And just like that, my baseline compassion boots back up.
“Stone,” I say softly. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry about your brother. I can’t even fathom how hard this must be for you.”
“Yeah,” he says, the word falling like a pebble between us.
He looks at me. And I look at him. One thin line of human connection tentatively forming between us.
Then his lips come crashing down on top of mine.
I’m shocked. At least I should be, but I’m not given a chance. His kiss is immediately relentless and all-consuming. There’s no chance for my mind to process or wander as it sometimes did when I was making out with Rock. From the moment our mouths touch, Stone plunges and plunders, demanding and then taking every ounce of my attention.
But I can’t blame the surprise of the kiss for what happened next. How instead of pushing Stone away, I threw my arms around his neck, pulling myself in deeper to his savage kiss. How instead of feeling repulsed by this unexpected assault, my body thrilled with a hum unlike anything I’ve ever felt before. Not caring where I was, who this was. Just wanting more and more.
Until suddenly Stone pulls away, as abruptly as he attacked me.
I stumble back a little, not understanding. Not comprehending. How he could so suddenly stop doing something that had felt so good?
But he does. And even worse, his face has gone expressionless again.
“I don’t get it,” he says, his words at soft as bullets shooting out a silenced gun. “I still don’t fucking get what Rock ever saw in you.”
The words slice my heart open, just as the phone I’m still holding vibrates in my hands. I look down at it to see that Joe, my Lyft driver, is here.
And by the time I look back up, Stone is gone.
Like he was never even there.
Okay, then…
Sometimes you ask God for a sign that you’ve made the right decision. Sometimes he just gives you one whether you asked for it or not.
This is my freaking sign, I decide right there and then.
As long suspected I, Naima Almonte, am a freaking mess. I need to get the heck out of New York City. And this…what happened with Stone…how I responded to his kiss…confirms it.
Bye, New York.
Hello, Charlotte.
“I just don’t understand why you would move down here if you’re not going to let me move in with you.”
“Tia…”
“Okay, okay, at least set you up. Come to church with me tomorrow, mija, there’s a man I want you to meet. He is a little skinny but other than that, perfect for you. His name is Luis!”
Eight months later, I’m still certain my decision to move to Charlotte was a good one. But I am regretting answering my aunt Mari’s call while rushing around the best I can to get ready for work.
“Thank you, but no thank you,” I say in Spanish to her latest invitation to join her for church this Sunday.
“Oh, come on, mami, Luis will not bite. And he needs a nice, responsible girl like you to keep him off these streets. Plus his baby’s mother is blonde and he hates her, so I do not think he will mind your dark skin.”
Wow.
I still don’t quite know how to respond to the blatant colorism often spewed by the older relatives on the Dominican side of my family tree. On one hand, respect your elders. My father would flip out if he heard I talked back to his older sister for any reason. On the other hand, if I had to take one more phone call from Aunt Mari about some potential candidate she’d dredged up along with her equally colorist church members, I will scream loud enough for the way less color struck Dominicans in New York to hear it. And don’t even getting me started on how I have to constantly remind her that I don’t just consider myself a dark Latina, but black, thanks to the Haitian mother, she and my other relatives still can’t believe my father lowered himself to marry.
“Sorry, Tia Mari,” I say instead. Then I switch back to English to tell her, “Hard pass.”
“You’re right maybe we should wait until you lose the weight,” Aunt Mari says cheerily.
“Okay, I’ve got to go, Titi.”
“Wait, we still haven’t talked about me moving in with you!”
“So sorry, Titi, I’m going to be late for work. Not hanging up on you,” I promise. Then I do just that.
Only to get hit with another pang of guilt. No matter what kind of new leaf I’ve decided to turn over here, the old Naima, who tries her best to like everyone and wants everyone to like her back is still lurking around. Old Naima would have gone with her Aunt Mari to church to dutifully meet Luis.
Believe me, I’m grateful for my aunt after she not only found me my current job and showed up with several cousins to help me move into my new apartment in a nice neighborhood near the college where I do most of my outreach work. And I’ll be even more grateful in a few more weeks, for sure. But Geez Louise, I can’t wait until next month when she’ll be way too occupied with helping me out to try to set up on one of her whack church dates.
