by Tia Sirrah
"Yeah."
"Well, have fun and be safe. And don't forget, God sees all. Oh, and call your mother. I'm sure she wants to spend some one-on-one with you before her flight on Tuesday."
"Will do."
I strode to the library with purpose and opened the double doors without knocking. The library smelled of lemon pledge and old books. Floor to ceiling bookshelves filled with classic literature, political non-fiction, and law books surrounded me. Imposing dark antique furniture filled the space.
"Son," dad smiled, looking up from his desk. A few legal books were sprawled out in front of him. "Where'd you run off to today?"
"My girlfriend's," I said, pulling a pack of cigarettes from my back pocket. I decided to take a seat across the room from him, in a leather armchair near his shelf of precious first editions. I knew it would piss him off even more if I smoked near them. "I met her father today, Mr. McKay. You remember him. Right, dad?" I pulled my zippo out of my jacket pocket and lit a cigarette.
Dad's entire demeanor changed. His jaw was locked so tight it was no wonder why he didn't say anything. His eyes glowered on me as I took a long drag of my cigarette. I never smoked at home. Let alone near his precious books. Let alone right in front of him. But we had bigger problems to tend to, besides him lecturing me about my smoking habit.
Dad cooly leaned back in his chair, tapping his pencil on top of his desk before finally speaking. "Ah. You met Quincy. How'd that work out for you?"
"How do you think, dad? He thinks you killed his wife—the mother of the girl I love."
The pencil snapped his hand. Dad was usually good at keeping his shit together. I'd seen him debate and battle constituents from the other side of the political aisle for hours on end, never sweating, never losing his cool. The man that sat across the room from me was fucking livid, with a twitching eye and a ticking jaw. "Come again?"
Fuck. Something was up. Mr. McKay wasn't entirely off in his accusations. My heart dropped to my stomach, and my stomach dropped to my fucking feet. "Tell me it's not true, dad."
Dad stood from his desk and headed to the double doors. After locking them, he strode over to the window. Surprisingly, he retrieved a cigarette from his shirt pocket and lit it with his own lighter. He focused on the Olympic sized pool in our backyard, leaning his raised forearm against the wall and taking a drag. "Everyone has skeletons, son. We've all done unforgivable things that we'll never be absolved from."
I shoved my hands through my hair and slumped forward in my chair. I felt physically ill. "What did you do?"
"She was the love of my life. My everything."
"What the fuck, dad!" I flicked my cigarette away and advanced on him, gripping the collar of his shirt. I wanted to kill him—my own flesh and blood. Because of him, the girl I loved had suffered. And now, I wanted him to suffer. "What the fuck did you do?"
He struggled against my grip before breaking my hold. "He took her away from me!" he spat, as he forcefully shoved me back.
I advanced on him again and shoved him against the wall. "What the fuck did he take from you?" I grabbed him by the collar again. "Because of you, he had to bury his wife and your unborn child!"
Dad's face crumpled along with his body, and he slid down the wall as soon as I released him. My father, the strongest man I'd ever known, looked weak and lost. His trembling hand dropped his lit cigarette as he gestured for the floor. "Sit, son."
I looked down at him like he was shit on my shoes.
"Son, please." Dad pulled two more cigarettes from his shirt pocket and extended one to me. "I'll tell you whatever you want to know."
I gripped my hair and paced in front of him. I needed a fucking cigarette—something to calm my nerves, so I snatched the cigarette from his outstretched hand and lit it. My hands were trembling as I brought it to my lips and took a drag. "Did you kill Faye McKay?"
When you ask someone a question, you better damn well be prepared for the answer. I don't know what I was expecting to hear, but it wasn’t what came out of my dad's mouth next. He answered that question, along with all the sordid details that surrounded Faye's murder. I slumped against the wall and slid down to the floor beside him. I listened to his sins with my eyes squeezed shut. "Oh, fuck," was all I could say. It felt like the wind had been knocked out of me. And it felt like the end. The end of the one thing that I valued more than anything on this planet. My relationship with Fatima.
