“Ezra, did you sleep here last night?” I pulled my feet into the center of my body and let my knees fall to the side. He was silent for a few moments. His brown eyes danced around my face like he was drinking me in first thing in the morning instead of his usual cup of tea.
“Yeah, I did. I couldn’t go home and you were pissed at me so I didn’t want to be in your house.” He shrugged his broad shoulders and rested against the massage table. “I needed to be alone, Solo.”
“I get it.”
More silence.
“You’re still mad at me aren’t you?” His voice gripped my core and refused to let go. I inched closer to him on the floor until our legs rubbed against each other.
“I’m not mad at you. I shouldn’t have been mad at you in the first place.” I slid my palm against his and the crackle between us jumped to life. Ezra lowered his brows and wet his lips with his tongue.
“Wait…are you apologizing?” He reached over and touched a springy lock of my hair.
“I am. I’m sorry, Ezra. I should have let you deal with everything the way you needed to. I was being pushy because I can’t stand to see you hurting.” When I slid my hand along his jawline, I felt the prickly scratch of stubble growing there. “I can’t stand to feel you hurting, Ezra. I can feel it right here.” I took his hand and placed it over my heart. He slid his fingers up my collarbones to my throat then pulled me against his mouth.
I’d never missed someone so fucking much overnight before. I exhaled and inhaled just to breathe his atmosphere. “I know when you’re hurting.” His voice vibrated my lips in the gentlest way. “You’re worried about me. You’re worried about Malachi. You feel helpless.” He kissed me before I could respond.
Warm salty tears splashed on the backs of my hands. Ezra kissed their salt trail then found his way back to my lips. “I can feel you too, baby.” I climbed in his lap, wrapped my limbs around his muscular middle and kissed behind his ear.
“Ezra, you’re entitled to your own way of handling things. Don’t ever feel like you’re wrong for wanting to do things your way.”
“I’m struggling with that because when I see you upset I want to make it better regardless of who’s right or wrong.”
“You can’t be like that. I don’t want you to be like that. I want you to know when you’re right and to be able to stand in that. I hate that your mother took that away from you during all this.”
“Me too. I’m all fucked up. I feel like if I wasn’t broken before…now I definitely am. She really screwed my head up and I don’t know what’s real anymore.”
“I hate that.” I had to pull back and let him go through the motions though. They were his motions. His journey. Amaris was right. I couldn’t fix him. I had to let him fix himself.
“Even though I know my mother turned into some evil bitch after the accident I guess a part of me thought it was her way of grieving and that she’d come out of it. I’m trying so hard to wrap my head around the fact that she lied to me on purpose to keep me close. I’m trying to wrap my mind around my mother paying some motherfuckers to jump me so she could teach me a lesson about listening to her. It explains why she showed up to the hospital so quickly when I know fucking well I didn’t call her.” Ezra leaned his head against the leg of the table and stared at the ceiling. Intricate metallic paintings of mandalas stared back at him.
“I can’t imagine having to cope with something so huge, Ezra. I don’t even know what to say to make it better but…what she did was fucked up. It was awful and wrong and she should be ashamed.”
“But I can guarantee she’s not one fucking bit ashamed of what she’s done. Somehow she’s going to spin this to make it seem like she’s protecting me from something.” I rolled my eyes and rested my forehead against his.
“Ezra, let me make you breakfast. Let me rub your back and shoulders. Let me make you some tea, okay?” I kissed his lips once, twice, three times.
“Okay.” He gripped my ass one good time before I got up and went to make him a bowl of oatmeal with strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries. I kept a small stash of fruit in a mini-fridge under my desk. I kept oatmeal and raw sugar in a small plastic bin on top of the fridge.
I made him a big bowl because there was no way in hell he could eat the same small bowl I ate and be satisfied. He sat on the floor in the main yoga area and ate oatmeal while I knelt behind him and worked the knots out of his broad back and wide shoulders. He was a mass of tense rocks.
I was too.