As I make my way down to the bus stop, I decide I need to nip this in the bud. Tell her I’m not just reluctant to date in my current circumstances, but off the idea of love and relationships altogether.
“There’s something wrong with me,” I could tell her truthfully. “Something that can’t be prayed away. Sorry.”
Unlike on the subway, a man moves out of his seat as soon as I climb on the bus outside my apartment building, which is already stuffed with people headed into downtown Charlotte.
I sigh as soon as I sit down, taking a moment to catch my breath as I often have to these days after any sort of fast movement.
I didn’t have the dream last night.
Again.
That shouldn’t make me anxious, but it does. Obviously, having a recurring dream about the most traumatic experience of your life for nearly a year straight, hadn’t been any fun. But for some reason, it’s absence feels even more concerning. Mainly because of what had come before that first dreamless night.
A cemetery kiss that hadn’t disgusted or repelled me, but had turned me on, like no other kiss ever had before.
I still don’t fucking get what Rock ever saw in you.
Yeah, me either, Stone, I think, staring out the window at Charlotte’s charming landscapes as the bus ferries me into work.
Charlotte’s social work department is understaffed and underfunded, which I don’t like for my clients, but appreciate for myself. My workday passes by just as quickly as every other has since I finished up my training period. Filled with urgent paperwork, filings, and a ton of delegation for anything that involves next month when I won’t be here.
Unfortunately, I have a check-in scheduled with one of my most heartbreaking client tonight. A homeless college student, living in her car, now that she’s been kicked out of the foster care system. I feel tired just thinking about meeting with her tonight.
But good ol’ responsible Naima. Even in my current condition, it doesn’t even occur to me to pass the case on to someone else.
That afternoon, at exactly 5:45, I step into our meeting room where Cami Marino is already waiting for me. Pacing back and forth in front of the conference table, instead of sitting at it, like most of my clients do.
“Cami, why don’t you sit down,” I say, steeling my heart against the twenty-year old’s, huge brown eyes.
She reminds me a little of Amber, because she’s the secret daughter of an Italian father, and also has light brown skin. But other than that, Cami’s nothing like Amber. She’s normal twenty-year-old cute as opposed to arrestingly beautiful. And right now, her eyes are crazed and frightened, as opposed to crackling with determination.
But she is nearing the same age Amber was when we went from being a social worker and her client to true friends. And I have to remind myself of how well that turned out as I place her case file down on the table.
“I’m sorry,” she apologizes. “But I can’t sit down. I’ve got to know what’s go
ing on with my sister? Did the other social worker get the proof she needs to get her away from our dad?”
I regard her with a sympathetic tilt of my head. “Cami, even if the other social worker found something, I couldn’t tell you about it,” I remind her. “That’s not how this works.”
“I just need to know if she’s alright. I need to make sure he doesn’t do to her what he did to me,” Cami mumbles into her scuffed tennis shoes. Another, not-like-Amber detail. She’s dressed in sweatpants and a thin t-shirt over an ill-fitting bra. Not in a carefully curated outfit, chosen by someone else to be both easy to pick up and put on. And instead of cutting her hair short, Cami’s let her hair grow into a wild, super dry fro, in desperate need of a deep conditioning and a long detangling session.
Looking at how bad she looks—even for a University of North Carolina student, my heart pangs. Poor grooming is a classic symptom of sexual abuse. On a subconscious level, victims transform themselves to be less appealing, so as not to suffer the so-called attraction they think they might have invited upon themselves.
Looking at her hunched shoulders, I hate that the system has now pitted me against the girl who came into our office six months ago to report her formerly secret father for sexual abuse, in the hopes of adopting her little sister. Cami feared her sister might be in danger, now that the girl’s mother had died.
Carlos Marino was a prominent member of the community. And the head of the agency had seemed more concerned with following through with the investigation without anyone else getting wind of it than Cami’s story about having endured a sexual relationship with her father when she was a little girl.
Now here we were in this meeting room with Cami asking me for answers I wasn’t allowed to give.
“How are you doing at college?” I ask, trying to steer the conversation back to our check-in. “Are you able to keep up with classes, considering everything.”
“I’m fine,” she answers, balling her fist. “All that matters is my sister. Can you just maybe nod if she looks okay.”
