But West wasn’t as dumb as I thought he was. Damon could look very meek and unassuming at times, much like teenage Damon, something that actually turned me on, and I think that’s what West saw in him when he decided to flex. But when Damon hopped up, and said, “I ain’t got shit to do with you, but I got everything to do with her, and if you don’t take your ass on somewhere, I’ma fuck you up right where you stand, yank that grill out your mouth and shove it down your damn throat,” then lowered his voice and added, “Try me. Please try me,” West didn’t say another word. Just turned and left with a scowl on his face. We finished dinner in silence. Utter silence. Uncomfortable silence, during which my eyes and throat burned from fighting back stinging tears. My ho’ days had caught up with me. I was about to lose the only man I’d ever loved, and it was all my fault.
It was one thing for me to tell him I’d been loose. It was another for him to see the evidence.
My heart rate doubled when Damon pulled into his driveway behind my car and shut off the engine. He sat there for a moment and stared out the windshield. My mind screamed at me to say something, but all I could come up with was, “I’m-I’m sorry.”
His eyes swung over to me and rolled over my face for a second before he opened his door and climbed out, slamming it behind him. I reluctantly opened my door and followed him, waiting at the bottom of the front steps while he unlocked the door. Angie and Ryan were out of town, so at least they wouldn’t witness my walk of shame as I moved out of another man’s house in less than three months’ time.
He went inside, leaving the door open…for me? Or maybe so he could throw my shit outside. I wasn’t sure what to do, so I just stood there staring at the open door.
I could argue that my sister owns the place and refuse to go…
A minute or so later, Damon appeared in the doorway. I waited for a suitcase to land at my feet, but instead, he said, “You coming in?” with raised eyebrows and an unreadable expression on his face.
I gulped and nodded, ascending the steps and moving inside the dimly-lit apartment, shutting the door. Still facing the door and feeling his presence behind me, I softly said, “I’ll understand if you want me to go. I’ll get my stuff and—”
Damon’s body collided with mine, pinning me to the door, his body weight knocking the air from my lungs and clipping my words. I turned my head, and released a breath, my heart slamming into my ribcage in response to the unexpected contact.
I could feel his breath on my neck, hear his harsh breathing, feel his hands on my arms. Then I felt his tongue on the back of my neck, and I closed my eyes. A low moan flew from my mouth on a ragged breath. His hands slid down my arms to my hips, then he reached around and unfastened my jeans, sliding his big hand inside my underwear to grasp my yoni. “This is what they want,” he murmured. “But they can’t have it. Can they?”
I shook my head as his hand gripped me tightly down there. “No,” I whimpered. “That’s what I told them, baby. Y-you heard me.”
He tightened his grip on my treasure. “Mm-hmm. Why can’t they have it, Nick?”
“B-because it’s yours.”
“Always been mine?”
I nodded as he pressed his erection against my butt while still gripping me.
He flicked his tongue against my earlobe. “I can’t hear you, baby.”
“Y-yes.”
“Always gon’ be mine?”
“Ahhhhh, shit! Yes!” I whined, as he loosened his grip and used a finger to stroke my clit.
He pulled his hand out of my jeans and pushed them and my panties down my legs, squatting behind me and kissing both of my butt cheeks in the process. Then he smacked my ass and spun me around to watch him undress while I pulled my blouse over my head, revealing the nakedness underneath as I’d opted not to wear a bra. He moved closer to me, knocking me back against the door as his mouth met mine in a tongue-lashing kiss. His body pressed against mine again as he palmed my breast, squeezing it as his other hand cupped my yoni tightly again, maybe even tighter than before. Possessively, as if there was any question in my mind who it belonged to. It’d belonged to him since the damn eighth grade.
And he knew that.
All I could do was moan into his mouth, because the passion he was emitting was overwhelming, stifling. Here I was, thinking I was a second from being single again, and according to this current assault, Damon was turned on by the evening’s events.
