by Harper Sloan
"He really didn't say anything to you?"
I laugh at Ember's question, something she's been asking since we got out of our shared shower and climbed into my bed.
"He didn't, baby. He's a smart man, and he knew it was time to let you go."
"Oh, wow."
"You expected something different?"
She lifts her head from my shoulder and studies my face for a while, not giving anything away with her expression.
"Well, yeah. I mean it was one of the reasons that you said we could never be together. I just assumed that you could see something in him that I couldn't. I've been worried about how he would handle us now because of that."
Well, shit. I feel like she just kicked me in the balls.
"Damn, baby."
"Don't say you're sorry, Nate. I didn't bring it up to make you feel bad, just pointing out that is what I had worried about when it came to us coming out, so to speak, and what his reaction might be. I understand why you said it back then, and I even agree."
"You do?" I ask, shocked.
"Yeah, and it doesn't matter now. We came out on top in the end."
"Yeah, I reckon we did."
She settles back down and starts to rub her hand on my torso. "Do you think my flowers will make it?"
I smile into the darkness around us. "Not sure, Em. Doesn't matter, though. I need to call in the morning and get your last couple of deliveries moved here."
She jerks in my arms. "There's more?" She gasps.
"Two more."
"Two more," she breathily repeats.
"Yeah, baby. One thousand five hundred and twelve in total. That's roughly one rose for every day I've missed since the night you graduated."
Her silence stretches out so long I wonder if she fell asleep, but when her breath hitches violently in her throat, I adjust our bodies so I can see her tear-streaked face.
"Ember?"
"That's the most romantic thing I've ever heard," she sobs.
Without a clue as to how to calm her down, I frame her face and just kiss her deeply.
I HANG UP MY PHONE feeling like, if he were in the same room as I was, I would physically hurt my father. When I showed up at my house two days after the fire--one that had been ruled an accident by faulty wiring--to find him directing a cleaning crew and movers, I snapped. Well, actually, I just gave him a hard look and got into my car to head back to Nate's without a word. With my show only a few days away, I need to focus on making sure everything is in order with Annabelle and the gallery.
But now, hearing that he's already hired contractors and the likes, without talking to me, I'm about to blow a fuse.
"You okay?" Nate asks, coming behind me and wrapping his arms around my chest. The scent of his deliciousness distracts me from why I was in a mood to begin with.
"Fine," I breathe, trying to take more of his scent in.
"You know, I learned really fast with a sister that when a woman says that word, she means the opposite, but at the risk of making you more upset, I'm just going to leave it at that."
I sigh. "It's my dad. He's taken over the rebuild at my house and even went as far as to move everything I own into storage."
He hums but doesn't respond. Instead, I feel his hand start to push up my shirt.
"Nate," I groan, pushing his hand when I realize something. "Nate!" I try again when he doesn't stop.
"What?" he says against my neck, biting the flesh between his teeth.
"Stop trying to distract me," I attempt but only end up moaning shamelessly when he cups my sex through my leggings and starts to move his fingers around through the fabric.
"You like it."
"Stop," I pant, shoving out of his wicked hands and turning.
His eyes are burning and his chest is rapidly moving when I look up at him. My eyes move from his chest to the sweatpants that are riding low on his hips, the erection tenting the fabric jerks when my eyes hit it, and I feel a noise deep in my throat in response.
"You're trying to distract me with your talented fingers and huge penis, aren't you?"
His face doesn't lose its intensity, but his lips twitch at my words.
"Do you know why my father moved everything I own into storage?"
He sighs. "I don't know for sure, but I can only assume."
"And your assumption would be what?"
"That he's doing what he would have done in my shoes, taking a guess at what I want, and doing it correctly."
"You're talking in riddles," I whine, tossing my hands up with a huff.
"Actually, I'm not. But I'll expand on that. He hasn't asked me how I feel about that fire or how I felt knowing that you could have been taken from me had you not got out. He does, however, know how serious I am about you, and with that being said, he decided to act as if he knew what I wanted to happen and make sure it's done."
"Seriously, Nate! How is that any clearer?"
He laughs, low and not with much humor. More like a sound that one would make if they knew something that the other person didn't. Which, duh, he does.
"In his shoes, if it had been your mother, he would have packed up her shit, repaired the house, sold it, and never let her out of his sight again. Her shit would stay in storage until she decided what to keep or donate, but her ass would stay in his house ... forever."
I gasp, his meaning starting to become clear.
"Are you saying my father is preparing me to move in with you?"
"Like I said, he's acting as if he knows what I want."
My heart in my throat, I ask, "And what do you want?"
"Exactly what he would in my shoes, baby. The exact thing."
"It's been a month!"
He steps closer. "One month or one day, I would still feel the same about us."
And then his mouth is on mine, and I lose all ability to even form a thought, let alone another word.
"Come on," he says against my lips, taking my hand and pulling me from his living room and up the stairs to his bedroom. "I have you for another two hours before you need to head over to the gallery. How about we make good use of that time?"
And good use he does.
Over and over again.
"I think I like this one in here," Annabelle says, looking away from the series of landscape paintings to the few still-life ones that I have.
