Make Me Weak (Make Me #1)

by Megan Noelle

  “Looks like I slept over.”

  “Yes, you did. Were you opposed to it, love?”

  I shrugged my shoulders honestly. My eyes scanned his carefully, looking in those dark pools for any indication of what thoughts were occurring, beneath the surface.

  “I’m just not used to doing anything like this. I had every intention of leaving.”

  His lips smirked and his nose scrunched up in an adorable manner. “Did you now? If I am correct, I would say you had no ambition to leave me last night.”

  My arms slipped around his shoulders. I tried biting back my growing grin so I didn’t give away how giddy I was actually feeling.

  “Are you sure about that?”

  “Positive.”

  Our lips met in the middle for a soft, sensual good morning kiss. It warmed the blood in my veins, and woke up the fire in my core that had been sated numerous times last night alone. Onyx pulled away with a couple single kisses as he parted. Neither of us wanted to part but I knew it was coming. The later into the morning hours we went, the closer it came to the time when I was going to need to say goodbye.

  Before I left I knew I was going to need more. Something deeper than our sexual connection to give me a little boost to get me through the day.

  “Tell me something about yourself, Onyx.”

  “Like what?” He asked. I could tell my question was one he wasn’t expecting to hear.

  My shoulders bobbed again and my fingers twirled in his long strands of hair around and around. “I don’t know. Just anything that is kind of personal.”

  “If I share something about myself, will you do the same?”

  My eyes met his. We didn’t blink or joke around for those precious moments. Deep down I felt as though Onyx was trying to show me this wasn’t simply a game. That I could truly trust him. No matter what I shared, it would be safe in his possession.

  “Fine.”

  “Good.” I could see him working hard to contain the excitement building in him and it was cute to observe. “I guess I have to start, so I’ll go right for the family matters.”

  I was anxious to learn about Onyx’s family life, but I hoped it didn’t mean that was what he was hoping to hear about from me. There was no way I was ready to dive into that tangled thorny mess.

  “I have just the one brother that you met, Kayne’s father. We were born and raised in London, went to school there—everything. My mother was the caretaker for us while my father toured the country as a musician. Up until we were in our early teens my father, Charles was his name, made a great deal of money doing what he did. But people’s taste changed over the years; eventually he stopped making enough to support two children and his wife. My mother was constantly busting his ass to get a job and make a living, but that wasn’t who my dad was. It didn’t matter if he made a hundred dollars a month or hundreds a day—he just wanted to make music. I was 18 and my brother had just turned 17 when my mother announced one day she was moving to America and leaving my dad.”

  The skin around his mouth tightened and his eyes grew distant as if he was reliving that painful memory. I adjusted on his lap to straddle him, giving my hands better access to rub his shoulders and back as he spoke. It was all I could do to comfort him and from a first glance, it seemed to be working.

  “She was tired of living with a lazy deadbeat and had worked behind our backs to get the proper papers to move the family. Well, all of us excluding my father. Not only did she want a divorce but she planned to take his kids from him, without a choice.” He shook his head back and forth with a look of disgust settling into his features.

  “My father exploded at her but it didn’t matter. The money had run dry and so had her love of him. I stood up and told her under no circumstance was I following her gold digging ass to America. She tried to argue with me but I refused. I can still remember the way my dad placed a hand on my shoulder and gave me just this absolutely proud look. It made the bond we had even stronger, but it made the one I had with my brother crumble. He decided to go with her and not even a week later the two were gone. At first my dad and I were a little lost without them but it wasn’t long before we had a new life. He taught me about inspiration and passion. He showed me the true beauty in the world and together we made a living.

  “We started playing music together in pubs, on streets, anywhere. He always supported anything I wanted to do. As we continued to explore our new lives, I realized there was no other way I wanted to live my life. My brother tried to stay in contact with me but I didn’t say a word to him for ten years.”

  “What made you decide to give in after so long?” I couldn’t resist my question.

  “My father. He grew very ill and one day he told me I needed my brother. While my mother might be a stuck up prude, Joel was family and all I’d have once he was gone. I had never doubted my father, and I wasn’t going to start then. Ten days after my first phone call to my brother in ten years, my dad died. Joel was making good money and immediately bought a ticket to fly over for the funeral. It wasn’t until I saw him again that I realized how much I had missed him. We kept in contact when he returned home, but I stayed in Europe for almost ten more years. Then finally I gave in and moved to this area to be near Joel. That’s always why I have the thicker British accent than he does.”

  “I don’t recall hearing an accent when he spoke.”

  Onyx’s lips smirked up as if I hit on some inside joke. “Oh he hides it well, for his bitch of a wife. The woman reminds of my mother so much it makes me sick. But every now and then when he is talking very fast with some intense heightened emotion—you’ll hear it. That stuck up wife of his, Polly, will yell at him for being “out of control” if he slips up.”

  “Why does she hate it so much? That is seriously insane.” At least I knew I wasn’t wrong in my extreme dislike of Kayne’s mom.

  “I’m pretty sure it makes her think of me when he does. I haven’t changed my lifestyle once since I moved here. I still do what I want, despite the kind of money I make. That isn’t what she respects in people, so naturally she hates me and probably threatens Joel not to become who I am. But that’s enough about me. I’ve shared far more than I planned. I believe it is your turn.”