Chapter 17
FATIMA
I arrived at the beach house before Quentin and let myself in with his spare key. I mouthed the word 'wow' as I took in the immaculate décor. Adeline had the entire place refurnished by a top design team. The home was masculine and designed for a young bachelor, but it also maintained the integrity of an airy beach house. Quentin never talked about Adeline, except for the fact that he felt she abandoned him when he needed her most. Over recent years, she tried to make amends, but it often fell flat. Throughout high school, she all but begged Quentin to move to Hawaii with her. And then there were the extravagant mother-son vacations—most of which he turned down—and the over the top gifts, like this beach house. Adeline didn't leave a stone unturned. She made sure the fridge and pantry were stocked with all of Quentin's favorite food for his overnight stay with his girlfriend. A girlfriend that she wanted to meet real soon.
Since Quentin hadn't arrived to give me a tour, I roamed the house myself. Every room was fully furnished and smelled like new floors and fresh paint. The two-story floor plan had three bedrooms with balconies, four and a half baths, a modern kitchen, a living room one on each level, and a rooftop deck. There floor to ceiling windows and entire glass walls scattered throughout the home, providing breathtaking views of the beach and ocean.
One hour passed and still no Quentin. My call went to voicemail, and my text messages went unanswered. I imagined that he got held up by his dad when he broke the news about D.C. and New York. To pass the time, I decided to take a bubble bath, before changing into a black lace bustier with matching lace panties, and garter belts that connected to fishnet thigh high stockings. Six-inch porn star shoes adorned my feet, and my dreadlocks fell loose down my back. After getting dressed, Quentin texted that he was on his way, so I lit some candles, turned on a mixed c.d. and touched up my makeup.
The talk with my dad had rattled something inside of me, but I tried my best to tamper it down. I wanted to focus on the here and now. Quentin and I had a lot to celebrate. We were an official couple, and we were about to travel to New York together. Although my heart ached for my dad, that was their story. Quentin's and my story would have a different ending, and with fingers crossed, I hoped it wouldn't end at all.
I understood my dad's hesitation and his protectiveness when it came to my relationship with Quentin. His only child was in love with the child of his arch-enemy. But what was the Senator's gripe? I was the daughter of the woman he supposedly loved. True, if Quentin and I ever got married, holidays would be awkward, to say the least. And he probably thought I was a liability to Quentin's political future. Would I ever be close to his dad? Probably not. I still didn't care for him because he was half responsible for my dad's pain. But because I loved Quentin, I would try to make amends so that our fathers could both be in our lives.
After hearing the beep of Quentin's truck alarm, I hurried to the sofa and posed in a sexy position with my legs crossed. As I listened to his steps approaching the door, I switched positions a couple of times before opting for a more hands-on greeting. When Quentin stepped through the front door, he closed it behind him without even looking up or uttering a single word. He looked tired and stressed, probably due to a confrontation with his dad.
"Hey, baby." I sashayed towards Quentin, who did a double-take before swallowing hard. There was heat in his eyes, along with another expression behind his eyes. Sadness, maybe? As soon as his keys hit the bottom of the ornament bowl by the door, I was on him. Wrapping my arms around his neck and trailing kisses along his jaw. Something wa
s wrong. I felt it in the way his arms wrapped loosely around my waist. I saw it in his eyes before he slid them shut. I heard it in his breath as he exhaled deeply like he had the whole world on his shoulders. The conversation with his dad was probably as emotionally exhausting as my conversation was with my dad. I knew we had to talk about it, but at that moment, there was only one thing I wanted to say. The family drama had to wait.
I love you, Q." I said. "I've loved you for so long; I wouldn't know how to stop even if I tried."
Quentin's hands, which rested idly on my waist, now gripped me tightly, as if out of desperation. My heart swelled in my chest at the pure joy I felt at that moment. Dropping to my knees in an instant, I make quick work of his belt and pants.
"We should talk," Quentin said, though he didn't do a thing to stop me from pulling his very hard cock out of his boxer briefs.
