Heartless (Heartache)

by Danielle Allen

“God, I’ve missed you,” she moaned.

  My heart beat even faster as I sucked on her skin, letting my tongue dance across her spot. “I’ve missed you, too.”

  “I love the way that feels. I love that.”

  “I love—”

  A banging at the door, interrupted me and startled us apart.

  We stared at each other for a second. Unclear on what I was about to let slip out of my mouth in a heated moment, I took a shaky breath.

  “I ordered food,” I remembered, reaching for the handle.

  She pointed at my shirtlessness and noticeable dick print. “Are you going to open the door like that?”

  “You’re right,” I chuckled, grabbing her bag. “I’ll put this in front of me.”

  She swatted at my shoulder. “I’ll get the door,” she snickered.

  “And I’ll put this in the bedroom.” I turned and headed toward the back just as another barrage of knocks rained down on the door. “Goddamn.”

  “Your neighbors are going to be mad,” she commented.

  I glanced back as she straightened her dress and then opened the door.

  “Who are you?” Hannah’s voice felt like a bucket of ice water thrown in my face.

  I whipped around.

  “Who are you?” Jamila questioned, putting her hand on her hip. “Are you the delivery person?”

  I basically ran to the door.

  “Do I look like a delivery person?” Hannah snapped.

  “You do.” Jamila’s voice was flat and if the circumstances weren’t what they were, I would’ve laughed out loud.

  Hannah gestured to her outfit. “You wish.” Her eyes moved to me as I positioned myself behind Jamila. “Easy, who is this?”

  “Yes, Bradley, who is this?” Jamila added, turning to face me.

  Deciding I needed to answer Jamila’s question first, I reached out and put my hand on her shoulder. “That’s not the food delivery. That’s Hannah. The one I told you about.”

  Jamila’s eyebrows flew up and she looked at Hannah again. “Oh.”

  With pursed lips she turned as if she were going to walk away but because my hand was on her shoulder, I was able to pull her into me instead. Looking into her eyes, I could tell she was annoyed. The only reason I was smiling was because she was jealous. And she had no idea that she had nothing to be jealous of. The more I smiled, the more her eyes narrowed, and the more I just wanted to kiss her pursed lips.

  “And this is Jamila,” I told Hannah while still staring at Jamila. “My girlfriend.”

  The words rolled out of my mouth by accident and it seemed to catch all of us by surprise.

  Breaking eye contact, I shifted my focus to Hannah and tried to push through the rest of my statement. “So, we’re going to enjoy our night.”

  “What?” Hannah gasped.

  “Goodnight, Hannah.”

  “This is your girlfriend? Since when? You didn’t say anything about a girlfriend when I was here earlier!”

  Wow, she really is crazy.

  I was fuming. I knew what she was doing. She was dramatic and loved chaos since she wasn’t getting her way. She’d done it before. She made a scene at a restaurant in front of Sophia while we were on a date. Sophia ended up breaking things off with me. She went to Samia’s job to show her pictures of us together. Samia ended things because of it. And while those things made me mad, fucking with my relationship with Jamila was different.

  I liked Sophia and Samia was cool, but I love Jamila, I realized, anger taking hold of me.

  My jaw tightened and I swallowed a lot of the things I wanted to say. “When you stopped by unannounced and uninvited a little while ago, I didn’t have time to tell you I had a girlfriend because I was too busy kicking you out.”

  Seeing that she had hit a nerve seemed to make her blue eyes light up. Hannah let out a light laugh. “You had enough time to fuck me?”

  I was staring daggers at her. “I did not,” I barked angrily.

  Hannah’s smile grew. “That’s why I came back to tell you that I was able to get the morning after pill at the pharmacy on the corner.” She looked at Jamila. “We didn’t use protection.”

  I opened my mouth to cuss her out, but Jamila spoke first. Turning to me, she hissed, “I can’t believe you would sleep with her! After everything we’ve been through, you would cheat on me with her? Really? Did you even change before I got here?” She turned back to Hannah. “If you just left, does that mean he had on the boxer briefs with the hearts on them for you?”

  Relishing in drama, Hannah smirked. “Yeah, he did. He put them back on after we fucked. He never said anything about having a girlfriend. He just told me that I needed to go and that he’d call me after he was done handling some business.”

  “Jamila, I didn’t do that—I wouldn’t do that to you,” I stammered, unsure of how to unfuck the situation I was in. I glared at Hannah. “You’re a fucking liar.”

  Hannah tilted her head. “What reason do I have to lie, Easy?”

  “I can’t believe you would do this, Bradley!” Jamila exclaimed, shaking her head. “I trusted you!”

