.
Assefa leaned back. “Never?”
“Nah, I’m good.”
She shook her head. “You don’t know what you’re missing,” she said, just before she placed his dick back in her mouth and then used her lips to unroll and push the condom down the length of him.
Pleasure’s mouth fell open as she sucked him deeply and slowly. He looked down at her moves. He was near coming and she pulled back just in time for the feeling to ease. “Did that feel good?”
“Damn good,” he said.
“So why not make a woman feel that way, too? Hmm?” she chided him.
She licked the hollows of his abdominal muscles as she pushed him down onto the bed and straddled him. For long minutes he was lost to everything as Assefa caressed, licked, sucked, and nibbled her way over his body. The entire time her hot words pushed him closer and closer to the edge. Pleasure lay back on the bed and enjoyed every second of her teasing and tantalizing him with a skill that completely fucked him up.
Pleasure was speechless.
“Remember, make love with your dick and your words,” she said, spreading her moist pussy lips with one hand as she held his dick upright with the other.
She was no joke.
“I want your dick in me. Do you want to put your dick in me?”
His heart was racing and his entire body felt alive as she settled her pussy on him and took nearly all of him inside her as she bent to suck his ear. “Oh, your dick feel good, daddy,” she moaned with a little soft grunt.
Assefa rode him slow and easy, with her walls tightening on his tip before she dipped her hips again. “Who am I?” she asked, sitting up a bit to look down into his face.
“Assefa,” he whispered back, not caring that he sounded like a bitch.
She smiled softly and bit her lip. “What am I giving you?”
“Good pussy,” he said, arching his back before he roared like the mating lion as he filled her with his cum.
Assefa sat up and pressed her hands into his chest to ride him faster and push them both over the edge as she came as well. “You’re welcome,” she told him before she stood and freed herself of his now-limp dick.
Pleasure couldn’t muster enough energy to do anything but give her a thumbs-up.
Chapter 15
Assefa
One Month Later
Pleasure felt eyes on him. He closed his lids as he continued his daily five-mile run on the treadmill, but that was disappointing because that shut off his view of the city through the windows surrounding the exercise room. Turning up the volume of his iPod, he stayed focused as he picked up the pace.
That feeling was still there and he knew before he even finished his run and turned off the machine that he would find women looking at him. He was right. Some looked away when he turned and others boldly met his gaze.
He waved and smiled at them all as he wiped his bare chest of sweat before hanging his towel over his neck as he made his way to the locker rooms. He was glad to be free of their stares, smiles, and dreamy eyes.
Pleasure was not in the mood for their adoration.
For the last few days he’d found himself more and more annoyed by the opposite sex. Last night in the club when a woman had snatched off his rip-away front and groped his dick, his first reaction had been repulsion. All day he had avoided the growing number of calls from his clients. Kezia and Lola called him for a night out in New York, and he’d even brushed them off.
“Are you a trainer?”
Pleasure was about to walk into the men’s locker room but he looked down and found a cute blond woman with reality-defying breasts looking up at him. He forced a smile. “No, I’m not,” he said politely, already pushing the door open.
“You really should be a trainer,” she said, reaching out toward his abdomen.
Pleasure stepped back before her touch landed.
Her blue eyes widened a bit in surprise. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend.”
“Well, it’s not the 1800s and I’m not a slave named Mandingo,” he told her coolly before he entered the locker room.
Pleasure knew he had been harsh with her because there were many days when he had enjoyed the flirtations of the women he encountered in the building. He had preened under the attention.
Not today. Fuck it.
Opening his wood-faced locker, he removed his cell phone to check the time. He had six missed calls on his trick phone. If each was unique, at three hundred dollars a client, that totaled close to two grand—his rent for the month. He didn’t bother to check the calls and tossed the phone back inside the locker atop his shirt before he took off his shorts and wrapped a towel around his waist. The only thing on his mind was a nice long sit in the steam room.
Once he claimed a spot on one of the cedar benches in the nearly empty room, he inhaled deeply to take in some of the steam that swirled around him until he could barely see his hand in front of his face. When he leaned his head back against the wall, the cushion of his dreads reminded him that he forgot to wrap them. He wondered what effect the steam would have on his locs, but he didn’t move from his spot.
