by Alisha Rai
Jackson scowled. He cooked and pitched in as a large warm body when the occasion required it. “Don’t make it sound more glamorous than it is.”
“Now I wish you had responded to my emails, so I could have lived vicariously through you. You must have had so many adventures.”
He shot her a quick look, gauging if she was angry or being sarcastic, but she really only looked bemused. “Do you want to travel?”
“Yes. I went to Pakistan and England when I was young, but my parents hadn’t wanted to juggle five kids through multiple international trips. The domestic ones were chaotic enough.”
“Why don’t you travel now?”
“Money.”
“That’s the only reason?”
She lifted a shoulder. “I mean, I’d need someone trustworthy to watch the café. But yes. It’s the money.”
“I’d give you money.”
He made the offer casually, and she received it in kind. “Thanks. But no. I’m not taking your money.”
“Proud.”
“You know it.” She shrugged. “Tell me about your travels sometime. That’ll be enough for now. Google can only give me so much information about you.”
He imagined telling her about all the places he’d been and seen. It should have exhausted him, the thought of all that talking, but instead he experienced a sense of excitement. He wanted to tell her. He wanted to see the world again through her eyes. “Will you tell me everything about you that I missed?”
She scraped her foot over the concrete. “You know what you missed. I was writing to you.”
She didn’t sound as bitter over those unanswered emails as she had before. “Those gave me the outline of your life. You could fill in the details. I don’t know everything about you, do I?”
“What you see is what you get.”
“Somehow I doubt that.”
The air turned taut. “What do you want to know?”
He inched closer. His eyes had adjusted enough to see her, but they were in darkness here, the bulb above the back door burnt out, the light from the street only illuminating a small triangle in the alley. “Whatever you want to tell me.”
She inhaled. “I don’t want to shock you.”
“I doubt I would be shocked.”
She snorted. “You say that now.”
“I mean it.”
Her eyes were unreadable. “What do you think of when you look at me, Jackson?”
Perfection. “I see a remarkable woman.”
She went still. “What?”
Had he said the wrong thing again?
She stepped closer. “Say that again.”
“I see a woman?” he said, this time with a question, because he wasn’t sure what she wanted from him.
She opened her mouth, but a high-pitched laugh interrupted them. Jackson moved instinctively to shove her behind him at the perceived threat, but he needn’t have bothered.
It was only a man and woman, both tipsy, judging by the way they tumbled into the alley from the street. Jackson tensed, ready to intervene if something was amiss between the couple, but the woman shoved the man up against the wall and plastered herself on him. “Kiss me.” Her voice carried easily along the fall breeze.
“Gladly,” the man muttered, and then their lips were locked. It was messy and crude and graceless.
It was exactly how he wanted to kiss Sadia. Full-on, open-mouthed, tongue rubbing against hers.
The man was tall and muscular, the woman curvy and half his size, but she held him against the wall easily. Her blond hair gleamed in the moonlight as he tunneled his hands through it, gripping the strands.
She gasped and tilted her head back so he could kiss his way down. Her neck arched and she looked directly at him and Sadia. Jackson’s muscles tightened. Sadia was behind him and therefore hidden, and they were standing in enough darkness that his features were most certainly unidentifiable to the couple, but he was poised for anything.
However, the woman gave a throaty laugh instead of a gasp of outrage. “Darling, looks like we’re being watched.”
The man licked the hollow of her throat. “Do you mind?”
“You know I don’t,” she said in a loud whisper. “Let them see everything.”
Jackson turned his head slightly to look over his shoulder. He expected Sadia to crack a comment about the amorous couple, but she was frozen. Her eyes were wide, locked on the man and woman.
Curiosity. Interest. Lust.
“Do you want to go inside?” he asked quietly.
He waited for her nod, but her lips parted. His arm shifted back and he brushed his pinky over hers.
Slowly she turned her hand and rested her palm against his. Her body came closer, so she was pressed against his back, her breasts flattened against him.
His breathing stuttered. “Do you want to watch?”
Now. Now she would say no. But instead, this time . . . he got a nod.
Heaven help them both.
He turned his head back to face front. Once when he was in Vienna, he’d gone to a party that had swiftly turned into an orgy. He hadn’t participated. But he liked to see everything, process it, turn it over in his own brain, so with permission, he’d sat and watched. It had been the most erotic experience of his life, though no one had touched him.
It had been. Watching this random couple kissing with Sadia’s hungry gaze on them was going to probably top that.
Watching anything more than a kiss . . . he didn’t know if he’d be able to survive.
But he was about to find out.
The man twisted and pressed the woman against the brick wall, his fingers dancing over the back of her neck and the tie to her halter dress. With one tug, the fabric fell, and she was topless, her firm breasts and pink nipples exposed to the night air.
The blood rushed to Jackson’s cock. Sadia’s breasts were larger. Were her nipples as big? Were they a light brown color, or a darker shade?
The man dipped his head and took the nipple in his mouth, and Jackson rubbed his thumb over his own lips. He wanted to do that. Open wide and swallow as much of Sadia as he humanly could. He wanted to own her nipples, make it so she never felt anybody or anything but him.