Ezra let his spoon clatter in the bowl when I got the muscles in his neck. He snagged my wrist in his hand and kissed the underside of it. “So fucking sweet. Like roses and sugar.” His warm tongue trailed up my forearm and stopped at my inner elbow. I drew in a staggered breath as he pulled me over his shoulder and into his arms.
“You are so special, Solana.”
“So are you.” I hooked my arms around his neck and we fell into a deeply intense session of lips and tongues touching and dancing against one another. My body hummed with happiness being back in his arms.
A sharp knock on the window broke us apart and I had no doubt in my mind about who was banging like that. Ezra and I shared a look and I stood up with a sigh.
Mrs. Fredericks stood there ready to pop a fucking gasket. She definitely saw Ezra and I kissing and cuddling. “I’ll handle this shit. Go in the back,” he said.
“No. You know damn well I’m not letting you deal with this alone.” I fixed my shirt and looked up at him. “Are you going to confront her?”
He looked at the window at his glaring mother and loosened the muscles in his neck.
“I don’t have a fucking choice. I don’t want to lower the vibration in the studio though.” I wondered if he could hear the change in his language since he’d started coming to the studio daily.
“That’s what we have sage for. This is your safe space too and we have a couple of hours before we open for classes so…air her ass out. Do what you need to do, baby.” He leaned down and kissed my forehead.
“Nah, not here.” He unlocked the studio doors and let his mother in. It wouldn’t have been visible to anyone except for me but I saw the way his top lip curled microscopically in disgust at his mother. He didn’t even want to look at her and I didn’t blame him. I was having a hard time looking at her too.
“You two are sleeping together! I’m calling the police!” She moved past Ezra and launched her outstretched pointer finger in my direction. “You’re taking advantage of a mentally ill teenager! You should be ashamed of yourself!”
Oh, lady that’s the wrong tree to bark up.
“Ezra is a grown ass man and I’m a grown woman.” I still had reservations about being with someone ten years younger than me but I wasn’t going to let Mrs. Fredericks point fingers when she had no room. Her house was made entirely of glass and she had one hell of an arm.
“You’re a disgusting piece of trash for preying on someone like him.” The corners of her lips turned down and her cheeks trembled with fury.
“You’re not going to talk to her like that. She didn’t do anything wrong and neither did I. Now go home or go to work or wherever you need to go. Get the hell away from this studio. We’ll talk later on tonight because I have something to get off my chest.”
“I’m not leaving you here with this perverted woman. Ezra, you can’t see it because of your brain injury but she is preying on you. She’s manipulating you.”
“She’s not manipulating me! I want to be with her. She’s the only good thing in my entire fucking life right now thanks to you! Leave Solana out of this and go away.”
“You didn’t come home last night. Do you know how worried I was about you? You can’t do that. You are not capable of staying out overnight without me. Do you remember what happened in Inglewood? What if that happened again?”
“Let’s not talk about this shit right now. I can’t. I don’t want to have this conversation here. This space is sacred to me.”
“Our home should be sacred to you. You should respect it enough to come home at night. You could have been seriously hurt. I don’t know why I expect more out of you. I know better. You can’t make educated decisions.”
“Oh my god,” I groaned, looking up at the ceiling. I needed hard liquor.
“You shut your slut mouth.” She growled at me baring her teeth like a wild animal ready to strike. I dared her. I fucking dared her. She’d get the rudest awakening of her life.
“We’ll talk later. I’m not leaving the studio and I’m not coming back home. I’m done.” Ezra folded his arms across his bulky chest and challenged his mother with a stare. She didn’t back down.
“What do you mean you’re not coming back home? Oh my lord. Your brain is deteriorating. I need to get you to the doctor. You know you can’t live without me, Ezra. Why are you lashing out and trying to hurt me?” She turned her glare toward me. “This is your fault. You and this blasphemous place.” She waved her hand in the air.
“I didn’t do anything. You did all the work showing your son he couldn’t trust you.” I had to literally bite down on my lips to stop myself from laying her ass out. It wasn’t my place. Ezra looked at me and I held my hands up in surrender.
