Let Me Love You (McClain Brothers Book 1)

by Alexandria House

  While he handled Bugz, I stepped over to Jo, grabbing her hand and feeling her tremble. “You all right?” I asked.

  She nodded hesitantly, and whispered, “I-I’m so sorry. He’s-he’s out of his mind. We are divorced, and I want nothing to do with him. I can’t stand his ass. I’m sorry he’s Nat’s father. Worst decision of my life was marrying him.”

  “Yo, South! You need to take your hands off her, my nigga! And your ass better not’ve been touching my baby, either! Disrespecting me on my damn track, talking about how you gon’ fuck my woman!”

  I turned and gave him a smirk. “Look, man, it’s not my fault you couldn’t hold on to her. She’s moved on to better. You just gon’ have to deal with it.” I kissed her just to fuck with him.

  This fool tried to jump over Dunn and Tommy to get to me. Bugz was maybe a couple of inches shorter than me and was one of those Snoop Dogg-built niggas; he didn’t have nothing on them. Those dudes were giants.

  “You got your goons on me, but I’ma get your ass! You lucky I ain’t got my security with me!”

  “Didn’t they all quit because they were tired of getting your no-fighting ass out of fights?” Jo spat at him.

  “Bitch—”

  “That’s it. Get his ass out of here before I show him what a bitch looks like. Now!” I said, my eyes on Tommy.

  “I paid into your whack-ass charity to be here!” Bugz shouted, as Tommy began pushing him toward the back door just beyond the restrooms.

  “You’ll get a refund. I don’t want your damn money,” I replied.

  He screamed all the way out the door. The DJ was still spinning records so I knew no one could hear him, and I was glad that the actual presentations hadn’t started yet. At the same time, I was pissed at Jo; I just wasn’t going to let Bugz’s ass know it.

  Her eyes were all over the place. I could tell she wanted to cry but was fighting it hard. “Everett—”

  I shook my head. “Jo, ain’t shit you can say right now that I’m tryna hear. Did you even make it to the restroom?”

  Her shoulders fell. “No, I…”

  “Go. Get yourself together. Do what you need to do. I’ll wait here for you.”

  She nodded, and I waited, gave Tommy and Dunn a nod when they returned, and when she finally emerged from the restroom, escorted Jo back to our table before quickly being summoned to the stage with my siblings. I must have been right about the music drowning out the confrontation, because it didn’t seem that anyone other than the folks at my table knew something had gone down, so that was good.

  This was one occasion for which I was happy Nolan’s long-winded ass was taking the lead, explaining what our foundation was about and making the presentations, because all that was on my mind was that bullshit with Jo and her ex. Hell, was he her ex? Had my ass been running in behind a married woman? She said they were divorced, and Jo didn’t seem like the type to lie, but did I really know her? Had I been moving too fast with her? Shit, probably so, but I honestly couldn’t help it. I couldn’t stop myself when it came to Jo, and I couldn’t explain why. That’s why Bugz saying that shit messed with my head.

  Damn, I should have had a background check done on her. The hell was I thinking?

  After my brothers and sister and I finished our hosting duties, dinner was served, and after that, the entertainment—our mom’s favorite group, The Whispers—started their performance. When I got back to the table, Jo refused to look at me, barely said another word all night, and I had to wonder if she was guilty or just embarrassed. Hell, I didn’t have much to say either, but I did introduce her to the folks that visited our table, and when I asked her to dance, she didn’t protest.

  By the end of the night, I was tired as hell from thinking about this shit between us, and although I had planned to take her home with me, thought it was best to put some space between us for now.

  16

  What should have been one of the best nights of my life turned out to be one of the worst. After the whole Sid thing, I wanted to disappear, somehow blink my eyes and be back at home on my sofa wrapped up in a blanket with the AC blasting and curled up with Nat, because that was where I belonged anyway. This was never meant to be my world. I wasn’t supposed to dress up and go to parties with rich people on a famous man’s arm. Sid had proven that by dumping me as soon as the paychecks started rolling in. We were still together when he got his record deal and his star started rising, but he rarely took me out, said it was better for his image if no one knew he was married. Me getting pregnant with Nat just fueled that claim. He definitely didn’t want anyone to know he was married with a kid on the way. With Sid, I was good enough to be in the shadows of his life, but he made sure I never shared the spotlight. He was right to make that decision. Me being in the spotlight was a horrible idea.

