"Hello?" her sweet voice purrs on the line.
Even the sound of her voice is comforting. It washes over me, bathing me in warmth. I close my eyes and take several breaths, letting myself finally relax.
"Blaze? Are you there?" Ari asks.
“Yes.” I glance over at the time. It's early in the evening when she is usually working, so it doesn't seem like an appropriate time to ask her to meet me. Still, I swallow my pride and say, "I need to see you." It comes out in a rush. "I'm sure you're busy, but I need to see you."
I start to tell her I will pay her for any time lost with her clients, but she answers, "I'll be there soon. I just need to wrap up at work."
That makes my stomach lurch—the constant reminder of Ari's work. If Ari is leaving a client early for me though, then I need to be happy about that. That’s the best I’m going to get with a woman in her profession. I knew what I signed up for before I fell for her. But still, it doesn’t stop the pangs of jealousy from biting at my manhood.
Less than thirty minutes later, there's a knock on the door. Ari is on the other side, hands tucked into the dense shell of her jacket.
"Fuck, Ari," I breathe out, blinking at the sight. There's snow dusting Ari's brown curls. She looks ethereal, otherworldly, with her honey brown skin contrasted against her glowing hazel eyes. "I can't believe you came this fast.”
“Why wouldn’t I?” she asks. “You said you needed to see me.”
I close the short distance between us, curling both hands around the back of Ari's neck and letting both thumbs brush Ari's jaw. Then, I kiss her until I can barely breathe anymore, feeling all of the tension melt out of my body.
This isn’t about shielding Ari from the law anymore. I’ll do horrible things for her—would break even more laws for her, besides the one she’s already made her peace with. It would scare me a little if I didn't see the same magnitude of feelings reflected in Ari's eyes when she steps away, catching her breath.
“I missed you,” I tell her.
Ari reaches up, laying a hand over one of mine resting on my neck. "My name is Yandy," she says quietly. "Yandy Martin."
"Yandy?" I repeat, liking the way it rolls off my tongue.
“Is Ari a working name or something?” I ask her. I had figured long ago she would use a different name for her clients, and I feel honored she revealed to me the name of the real person beyond her profession.
“Yes. It’s my middle name, and I use it for work,” she admits.
I kiss Yandy again, heartfelt, fully able to appreciate the magnitude of the trust it shows for her to be so honest with me. I keep kissing Yandy, too, until I feel the sharp sting of a punch to my arm.
"Ow!" I complain, rubbing at the spot. "What was that for?"
"Since I’m being honest, I want you to be honest too. What's your name?" Yandy demands. “Blaze is a hot name, but what’s your real one?”
I grin. Right, I'd kind of forgotten Yandy didn't already know this. She probably thinks I gave her a fake name, too.
"It actually is Blaze," I say. "Blaze Wells. You’ve been calling me the right name all along."
Yandy snorts a bark of laughter, even though her eyebrows knit with something strange.
"You should pick a better pseud next time, Blaze."
"There won't be a next time," I tell her sincerely.
She takes the hidden message from what I’m saying. “I hope not. I don’t want there to be anyone other than you either,” she mutters.
“Stop working then. Stay with me,” I whisper near her ear as I bite down on her earlobe. “I will take care of you, now and forever. All that I have, I will share with you.” None of what I’m saying is planned, so I know it’s coming from a sincere place. I want this woman here with me, and I want her forever.
“Blaze, what I do is more complicated than you think.”
“If someone is making you go out there, tell me his name. I will get rid of him by tomorrow. Trust me, I have my ways,” I tell her, my blood boiling over at the thought of someone forcing her to sell her body.
“I will tell you everything, soon,” she says and leans into me, kissing my lips.
“Tell me now,” I breathe out, then breathe in her intoxicating scent. I regularly dream of becoming one with her, and this moment is no different as my cock springs to life over the aroma of her invigorating scent.
“In due time, Blaze.”
I decide not to press her, knowing she reveals everything on her own time anyway.
“I want you naked, Yandy,” I say, loving the way her real name sounds rolling off my tongue. “I want you naked and in my bed.”
“Not as much as I want you naked and in the bed,” she says and begins to strip out of her clothes.
I help her out of her jacket, then step back to watch her peel off a purple sweater dress. I want to help her with her clothes too, but that would ruin the beauty of her doing it nice and slow right in front of my eyes. I feel like the luckiest man alive when she stands before me wearing only her purple panties.
“Blaze, now that I’m naked, what are you going to do with me?” she asks in a sultry voice. A clear sign that she aches for me to be buried deep inside of her as much as I ache to be inside of her. That detail sends a healthy flow of blood to my manhood, and he’s fully ready.
“Oh, I can think of some things to do to you,” I say.
“Is that so?” she asks, turning around to bend and take off her panties seductively. Her butt cheeks spread beautifully. Then, she backs her ass up to press against my cock.
I feel like a caveman trying to relieve myself of my pants and boxers as quickly as humanly possible.
