by Love Belvin
I groaned as I sat up and pushed off the high bed. Sadik promised we’d visit the boardwalk today. The house wasn’t far from it at all. As I peered out of the balcony window, I felt comfortable being in it nude, like Sadik. The next house over was to the left and more than a quarter of a mile away, giving this place complete seclusion.
The feeling of his wasted seeds dripping down my thigh had me leaping to grab a tee of his he’d tossed on the floor last night. With a rolled t-shirt bunched in the apex of my legs, I found myself wandering to the closet. The space was now littered with our luggage and clothes sprawled about. I continued my stroll to the door at the opposite end. The adjoining room was almost as bright as the master suite. There was no balcony off of this room and, unlike the bigger room, the floor was carpeted, a soft hue of blue. And it smelled freshly painted—in fact, the whole house did—
Heat at my back had me check behind me. Sadik stood in the doorjamb looking like a GQ model, naked down to his waist where a towel hung from his muscular hips. His brows deliciously messy and face scowled as I’d become accustomed to. Something was off.
Smiling, I turned to face him, uncaring about my own nakedness. “Everything okay?” I fought to maintain a bright expression. “I didn’t leave your bed before you.”
Sadik’s scoff was without humor. He rubbed his golden head, exhaling hard.
“Bilan,” My heart began to race at the softness of his delivery. Sadik was hardly listening to me. “We leave tomorrow.”
“I know,” I whispered, wanting him to get on with it. The longer he waited, the more exposed I felt standing before him unclothed.
“And I haven’t had the balls to tell you.”
My mouth went dry. “Tell me what?”
Another deep breath. “It’s ours.”
“What?”
Sadik stared at me, chewing on the inside of his lip. “It’s—this house—is ours. I bought it last week.”
“How?” I shook my head. “Why?”
“Because of your fascination with the beach.”
Bombarded with emotions, a tear slipped from my eye. “Are you serious?”
He backed into the closet and seconds later, he was sauntering toward me with folded documents. With a shaky hand, I accepted them and read right away, flipping from form to form with information regarding a four-thousand square feet Cape Cod, legal jargon that included ownership listed to Bilan Asad-Yasin and Sadik Q. Ellis. The dates aligned with his story, too. My arm dropped to my thigh.
He wasn’t lying.
Breathing erratic to dizzying degrees, my pulse could be heard in my ears. Lightheadedness had me dropping to my knees.
“Sadik…” I breathed.
He was on me in less than two seconds.
“Ultra-demanding alpha, I know,” he murmured. “I don’t know any other way.”
I shook my head in my hands. “Do I need to get a lawyer?”
“For what?”
“My name is on a legal document. It looks kind of official.”
“Because it is. I can help you out with one, if you need me to.”
My head rolled up to those kaleidoscope eyes, urging sincerity. “What am I going to do with a man like you?” my throat croaked out.
“Be my friend.”
I pushed up, knocking him over as I kissed the insanely demanding alpha deliriously. My lips and tongue moved aggressively against his, his hungry hands gliding up and down my hips. My frame bristled with excitement and I reached between us, shifting the towel.
When I stroked his dick awake, he husked, “We have a long day ahead, Nalib.” Sadik licked his lips, eyes narrowing as he grew inside my hand. “Boardwalk and a show tonight. We should eat and get out of here.”
When I felt he was hard enough, I pushed back and arranged his head at my opening. Still soaked of his pleasure earlier, I was able to sink down on him slowly.
“Okay,” I moaned, rolling my hips to fit him all in. “But first, we christen the place.”
Planted inside a small field of sea oats, I sat on my haunches, listening. I listened for cues of his movements, his proximity. I held one of the Super Soakers we’d bought on the boardwalk earlier against my shoulder as my chest pounded with excitement. It was dark out, but for the beam of our beach home casting a sparse glow near the shore. The placement of a small lot of beach grass came in handy for play.
