“Oh, not really. I know several Brights both here and in the UK. I think I’m related to some. Wouldn’t it be funny if we were related?” Esther chimed in.
“Hilarious,” Bridgette muttered.
“Have we met?” Esther asked.
“Nope. I try not to acquaint myself with desperate hoes. Sorry,” Bridgette replied.
“Aww, yeah! That’s what I’m talking about. This what I been waiting for. Some damn action!” Uncle Lee piped up. “Aw, shit! Got a call.” He hit the Bluetooth button again. “What-up-there-now? Earl? Y’all playing cards? Slack leg-ass Willy there? Shit, I keep money! Got fifteen dollars on me right now! Yeah...yeah...uh-huh…I’ll come through and kick some ass after I drop a plate off to Lou…Okay.” He tapped the button again and fixed his eyes expectantly on Esther.
But I spoke up before she could. “Hey, Esther, Ella ain’t in here.”
“I know,” she responded.
“Your little girl is so cute, Jo. Just a doll,” Aunt Wyvetta cut in.
“Thank you,” Jo replied.
I turned to face Esther, who was standing there holding a plate and a fork. Every time I looked up, this motherfucker was eating some of Jo’s pineapple upside down cake. “You need to go find her so you can get in that quality time you crashed my holiday for.”
I turned back around at the same time Aunt Wyvetta asked Jo, “So what you plan on doing with yourself after you two get married?”
“Um, besides raising my baby, I got some business opportunities I’m looking into.”
“Really?” Aunt Wyvetta asked.
Jo nodded.
“She need to be in a studio. Jo got a voice you wouldn’t believe,” I interjected.
“Sho’ nuff?” That was Aunt Wyvetta again.
“Evvv,” Jo whined.
There was a gasp behind me—Esther. Her ass had not moved. “Is that what this arrangement is about? Music? You want to start producing or managing people and she’s your first artist? Well, now I understand…it’s business!”
Before I could respond, Jo twisted all the way around in her chair. “Arrangement? What this is about? What this is about is Everett running my ass down, relentlessly pursuing me, wooing me, and eventually loving me. It’s about me loving him back. I don’t care about singing. I care about being with him and raising my daughter, and you need to get over him. Goodness!”
“Oh. come on! You were with Bugz and now Everett? You sing? It’s obvious what your angle is!” Esther said excitedly, like she’d just figured out the solution to some elusive problem.
“Shit! What-up-there-now? Hell, I said I’d bring you a plate! Damn! You worrying the shit out of me!”
While Uncle Lee argued with his wife, I said, “I tell you what, let me read some bullshit like that on one of them blogs, Esther. You don’t want the shit you gonna get if I do.”
“Are you threatening me?”
“No, I’m promising you.”
“For you to be this angry, I must be right. She’s using you and you’re using her. I knew this couldn’t be real. You with her? Willing to raise her child? Deal with her ex? Now I know why.”
“You are as crazy as you look, you know that? You fly your ass all the way here to Texas to try to disrupt my life. Can’t you see how pathetic it is that your ass hasn’t let go in all these years? Let me make this clear: I. Don’t. Want. You. I never will. I got who I want, and all your stupid ass plotting ain’t gonna change that. Shit! Get a clue, Esther!”
The room fell silent, and Esther just stood there staring at me.
Jo turned to me. “I’ma go check on Nat. I’m sorry I talked you into letting her have dinner here. She’s just…” She shook her head as she stood from the table.
“Mom, what’s going on?” Ella asked timidly. I wasn’t sure when she walked in the room.
Jo froze, her eyes on Esther. I guess she was waiting to see how she’d answer.
“Ella, say goodbye to your mom. If y’all wanna spend any more time together, you’ll have to do it somewhere else,” I said.
“Um…” Ella’s eyes went from me to her mother.
“I just wanted answers. I needed to know why she was so special, special enough for you to break your promise to me,” Esther said.
Seeing Jo make her move, I grabbed her wrist before she could leave the table. “I didn’t promise you anything, Esther. Look, you’re going down a road you don’t wanna travel in front of Ella. You know you don’t. But we can if you insist. I can handle it. Can you?”