As he reached around and gripped my ass with both hands, mouth still devouring mine, my legs instinctually wrapped around his as I scaled him and began grinding against him. He ended the kiss and stared at me as I gripped his shoulders, my breathing lurid.
“Nick, I don’t give a damn how many men you fucked before you were officially mine. A hundred, a thousand, I don’t care. I wasn’t sitting around counting sheep and shit all those years myself. I did me. You did you, but this thing we got now? That’s all that matters. I love you. Some thirsty niggas won’t change that as long as their asses stay in the past. Okay? Shit, I don’t want somebody no one else wants. And the fact that they’ve had it and can’t get it anymore? That’s just icing on the cake. I’m not letting you go, Nick. I’m never letting you go. No matter what.”
I didn’t bother trying to stop my tears. I just nodded, said, “I love you, Damon. Only you,” and closed my eyes, yelping when he lifted my body, sitting my legs on his shoulders, my cookie directly in his face. I grabbed his head to steady myself as he buried his face between my legs. My head fell back as I let go of his head and braced myself against the wall. I was thankful for the duplex’s high ceilings since I was perched on shoulders that rose over six feet from the floor. Damon devoured me, his stiff tongue attacking my bud relentlessly. I screamed like a mad woman as he licked me to the edge and shuddered as an intense orgasm rolled over me. He continued licking me as I whimpered, and when the thrumming in my core finally ceased, he lowered me to his waist, wrapping my legs around him and eliciting a gasp from me when he entered me with a groan of pleasure. His palm hit the door behind me as he thrusted deep inside me while burying his face in my neck. I held him tightly as my back slid up and down the door. “Damon!” I shouted, as he glided in and out of my wetness. He felt so good, different from any other man who’d ever touched me, and only two minutes, maybe three, after entering me, he incited another internal tornado that was quickly swirling out of control, causing me to hold my breath while my mouth hung wide open. My hearing ceased as my body rocked, and when it returned, I could hear Damon yelling, “Damn, Nick! Shit!”
My pulsing vagina was pulling on him, making him release earlier than he’d intended. But shit, that was his fault.
After a few more thrusts, he grunted, screamed my name with a tortured look on his face, and then his forehead collapsed against mine as we both tried to catch our breath.
“Nick, I told you, you gotta stop milking me and shit like that,” he mumbled. “I can usually fight through it, but when it’s that intense, I can’t hold out.”
“How can I stop it?” I asked. “You’re the one making me come.”
“Damn, I guess you’re right. My bad.”
I laughed. “Are you apologizing for giving me an orgasm?”
He gave me a lopsided grin. “I don’t even know what I’m saying right now. I’m in a pussy fog.”
“A what?!” I threw my head back and cackled loudly.
“You laughing, but that’s why those dudes won’t leave you alone. Too bad it’s mine now and their asses can’t have it.”
I looked him in the eye and smiled. “That’s right. It’s yours forever.”
“And ever, baby.”
25
“Nick, come on. You see I’m tryna play this game.” I leaned my head to the right, trying to see the TV screen.
She kissed my neck, her hands on my chest as she slowly rocked in my lap. We weren’t naked, but she was definitely trying to get there. “I’m not stopping you from playing it,” she murmured.
“But you’re keeping me from concentrating, baby. There used to be a time when you’d be playing this game with me instead of distracting me.”
“I’m out of practice, and you know I hate losing.” Her lips met mine, totally grabbing what concentration I had managed to hold on to, and as I closed my eyes to return her kiss, I could hear the wails of my avatar as he was being overtaken by a pack of zombies.
“Dame, man! Are you even trying?” Theo’s voice poured through the headset covering my ears.
Our kiss ended, and I switched the mic on my headset back on to respond to my cousin. “Nicky’s over here messing with me. Let me hit you back, man.”
“A’ight. Tell her I said wassup.”