The woman cradled the man’s head to her breast and tipped her head back, her breath coming in deep sighs. “Fuck me,” she whispered.
The man kissed his way up her neck, licking and sucking, while he jerked at the fastening of his pants.
He grabbed the woman’s leg, hoisting it up to his waist. The fall of her dress hid them from view, but Jackson could tell by their matching groans when he pushed inside of her.
A brush of sensation came against his palm. Sadia’s finger, stroking up and down, mimicking the man’s body.
It was only her finger and he had to close his eyes, fearful he might embarrass himself.
“Jackson,” she whispered, and there went his resolve. He’d never heard her whisper his name like that, needy and wanting.
“Yes,” he whispered back.
“I need something.”
As always, he was helpless to not give her what she desired. “What do you need?”
The anonymous woman’s cries were swallowed by the music and the crowd inside. The man started fucking her in earnest, his hips moving like a piston back and forth, her bare breasts jiggling.
Sadia’s other hand coasted up his arm, leaving fire in its wake. “It’s wrong, what I need.”
Yearning. “Nothing’s wrong.”
“Yes, this is. It’s wrong.”
He kept facing forward, fearful of breaking this sultry, seductive spell. He was bouncing from cushion to cushion again, trying to stay off the lava on the floor. That lava would hurt him. “Tell me.”
“You said I was perfect, and I’m not.”
He had said the wrong thing to her, earlier tonight. How to explain she was perfect to him?
“I’ve tried to be perfect. I’ve worked really hard at it, and never really quite s
ucceeded. Tried to be the best mom and the best wife and the best daughter and . . . I never get to be . . . average old me.”
He was fascinated despite his raging arousal. He hadn’t seen Sadia display this glimpse of vulnerability since they were young.
Average? Ha. She was so beyond average.
Her laugh was razor sharp. “I was going to pick someone up tonight to screw. I’ve done it before. I only do it here, at the bar, where I can find people who don’t know me. Where I can take an hour or so and indulge my needs while my son is safe and taken care of.” Her chest rose and fell against his back. She rested her chin on his shoulder and her breath tickled her ear. “What do you think of that? Are you shocked?”
He was aroused. He shook his head.
“What if . . .” Her words were almost a whisper. “What if I said I’ve been thinking about doing things with you?”
Jackson had been punched a time or two, right in the chest. That’s what this felt like, like someone had slammed their fist into his solar plexus, knocking the air out of him.
What did he say? He wanted to give her everything and anything.
Because you love her.
The realization didn’t come on him like a thunder clap, but with a gentle whisper, because the love had always been there, lurking under the surface, even if he’d been terrified of verbalizing it.
He’d lied to himself. He hadn’t traded his heart in for a black-and-white model, he’d just unplugged the cord. Coming back home had plugged it back in, and now each color was flickering alive one by one.
Love is an addiction.
She had only said she wanted him, not loved him, but this . . . this changed everything. Because even if she never loved him, now he could give her something no one else could.
Fuck waiting and lingering and brooding. Love is active.
Adrenaline and exhilaration ran through him. They were healthy and single and consenting, and except for their own baggage, there was no reason for them not to lust after one another. Or love each other for that matter, but right now, he’d deal with the lust she’d admitted to.
He released her hand and turned around. He grasped her waist and backed her up against the door.
“Jackson, I want to—”
“Shh.” It took a second to hoist her up his body, mirroring the other couple in the alley. She automatically locked her legs around his waist and he groaned at the way his body nestled into the cradle of hers. “You want to get off.” His voice was low and guttural. She deserved hearts and flowers, not crassness, but all she had was him, and he was crass.
She whimpered.
“What have you thought about doing with me?” He had to know.
The woman’s cries rose, punctuated by the man’s grunts and the slap of flesh on flesh. Sadia’s cheeks darkened, her gaze darting between him and the scene over his shoulder.
“Like that?” He rocked his hips, so she could grind against his dick. “Have you thought of me fucking you like that?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “I’ve used my vibrator and imagined it was your cock inside me.”
He almost came, right then and there. “Use me like she’s using him,” he murmured. “Use me like you’d use whoever else you’d planned to pick up tonight.”
“What do you mean?”
He didn’t tell her, but showed her, moving his hips in a circle. In the darkness, her gasp joined the chorus of ecstasy behind them.
“Oh don’t stop. You’re so big,” the other woman moaned, and Sadia’s eyes locked on him. She rubbed herself against him and nodded, as if she were agreeing. The zipper of his fly might leave an imprint on his dick, he was so hard.
He pressed his palm over her ass and used his grip to slowly move her up and down. The woman’s voice cried out behind him, and he rocked Sadia harder, savoring the dazed pleasure in her face. He wanted their clothes gone and their bodies bare. He wanted to shove himself inside her, hard and deep.
He couldn’t do that, not here in this alley, but he could give her something. “Come on my cock,” he murmured, and adjusted his grip so he was pressing tighter against her, his entire body tense with the need to fuck her. He pressed his lips against hers, and nothing about this kiss resembled their lip lock on the stairs last week. That had been a tentative, exploratory kiss. This was so she’d have a place to scream. She came shuddering in his arms, as the woman behind them cried out in orgasmic bliss.