She looks back at me and giggles, but before she can get a good laugh in my hardness is resting against her slick entrance. I grip her hips and thrust into her, reuniting us in our most perfect union by sheathing my manhood with her tight, gushy center. This is our first time uniting without a barrier, and it feels like heaven.
She moans out my name, the sound alone making me give her my all. I growl against her ear as I lean into her and write my name all over her walls. She will remember no man other than me if it’s the last thing I do while here on Earth.
“Blaze, I love…this…so much,” she murmurs, barely able to speak the words clearly.
I plunge into her heat over and over again, biting down on my bottom lip as I try not to explode from the feel of taking her without a barrier. Yandy is soft inside, and her juices coat my manhood and leak down her legs and mine.
When Yandy starts to tremble, gripping my manhood with every tremor, I can no longer hold it together. I ram into her core, filling her up with every ounce of cum I have to offer with each blow.
“Stay with me,” I mutter between each stroke. I may be going mad, but I want her with me as insanity takes me to a place I’ve never been before meeting Yandy. No future moments should pass where we are not together. I don’t want her out on the streets. She should be here with me.
A loud moan escapes her sensual throat. “Yes!” Her body shudders, and she cries out as each wave of orgasm devours her alive.
I pull out of her and stand up straight, pulling her up with me. I stammer to the couch and sit down, bringing her down onto my lap, where I devour her lips, drinking from her mouth until I am full.
“Yandy, were you answering my question or were those cries of pleasure.”
“A little bit of both,” she whispers, breathlessly. “I have my own place, so maybe we should start dating before we do the move in thing.”
“Oh, baby. We are so far beyond dating, and I know all I need to know about you. I want you here,” I tell her, meaning it from the pits of my soul. I am done doing the visit thing; we belong together.
She kisses my lips to quiet me. I forget my train of thought momentarily as a kiss like the one she’s delivering to my lips is designed to do. It’s a warm embrace of two sets of heated souls meant to change worldviews and convert a man from bachelorhood to being hoo
ked to the ball and chain. I’ll come back to the conversation of making her stay with me forever. For the moment, I’m enchanted by the feel of her sinking into my soul and me into hers.
Chapter Ten
Yandy
Blaze convinces me to stay the night. Well, it doesn’t take much convincing after he brands my body twice more in an attempt to get me to agree to live with him. Finally, after I’m so limp that I feel like a limp noodle, he allows me to rest.
Late into the night, I’m woken up by two phones going off in unison. Both are playing the standard Apple ringtone, but slightly off from each other, making for a jarring contrast. Blaze's hands slide on my warm, naked skin when he leans across the bed to fetch his work iPhone.
"Hello, this is Blaze," he answers groggily.
Next to him, my sleepy voice is raspy when I answer my phone and ask, "What can I do for you?"
"Agent Martin," the person on the other line says curtly. "There's a situation I want to make sure you are aware of, in case you get called for back-up."
"What's going on?" I ask, jarring more awake with each passing second.
My superior starts running down the details to me, and I’m in shock of what’s going on with the trafficking ring I’ve been trying to bring down. Apparently, they just got a new boost to their circle, and it’s a more disgusting set of circumstances than I could’ve ever imagined. Stomach churning, my limbs are thrumming with adrenaline, making me think it's going to be a long time before I get back to a bed to sleep. There has been an influx of young Mexican girls who were separated at the border from their parents that were here for asylum. The US government lost track of the girls, and now the young, most vulnerable group of teenagers are being pimped in the streets of New York City. I’m entirely enraged by the time I hang up the phone. When Blaze ends his call, he equally looks like a bundle of nerves.
"Yandy," Blaze says urgently. His anxious tone overwhelms how I’m already feeling. "I don't want to tell you to stop seeing clients, but you can’t go back out there. The New York Police are beginning a massive raid this week. They're going to be arresting hundreds of people, and one of them could be you if you go back out there, especially since I found you so easily," he says.
I stare at him confused over what seems like an awkward statement. My mouth is half open in shock and awe. “What do you mean by saying you found me easily? What are you saying, Blaze?”
"I couldn't stand it if something happens to you," Blaze continues, clenching his chest. "I don't want to be put in a position of putting my job on the line to keep you out of jail, but I know I’ll do it if it comes down to it, so let’s just not put ourselves in that position, okay?"
"What the hell?" I say, sitting up straighter.
"I'm sorry," Blaze insists. "I haven't been entirely honest with you. I work for the New York PD. I’m a cop, and that was someone in my department warning me about the future busts about to happen to prostitutes all over the city, and especially in the area near the park where you work. They’re not looking for you, but there have been a lot of girls coming in from Mexico, and we have to get to the bottom of it."
"What the hell?" I repeat, sitting up and looking at him as if he has two heads. How did I miss the detail that he’s a cop? At this moment, I know I fell for him the second I saw him because there is no way in hell this should be coming to me as a surprise right now. Researching people and their motives is what I do. “Break this down to me like I’m a two-year-old, what are you saying exactly?” I ask, not wanting to believe I’ve been sleeping with a cop. Not that it’s a bad thing; it is actually great news, but how could I have been tricked? I should know better than this.