She hesitated before turning to leave the room.
“Daddy—”
I shook my head. “You staying or going?”
“Uh-um, staying…but I think I should go check on her.”
I nodded.
I stood, taking Jo’s hand. “Let’s go check on Nat.”
As we left the dining room, I heard Uncle Lee Chester say, “Another damn call…what-up-there-now?!”
I tore my eyes from the door that joined our room to Nat’s and squeezed them shut, trying to clear my head of the anxiety.
“Jo, you gotta relax. You gon’ kill me down here.”
My thighs were clenching his head, but it was hard to be in the moment with a house full of people. “I’m trying.”
His tongue slid across my pearl and I jerked, letting my thighs fall open.
“Yeah, baby. Let me get in here,” he murmured, his hot breath tickling my sensitive flesh.
“Oh!” I whispered as he slid a finger inside me. “Everett…”
“Uh-huh….”
His big tongue flattened and swiped up and down my treasure while he added another finger to my wetness. I bucked, thrusting my yoni in his face as he reached up and grasped my left nipple, twisting it gently. Now my mind was devoid of thoughts, full of static as the whirring between my legs increased. My heart was speeding out of control as his tongue lashed me and his fingers explored me. My back bowed from the bed as pure bliss hit me, sliding over me like hot water from a shower. I stiffened, holding my breath as the waves of pleasure washed over me, my fingers gripping my man’s hair. Then I dropped my arms to my sides as my senses began returning to normal.
I felt him move, and seconds later, felt his breath on my face. The scent of my essence hit my nose, and his lips were on mine. He slid his tongue in my mouth, then slid his shaft inside me, causing me to gasp.
His eyes were closed, his mouth open as he glided out of me and slid back in. He whispered, “You got any idea how much I love you?”
I blinked, trying to figure out how I could answer him when he felt so damn good. “No…how much?” I whimpered.
“I love you so much,” he said, his voice strained, “there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you.”
“Y-you’d die for me?”
“Today.”
“Lie for me?”
“Right now.”
“Kill for me?”
“In a heartbeat.”
“Ohhhh, I’d do the same f-for youuuuu.”
He kept with the relaxed pace, making me feel every inch of him. “Jo…”
“I wanna ride it,” I murmured.
He stopped, no questions asked, and laid on his back beside me. I straddled him, taking him into my hand to guide him inside of me.
“Take your time, baby,” he croaked. “I’ll help you if you need me to. Just say the word.”
I nodded, biting my bottom lip as I slowly sank down on him with a low moan. Squeezing my thighs to anchor myself, I lifted before sliding down on him again. I managed to control the pace and the depth of him, and it felt good, but I can’t lie, I was breaking a sweat.
He reached up and grabbed the back of my head, pulling my face close to his. “You working too hard, baby. Relax. You ready for me to help?”
I nodded as he grabbed my ass and orchestrated my movements. I closed my eyes as I clutched his chest, leaning forward to suckle on his neck. This…this was different, a type of goodness I’d never felt before as his e
rection massaged me at different angles, varying depths. I moaned as pleasure galvanized my core and the building orgasm peaked, causing me to throw my head back with my mouth open. My breathing stalled as sensations rolled over me and abated. Then I collapsed on his chest. A second later, I was being rolled over onto my stomach and he was entering me from behind, easily sliding inside the drenched walls of my treasure. I buried my face in the mattress and whined almost uncontrollably as he increased the pace of his thrusts, softly groaning and grunting as the weight of his huge body hovered over mine. “Jo! Jo! Jo! Oooooo shiiiiiiit!” He shouted before I felt him expand inside me and stiffen before collapsing onto my back, his ragged breaths on the back of my neck. We lay there with me bearing his weight for a few minutes before he lifted off me, pulled out of my core while sucking air through his teeth, and fell onto his back, pulling me to him.
“You all right?” he asked.
I nodded. “Better than all right. I can still feel you, and you still feel good.”
“Damn, baby. Really?”
“Mm-hmm, I’m no good for any other man now.”
“That was the goal.”
“Well, you met it.”
“Shit, good.”