  Everett was different after Sid was kicked out—quiet, inattentive, nothing like he usually was with me, and it made my stomach toil with anxiety. I couldn’t eat my dinner, couldn’t focus on the music, was barely able to smile and engage with his siblings because I knew this was the end of us. We’d ended before we even really started. I thought I’d finally found something good, something—someone—for me, but I’d messed that up by not being up front with him about my delusional ex-husband. I didn’t give him full disclosure for fear of losing him if I did, and I’d lost him anyway. Confirmation of that was him introducing me as just “Jo” to the people that approached our table instead of “my girlfriend, Jo,” like he did out on the red carpet.

  My heart was heavy when I climbed into his SUV at the end of the night. It splintered when he didn’t grab my hand or smile at me or even look at me when he climbed in beside me. And I had to fight not to bawl my eyes out as the thick silence between us nearly smothered me on the way to my house. When the truck stopped in my driveway, I hopped out without waiting for him to open my door, as I was sure he wouldn’t now anyway. I hurried to my door, fumbling with the magnetic closure of my clutch as I tried to open it. If I’d been thinking more clearly, I would’ve dug my key out while in the truck and had it ready. As it was, I was such a wreck, I dropped the damn purse, and as I bent over to get it, the tears came. Sniffling and gasping for air, I finally got ahold of my key and stuck it in the lock.

  “Damn, you weren’t gonna let me walk you to your door?”

  I looked up to see Everett standing behind me with a half-hearted grin on his face. “I d-didn’t think you’d want to.”

  At seeing my face drenched in tears, he dropped the grin. “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “Be-because you believed my ex. I-I can tell. But-but it’s okay. I understand. Thank you for tonight. I…” That was it. I dropped my purse and covered my face with my hands and cried like I’d lost my best friend.

  “Jo…”

  I shook my head and turned to the door again. “Go. I’ll be fine.”

  He didn’t say a word, just reached around me, turned the key in the lock, and opened the door, taking me by the elbow and guiding me inside. I was still crying, in mourning of what could have been, what should have been, but like everything I saw as good in my life besides Nat, including the dignity I worked hard to build within myself despite my upbringing, Sid ripped it away from me.

  Everett closed the door behind us, and there we stood in my living room in silence.

  My bleary eyes roamed the room as a thought hit me. “Can you stay for a minute? I need to show you something.”

  He hesitantly nodded, and I took off toward my room, digging through a dresser drawer, quickly locating what I was trying to find. He was still standing by the door when I returned and thrusted the packet of papers at him.

  “My divorce papers. I’m not his wife or his woman. I’m not shit to him, never was, not even when we were married. I didn’t lie to you, and I never said I’d wait for him. Ever. He probably just assumed I would because it was so easy for him to make a fool of me in the past. What he fails to realize for some reason is that I don’t want his ass. At al
l.”

  He stared down at the papers, then let his eyes land on me. “But you didn’t tell me who he was. You let me spit all that shit on his track, knowing I was referring to you. Knowing he…shit, dude is a fool anyway. The whole industry knows it. But he’s a super fool over you. He proved that tonight.”

  “If you were married to someone like that, would you not be embarrassed? His own family barely claims him, or at least that’s how it was when we were together. Hell, I’m ashamed to admit I even know him, let alone exchanged vows with him, but I wanted a family so bad, never had a normal one. My mom was out of it most of the time, and then she died and left me when I was only eighteen, and I’ve never even laid eyes on my father. That fool seemed like a good thing at the time. And I didn’t know you were gonna say what you said on his song. I was just tryna help. Your verse was too soft at first, soft as hell.”