"Not yet." I flicked my tongue across the head of his cock. He hissed. "I know we need to talk." Another lick. His hand fisted my locs. "But tonight is about you and me." I took him all the way to the back of my throat, before sucking hard and releasing him from my mouth. A deep, low groan emanated from his chest. "Give us tonight, Q." I stroked him with my hands, with the wrists-work that I'd perfected with his guidance over the last couple of weeks. "We'll talk about it when the sun comes up. No matter how ugly." I looked up at him as I stroked him. His eyes were hooded with arousal.
"When the sun comes up," he solemnly agreed.
I took him in my mouth again, and let him guide my head as I sucked him off.
The tension in his body and the apprehension in mine started to dissipate. Before I knew it, Quentin pulled me up by my shoulders and lifted me off my feet. My legs instinctively wrapped around his waist. He parted my mouth with his. The slide of his tongue against mine sent shivers of pleasure through my entire body. He devoured my mouth with heartwrenching kisses that felt like the beginning and the end.
As Quentin carried me upstairs to his room, our mouths never disconnected. He lowered me down on his bed, and I tugged at his shirt, desperate to see and feel his skin. He made quick work of his pants, boxer briefs, and socks, taking them off in one go. After he was completely nude, he climbed on top of me, caging me in as he supported his weight on his forearms. Quentin stared down at my face, but he didn't attempt to make a move. His expression was pained, causing my brows to knit together. His eyes said things that my women's intuition fought to ignore. Whatever we needed to talk about was big. Earth-shattering or possibly heart-shattering big. No. I gave a minute shake of my head, which he understood and answered with a curt nod of his head, before our lips joined again in an erotic kiss.
I ground my panty clad slit against his cock. A low groan fell from his lips. "I want to feel you tonight. Without a condom. Is that okay?"
Neither one of us had ever had sex with anyone without a condom. I wondered how it would feel to have Quentin's bare flesh in my flesh. "It's okay. I'm on the pill." That wasn't a lie, but I know what it implied. I was on the pill to regulate my periods, not to prevent pregnancy. There was less than a 5% chance that I would ever get pregnant due to scarred fallopian tubes from a ruptured appendix when I was twelve.
Quentin slid completely into me with one slow thrust. The intrusion of his hard cock into my wet flesh was a sensation that I never wanted to forget and wanted to feel every time we had sex from now on. We both groaned at the feeling, and I desperately tried to regulate my breathing as all my nerve endings sizzled with heat. He moved inside of me, slow and sweet, at first, which increased to reckless, needy strokes, that made the headboard slam against the wall repeatedly and made me scream his name over and over again.
It was all too much, and yet I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. I clawed at Quentin's back, creating new marks by tearing his flesh with my fingernails. He groaned in pleasure before sinking his teeth into my shoulder. I moaned my approval as he licked and sucked the blood from my broken flesh into his mouth before our mouths met in a kiss. The metallic taste of my blood on his tongue, and his blood beneath my fingernails caused me to come apart in his arms. Clenching around him, he came inside of me with force, filling me with his warm seed as I came down from my orgasm.
Sleep didn’t come quickly that night. With every passing hour, the clouds changed, the waves crashed, and the sun threatened to peek over the horizon. "This view is amazing," I said, staring out at the dark sea. Quentin and I sat upright on his bed, facing each other with our long legs entwined, and the sheets tangled around us. Marijuana smoke floated through the air and mixed with the aroma of scented candles and sex.
Quentin brought the joint up to his lips for a deep inhale. Before exhaling, he gripped the undersides of my thighs and pulled me closer to him. With our mouths angled against each other's, he shotgunned the smoke from his mouth to mine.
"I love you," I whispered against his mouth before we started to kiss.
I was desperate to have him again. The sun would soon rise, and we would have to conquer the outside world, and I wasn't ready for that. Quentin reached around and fisted my locs. Pulling my head back, he exposed my throat to his hot mouth, sucking, licking, and kissing along the column of my throat. I gripped his hair as hard as I could, while he sucked on the pulse in my neck, causing my toes to curl and my pussy to clench.