A sprout of water trickling over my head onto the new MEEHAR gown Sadik had covertly placed in the closet while we were out today. I shot to my bare feet.
“Oh, no you didn’t!”
I only caught the quick flash of his glistening head before he ducked into the tall beach grass. I lowered myself and tried quietly stalking through the sand after him. My heart raced so fast, I thought the sound of it would give me away. From a distance, I could hear the sounding of a cruise ship horn. But I couldn’t let that distract me from my target. Sadik was going to get it. I tiptoed, hating the sound of the hem of my gown against the beach floor. It could give me away. I turned a one hundred-eighty degree angle with my gun pointed when I thought I heard movement from there. No luck.
That was until a phone chirped. I jumped to an upright position, peering over the curled sea oats.
“Shit!” I heard him swear.
That gave me an idea of his whereabouts. When I turned a corner, Sadik made himself an easier find. He was closer than I thought in black suit pants, stark white shirt and black dress socks, hunched over, trying to silence his phone.
“Busted!” I sang as a warning shot just before unloading quarts of water onto him.
He turned, startled at first, not realizing the sprinkle. His hands flew in the air as I aimed for his face.
“Okay! Okay!” He fell backward onto the sand and I moved toward him, still spraying off. “You got the power! Goddamn, Bilan.” He tried laughing. “You got the power!”
That’s when I stopped. Turning the gun upside down and against my shoulder, I gazed down on him curiously.
“What did you just say?”
Wiping the water from his face, he chuckled. “What?”
“The thing about the power. What did you mean?”
Talk like that after all Sadik had done for me in the past two-plus months could be heady for a girl like me.
He sat up on one arm, breathing erratic, but spirit light as a feather. “When we were kids… Iban and I would fight for control. Over the remote, PlayStation, wrestling, or bets...anything kids can fight over.” He tried catching his breath. “Well, when the losing or weaker party had to concede, he’d say that.”
“You’ve got the power?”
Sadik shrugged. He then scratched his head as a goofy grin spread across his lips. “Guess I got caught up for real, huhn?”
My heart swelled.
“I guess I have the ability to bring back the days of Ellis’ when, huhn?” My face folded. “What’s that?” My gaze was over his left shoulder, my right.
Sadik turned to follow my line of sight. He lifted a red box dusted in sand.
“Must’ve slipped out,” he mumbled. “It’s for you anyway.” He handed it to me.
Without thinking, I received the box with one hand, laying the Super Soaker against my leg with the other. The spring on the box was strong as I pried it open. The radiant ring on the inside wasn’t expected at all. I was confused, shifting my hands to the right to find Sadik. I found him alright. He was on one bended knee.
“Marry me.”
My knees went weak, legs wobbled.
“Sadik,” I breathed, barely a whisper. “You’ve got to stop doing this!” I still hadn’t processed owning a home. “I’ve only known you for a couple of months.”
Without missing a beat, he proposed, “How about we make it a couple of a quarter centuries next?”
My chest expanded. “Sadik…”
“I won’t take no for an answer.” His countenance determined. He took the box from my trembling hands. “You don’t have a father or uncle
for me to have asked in advance. But I did pray last week, when I finally chose the ring, that your father and mother would approve my love for you.”
“Only a couple of months,” I repeated.
His golden shiny head swung left to right faintly. “Bilan, I’m almost forty; a man of my breadth and tenure doesn’t need years to feel what I do for you. He doesn’t need time as a factor for a proposal for a lifetime.” He slipped the ring on my finger. Its radiance blinding, the fit scarily perfect. “All I need is for you to agree to give me the chance to make you the happiest woman and to help you live out the best of your days for the rest of your days.” His golden gaze was tortured, the green on the outer realm pleading. “Please say yes.”