  “Soft as hell? Damn, Jo. Look, all I’m saying is you could’ve told me who he is to you after you heard what I said. He’s an idiot, but he had every right to be fucked up about me saying what I said about you on his song.”

  “Why? Why does he have a right to be upset about that? The man dated me, courted me, married me, made me believe in his talent so much that I actually worked three damn jobs to support us so he could stop selling dope and concentrate on his music. I paid for his studio time. I bought his clothes, paid for the beats he used for the tracks on his mix tape, paid for his website, was at every show he did when he was walking around calling himself Thumper instead of Bugz-NYC—”

  “Thumper? That nigga got a thing for rabbits or something?”

  “Who knows? Anyway, I did all that stuff for him, thinking I was helping him build our future, and you know what he did? He hid me. Even when he did take me places after he started making money, he never told people I was his wife, just let me blend into the background as a part of his entourage. Was actually pissed when I got pregnant. Left me because ‘being married was gonna kill his career’ and then married his fucking manager, who he’d been screwing the whole time. For some reason, his ass thinks alimony and child support is supposed to fix the fact that he shat all over my heart! And now…now this.” I threw my hands up. “You were supposed to be my good thing, the only good thing I had besides Nat and my few friends, and he took that away from me, too. You know, all that shit he said tonight about me still being his? I guess he proved it’s true. I guess I should stop fighting him and just be his ex-wife/side chick. He bought this house, my car, and he thinks he owns me, so I should just go ahead and start screwing him again. What’s the point in refusing him? He won’t let me move on. Maybe this is what I deserve for ever being with him in the first place. Maybe me and him—”

  His lips were on mine so fast, I couldn’t really think through what was happening. So I stood there, stiff as a board as his tongue pushed against the seam of my mouth until it occurred to me to open it for him. He pulled me closer as his tongue explored mine, caressing it as he slid a hand up from my waist to the back of my head, pushing my mouth into his and making me frantic with desire for him. I grabbed at his arms, ended up clutching his tuxedo jacket as we explored each other’s mouths. As the one hand clutched my head, the other slid down to my ass, and he squeezed a handful, saying something into my mouth that I couldn’t make out. And then we were moving backward. He was steering me…somewhere. I couldn’t open my eyes as our kiss seemed to intensify with every step we made. I didn’t care where we were going just as long as he didn’t leave me.

  I bumped into something, and then I was being lifted from the floor. It took me a second to realize I was being placed on my dining room table, and that realization drove me completely wild. I wrapped my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist and kissed him hungrily, moaning, “Yesssss!” into his mouth.

  He finally broke away from me, his breathing labored as he asked, “You gotta get Nat tonight?”

  “No. Ms. Sherry said she could stay all weekend if I want her to, but I’ll probably get her tomorrow,” I responded, my own breathing loud and laborious.

  He stared at me for a moment. My chest heaved as I watched him watch me, afraid he was going to change his mind and leave after all. Instead, he reached into his pants pocket, pulled out his phone, and made a call. I observed him with a throbbing core and knitted brows as he said, “Yeah. Y’all can leave. I’ll call when I’m ready to go…probably tomorrow.”

  He ended the call, and his phone hit the floor. “Lay back, baby,” he nearly growled.

  I fell back on the expensive-ass mahogany table, sucked in a breath when he pulled my panties down my legs, and closed my eyes in anticipation of what he would do next. I heard a chair scrape across the hardwood floor, felt his big hands grasp my hips and pull my butt to the edge of the table. A second later, his mouth was on me, his tongue dragging over my clit.

  I sat up a little, jolted into action by the sudden pleasure, but he reached up and gently pushed me back down. Fastening my eyes to the chandelier above us, I tried to remember to breathe, because it felt so good it almost felt…bad. Like nothing I’d ever felt in all the days of my life. He licked and slurped and then pulled my clit into his mouth, and I screamed, grabbing his dreadlocks as I thrusted my sex at his face.

  “Shiiiiiiit! Everett! Damn!”

  He let up for a second, murmured, “You taste so motherfucking good!” and then resumed his wonderful torture.