“Ezra, come with me. I need to get you to the doctor immediately. You’re not thinking straight.” She tried to reach for his hand but he yanked away.
“Don’t touch me!” Words exploded from his mouth peppering the air. “I said go. Trust me you don’t want to have this talk right here right now.” He walked over to the door and yanked it open. The metal and glass trembled in his grip. I was terrified he’d shatter the door completely.
His mother must have felt the same way because she walked over to the door with wide, terrified eyes. When Ezra was raging mad, he seemed to be even bigger as if he really needed that boost. If you didn’t know his gentle spirit, it could be horrifying to watch in action. His deep voice was rough and rose high to the ceilings scraping them with anger.
“Please come with me, son.” His mother had to give it one more try.
“Leave,” he grumbled. She left begrudgingly while texting on her phone at a furious pace. Even once she was in her car, she didn’t pull off. She sat there texting with a tight scowl on her face.
I walked over to Ezra and rubbed his back trying to bring his vibration back down to a normal level. “I didn’t want to air everything out in here. This isn’t the place for something like that. Besides, I still don’t know what to say to her.” He stalked over to the private yoga area and sat down on a bench. He was so tense when I placed my hands on his shoulders.
“I understand,” I told him. “I can do some Reiki on you before we open if you want. Then I’ll make you a cup of tea.”
“Yeah…I think I need that right now.” He patted his lap and I moved in front of him, straddling him and looking into his eyes. “I need you right now. I don’t know where I’m going to go once I leave her house. I have some money saved up but it’s not enough for a down payment on my own place.” I tipped my head to the side and eyed him incredulously. “Don’t look at me like that, Solo. You know I’m not going to assume I can stay with you.”
“Okay, but you didn’t even ask. Don’t struggle if you don’t have to.”
“I feel fucked up asking to stay with you. You’re grown as fuck. You have your own house and business and you don’t need an eighteen-year-old living with you.”
“You’re not a random eighteen-year-old off the street though. You’re my man.” I kissed his lips and he pulled my bottom lip into his mouth, nibbling on it. He knew exactly how to set me on fire.
“Your man?”
“Yes. Mine.”
“I hate asking to stay with you.”
“Why? I told you I had to stay with my sister when I was getting on my feet. I told you that, right?” I made him look at me because he was trying to look everywhere else. Finally, his coffee brown eyes settled on mine.
“Yeah. You told me, Solana.”
“Exactly. Nobody gets on their feet without help. Even if it seems like people are doing everything on their own, they’re not. Someone is helping somewhere. Sometimes it’s the kindness of complete strangers. Other times two people are in a relationship and one can help the other.” We locked gazes while his thumbs drew invisible circles on my lower back.
“My sunflower,” he chuckled. It was dry and full of confusion but I knew he was grateful. He swallowed back a ball of nerves and said, “Solana, can I stay with you for a while?”
“I need three months rent up front.” I deadpanned before breaking into a big smile that burned my cheeks. “Of course you can stay with me, Ezra. Rent-free. Just put your all into your tea business.”
“Oh, you mean Sunflower Tea Company. Yeah, I’m going to put my all into it.”
“Is that the name you picked out? Oh my god.” I pressed my palms to my chest and gasped at how fucking sweet he was. My sensitive ass started crying. Ezra laughed and peppered my face with kisses.
“Sunflowers don’t cry.”
“They cry happy tears,” I sniffled.
“I’ll allow it.” He lifted my chin and kissed me. My body heated at the feeling of his lips on mine. I needed to touch him. To absorb the heat from his golden skin. I slid my hands under his shirt and let my fingers move over his chiseled abs.
He dropped torturously hot kisses down my throat, letting his teeth follow his lips, marking me with bruises like points of starlight in the night sky. Every bite was white-hot pain and pleasure that drove me insane in the best way. I squirmed in his lap, rocking my hips back and forth, grinding on his thickening dick.