Quentin and I usually fucked like savages. We not only got off on the pleasure, but we also got off on the pain. We marked each other. We bled for each other. From slicing our palms when we were fourteen. To taking my virginity at sixteen. To clawing and the biting of our flesh. It was as if marking each other made it real and permanent. It was how we proved our love and devotion to one another. It was an attempt to stake claim on our bodies despite our haters. It was insane. But it was beautiful. The connection we shared was everything—our bloodline, our lifeline, our sanity.
Before the sun came up, I rode him slow, straddling him as he sat upright. I desperately held back tears—tears of pleasure and tears of fear.
"It'll always be you," he grunted as I bounced up and down on his cock.
"It's always been you," I said breathlessly, as Faith Evans sang Never Gonna Let You Go from the surround sound. I feel you, girl. I was never letting this boy go. Ever.
With my breasts crushed against his sweaty chest, our teeth clashed, hair was pulled, and both our tongues licked and sucked every exposed inch of our necks. We came in each other's arms at the same time, as our hearts frantically beat between us.
∞∞∞
I WOKE UP WITH my face buried into the hard planes of Quentin's muscled thighs. One of his hands leisurely ran through my locs, as he sat upright with his back against the headboard. He smelled like soap, and his boxer briefs smelled freshly laundered. The only sounds in the room came from the faint crackling of his cigarette as he took long drags, and Stevie Wonder's All In Love Is Fair, which hummed lowly from the alarm clock.
I yawned and nuzzled my cheek against the light blanket of hair on his thighs, alerting him to me being awake. The movement of his hand in my hair paused. "Good morning, Q." I turned around to face him and pressed my lips to the ridges of his abs. "You showered without me?"
His cock was flaccid beneath his boxer briefs, but I knew with just one touch I could change that. Nuzzling my face closer to his groin, I hooked my fingers into the waistband of his underwear. I felt him stiffen—his body, not his cock.
"About an hour ago."
I reluctantly removed my body from his, opting to lay down on my side of the bed. Quentin stared straight ahead and took another drag of his cigarette before tapping the ash into a nearby ashtray. "What time did you wake up?" I asked, looking up at him.
"I never went to sleep," he answered matter of factly before finally looking down at me with a slight smile. "Shower. Get dressed. I'll make us some breakfast." Quentin kissed my forehead and got out of bed. He walked out of the room without another word and or another look back.
I took a long shower, tying my hair up a
nd scrubbing all remnants of makeup off my face. It was apparent that Quentin was in a funk, and we needed to deal with whatever it was. And now that the sun was up, we had to face our demons, a.k.a. our family drama.
I slipped on a pair of yoga pants and a matching halter tank, practically tasting the sea air and itching for a run along the beach. Quentin and I loved running together, and I was confident that a run along the beach would help clear our minds and help 'right' us.
"Easy on the cigarettes," I lightly teased. "I want your lungs to work so that I won't embarrass you by outrunning you on the beach this morning." Quentin chuckled softly and put out the cigarette in the sink. I noticed two plates in front of him, stacked with scrambled eggs and bacon. The muscles in Quentin's bare back flexed as he stirred what smelled like hot cheesy grits. I sighed with adoration at the sight of him, while at the same time, anxiety consumed me. Something was definitely off.
I grabbed our glasses of orange juice and sat on top of the kitchen table, crosslegged. I watched Quentin as he put the cheesy grits onto our plates before joining me on top of the table with our food, and placing our plates between us.
"This is so good, babe," I said after my first spoonful of grits. "You can throw down in the kitchen. Who taught you how to cook?"
"My mom."
"Adeline?"
He shook his head. "Eleanor."
"Well, thank her for me. Because if it were left up to my culinary skills, we would be eating take out every night. Though, isn't New York like the take out capital of the world?"
Quentin's plate remained untouched as his gaze swept over my face with an unreadable expression. Suddenly I wasn't hungry anymore. I took a sip of my orange juice before my curious gaze focused on him. I decided to go first. "My dad flipped out when I told him about New York." I breathed in a shaky breath. "He's never going to accept us. He thinks you're not the one for me." A single tear slid my cheek as soon as I blinked.
Quentin moved our plates aside and cradled my cheek with his hand. I leaned into his touch, and he leaned into me, pressing his forehead against mine. "He's right."