The tingling began in my toes and I raised onto their tips in response. It traveled up my legs, causing them to tremble rapidly. When it hit my core, heat exploded inside of me and my head dropped to the counter, unable to continue holding it up. A long, drawn-out wail burst forth from my lips as I squirted, drenching my thighs and coating the floor with the warm, clear fluid.
Jeremiah made a sound of satisfaction before removing his hands from between my thighs, standing up, and sliding his hardness into my dripping channel in one smooth motion while I continued to convulse in front of him. His wet hands gripped my cheeks and spread them apart as he thrust into me at a downward angle. I moaned into the fabric of his t-shirt as every snap of his hips caused his dick to brush my sensitive walls.
“Ah, ah, ah.”
I could barely catch my breath in between thrusts as he pulled me against him every time he thrust forward. He gripped the back of my t-shirt briefly before sliding his hands back under my shirt to palm my swinging breasts. His deft fingers pinched and twisted my nipples and the sweet combination of pain and pleasure coupled with the fullness of him quickly brought me to a second orgasm. As I came apart in his arms, his pacing increased and the slap, slap, slap of his skin against mine signaled his impending release. He brought his mouth to my shoulder and bit down on my flesh through my shirt as he swelled and exploded inside of me. I could feel the rise and fall of his chest against my back as he panted heavily behind me. He stepped back, pulling out of me, and landed a heavy slap to one of my cheeks.
“I told you, I only needed fifteen minutes.”
I chuckled throatily and looked at him over my shoulder, attempting a glare, even as pleasure still coursed through my veins and my core clenched with orgasmic aftershocks. “I’m still hungry.”
He tossed his head back, laughing heartily and I couldn’t help but bite my lip at the sight. With his bald-head, gorgeous brown eyes, strong jawline, and slim but firm build, Jeremiah was hands down the most beautiful man alive. Though all of the men in the Hawkins clan had been blessed physically, Jeremiah looked like God had molded him with his own two hands.
And if I didn’t let him go, God would apparently call his perfect creation back home. Life was cruel.
I averted my eyes as regret settled in the pit of my stomach like lead. With my legs still spread apart, I backed up from the island and once clear of the rapidly cooling puddle, stepped out of my soaked shorts. Jeremiah grabbed my hand and when I turned my head in his direction, he cupped the back on my neck and brought his lips down on my own. I opened up to him, tasting myself on his tongue as he worshiped my mouth in a similar fashion to how he’d worshiped at the altar between my thighs only minutes earlier. When I moaned into his mouth, he leaned back and observed my swollen mouth.
“You’re about to have me saying ‘Fuck that food!’ that I cooked, while I eat you for dinner all night.”
I forced out a breathless giggle. “You’re not full of me yet?”
“Hell naw! My appetite for you is endless.”
My face heated. As tempted as I was to drag him upstairs and test his declaration, I knew that I couldn’t do that. “Well, my appetite for food hasn’t gone anywhere and now we have to clean up this mess that you made.”
He smirked arrogantly as his eyes followed mine to the puddle. “I did make that mess, didn’t I?” I narrowed my eyes at the wicked grin on his face. “I’ll keep making that mess again and again until you tell me to stop.”
I could feel my core clench and I once again averted my gaze. This man commanded my body so well that with just a few words he could elicit a reaction out of me. Jeremiah chuckled and dropped a kiss on my temple and another slap to my bare cheeks. The way his hands were always back there, you’d think I had a big, juicy, booty instead of the medium-sized cakes I’d developed after having Ja’mya.
“I’ll clean this up and meet you in the dining room.”
“Okay.” I breathed a mental sigh of relief. If he had initiated a second round, I would have been powerless to stop him. My body yielded to him like he was its master, and despite my current misgivings, I loved it. Keeping my thighs pressed together, I made my way into the half-bath located in the living room to clean up as much as possible without a towel. Satisfied that I wouldn’t leak, I took the stairs up to our bedroom to toss my t-shirt in with my dirty laundry and take a second shower. Dressed in lounge pants and a long-sleeved shirt, I returned downstairs to find the kitchen spotless and the floor dry. The air held a faint scent of lemon cleaner.
A couple of strides brought me to the dining room just as Jeremiah entered from the living room side. There was a covered plate at each of our place settings and a bottle of wine sitting in the center of the table. He pulled out one of the four high-backed chairs that surrounded the tall, bistro-style table and motioned for me to have a seat before easing into the chair directly across from me. I lifted the cover off of my plate and steam hit me in the face. Jeremiah had roasted whole sweet potatoes and topped them with chili. It was the perfect meal for the cool weather we were having, but despite how good it smelled, I couldn’t eat. My stomach was tied in knots and the turmoil killed my appetite. I could feel his stare as I used my fork to push the food around on my plate but I refused to look up. I kept trying to find a way to say the words I needed to say but they wouldn’t come out.
There is a tragedy on your horizon.
I gasped. The words rang as clearly as if Mama Sari stood next to me in our dining room.
“What’s wrong?”
I shook my head. “Nothing. Stubbed my toe.”
Death looms near.
The fork fell from my hands, clattering to the plate. Jeremiah shot out of his seat and rounded the table.