“I will.” I pulled the headset off, tossed it on the couch beside us, and grabbed Nicky’s hips. Looking into her eyes, I said, “Theo said hi.”
She rocked in my lap again. “Mm-hmm.”
“You made me lose.”
With a lifted brow, she said, “So you’d rather play with Theo than play with me? Your best friend?”
I shook my head. “No, but I need to do a review of this game. Now it’s gonna take me longer. This is work, not play.”
She kissed me again. “This is work, too.”
I grinned. “Nah, this is most definitely play. Work has never felt this good. But it’ll have to wait till later.”
She gave me a dubious look. “You don’t wanna wait till later, and you know it. I can feel that you don’t.” She shot me a sly grin as she reached down between us.
I sighed. “Nick, come on, baby. Let me do this and then we can do that.” I nodded toward my crotch.
Her spoiled ass rolled her eyes and slid from my lap to the couch. “Fine. I got work to do anyway. You just better hope I’m still in the mood later on.”
I chuckled. “Baby, you’re always in the mood.”
“Whatever,” she muttered, as she hopped up from the couch and headed toward the bedroom.
Thirty minutes later, Nicky rushed back into the living room as I was on my computer trying to write up my review of the game, and shrieked, “It worked!”
I looked up at her and stared for a second. “Why are you wet and naked?”
“I was in the tub and I decided to check your social media accounts, see if I needed to reply to anything, and I saw this on Instagram.” She held her phone up to my face, but shit, I couldn’t take my eyes off her.
“What?” I asked, as I licked my lips.
“Look at the phone, Dame!”
“Damn, okay. You ain’t gotta yell.” I took the phone from her and read the DM. Then I frowned, looked up at her, at the wide-eyed, excited expression she wore, and back at the phone again. The message was from Karyn McNooner, a native Chicagoan and creator of the ground-breaking and controversial Backwoods comic strip. The same strip that became a popular animated series and movie, with wildly successful merchandising. The Karyn McNooner who’d won an Emmy for her writing contribution to an episode of The Backwoods. The same Karyn McNooner who, because of her success, was one of the most influential voices in modern African American culture. This Karyn McNooner wanted to set up a meeting to discuss the future of Foreign Son.
MY Foreign Son.
Mother. Fucker!
I looked up at Nicky with the biggest grin on my face, and said, “Damn…Your crazy ass tagging all those celebrities in those Foreign Son posts all over social media paid off!”
She nodded and giggled as I jumped up from the couch, grabbed her wet body, and kissed her all over her face. “Thank you, baby! Thank you!” I shouted.
She kissed me back three or four times. “Hey, I was just doing my job. You gonna call Theo?”
As I buried my face in her neck, I said, “Yeah, right after I handle some business with you.”
She purred as I wrapped her legs around my waist and walked us to the bedroom.
*****
It was quiet, peaceful as we lay there in my bed, and I was…content. No, I was happy as hell. It’s funny how things happen sometimes, how stuff falls into place when you least expect it. I spent a lot of years trying to figure myself out, trying to understand my place in the world. I never really had any guidance, no one to point me in the right direction, the path set out just for me, because my parents never gave a damn, or when they did offer some guidance, it was the college-then-job thing that never really fit me. No one ever truly cared about my wellbeing, my state of mind, or my future…but Nicky.
Nicky.
I squeezed her closer to me and kissed her forehead, peered down at her to see that even though it was past midnight, she was still awake.
“What’re you doing up?” I asked.
She lifted her head and smiled. “What are you doing up? Too excited to sleep?”
“Yeah…excited, anxious, scared as shit. Can’t wait to hear back from McNooner. See exactly what she’s talking about.”
“Me either. Baby, I’m so happy for you and for Theo, too. You guys deserve this chance. This is gonna be huge, Dame. I can just feel it. I know y’all are about to blow up!”
“Hmm, thanks to you.”