The quiet was addictive.
For the last few nights, sleep had been evasive, and when he rose in the morning he felt like a bear awakened during hibernation. He wiped his face with both hands, wishing he could decipher what was bothering him. If he was a woman he would call it PMS, but Pleasure was far from female.
As more men entered the steam room, Pleasure rose, tightened his towel, and left. Back at his locker, he checked his phones again.
“Assefa,” he said at the sight of her number.
They had a morning appointment that he’d missed. Of all his clients she was the most thrilling for him. Their time together was hot, sexy, and mind-blowing. She’d even convinced him of the joys of eating pussy, and he had to admit that she was right. He hadn’t known what he was missing. Feeling a woman’s body shiver as he sucked her clit was a whole other kind of high. She was just as determined to make him the best lover she’d ever had as he was to have her admit that he was the best. That made for good times.
Still he didn’t return her call—calls. Numerous calls.
“Mr. Lover Lover . . .”
Pleasure eyed his trick phone but shoved it into his pocket without even checking the Caller ID.
He was his father’s son, but he was not his father. Pleasure needed a break from women. If only just for one day he needed not to see, smell, talk to, touch, or fuck a woman.
His mind, his body, and his dick needed a break.
Gathering his things from the locker, he left the gym.
Pleasure awakened with a start.
He sat straight up in the middle of his bed with his heart pounding wildly. Bending his legs, he pressed his forehead to his knees and wrapped his arms around his legs. He shook his head as if to clear it. That failed. Roughly kicking away the sheets, he snatched off the silk wrap he wore to protect his dreads at night. Everything felt like it constrained him.
He spent the entire day holed up in his apartment, avoiding all phone calls and finding a dozen different ways to rationalize why he was trying to mentally check out from the world. Something had him on edge. His temper was short. His patience was thin.
And now his night of sleep was ruined.
He covered his face with his hands and rubbed it vigorously as he yelled out sharply at the top of his lungs. “What the fuck?” he gasped in frustration.
Pleasure pounded his fists into the bed. “Breathe. Just breathe,” he repeated into the darkness, fighting for control.
Cloaked by the dark, he took deep cleansing b
reaths that shifted from shallow and shaky to even and steady. Licking his dry lips, he looked out his bedroom window into more inky blackness broken up by twinkling stars. He focused on the brightness and the distance of the stars. He kept his eyes locked on the largest one and forced himself to just breathe.
And to forget.
He felt embarrassed to be a grown man of immense strength and presence who huddled naked like a child in the middle of his bed. But the truth was he didn’t want to go back to sleep. He didn’t want to return to that place.
“Shit,” Pleasure swore, rising from the bed. He slid his bare feet into his slippers to avoid the coolness of the hardwood floors caused by the central air.
His dreads swung across his back and chest as he quickly moved across the room and down the hall to the kitchen. After a cursory check of his fridge—which resulted in him walking away empty-handed—Pleasure let his eyes adjust to the darkness and made his way to the living room.
Beneath the window and the limited illumination it offered, he did a hundred quick sit-ups, flipped over onto his stomach, and did a hundred one-armed push-ups—on each arm.
He stood by the windows.
He lay on the couch.
He turned the television on to briefly flip through the channels.
He turned the television off.
He paced.
He stubbed his toe, swore, and paced some more with a slight limp.
He craved a drink. He yearned for a hit of cocaine. He would even settle for some good weed.
He thanked God he had none of them at the ready.
Leaving the living room, he headed back to his bedroom—back to whatever he refused to face. He paused at the open door of his unused guest room. The moonlight from the window landed on his easel.
It was the only item in the room save for the pictures on the walls, and it looked as neglected as it was.
Turning on the light, he looked at his sketches in black frames on the walls. He walked around the room and paused to rest his eyes on each one. He was mildly surprised at the varying memories or emotions each one evoked. The triumphs. The failures. All necessary on the road he traveled called life. His life.
The Pleasure Trap Page 16