“Lee? Lisa, what’s going on, baby?”
I felt like I was under water as I dragged my eyes from the table to collide with his. I tried to ignore the concern swimming in those chestnut depths. Pushing back from the table, I shook my head once more. I couldn’t do this.
The path of inaction leads to despair.
I clutched at my chest as tears sprang from my eyes. “I can’t do this,” I murmured.
Heavy hands gripped my outer thighs. “What is it? Talk to me, baby. What can’t you do? Are you in pain? Did something happen?”
Yes and yes.
Gathering up every drop of strength I could muster, I reminded myself that if I didn’t do this, Jeremiah might die and that fueled me to lie to him as convincingly as possible.
“I can’t do this with you anymore.” I shoved his hands off of my legs and slid out of my seat, crossing to the other end of the dining room to put some space in between us. “I’ve had enough of this eternal dating thing that we’re doing, and I don’t want any more of it.”
He stood and stared at me with brows joined in confusion. “What—what are you saying?”
“I’m saying—I’m saying that I won’t be your forever girlfriend anymore. I’m too old for this mess.”
In two quick strides, he was in front of me. I took a step back but he continued forward, crowding me against the wall.
“This eternal dating thing was your idea, Lisa. How have you forgotten that?”
I shook my head in denial of the facts. It didn’t matter. I didn’t have to be rational; I just needed to do this.
“That doesn’t even matter anymore. I’m done with it. I’m done with all of this.” I swallowed against the lump in my throat and forced the last words out. “I’m done with you.”
He staggered back as if I’d shot him, and if words were bullets, then I definitely had. Hand on his chest, he looked at me as if he didn’t know me and I stared back at him through my tears.
“You’re done with me? After everything we’ve been through? After what just happened in the kitchen? How? What did I do?”
I tried to push past him, unable to stomach the sight of his increasingly glossy eyes. “None of that matters. I just—”
“Don’t tell me it doe
sn’t matter!! You need to answer my fucking question, Lisa! HOW?!”
His roar stopped me in my tracks. Never had I heard this tone from him, and my heart cracked in two at the reality that I was the one to take him to this dark place. But I had no answer for him. I couldn’t think of anything that would be believable enough. Except…there was one thing that might. But, no, I couldn’t go there. I might be lying. I might be breaking his heart, but I didn’t want to take it that far. That was too much. It was—
You must leave.
“There’s someone else,” I blurted before collapsing my lids against the immediate disbelief that appeared on his face.
“What?” The whispered word was heavy with pain and sharp with accusation.
“You heard me. I met—”
“You—you cheated on me?”
No!
“Of course not. It’s not cheating if I’m single.”
His confusion morphed into anger. “Hold the fuck up. Am I hearing this right? I know you didn’t just say that you’re single.”
“I am and—”
“How the fuck are you single when we’ve been together since college?! We raise our daughter together, share this home, and have joint bank accounts! That doesn’t sound single to me!”
“We’ve been dating since college. If I’m not married then I’m single. It’s not a hard concept, J.”
He scrubbed his hands over his head and started pacing the length of the room. “That’s how I know this is some bullshit. You’re the one who didn’t want to get married, and now, you’re telling me that you’re tired of being so-called single?! Is that the real reason you didn’t want to get married? So that you could keep your options open for something better to come along? Is that what this was?”
“Well, actually we agreed that marriage wasn’t right for us—”
He stopped pacing and faced me, chest heaving in and out with each word. “WE DIDN’T AGREE ON SHIT!!” His thunderous roar made my heart race. He even seemed to have shocked himself by how loud he had gotten. Shaking his head, he continued speaking in a lower tone, one that attempted to placate me. “I proposed to you four times, and you turned me down each and every time!”
I wiped my damp cheeks, though the tears kept falling. “Right, because the most romantic thing in the world is hearing “Damn, marry me girl” while a dick is still inside of you. It’s a wonder I was able to resist that.” I didn’t have to dig deep for the sarcasm about that particular memory. I had been highly unimpressed.
Jeremiah came back to me and dropped his hands to my hips, bending his knees until he could look me in the eye. “That was one time, baby. Every other time, I had a ring and was down on one knee. I did the shit right, and you still shot me down.” The bitterness in his voice was thick, and my brows furrowed as I observed his face. That didn’t sound new. I pushed his hands away and walked around the table as he said, “Let’s not pretend it was something else.”
He was right; I had refused him every time. I had a good reason each time and explained that to him, but I couldn’t let facts or an argument distract me from what I had to do. “The last time, you practically threw the ring at me! Let’s not forget that, shall we?”
His mouth dropped open. “Are you seriously nitpicking right now? Man, that’s how I know this is a farce. You don’t even have a concrete reason for leaving me. Why are you trying to hurt me? Whatever I did, I can fix it. Just tell me what it is.” He followed me to the other side of the table to stand in front of me, this time framing my face with his hands and giving me no choice but to stare right up into his beautiful brown eyes that were rimmed red with the pain that I had caused. “Just talk to me, baby. We can fix this.”
He wasn’t buying it. He had completely glossed over me cheating on him. What else was there?