My mind is stunned by the fact that he’s not a John, and we didn’t start out as a trick and a prostitute with me being just some random piece of cheap ass he was willing to pay for. He goes out there to clean the streets just as I do. He’s a good man through and through, and not someone looking to exploit a prostitute. Everything about this revelation is giving me new life.
"I should never have started this thing to begin with, but I couldn't help myself. I was drawn to you, and I didn’t want to let you go, Yandy. I'm so sorry I've been lying to you, but I just couldn’t figure out how to clean things up once it got started," Blaze continues, willing me to believe him by the sincerity in his eyes. “I didn’t want to lose you.”
"No, you don't understand," I say, waving for him to stop talking. "You just stole my line. I just got off the phone with my boss, and I was going to tell you to be careful tonight."
Blaze drops his phone. “I don’t understand what you’re saying. Speak to me like I’m a two-year-old,” he uses my line.
“I was about to warn you that we’re going to be arresting any Blazes we find this week, men out soliciting for sex. I was worried about you getting arrested by my team.”
"You're a cop?” he asks, disbelievingly.
“You’re a cop,” I shoot back, smiling, relief substantially more pronounced than the shock.
“Wow, this is a lot to take in. But the first thing I want to say is I have no intention of going out there to pick up anyone else. I have all the woman I need right here.” I smile as Blaze pauses to think. “Were you going to let me pay you for sex and never say anything about being a cop? Shitty police work, Ari,” he retorts.
"You were going to pay me for sex and not arrest me!" I counter. "You suck at your job, too!" I start giggling, and before long, we are both tickled to death over finding out we’re both undercover.
“Maybe it’s not that we suck, it’s just that we were meant to suck on each other,” he says, pulling me closer to him and kissing my neck, while suckling at my skin. “I’m glad this is out in the open. Now, we can start something serious without any inhibitions,” he adds.
I’m still naked in his bed, sheets pooling around my waist. I gaze into his eyes; then, my eyes roam over his body. There's a rash of red at the base of his neck from where I left my mark earlier in the night. He's strong and gorgeous, and I don't have to feel guilty for wanting to be with him any longer. This is a good thing.
“Yes, we can,” I surrender to the idea of being with him freely. “And, I would love that.”
"So, you don't have other clients?" he asks again as if that bit of knowledge gives him life. "Just me?"
"No! I don’t have clients, at all. You’re not even a client, you’re my boo," I say and chuckle loudly.
He chuckles with me. “I’ll take that. I’ll take all of that,” he says, pulling me back into his arms and holding me there for what seems like the longest time.
"You don't go picking up hookers on the reg?" I ask to clear the air. I guess that’s something I’m hung up on too.
"Fuck no!" he says, leaning back on the bed. "I fuckin’ hated that assignment when I got it. It took me so long to figure out what to wear, thus Terry’s suit, and then I didn’t know what to say, how to hold my hands…it was a disaster."
"God, me too," I say and start laughing, a choked off, wheezing sound that's pretty contagious.
Blaze starts chuckling along with me.
“I hate going undercover doing this, but the FBI wanted me to go deep cover, so I’ve been doing this for a few months. We’ve been trying to figure out the flow of girls caught up in this sex trafficking ring,” I admit.
"You’re amazing!” he says while tugging at my bottom lip.
“You’re pretty amazing too,” I tell him. “But the most amazing part is that now we can get out there and fight this problem together.”
“Most definitely,” he says, his finger now running circles over my shoulders. “These assholes don’t have a chance now.”
“No chance,” I agree.
“You know we're going to have to come up with a very different story for how we started dating,” he says, still running circles over my skin which heats up in every place he touches. “My mom can never hear this one,” he adds before his lips come crashing down on mine warming me to th
e core.
“Neither can mine,” I say, giggling, imagining the day Blaze would meet my parents and impress them with his charm just as he amazes me with the way he expresses his love for me. “Do you think your mother will like me because I can tell you now my parents are going to love everything about you?” I ask.
“Baby, my mother has said so many prayers that I will meet a girl as brilliant, compassionate and lovely as you. If she doesn’t fall head over heels in love with you, then I don’t know what to say. What’s not to love about you?” Blaze says as he climbs on top of me, covering my body with his.
While I can think of some obvious barriers to his mother accepting me, I clear my mind as we make the sweetest love with our full truth on the line. We give ourselves to each other wholeheartedly for the first time.
And, as the future holds, Blaze is right. When I meet his mother, she makes me feel right at home and a part of the family. My mother falls head over heels in love with him, and he passes my father’s test for a man capable of taking care of his daughter. Our love life is on the right path. We have everything we desire, finally.
Epilogue
Blaze
Six Months Later
When I step out of my car and head to the alley, I see her before I get there. The light mist in the air is reminiscent of the first day we met and makes what I’m about to do even more meaningful. I make my way across the street towards the alley, anxious to be close to her. As soon as she sees me, she presses her back against the old stone wall and props one foot on an old stump for support. She knows I love it when she sees me coming and stands in that nasty way that drives me wild.
“Are you looking for a good time?” she starts our cat and mouse game.
Take Me Slow Page 6