  I didn’t explode as fast as I did the first time he touched me in that way, but it wasn’t long before his skillful tongue caused the sensations building inside me to boil out of control and I burst in his mouth. I jerked and writhed on the table, and my legs trembled as I screamed his name over and over again, but he kept going as if he couldn’t tell I’d already met my bliss. He gripped my hips and held me in place as he feasted on me, moaning against my sensitized flesh.

  “Ev—Everett…please,” I begged. I was going to lose it if he didn’t stop, and by it, I mean any semblance of sanity I possessed.

  I raised up and looked down in time to see him shake his head.

  “Are you…are you trying to make me…I can’t do it twice. I can barely come once, so—” I cut my own words off as he sucked harder and I felt the pressure begin to build again. Sweat popped up all over me. Every muscle in my body tightened. What the hell was he doing and how was he doing it? What was he? A damn clit magician? I could count the number of times I climaxed with Sid on my hands and we were together for four years. But this shit Everett was doing was freaking mystical or something. I almost felt like a puppet under his control, like if he said the word “come,” I’d melt all over him on command.

  And I did melt again…and again. I had four orgasms before he relented, rising from the chair and lifting my wilted, sweat-slickened body to sit up on the table. I watched him undress with a smile on his face, the handsome face smeared with my essence. I was weak, tired, but I still wanted him, and as he undressed, revealing his chiseled pecs, carved abs, and sculpted thighs, I wanted to pinch myself. I was in such a fog, high on orgasms, that I didn’t see where the condom came from, but watching him sheath himself, I thought about the line he delivered with such confidence that day in the studio: They don’t call be Big 12 for nothing, baby. That wasn’t nothing but the truth.

  Because…shit!

  My eyes scurried from his groin to his face.

  He reached for me, kissed me so deeply I was sure he tasted my tonsils, and backed away just as abruptly. “Take that dress off,” he basically ordered.

  I eagerly obliged, removing both the dress and adhesive bra, covering my breasts with my hands once I was completely bare.

  Moving my hands, he asked, “What you hiding? You breastfed Nat?”

  Damn, he read me that easily. I dropped my eyes and nodded. They were droopy as hell. Not pancakes, per se, but they weren’t standing at attention, either. I’d been thinking about getting them fixed so they’d be perky again, but—

  He inhaled my right brea
st, sucking it like he expected gold to spring forth. I forgot to be self-conscious about them after that, because once he was done with breast number one, he ravished breast number two. Then he lifted his head and grabbed his shaft.

  “Um, Everett?”

  The nimble fingers of his free hand found my core, two of them pushing inside me at once. “Hmm, baby?”

  “Oooooo, shit! Uh, I-I-I don’t think that’ll fit in me. I’ve never seen—”

  “It will. As wet as you are right now? It’ll definitely fit.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah…you wanna stop? We can stop if you wanna stop.” He was squinting at me, one hand still holding his shaft while the fingers of his other hand kept working my flooded playground, turning me on and confusing me at the same time.

  “No,” I said.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay.”

  In a series of moves that I barely perceived, I was pushed onto my back, pulled to the edge of the table again, and he was inside me—deep inside me. I arched my back, and screamed, “Ohhhhhhh!”

  “See,” he moaned, “it—oh, shit! It fits, and damn, Jo!”

  As he eased out and slid back inside me, I raised up and grabbed his face, kissing him, moaning into his mouth, clawing at his shoulders. He lifted me from the table and moved us to a wall where he plunged deeper inside me, taking his lips from mine and staring into my eyes. “You feel so…fucking…good!”

  I frowned as he knocked me against the wall. Closing my eyes, I whimpered, “So…do…you…”

  “Baby, shit! Shit! Damn!” he yelled. Everett had to be the most vocal lover I’d ever encountered. I had to wonder if he always made that much noise or if I actually felt that good to him. One thing was for damn sure: he felt freaking wonderful. If I thought I was obsessed with the idea of him before, my ass was going to go full stalker after this.

  Lost in a feeling I can’t even describe, I reached around and grabbed a handful of his dreads, yanked his head back, and sank my teeth into his neck.