  I didn’t jump to divulge information. Instead I was still focused on him, while I slowly took in the depths of the grief that has pained him throughout his life. He has been betrayed, lied to, and even felt lost. When I first felt an attraction to Onyx it ricocheted throughout my entire being and struck a chord in my heart that I hadn’t understood until now. Onyx knew hurt the way many others would never grasp but I got it. Maybe our individual experiences were different. Yet, I was beginning to wonder if I had found the one person I could eventually feel comfortable sharing the darkest secrets of my heart with.

  “I feel you.” The words felt cheesy coming out, but as I pressed my hand against his heart it was all I could think to do to show Onyx exactly what I meant.

  He pressed his mouth onto mine and in a flash a searing hot fire ignited between the both of us. I felt his cock thickening beneath my ass and I was ready to ride him right here on this piano bench. Onyx let himself give into the burning desire that mixed within us, but out of nowhere he pulled back and pressed his hands against my arms. I tried capturing his skin with my lips again but it was no use—he was far stronger than I was. A grunt of frustration made its way out and Onyx laughed.

  “We’ll get to the fun in a bit but I don’t want to get carried away before I learn anything about you, Alexandria.”

  I was silent for a moment, flipping through the pieces of my life. Most of it was either locked up tight or uneventful, such as my stripper work. Something told me Onyx would never let me get away with just talking about my job at the nightclub either. He wanted to know me, understand me, and I hated it. At least, I should have. Perhaps I would have if he had not given me a look into his own past first. But now I didn’t simply feel obligated to tell more—I wanted to tell him som
ething no one else knew.

  “I don’t have nearly as much to tell today like you did.”

  “I didn’t ask for as much. Just give me a look. Tell me anything, love.”

  A weighted sigh escaped and I felt almost powerless to control everything in this moment. It was as if I never grasped how exhausting it was to hide my truths—until now.

  “I have no friends. I have people I talk to when I run into them, and even that number only grew from two to three, after reconnecting with Kayne. That is solely because I trust no one and don’t feel any of them could ever be in my world without hurting me. I’m so locked up in my own bubble of agony that when I get dropped off by anyone, even a taxi cab, I don’t let them bring me home. I have convinced myself that at any moment if someone knew where I actually lived, I would be attacked. I protect myself in the only way I know how to and that is to not tell anyone a damn thing about my life. Even the second most important thing to my life, which is painting, is something only one other soul knows.”

  “What’s the first most important?” He asked in a whisper, testing his limits.

  My head shook, but it wasn’t just to respond to his question. It was to shake back the approaching tears.

  “I can’t…” I didn’t manage to get anything else out before Onyx sealed his mouth over mine in a soft peck.

  “Then don’t. Not now, but thank you Alexandria. Thank you for letting me in.”

  One of the first tears I could recall shedding rolled down my cheek. Just as it reached my lips Onyx had his mouth back on mine, and that chaste kiss was gone. The passion and comfort we had found with sharing things that may seem so simple had taken us through a whirlwind of emotions in such a short time. We craved each other and there was no one else that could understand us the way we could. My arms and legs wrapped around him tighter as he stood from the bench and carried us back to the bed. That was where we spent the next couple hours exploring and torturing each other in the best ways possible.

  “Are you sure you want to leave now?” Onyx asked as we descended into the lower half of his building. In between the sexual encounters over the past two hours I had been trying to get myself out the door. Onyx just happened to have very persuasive ways of keeping me around. At one point I even jumped into the shower to promote getting ready for the day, but that slightly backfired. Onyx took that as a full invitation and joined, making it take twice as long. Finally, after we were out and drying off, I picked up the classic looking wall phone and dialed for a taxi cab; all while he stood there scowling at my decision.

  “I’ve already stayed longer than I planned.”

  “Fine, but why won’t you let me bring you home?”

  I looked back at him a smile lighting up my face. “You told me yourself that when you bring me home you’d want to bring me to the actual place I live.”

  Onyx shrugged with a nod. “Yeah? What’s so wrong about someone actually knowing where your home is? Then you can put me down as an emergency contact at the nightclub. You would then have someone who could actually help you in case something happens.”

  I narrowed my eyes at the growing smirk on his face. Now he was going to use that one little thing against me. At least for now I knew it was just in good fun so I wasn’t bothered by it, but nothing changed.

  “Funny. I don’t know what Maurizio would think if I put you down as an emergency contact. If we gave emergency numbers at all, that is.”

  He waved his hand in the air dismissively. “Meh, he won’t question anything if I tell him not to.”

  “Maybe he won’t ask you but he already hates me.”

  “Tsk tsk. That fool.”

  Just then the yellow taxi was seen through the front windows. A nauseous feeling deep in my stomach churned ceaselessly as I realized this was it. Who knew when or even if I was going to see him again. The past twelve hours had been an almost escape from reality and I enjoyed every blissful moment of it. Now, it was over and I was left wondering where that left us. Would Onyx stop coming around to look for me? Had he experienced his fill of me already?