“No, thanks to the talent you two have. All I did was stalk McNooner into noticing it.”
I chuckled. “Well, I appreciate the hell out of your stalking skills.”
She laughed. “You’re welcome. So tell me, baby, how does it feel to know your dream is about to come true?”
I looked down at her with her eyes wide, her smooth skin free of make-up, her hair covered with a silk scarf, her mouth spread in a beautiful smile, and at that moment, I saw the old Nicky, the little girl who kicked ass on the regular for me. And teenage Nicky, the Nicky who believed in me before I knew how to, who took care of me when my parents wouldn’t, and who took my heart and loved me like no one else ever has.
In fact, she was my heart. All that I was and wanted to be was because of crazy-ass Nicky Strickland.
I searched her eyes for a second and then I reached for her, pulling her up so that her face was even with mine. “Nick…baby, don’t you know that all my dreams came true the day you became mine, really mine? This stuff with the comic or anything else that follows? Shit, none of that even matters other than it being a means for me to take care of you. If McNooner cut me a check for a million dollars right now and I didn’t have you, it wouldn’t mean shit. You are everything to me. You’re my happiness, Nick.”
I could see the tears in her eyes as her brow furrowed. “Damon, you make me feel like I’m a prize or something, and I love you for it.” She rubbed her finger across the scar on my forehead, knowing how it turned me on when she did that.
“You are a prize, baby. My treasure. My future. My forever.”
She kissed me while climbing on top of me until her naked body straddled mine.
I shook my head as I ended our kiss, flipped her onto her back, and slid down her body.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
I spread her legs and buried my face between them. “Thanking you again.”
26
“Congrats, man! Renee told me about you hearing from Karyn McNooner. That’s big stuff!” Zo nudged me so hard, I bumped into Nicky, damn near knocking her out of her chair. I knew he meant no harm, but dude was humongous and obviously didn’t know his own strength.
“Thanks, man,” I said, rubbing my arm. “But we’ve still gotta meet with her and see what’s up. I feel good about it, though.”
I felt Nicky wrap her hands around my other arm as she leaned forward to look at Zo. “Damon’s about to be a star. I just know it!”
I chuckled. “Comic book creators don’t usually become stars, baby. As a rule, we’re faceless geeks.”
“Look at McNooner and Stan Lee. No one thinks they’re faceless geeks. Stan Lee has mad swag for an old white man!”
I nodded. “True, but I’ll just take financial stability, and if I get it, I’ma spoil your ass even more than you already are.”
Nicky, who
looked fucking mouthwatering in a tight, short, white dress, causing me to look even more out of place in my usual formal attire of black jeans, black tee, black blazer, and black chucks—not that I gave a damn about being out of place—pouted, making me want to kiss her, so I did. “I’m not spoiled,” she said.
I leaned in close to her ear. “You’re spoiled on this D, and you know it.”
“Yep, and I want it right now.”
I was smiling too hard. “Shit, come on then. We can leave right now. You know I ain’t messed up about being here.”
She shook her head, her eyes on my lips. “We can’t do that. We just got here, and Zo bought a good table. We’re damn near on the stage, and you know you wanna see Mint Condition. You used to love them.”
“Your ass just wanna see Stokley ‘cause you used to have a crush on him.”
“Still do,” she mumbled.
“I heard that.”
“Heard what?”
“You know what? I bet his ass can’t even sing no more. Let’s go home and I’ll play Pretty Brown Eyes on YouTube while I got my face between your legs, making you scream my name right when they hit the chorus.”
Her eyelids were heavy as she licked her lips, and murmured, “Or we could find somewhere to do that here.”
“Nah, these stuck-up folks’ll be calling the police on me, ‘cause I promise I’ma pummel your ass…mercilessly.”
“Shit,” she whispered, and the next thing I knew, her tongue was down my throat and she was trying to climb into my lap.
Be with Me (Strickland Sisters Book 3) Page 15