  “She’s lying. She’s a fucking liar. I didn’t touch her. I haven’t had sex with her since we got together. I swear to God,” I told her, rambling. “Come talk to me away from her crazy ass.”

  “Oh, I’m crazy? I’m crazy?” Hannah started yelling at me. “I’m the crazy one?”

  “I believe that delivery is ours,” Jamila said, gesturing to the delivery person that I hadn’t even noticed creeping up the steps.

  The young high school aged delivery boy cautiously stepped around Hannah and handed Jamila our food. I took the receipt and wrote in an extra tip for the inconvenience of the tension he walked through.

  “Thanks,” I told him gruffly.

  He nodded and immediately fled down the stairs.

  I took the food from Jamila and she took a step forward. “This has been a lot to digest so I’m going to take what you’ve told me into consideration as I eat dinner with my man now.”

  Seeming to be unhappy that her plan wasn’t working quickly enough, Hannah’s lip curled. “It looks like you could stand to skip a few meals.”

  My blood boiled. She’s lying on me and insulting Jamila? I wonder if B would kick her ass for me…

  Jamila let out a short, dry laugh. “Why would I deprive myself meals when I’m eating for two.” She rubbed her belly while Hannah stared in shock. “Yeah, so I won’t be skipping any meals anytime soon.”

  “What?” Hannah’s shrill voice echoed in the hallway.

  “Yeah, we’re together and we’re having a baby.” Jamila moved me backward as she took a step back. “So, you can take your dramatic, jealous, lying ass energy elsewhere. We’re good over here.”

  “Oh, and fuck you for talking shit about my girl, lying on me, and trying to fuck up a good thing,” I added, just before Jamila slammed the door.

  “I can’t believe she would show up here and say that bullshit,” I growled as I marched into the living room. I sat our food on the coffee table and started pacing.

  She sat down on the couch and watched me.

  “Just because she’s mad that I turned her down! I can’t believe she would—” I stopped and took a breath. “I’m sorry.”

  “We should talk about what just happened…” Her voice was soft but clear and her eyes never left me.

  I couldn’t read her expression and a chill ran down my spine. For a second, the thought of losing her entered my mind and my mouth went dry. I took a seat next to her and reached for her hand.

  “Hannah lied about everything. Please believe me,” I begged. I needed her to believe me. I needed her to trust me. When she didn’t say anything, I continued. “I didn’t touch her. She came by before you got here talking about how she’d been gone for the summer and she wanted to give me the opportunity to apologize. I told her to leave. That was it. She lied about everything else. I swear to God, Jamila. I would never do that to you.
I wouldn’t jeopardize what we have.”

  A ghost of a smile played on her lips. “That’s good to know. But I wasn’t talking about Hannah. I was talking about you calling me your girlfriend.”

  Relief swept through my chest and came out in a deep breath. “Oh, I mean…” I ran my free hand through my hair. “It just kind of slipped out.”

  “It was an accident?” she asked, before sucking on her bottom lip.

  I wanted to suck on her bottom lip. I also wanted the conversation to be over. It had been hard enough to keep my feelings in check but seeing as how Malik called me out, I didn’t know how good of a job I’d been doing.

  Does she know?

  My heart pounded in my chest. “I didn’t plan to say it, but it came out automatically. It was the only title that felt right when introducing you. Not my baby mama, not my friend. My girlfriend.”

  “Is that how you think of me? As your girlfriend?”

  “Yeah, I do. But I just… I’ve never really had a girlfriend before.”

  She cocked her head to the side. “What? Never?”

  I swallowed hard. “I mean, nothing like this.” I glanced down at her belly. “Nothing real.”

  She cleared her throat. “Do you think you feel like this because I’m pregnant?”

  “You being pregnant is what brought us together, but the fact that I can’t stop thinking about you is all you. I mean, yeah”—I touched her belly— “I think about her and how I’m going to be as a dad and what I need to do to prepare. But—” I cupped her face with my hands— “I also live for Fridays because I know I’m going to see you. It gets harder and harder to leave on Sundays because I don’t want to be away from you. I can’t sleep until I’ve heard from you and know that you’re good. I make plans based around you because I’ve never had as much fun with anyone as I do with you. And I know I’m a better man because of you,” I admitted.

  Her lashes fluttered closed and she inhaled shakily. “I don’t want to get caught up in my emotions because my hormones are all over the place.” When she opened her eyes, they were glassy. “I didn’t see you coming… I’ve been feeling things and I’ve wanted to ignore them. But when you called me your girlfriend…” Her voice trailed off and she swallowed hard. She looked like she was struggling to keep her composure.