Swallowing hard, I bit my lip. Then I nodded. Tears escaped and I nodded harder. My lungs worked manically, a cry left my belly, and I bobbed even harder. Sadik was on his feet, capturing me protectively in his arms. He kissed me with desperation. His forehead met mine as he released a powerful breath into my face. Smelling him, seeing him, and feeling him so vulnerable had me wrapping my arms around his tailored waist and holding him so tightly as I sobbed.
I’d gone from three successive orgasms this morning; to learning I was a first-time home owner; to fun, junk food, and games on a boardwalk; then a black tie classical music performance; and now to this.
I’m now an engaged woman?
“This is crazy!” I trilled, face soaked with evidence of fear and joy.
“This is the Ellis way, baby,” he murmured in my ear.
The wind picked up around us, causing the sea oats to cheer in our new engagement. As I peered left over his shoulder to a dream home and to the right to the force of peace, I believed I had the best seat in the world—forget the proverbial house.
I lifted my torso and kissed the dark budded nipple peeking between the layered ropes of the lariat necklace. The apex of her areolae just as decorative as all the metal chains with glass pearls, silver pendants, and strass. But the jewelry didn’t bounce like the fatty tissues of her breasts. They didn’t drive me toward the impending orgasm holding in my sacs. They, in fact, distracted me from it all.
This morning, Bilan woke up to me arranging a heavy ass Chanel necklace around her neck. Leave it to my neurotic ass to have to live out each fantasy I had of her. But it was worth it. She was more confident riding me now. At times, I could see she was in her head, wondering if I was pleased, but her physical gratification provided the motivation she needed to just keep at it.
And she damn sure is…
I’d been in a dream, some sort of fucking fantasy where I actually felt shit. I didn’t move with caution when it concerned her happiness. I simply soared in this space of compulsion and need. Damn it, I was a selfish motherfucker. I didn’t mean for us to find ourselves here. I didn’t mean to become so enthralled with a basic chick from a Paterson diner. I had no idea my attraction would grow into more that night I dropped Lia off and called Mike Jefferson for intel on a local baker.
“Oh…” she moaned, head swinging over her neck.
I had no plans to be so wildly attracted to her broad vocabulary, her resistance to a force she had no idea she was up against, the speckled melanin in her face, her naiveté, her independence, and survival skills. I guessed my brother was right about a man of my sheltered childhood not being able to resist the thrill of the girl from the other side of the tracks. As my dick grew wider inside her spongy walls, I realized the definition of our tracks didn’t mirror the traditional storybook love stories.
On my side of the tracks, wealth derived from the gore of the streets: drugs, murder, deceit, power, and control. From her side, those attributes were due to the absence of wealth. Bilan had no idea my struggles from keeping her brother alive all these years since he robbed my father’s warehouse. She had no clue how, unless I could come up with something solid to convince my father and now estranged brother to let him live, she’d be the only surviving member of their nuclear family.
She’d been protected against the truth of Damien being the target of my family’s fury as he ordered the robbery. My fiancée was clueless about how he would likely try to harm her if he knew what the ring on her left hand signified. Just like she’d have no idea of the furtive security I’d have to pay for to guard over each atom of her body until I could convince her to move in with me and ultimately quit her dead-end job.
As I enjoyed the view of sweat sprouting at her temples and the swelling of her pouty morning lips, I could feel her love coming down while she rocked my stick like it belonged to her. I wondered if she could feel that her life was about to change. Everything she’d known it to be would wither away, only to be replaced by my needs and those of my complicated world. Nevertheless, as I observed the squeeze of her eyes as she was feeling the same euphoria from the magic being made between her legs from what was between mine, I knew.
I would forever be an apologist for not being her ideal love, but being too damn selfish to let mine go.
My balls warmed, belly jolted. Her mouth swung open, eyes blinking successively.
“I’m gonna come,” she chirped. “Sadik…I’m about to—”
I leaped up to capture her mouth, tasting the bitterness from yesterday, chasing it away with a sweep of promises by my tongue. Bilan bounced on me fast, and I helped drive her springs with my hands on her hips. I drove us both into oblivion, thrusting upward and pulling her into me where there was little room in between for doubt or fear.