“Hey, you didn’t scream until the end. I don’t know whether to be proud of you or concerned.”
He chuckled. “Why would you be concerned?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it ain’t good to you no more.”
“Nah, it’s still nuclear as a mug. I was just trying to show you I could restrain myself. I almost made it.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t wake the house up.”
“Aunt Ever went home. Ain’t no one here but Tommy and Bridgette—who’re probably somewhere screwing, themselves—Ella, who sleeps like a damn corpse, and Nat. And Nat ain’t as light a sleeper as you think she is.”
“Whatever. I’m gagging you next time.”
“Why you ain’t gag me this time?” He actually sounded disappointed.
“Because you caught me off guard, waking me up licking me and stuff.”
“Like that’s the first time I’ve done it.”
“But you have to add that to the fact that I’m not used to this house and there are other people here.”
“We’ll have to come visit more often, then. I mean, did you enjoy this trip at all?”
“Yeah.”
“Esther being here just fucked it up, right?”
“Yeah, but that was my fault.”
“Naw, I coulda said no anyway. Won’t let that shit happen again.”
“Ev?”
“Yeah, baby?”
“What exactly did you promise her? Why is she so convinced what we have can’t be real?”
“For the same reason Bugz’s ass won’t get with the program. She’s crazy. I didn’t promise her a damn thing. In the heat of me catching her in her shit, I said I wouldn’t do this love stuff again. Think I said fuck marriage, too. Didn’t know she would see that as a pledge of fidelity. Esther is nuts and a sore-ass loser because I guess she thought there was a chance in hell of me taking her back. Everybody around me tried to tell me she wasn’t shit. Wish I’d listened. Hell, she’s the reason me and my friend, Keith, fell out. He tried to tell me about her and I wouldn’t listen. Been too damn ashamed to reconnect with him since the divorce.”
“I’m sorry, Everett.”
“It’s my fuck up, not yours.”
“I know the feeling, though. So you never told her there was a chance you two would get back together?”
“Hell, no! You ever told Bugz you would wait for him?”
“Shit, no! What I look like?”
“Exactly. Man, I gotta talk to Ella. This mess cannot happen again. Ever.”
“Yeah.”
“Thanks for sticking with me through this bullshit over the last couple of days, baby.”
“Where was I supposed to go? I only wanna be where you are.”
“Got-damn I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
A few minutes later, I was almost asleep when I heard him say, “You hear that?”
“What?” I answered him groggily. “My coochie reverting back to its regular size?”
Laughter rumbled in his chest. “No. I heard a thud or something. You didn’t hear it?”
“No.”
We lay there for a moment before he shifted to leave the bed.
“Where you going?” I asked.
“To see what that was. Be right back.”
“What could it be? No one can get through the gate or the security system.”
He ignored me, turning a lamp on and searching the floor for his underwear. I sat up and grabbed his t-shirt, handing it to him as I slipped into my robe.
“Stay here, Jo.”
“No, I’m checking on Nat.”
“I’ll check on h—”
This time, I did hear the thud and we both froze. It could’ve been anything or anyone, since we weren’t in the house alone, but something felt off. Very off.
I couldn’t tell where the sound came from, but watched as Everett turned toward the closet in the room, eyeing it briefly and then moving toward it. He stood there for a moment before snatching the door open. When I saw her, I almost screamed.
Everett’s words echoed my thoughts. “What the fuck?!”
She shrank away from him, her eyes wild, mouth hung open. I could hear movement outside our door, then a knock. “Boss Man! Y’all good in there?”
“Hell, no!” Everett answered.
The doorknob jiggled, and the door opened. It was unlocked, because who was going to come in there but Nat? She was allowed to bust in there on us but she never did, because as paranoid as I was about her catching us in the middle of something, Everett was right. Once Nat went down, a tornado couldn’t wake her up.
“What’s going—you have got to be kidding me!” Tommy shouted. Bridgette was right behind him.
“What are you doing in my damn closet?!” Everett roared, sounding angrier than I’d ever seen him. “You left. How’d you get back in the house?!”
“Daddy?” Ella appeared in the doorway now as Tommy moved closer to Everett. Bridgette opened the connecting door to Nat’s room and peeked at her before returning her attention to the melee in our room.