"Are you sure? I thought you wanted to mix them up some?"
She hums but keeps looking at the pictures she had cataloged of my artwork, placing a few against each wall in preparation to hang the respective canvases.
The way that her gallery is set up, it is essentially one large room with different 'walls' erected to hold various pieces. Normally, she has a good mix of art, even some freestanding displays for other mediums, but for my show, she has cleared off the whole floor.
We've already placed half of my collection, starting with the vivid colors of my nature scenes and ending now where we have the landscapes and still-life paintings scattered to make way for the huge abstract piece that will be the big focus of the event. The black wall that holds the picture solely takes my breath away; just seeing it up there with the spotlights on it and the tiny plaque that she had attached to the right corner.
It's a showstopper, and she knows it. When she told me that she was putting a fifteen thousand dollar price tag on it, I almost choked on my tongue. It's normal for some of my larger pieces to go for a couple of grand but never that much. However, now that I see it up there in all its huge glory, I now can see what Annabelle sees in those brushstrokes that make it worth that kind of price tag.
Hell, if she sells my whole collection, I could make almost seventy-five thousand dollars. And if this show goes off as she is saying it will, it's going to push my art to a whole new level when it comes to pricing. I've been waiting for this show. No longer selling five to ten paintings a month but selling that in a week. It will mean that I no longer have as much free time as I have now, but I'll be doing what I love, and since I alr
eady paint for fun seven days a week, this will mean that my 'fun' will now be sold instead of sitting in closet.
It's an overwhelming thought, but one that I'm ready for.
"I think we've pretty much got it all settled, Ember. We just need Daniel and his crew to come and hang the rest of your pieces. I can take care of placing the plaques tomorrow. You just need to spend the day focusing on getting ready for our big night. I'm so excited for you, honey."
"Are you sure you don't want more help?"
She laughs and places her hand on my arm. "You've done more than I ever would have asked. It's time you go on and enjoy some relaxing before tomorrow night."
"If you're sure." I look around one more time, seeing everything start to come together, and smile. "If you change your mind, just call."
She nods and walks away, dismissing me as her mind starts to wander with tasks, something she has a bad habit of doing.
When I first met her, I wondered how such a beautiful woman had never settled down with a family of her own, but I realized really fast that Annabelle Kingston is married to her work, and at fifty-two, she is perfectly content with her clients being the children she never had.
I grab my bag, pulling out my phone as I walk to the door and checking my messages as I climb into my car and start the engine. When I left Nate's house earlier this afternoon, he had said he was going to stop by Dirty but would be home for dinner. Seeing that it's now five, he's either finishing up there or already back at the house. Either way, the state of his fridge is scary, so my first stop will have to be the grocery store.
After the night of my house fire last week, Nate had been spending less time at Dirty, something that seemed to just happen naturally, even though it had been a big stressor in his life. He still goes in every day, but it is rare that he's there past midnight.
"Hello?" I answer, not looking at the display when my phone starts ringing through the speakers.
"Hey," Nikki says, her voice low and a little wobbly.
"Hey, you. What's wrong?"
She sniffs and I frown. Nikki isn't a crier. I often joke with her that her tear ducts are broken, but she just says it's a side effect of her black soul.
"I broke up with Seth." She sniffs again before blowing her nose loudly into the receiver. "Found that jerk in bed with some chick from his gym."
"Oh, Nik. I'm on the way to Nate's. Meet me there in ten, okay?"
She sniffs again, it coming out more like a snorted wheeze, but agrees before hanging up.
Pulling up to a light, I grab my phone and press Nate's name before placing it back down on the seat next to me. While I wait for the light to change, the phone rings a few times.
"Is it time for phone sex already," he drawls in a sexy rumble over the line, and I hear some deep masculine laughter break out around him.
"One of these days you're going to answer the phone like that and I'm going to make sure I had been playing with myself for long enough to just come in your ear as a response," I smart with a smirk when he grumbles a complaint.
"Get the fuck out of my office," he barks, and I hear his heavy breathing as footsteps echo and the sound of his door closing. "You've been told not to take my sweetness, Ember. Do you need me to remind you who that pussy belongs to?"
"Yeah, yeah, promises and all that. Listen, big man, Nikki's upset so she's coming over. Is that okay?"
"I told you that you don't have to ask permission to do shit. I want you to feel at home."
I roll my eyes. The same argument we've had since I all but moved in. "I'm still asking. It's your house, Nate."
He mumbles something, but his words are too low for me to make them out.
"I just wanted to warn you that you might be coming home to some pretty high estrogen levels and all that."
"What's wrong with Nikki?"
"All I know is that Seth cheated and they broke up. I told her to meet me there. I figured I could feed her ice cream and wine, the normal post-breakup comfort foods, and then see what else I could get out of her."
"Sounds good, baby. I'll stop by the grocery store when I leave here in ten. I have your back."
I laugh. "I'm pretty sure you're going to regret encroaching on a scorned woman's emotional breakdown time."
"Pfft. Don't doubt me, woman!"