He was so painfully hard after only a few seconds. His dick pressed against my pussy through my yoga pants and I knew I would soak through the fabric with slick desire. Heat circled us like a torrid tornado while his quick fingers worked to unsnap my bra.
“Take those fucking pants off, Solo.” He demanded and I obeyed. I stood up, snatched them off and found my place on top of him again. He freed his thick cock and it rubbed against my wetness making deliciously juicy noises that raised goosebumps on my mocha skin. I caught a glimpse of us in the mirror on the opposite wall and we were amazing. We were a portrait of Godiva and honey.
Ezra caught sight of us too and made me stand to my feet. “I want to fuck you right here on this bench. I want you to watch how deep I get inside of you.” He bit my ear and I shuddered. “I want to remind you who you belong to.” Like I could ever fucking forget.
His warm hand crashed against my ass and my eyes slid shut. Pain exploded across my skin. Then, pain rippled across my scalp. Ezra yanked my head back so that I’d open my eyes. He didn’t want me to miss a second and to be honest, I didn’t want to miss a second either.
“Oh my god, Ezra.”
“Look at how perfectly you take my dick.” He squeezed my neck and forced a nasty moan from my lips that made my throat burn. Stars twinkled in front of me the longer he cut off my air supply. “You see that shit, Solana?”
“Yes,” I whined as he hammered into me.
“My perfect little sunflower. Born to take my dick.”
“Born to take it,” I reiterated in pulses of sound pushed out through how deep his cock was buried inside of me.
“I know I shouldn’t be fucking you without a condom but you feel so good.” I looked at his big hand splayed across my belly. Caramel splashed across chocolate. My mind floated to the impossible possibility of the same flat belly Ezra had his hand stretched across being round and full with a little bit of him and a little bit of me. The thought forced tears down my cheeks.
“I thought I told you, sunflowers don’t cry baby.” He slowed his pace and drove his flawless dick so deep into me that I couldn’t breathe. Colors smeared in front of my eyes as my body climbed toward an orgasm.
“I want you to come in me,” I begged like a crazy woman with tears streaking my brown face.
“You sure? I can still
pull out.”
“Ezra, come in me,” I moaned, throwing my ass back to meet his powerful strokes.
“Fuck…” he groaned snapping his eyes shut. He held me in place and poured his silky heat inside of me like I wanted. I was crazy but I didn’t care right then. The way he soaked into my soul was like a thick baseline and I rode that shit. “Solana,” he breathed after his balls were empty and I was full with him. My name sounded like the gospel on Sunday coming from him.
My day was made.
Balance was restored.
…
“There. Your LLC is all purchased, Ezra. What do you want to do now?” I clasped my hands together under my chin after my last class and peered up at Ezra, beaming. He rubbed my knee and shook his head in disbelief.
“I can’t believe I have an LLC.” Soft R&B echoed through the air while we sat in front of the computer staring at the document that told Ezra he was a business owner. The world was his and I hoped he was finally realizing that.
“You do. The Sunflower Tea Company is real.”
“Thank you, Solana. You didn’t have to do that for me. It means a lot that you believe in what I’m doing.”
“I didn’t have to do it but I wanted to. That’s more important. If I did it out of obligation, Ezra it wouldn’t carry the same weight. That’s why I believe in not doing anything you don’t want to do. It makes the sentiment that much sweeter whenever you do something.”
“Like being with me,” he said sliding closer to me.
“Like being with you. I want to be with you every day and every night.”
“Do you?” He tucked a loose wisp of hair behind my ear and slid his fingers down my neck. I nodded and smiled up at him.
“Come on, let’s go get your things from your mother’s house and lug them across the street before she comes home.”
“Yeah, I’m with you on that.” We went to my car and I handed him the keys. I wanted him to get all the driving experience in that he could. It would build his confidence.
He drove us back to our street with no problem. He parked in my driveway and went across the street to his mother’s house. I don’t know why he acted shocked to see me right behind him. Didn’t he know that whatever tough shit he had to deal with, I’d be right there by his side?
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