  “I may have called you my girlfriend by accident. But it’s because you’ve been living in my mind rent free on purpose. So if you’re asking if I’m feeling this way because you’re pregnant with my little girl, no. That’s not the reason. If you’re asking if I have feelings for you because you are the most amazing woman I’ve ever met, yes. That’s the reason.” I leaned forward and brushed my lips against hers. “The life I was living, I don’t want that anymore. I want you. I only want you.”

  One of the tears she was holding back dropped so I kissed her again. The saltiness of the tears mixed with the sweetness of her kiss.

  She pulled away fractionally. “Bradley I…”

  I stared into her eyes, taking in the vulnerability she was showing me. I placed a gentle kiss upon her lips. “I love you.”

  Her eyes welled with more tears. “I love you, too.”

  *****

  Epilogue

  December 24th

  “If you don’t cut that bullshit off, I will literally kill you with my bare hands and then set it up to look like an accident and no one will be the wiser,” Jamila threatened as we approached hour twenty-six of labor.

  Nodding, I turned off the Christmas music. “That’s fair.”

  Four intense hours later, our daughter came into the world screaming at the top of her lungs. She was beautiful like her mother and had a head full of hair. I sat on the side of the hospital bed so that when she was placed in Jamila’s arms, I was right there.

  “You did good,” I whispered, kissing Jamila’s braided hair as she wept. I reached out and touched our child and felt a wave of emotion come over me. “You did good.”

  “We did good,” she whispered back to me. “She’s perfect.”

  “You both are.”

  Jamila looked up at me. “I love you.”

  “I love you, too.” I placed a kiss against her lips.

  “Welcome to the world, Destiny Leigh Simon,” she murmured. “Daddy and I love you so much.”

  Still a little in awe at the fact that I was looking at my daughter, I couldn’t even speak. I reached down and caressed my little girl’s hand.

  Wow.

  That little girl was my heart, and her mother was my soul.

  *****

  Have You Met Roman Harper?

  Heartache

  Roman Harper is known for being three things:

  A talented artist…

  A charismatic loner…

  And most notably, an unintentional heartbreaker.

  Even though he doesn’t mean for women to fall in love with him, Roman Harper has left a string of broken hearts in his wake. But after a lie tore his world apart eight years ago, Roman doesn’t let anyone get too close to him. Sex is sex and love is…completely out of the question.

  Using the past as motivation, Roman pours his heart out onto his canvas. His heartache inspires some of his best work. And at twenty-eight years old, his art is finally getting the recognition that he’s always desired. But when Roman wakes up on the morning after his successful event with no recollection of who left the cryptic message on his bathroom mirror, everything changes.

  Heartache is a slow-burn whodunnit mystery romance.

  Heartache and Heartfelt must be read in order.

  Additional Works by Danielle Allen

  The Single Life with Zola Patterson (Zola Duet 1)

  The Single Life with Zola Patterson (Zola Duet 2)

  Truth or Dare

  Trouble's What You're In

  Annabelle and Lee

  V is for Villainous (The Women of V Part One)

  V is for Vicious (The Women of V Part Two)

  V is for Vengeful (The Women of V Part Three)

  The Art of Being Love

  Tell-Tale

  Cuffing Season

  Sweatpants Season

  Broken Clocks

  Disasters in Dating

  Brink of Disaster: That One

  Brink of Disaster: This One

  The Art of Being

  Nevermore

  The One

  After The One

  Work Song

  Heartache

  Heartfelt

  Heartless

  Love Discovered in New York

  Autumn and Summer

  Back to Life

  Back to Reality

  Back to December

  Hot Holiday Hookup Novellas

  Slow News Day (A Groundhog Day Hot Holiday Hookup)

  Fool In Love (An April Fool’s Day Hot Holiday Hookup)

  The Delay (A Juneteenth Hot Holiday Hookup)

  Acknowledgments

  In 2015, I wanted to write a mystery romance and created Roman’s story in Heartache and Heartfelt. Heartless was originally conceptualized as another mystery. But years passed and Easy wasn’t talking to me—until he did. And it wasn’t a mystery in its original form. It was something true to Easy. It was a mystery who could’ve sent him that text. But ultimately, it was a second-chance romance with a surprise baby. And I want to acknowledge and thank every single last person who read Heartache and Heartfelt and then asked me about Easy’s story. For the last five years, I’ve gotten messages asking about Heartless and Easy. So I want to acknowledge, to thank, and to celebrate those who have rocked with me during my early work while I found my footing in the writing game. To my readers, thank you so much for your love and support. I appreciate you more than you know.

  www.authordanielleallen.com