“Fuck!” my lungs drudged, my mouth capturing her bare shoulder, biting down as I held her wide hips in place to shoot fiercely into her. “Goddamn, Bilan!” I shouted, unable to stop coming.
Her tits bounced in my face, the jewelry of the lariat creating a rhythmic jingle to my ears. Together, our bodies slowed, hopefully recovering from another powerful ascension.
“I can stay this way forever,” she breathed unevenly over my head. “Just don’t bite so hard, Deek.”
∞23∞
I tramped down the stairs with my duffle bag in tow, the last of my luggage seeing that Sadik took everything else while I dressed. As I made it to the landing, I could see Rory’s tiny frame pass a sealed gray plastic bag to Sadik.
She paused on her way back out the front door of the house, glancing at me. “Want me to take that?”
I blinked, not used to much communication from her—at least nothing polite. Although it wasn’t necessary, I pulled the strap from my shoulder and handed it to her.
“Thanks.”
In return, Rory mumbled something incoherent before taking off.
I shook my head, partially smiling at her peculiar ways. “Did you tell her you proposed? Is that the problem?”
Sadik chuckled, reaching for my hand. “Rory’s had this ring since the jeweler was done with it. Nothing’s kept from her.”
I didn’t ask the specifics on that comment. “What’s that?” I referred to the bag in his hand resembling a package.
“Cash.”
“For what?”
“It’s an Ellis tradition that when we purchase a new home, we leave money inside before we settle in. It’s good faith in our absence.”
“I don’t get it.” I frowned.
“I don’t know when we’ll be back here. You’re always complaining about time off, I have a lot of shit coming in the next few months. And because we don’t know when we’ll return to, at least, finish furnishing the place, we leave something of value behind in our absence. The payoff will be that the home will always remain a safe, protective place for us until we decide to sell it.”
Strange…
“Do you want to move in?”
Sadik shook his head, then glanced around the bright bare walls. “Nah. I can’t leave New Jersey at this point in my career, but it feels so special here. I’d like to keep it as a second home. Maybe we’ll come back in the spring to finish decorating it.”
“So, what do we do with the cash? And how much is it?”
&nbs
p; Sadik’s gaze dropped to the package. “We decide right now where to hide it.”
“Would it be safe here?”
“A security system will be installed in a couple of days. It’ll be a four digit code. You can choose it. Text it to me. But yes. I’m confident it’ll be safe here.”
“And if it isn’t?”
“We won’t go hungry, Bilan.” He wrapped his arm around my shoulder. “I can assure you of that.”
“No, Mom,” I droned into the phone, eyes below on her outstretched left hand on my thigh.
My index finger pushed the five-carat, cushion-cut diamond on her finger back and forth, determining if it was large enough. Prestige enough to carry the presence and sentiments of me in my absence. With her right hand, Bilan typed into her phone as we rode from the airport.
“So, when will I be able to congratulate her?” my mother demanded pleadingly. “Talk to her about what she wants for her big day?”
My eyes rolled over to Bilan again. Her short hair frizzy at the ends from showering on the plane after rolling around in my bed, mile high club style.
“Soon.”
“Will she be over for dinner this week?”
“I’ll check her schedule.”
“For what?”
My brows furrowed as I smiled. “Work. She works, Ma.” As much as I hated what she did, it was a topic I needed to address right away. “But I’ll let you know. If not this week, then next.”
Bilan’s regard met mine. She held it for a few seconds before going back to her phone.
“Okay. Well, let me know.” My mother sighed. “I’ll tell Monica we’ll just have to wait to have her in our fold again. But I’ll see you soon. Correct?” She resumed the tone of a lioness.
“I wouldn’t have it any other way. Love you, baby.” I moved to end the call.
“Love you more, honey bunch.”