Turn your back that they may avoid death’s snare.
I closed my eyes against the silent tears I couldn’t stop spilling.
“I don’t love you anymore.”
His hands fell from my face as if I’d burned him, and when I reopened my eyes I saw that he’d sat back down into his chair. His shoulders were slumped in defeat. When he raised his head, his eyes were glassy with unshed tears and filled with anguish.
“What about last night? How could you make love to me if you don’t love me?”
My chest cracked right open, and I bled out as I lied, “Last night was a mistake.”
He winced as my words stabbed at the already gaping wounds I’d inflicted. “But you asked me for our son. What about that?”
I looked away from him. I had said that and I had meant it, but it would do me no good to admit that right now. I sighed heavily.
“A moment of weakness,” I whispered. “I was supposed to end this yesterday.”
He didn’t say another word, and I’d had enough of the torture. I couldn’t stay in that room a moment longer and watch as he crumbled under the weight of everything I threw at him. At a speed barely slower than a run, I left the room and headed upstairs to get my purse and keys. Just as my foot hit the bottom step, Jeremiah came barreling into the living room, and I froze. He dropped to his knees in front of me and wrapped his arms around my waist.
“Please, Lisa, don’t leave me. I love you; I need you; I can’t live without you. Please, baby.”
I covered my mouth to stifle my sobbing and choked out, “I can’t.”
He pressed his face to my abdomen and squeezed me tighter. “You can, baby. Please. Baby, I’m begging you. Don’t do this. Don’t leave me. Don’t leave us. Me and Mya need you. Don’t do this to our family.”
My hands itched to comfort him, to dry his tears and wrap my arms around his shoulders. To tell him that I didn’t mean any of what’d I’d said.
You must act quickly.
My resolve steeled and I began to move. I struggled to push his strong arms down, but as if a switch was flipped, his grip loosened, and I was able to step around him. He released me and allowed me to move past him before standing up with his fists balled at his sides. I hesitated for a moment, and it was long enough for him to grab my arm. I looked back at him, and the fire in his eyes made me gasp.
“We aren’t finished, not by a long shot. I’m letting you leave right now because you seem to really want to go, but know this; I’m coming for you.” And with those parting words, he took the stairs two at a time until he hit the landing. I knew it was coming, but I still jumped at the sound of our bedroom door slamming.
Walking to the garage door felt like making the trip to the electric chair. Leaving Jeremiah might as well have been the death penalty. I was leaving my heart behind after stomping the life out of his. The hardest thing I’d ever done was leave while I walked out of the house without looking back. In a different scenario, his words might have warmed me up, but in this situation, all they did was sadden me. No matter what he said, I wasn’t coming back to him. Not if his life was hanging in the balance because of it.
I climbed into my car and managed to make it out of the neighborhood before I had to pull over on the side of the road because I was crying so hard that I couldn’t see well enough to drive. Like the eye of a hurricane, there was a break in my sobs that gave me enough time to make it to Trisha’s house. I’d called her after lunch and told her my plans, so when I pulled into her driveway, she opened the front door and came outside. As soon as I stepped out of my car, she enveloped me in a tight hug and the dam snapped, allowing my sorrow to pour out.
She guided me inside and onto the couch, where several minutes passed before I was able to even utter a word.
“I—I left him!”
Trisha rubbed my back soothingly, not saying a word.
“He begged me to stay, and I just left him there!”
She reached over to the coffee table and pressed tissues into my hands but I didn’t want to wipe my face. I didn’t want to clean my nose. I wanted to look a mess because that was how I felt. My insides were shredded from leaving my heart crying out a
t the bottom of the stairs.
“He begged me, Trisha! I told him I met someone else and he still begged me not to leave him! I hurt him!” I blubbered on, recanting my conversation with Jeremiah up until I arrived at her house. By the time I reached the end of the story, I was no longer sobbing loudly, but my tears still ran like a faucet. My head was pounding and my sinus felt clogged. This had to be the worst Monday of my life.
“Come on, let’s get you to bed.” Trisha tightened her grip on my waist and helped me to stand up. We shuffled across the living room and into the hallway that led to the bedrooms.
Trisha’s room was on the left at the end of the hallway with the two guest rooms in the middle and opposite end respectively. The middle room was used as an office slash library and housed all of Trisha’s books so we made our way to the third bedroom. I sat on the full-sized bed and stared at the wall. How could doing the right thing hurt this badly?
“Do you want some help getting into bed?” She gnawed on her bottom lip as her worried eyes roved over my hunched frame.
I shook my head. Thanks to the shower I’d taken before dinner—and after our lovemaking—there was no need for me to even undress. Trisha leaned in for a quick squeeze and pressed a kiss to my forehead.
“Get some sleep, please. We’ll talk in the morning, okay?”
I nodded even though I had no intentions of sleeping. When Trisha closed the bedroom door, I kicked off my shoes and climbed under the duvet. I appreciated her withholding her questions and letting me be, at least for tonight. Tomorrow would be a different story but right now I was too raw to do anything other than regret the day I told Candice that her cousin could come on our girl’s trip. That was the day my life as I knew it would end.
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