He left her lips slowly, regretting that they wouldn’t have more time right now to talk, and . . . well, whatever people did during a seduction, but he didn’t want either of them spotted or recognized by the couple. He released her so her legs dropped from around his waist. His cock was nearly bent double, but he’d take care of it later. “Go inside.” He kissed her on her forehead.
Her breath was still coming too fast to talk. She stared up at him with dark, troubled eyes. He tried to head off her panic. “Don’t stress about this. It’s not a big deal. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
He gave her a push when she didn’t seem in a rush to move, and she finally budged, scurrying inside, casting confused looks over her shoulder.
He braced his hands on his hips, keeping his back to the couple until they stumbled away, laughing. He hadn’t felt this good in a long time.
He’d deal with the implications of her having been married to his brother and his complicated history with the man later. Now that he knew she wanted him? Now that he could finally, finally voice his desire for her, even if only in his own head?
He’d have her.
Chapter 14
Sadia’s parents had never allowed her or her sisters to watch much television, so children’s programming had been something she’d had to sneak when she was a kid. She tried to limit Kareem’s television consumption to a healthy amount, but if he watched an extra hour here or there, she didn’t mind. Especially if she got to watch it with him.
Sadia pressed a kiss on her son’s forehead, inhaling the scent of laundry and little boy. Kareem was snuggled tight next to her. They’d been watching television since he’d come home from school an hour or so ago. She knew at some point she needed to get up and do productive things and have him get started on his homework, but she’d savor this for as long as possible.
She’d never quite appreciated how much she enjoyed staying home with her son until she’d had to rely on her support system of sisters and in-laws to take care of him while she worked. Sometimes she found herself becoming jealous of the people who got to see Kareem when she couldn’t.
And her ability to stay at home now was due solely to the six-foot-plus slab of muscle currently working in her café.
How could she have told Jackson that she wanted to have sex with him? Or that she regularly picked people up at the bar and banged them at all?
How could he have reacted like he did? Accepting, eager? His reaction—and the orgasm he’d given her—had ensured she’d slipped into a dreamless sleep last night after she’d come home. After staring at his dark apartment for a while.
She’d woken up this morning determined to avoid Jackson until death. Positive reaction notwithstanding, she didn’t know how she could ever look at him again without her face catching on fire.
He hadn’t let her ignore him. From the moment she’d walked into her office, he’d forced himself in. First dropping off an apple danish and coffee for breakfast, then an off-menu poke bowl that he’d introduced for lunch—which had, of course, been a big hit.
He hadn’t talked much either time, but when he had, his eyes had been warm and he hadn’t shied away from touching her. Little touches, on her arm or her shoulder, but each one had sent a wave of excitement through her. So much so that she’d been useless for the hours in between his drop-ins into her office.
It had been a relief to escape the café and go pick up her son.
Kareem pressed his face against her side, as if he could tell she was growing agitated. She and Paul had somehow managed to raise the mos
t empathetic little boy.
The doorbell rang, and she looked down at Kareem. “Were you expecting someone?”
He took her seriously and shook his head. She got up. “Let’s see who it is then.”
When she opened the door, she could only stare.
Livvy gave her a sheepish smile. Her best friend and former sister-in-law was dressed in laced-up combat boots, frayed jeans, and a pink button-down. Her hair was vivid blue now and pulled on top of her head in a messy bun. Livvy had always favored a punk goth look, which had somehow never failed to look perfectly appropriate on her tiny frame.
Sadia crossed her arms over her chest, so she wouldn’t give in to her automatic urge to hug her friend. She couldn’t help it. She was still annoyed Livvy hadn’t said one word about her affair with a man they’d grown up with. Not to mention her running off without so much as a phone call. “Well, well, well—”
“Hey, Aunt Livvy.” Kareem shouldered around her and gave his aunt a sweet smile. “Mom said you went on a vacation. Did you get me anything?”
“Kareem,” she scolded. He was far too used to her sisters spoiling him with presents whenever they traveled.
Livvy squinted. “Um, as a matter of fact . . .” Livvy reached into her bag and rummaged for a second before she pulled out a pack of gum with an air of triumph.
Kareem looked down at the half-finished pack of gum, then up at Sadia. “I like gum.”
She sighed. “You can have it.”
He snatched it from his aunt before she could finish speaking. Objective achieved, he turned to run away, back to the T.V. “What do you say?” she prompted him.
“Thanks, Aunt Livvy.”
After he ran off, she pursed her lips at Livvy. “I’m pissed at you.”
“You should be.” Livvy nodded so hard her blue bun wobbled. “I’m so sorry.”
Sadia dropped her voice. “I can’t believe you kept the fact that Nicholas and you were seeing each other from me. I’m your best friend. Even your mother and aunt knew, and I was totally in the dark. And, and! You left without telling me anything about where you were going. I had to rely on getting updates from Mom and Maile. Every gossip in this town has been asking me what’s going on with you.”