“I’ve got a box of supplies for you. Razors, maxi pads, stuff like that,” I say, instead of answering her question. “Right at my desk. It was a little too heavy for me to lift right now, but if you want to come with me—”
She slams a hand against the table. “Fuck your supplies. I keep on telling you, the only reason I’m here is because of my sister!”
I can’t tell her the truth. That the case file on her sister reads more like an indictment of Cami. Camille is a very bitter and disturbed girl. She threatened to do something like this if I didn’t give her money…
Her father’s indictments of his estranged daughter’s motivations took up more space on the report than the short interview the social worker did with her half-sister, Talia.
But I believe Cami. I believe her story, even if that other social worker doesn’t. And that just makes it worse as my purposefully neutral gaze connects with her angry one.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her truthfully. “I wish, I could tell you more. I wish I could do more.”
Compassion can be a soul breaker for some of these kids. And Cami starts sobbing on the other side of the table. I heave myself out of my seat and go to her. Wrap my arms around her and try to take on some of the pain radiating off of her in waves.
Not surprisingly, I feel tired, bordering on weary, when I get out of my Lyft that night. I’d been thinking of making myself dinner and taking a long hot shower when I first left work. But over the course of my Lyft ride, that plan has morphed into a microwave Amy’s Dinner and falling face down into my bed without so much as brushing my teeth or washing my face.
I bemoan the alcohol-free state of my apartment, as I climb the stairs to my one-bedroom. What I wouldn’t give for a nice, huge glass of—
I stop, my tiredness slipping away when I see the hulking figure standing outside my door. Just like it had almost two years ago, when I met him the first time.
I’m awake now, just like I was then.
Because Stone is here. Standing in front of my apartment door. His eyes glued to my belly.
Which is about eight months pregnant with his brother’s baby.
Oh my gosh, you have GOT to see how this story ends!!! Please click here to finish reading
STONE: HER RUTHLESS ENFORCER.
Also by Theodora Taylor
BROKEN AND RUTHLESS
KEANE: Her Ruthless Ex
STONE: Her Ruthless Enforcer
RASHID: Her Ruthless Boss
RUTHLESS TYCOONS
HOLT: Her Ruthless Billionaire
ZAHIR: Her Ruthless Sheikh
LUCA: Her Ruthless Don
HOT AUDIOBOOKS WITH HEART
The Owner of His Heart
Her Russian Billionaire
His Pretend Baby
His Everlasting Love
Her Viking Wolf
THE RUTHLESS NAKAMURAS
Her Perfect Gift
His Revenge Baby
12 Months of Kristal
(newsletter exclusive)
RUTHLESS RUSSIANS
Her Russian Billionaire
Her Russian Surrender
Her Russian Beast
Her Russian Brute
THE VERY BAD FAIRGOODS
His for Keeps
His Forbidden Bride
His to Own
HOT CONTEMPORARIES WITH HEART
The Owner of His Heart
The Wild One
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His One and Only
ALIEN OVERLORDS SERIES (as Taylor Vaughn)
His to Claim
His to Steal
His to Keep
Theirs to Claim
THEIR ALPHA KINGS
Her Viking Wolf
Wolf and Punishment
(The Alaska Princesses Trilogy, Book 1)
Wolf and Prejudice
(The Alaska Princesses Trilogy, Book 2)
Wolf and Soul
(The Alaska Princesses Trilogy, Book 3)
Her Viking Wolves
THE DRAGON KINGS
Her Dragon Everlasting
Her Dragon King
THE BROTHERS NIGHTWOLF
NAGO: Her Forever Wolf
KNUD: Her Big Bad Wolf
RAFES: Her Fated Wolf
THE SCOTTISH WOLVES
Her Scottish Wolf
Her Scottish King
Her Scottish Warrior
HOT HARLEQUINS WITH HEART
Vegas Baby
Love’s Gamble
HOT SUPERNATURAL WITH HEART
His Everlasting Love
12 Day of Krista
(only available during the holidays)
About the Author
Theodora Taylor writes hot books with heart. When not reading, writing, or reviewing, she enjoys spending time with her amazing family, going on date nights with her wonderful husband, and attending parties thrown by others. She now lives in Los Angles, California, and she LOVES to hear from readers. So….
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Keane: Her Ruthless Ex: 50 Loving States, Massachusetts Page 24