  Although I think the greatest question I had on my mind was, why in the hell did I care? Not only did I have no answers, but I was too afraid to hear them. It made me sick to think of just how quickly I became attached to Onyx. It was the opposite of everything I had stood by in my life so far. I mean, up until now, I had only one person that could possibly go into the “friends” category. It just happened to be a girl I worked with and hardly ever spoke to. I was a loner in the purest form, but suddenly fearing the silence when I wasn’t near Onyx was terrifying me.

  “Well, I guess I better get going.”

  “I have something for you, love.” I watched him reach into his back pocket and pull out a wad of cash.

  I didn’t move as I eyed him skeptically. After the night we had and the things I shared is he seriously going to pay me like I’m some cheap hooker?

  The look in Onyx’s eyes made me wonder if he could read my thoughts. “Alexandria, this is not money from me to you. This is for the night worth of work you missed because of me. It is what you said you make for a night and I would hate for you to lose out on it.”

  Looking from the money in his hand to his eyes, I began to soften back up a bit. At least he wasn’t giving me a tip for last night, but I still felt wrong taking the money.

  “I can’t accept this.” As I said the words I knew it wasn’t going to be that easy. I depended on that money, not just for me but for my little girl. She was the reason for just about everything I did and I needed to think of her first. Not to mention, I only had my ID in my back pocket, no money. I had forgotten to get my tips for my dances earlier in the night, and I never carried money when I go. My cab fare home relies solely on me making tips while I’m at the club.

  Onyx tilted his head to the side as a knowing smile appeared over his face. The inner turmoil battling inside of me must have been visible to him as well.

  “Take the money, love. I will not judge you for it and I would never dare think less of you for it. You do what you do to make money and I took you from that last night. Do not think of it as me paying you for all we did, because I’m not. I added a little extra for cab fare but that’s because I’m a gentleman, not some scum kicking your ass to the curb. Please take the money.”

  My hand covered the bills along with his fingers and my eyes met his. I wanted him to hear me when I said this. Even if he already knew it, my conscience would feel better knowing he heard it. “Without a doubt, I don’t want to take your money. But I would be a liar if I said I didn’t need it. Maybe someday I will explain why, but I just want you to understand that I did as you asked.”

  His eyebrow rose with question. “What would that be?”

  “I wasn’t here as Kandi. I was here as Alexandria and it is her that needs the money. Not the pole dancer.”

  Deep in his eyes a smoldering fire warmed, making my heart flutter at the sight. He lowered his mouth until it was mere inches from mine but I never took my eyes from his. “I know.” He whispered before lowering his lips for a heart stopping kiss.

  I’ve kissed men before but there would never be anything near as passionate as a kiss from Onyx. He didn’t just put his mouth on mine, he put his soul into each touch. A hand was always somewhere on me, pulling me close and my heart felt as though the locks and chains securely protecting it shattered. Letting me feel a freedom I hadn’t known in ages. It was so powerful that I could only think to call it magic.

  He pulled away, leaving the money in my hand as he walked me out to the cab. I waved goodbye out the window, gave the man my fake address, and off we went. But I found myself turning around to stare at Onyx until he was nothing more than an unidentifiable speck in the distance. Gone and forgotten which were two things I never imagined I would dread.

  The cab pulled up outside my dream apartment, I paid the fare and stepped out. The taxi hadn’t even moved from the curb before someone yelled my name. I whipped arou
nd, preparing myself to either bolt or fight. That was when I saw Kayne jogging toward me with a goofy smile on his face, while he waved his hand. The sudden tension in my chest sizzled out allowing me to relax a little.

  “Kayne, what are you doing here?” I felt completely over exposed, as if he could read in my face that I had just spent the night fucking his uncle.

  He shrugged, that boyish charm never fading despite the slight sting to my words. “You said we’d hang out this week and I had the day off. Plus, I realized I never got your phone number, and I tried to look for you on Facebook but I couldn’t find you.”

  I smiled unintentionally but I couldn’t help it, Kayne was just so damn sweet.

  “I don’t have a phone, and I definitely don’t have any social media accounts.”

  Kayne’s eyes bugged out making me laugh inside. “How do you live?”

  This time I shrugged. “I get by, just a lot simpler than you.”

  “I suppose. Anyway, I actually just pulled up and was going to find your name on the door to wake your ass up. But now I can avoid getting yelled at for being that annoying friend.”

  Friend. The word was so foreign to my ears, especially when it was used because someone was calling me one.

  “Oh well, I had a meeting this morning. I have to change and it may take a while.”

  “No problem, I’ll go with you.” He hooked his thumb toward the apartment door and took a step in that direction. Immediately I grabbed his arm. Fuck! There really was no way around this. Well, aside from just sending Kayne home but as I watched the true excitement bubbling beneath his smile—I realized I couldn’t.

  “Nevermind, I mean, where are we going?”

  He shrugged. “I was thinking over to the beach? Maybe walk around the boardwalk a bit and swim later?”

  “Perfect!” I wasn’t a huge fan of swimming but with this idea I could easily manage to get an outfit when I’m there. “I’ll just buy a new suit and sundress when we’re there.”