He hangs up as my laughter booms around the cab, and by the time I pull up to his house, I'm actually looking forward to helping my friend if only for the reason that I know Nate has no idea what he's getting into.
"AND THEN SHE JUST KEPT bouncing around on his dick like it was the next best thing to sliced bread. Just bounced and bounced. I really was worried that one of her fake freaking boobs was going to pop!"
"What did Seth do?" Ember asks, her voice low and comforting. My eyes keep pinging back and forth between them, trying not to focus too long on Nikki for fear of my life when she gives me one scary ass look.
Nikki doesn't even notice Ember, though. She's too far gone remembering walking in on her man fucking some chick. I shift when she gives me another squinty-eyed look of contempt just because I have a dick.
"He didn't do jack crap because his hands were tied to the bed!" she screams, still looking at me as if she would carve my eyes out with the spoon she's eating her ice cream with.
You would think that she would be thankful; I mean I did stop by the grocery store and buy them ten different flavors of ice cream, but nope. The second I walked into the house, she looked like she wanted to murder me along with her ex.
"So," I start, attempting to make my excuses and escape into my bedroom with some SportsCenter, but I snap my mouth shut when she stabs the air with her spoon. I watch Bam follow the utensil helplessly hoping that something, anything, will fall to the ground for him before looking over at Ember and praying she has the answers as to how I can get out of here.
"Would you let some hoochie tie you to the bed?" Nikki questions me with an evil tone.
Again, I look at Ember. I'm not really sure the truth right now will help my chances of getting out of here alive. She just winks and I know I'm on my own.
"Uh ..." I clear my throat. "No. I would not. I'm more of the one doing the tying in this situation."
Ember stifles a giggle before Nikki can notice, but I don't miss it. She's going to pay for that later.
"You would tie up some hoochie?! You son of a Cher!"
"Huh?" Son of a Cher? Good God, this girl is strange.
"Ember! Did you hear him? He's just like all the other ones. Just thinking about his dick and some hoochie."
"Actually," I interrupt, and she jerks her eyes from Ember to where I'm sitting. I briefly consider all my points of exit options that I have and figure no matter what, my legs are longer, and if it comes to it, I have no problem running like a little titty baby from this spoon wheedling woman. "I never said I would tie up some 'hoochie.' I just meant that when it came to being tied up or doing the tying, I would be doing not receiving. And the only woman I'm going to tie to my bed is here," I finish in a rush and point over at Ember.
She gives me a big smile, distracting me for a second, but a second is all that was needed. I feel the spoon hit my forehead before falling to the hardwood in a loud clatter.
"Oops." Ember giggles.
"What the hell was that for?" I ask, rubbing my head.
"That was for having a penis."
"Why am I being punished because I have a dick?"
"Because you're breathing and thinking about using it. That's where it all begins," she sobs, and I watch as she drops her head to her hands as her hair falls into the almost melted container of chocolate ice cream.
"I'm just going to go ... uh, somewhere, anywhere."
Ember's chest moves as she silently giggles, but she just waves me off as she moves from the chair she had been sitting on to the couch where Nikki is wailing and pulls her hair out of the ice cream. I see her look at her wrists for a hair tie and not wanting to stick around longer than necessary, I rip
the one holding my hair in a bun and toss it in her lap on my way out of the room.
What a fucking mess.
With nothing on TV, I decided to pick up one of the books Ember is always reading. I used to make fun of Dani for reading 'mom porn,' but this shit is shockingly good. I've already made some mental notes of shit I plan to do to Ember. If she enjoys reading it so much, she's had to have thought about reenacting some of the scenes.
I had been thoroughly enjoying some bum fun when the door opened and a very tired looking Ember walked into the bedroom. Her white tee shirt was streaked with what I'm hoping is chocolate ice cream. Her bare feet are silent as she turns to pull her shorts down her legs, giving me a great view of her ass.
"How is she?" I break the silence, and she jumps a good foot in the air.
"I thought you would be sleeping," she says tiredly.
"I decided to do some light reading instead." I hold up the book, and she just shakes her head with a small laugh. "I thought about getting a highlighter but didn't want to piss you off by marking your book up."
"Thank you for that," she sarcastically drones.
I put the book down, making sure to mark the page I'm on, and pat the bed. "Come on, you look tired."
"I'm exhausted. Things just got worse when you left and she's been crying between mouthfuls of ice cream for the last two hours. I finally had enough and crushed up a Benadryl in her wine. She passed out thirty minutes ago."
"Is that safe?"
"Yeah. I called the twenty-four-hour pharmacist and asked if it was okay to take a Benadryl after a few glasses of wine. She's just going to take a good, much-needed nap."
She climbs into bed, one of her arms going over my stomach and her head dropping to my shoulder. She shifts a few times, bringing one leg up and over mine until I can feel the heat of her knee near my balls.
"I don't know this ex of hers, but is this something that came as a shock?"
I feel her finger push against my nipple ring and I remind myself why I need to calm my dick and be the sensitive boyfriend who listens instead of just fucks his woman every time she breathes near him.
Easier said than done.
When she gives it another tweak, I almost forget all my good intentions.