“Mom?!” Ella shrieked, upon seeing Esther still crouched in the damn closet.
“Did you record us?!” Everett shouted, ignoring his daughter. Not giving Esther time to respond, he snatched a cell phone from her hand, threw it against a wall, picked it up, and slammed it on the hard, mahogany floor. Then he kicked it somewhere and inched closer to Esther. “How the fuck did you get back in my house?!”
“I-I-I just needed to see for myself that this was real. I—”
“Mom…Daddy—”
“Ella, get out of here!” Everett screamed without turning around.
“I let her in!” Ella divulged, her voice trembling.
Everett spun around, deep grooves in his forehead. “What?!”
“She was so sad and…she called me crying, saying she didn’t want to be alone in that hotel room, and after everyone went to bed, I let her in the gate and the house. She was sleeping in my room and was supposed to leave before anyone got up. Mom, what are you doing in here?”
Esther shook her head. “I—I still love your father. Everett, I can’t help it.”
Everett hung his head before gripping the back of his neck. “Ella…I don’t even know what to say. I don’t…just go back to bed right now.”
“Daddy—”
“Go. Back. To. Bed.”
With tears in her eyes, Ella hurried from the room, and everyone’s attention returned to Esther.
“Tommy, can you go get whatever luggage or purse or whatever this motherfucker brought back in here and throw it outside?”
“Yeah, Boss.”
“And call a damn cab.”
“Got it.” Tommy left.
Bridgette was still stand
ing there, but I had a feeling she needed to leave, too, so I asked her to stay in Nat’s room with her until things calmed down. She quickly agreed.
Once only the three of us were in the room, Everett said, “I knew you were a little off, but for you to connive your way back into my house, sneak in my room, hide in my closet, and watch me fuck my woman? Your ass needs to be institutionalized.”
Esther shook her head. “She doesn’t even know how to handle you. I saw—”
“Hear me, and hear me good! I don’t want you! I only want her! What I got to say to make you understand this shit?!”
Esther and I both jumped.
“I’m getting a fucking restraining order against you. You come near me or Jo ever again and your ass is going to jail.”
“We have a child together!”
“Who is a teenager! Like you said, she ain’t a baby. I don’t have to go through you to get to her. Esther, you are in my home without my permission. If I had a gun here, I’d be justified in shooting you. I could call the police. I got witnesses to you stalking me. But what I’m going to do, because of Ella, is let you leave. If any shit, if anything at all pops up on a blog about me and Jo, I’m going to make your life a living hell, spill all your shit. And don’t forget, I got receipts. I don’t give a fuck anymore!”
“I’m sorry,” she whimpered.
“Get your sorry ass out my house!”
“My phone—I need a phone. How will I contact anyone like a car service when I get back to LA?”
“I look like I give a shit? Figure it out!”
He backed away from her enough for her to scurry out of the room. Tommy was outside the door with her things, and I watched as he followed her down the hall. I don’t know what hit me, the invasion of my privacy or the fact that she was lurking around the house while my baby was there, innocent and asleep, but my skin began to burn and my eyes stung, and as Everett approached me asking if I was okay, all I could do was shake my head as the tears fell.
We took a private jet home the next day, two days earlier than planned. Jo was quiet, holding Nat in her lap as Bridgette sat beside her engrossed in her cell phone. I sat across from them trying to figure out how to fix this mess. Nolan, Neil, and Leland, who had a game in LA the next day and would’ve had to leave anyway, were on board, too, but I had no desire to talk to them, couldn’t even laugh about Neil messing with Nolan about sending his girl home on a commercial flight. He kept calling her Svetlana when I don’t even think that was anymore her name that it was that chick at the benefit’s. Shit was all twisted up, and probably the only thing good about the situation was that Ella was so remorseful about letting her mom into the house, she’d been nice to Jo and Nat ever since we woke up this morning. She was on the plane, too, off to herself, staring out a window. I tore into her before the sun was up, but she obviously saw the wrong in what she did anyway.
Let Me Love You (McClain Brothers Book 1) Page 23
