Brash Company

by Crystal Perkins

  “Matt really gave him no limit?”

  “No. He had so much guilt. Unfortunately, that guilt was misplaced. My father was never shot. He had been informing for the U.S., and was about to be exposed. He was brought to the U.S., and ended up living down the street from Dylan’s family. He saved him from bullies one day, and Dylan promised to do anything for him. That ‘anything’ turned out to be me. My father decided I would be a perfect companion for him, because he missed his family, and wanted at least one of us by his side. It backfired brilliantly, and now only my mother and Sully speak to him.”

  Whoa. Just whoa. “But you and Dylan are together.”

  “It was Dylan’s love for me that made him refuse to follow through.”

  “Your father is sorry,” Aqeelah tells her.

  “Is he? I think he’d do it all again if he could.”

  I agree with Nev. “He almost ruined so many lives. I’m not happy with my parents right now, but they’d never go that far with anything.”

  “You came here so we could talk about Sully,” Aqeelah says, letting me know she wants to stop talking about her husband.

  “There’s nothing for me to talk about. We’re just too different. Our cultures are too different.”

  “You fasted with him, you’re here eating with us. You fit right in with all of us,” Nev says.

  “He has something to prove to himself, and everyone else, and that made him push me aside. Missed dinners, and other dates, ignoring me like I was some groupie he’d used up, and more.”

  “I’ve seen him with you at lunch most days.”

  “Yes, he’s trying to win me back, and show me he can include us all in his life, but it’s too late. I’ve been pushed aside twice by him, and I can’t do it a third time.”

  “It’s not a problem with culture. Different cultures can be combined. Sadiq and I did it. You know I’m from Guyana. My native language is English, although I also learned Urdu, because our country was very heavily Hindu. I loved learning languages, but I did not yet know Arabic when we met. I fell in love with him, married him, and moved to the Middle East, not knowing the language. I was embarrassed, and sometimes shunned. Sadiq refused to let me fail, because he loved me.”

  “Loved. Past tense.”

  “Enough, Mama,” Aqeelah tells her, and my mouth drops open.

  Nev waves her hand at me. “It’s an Arab thing. I’m not her mother, although sometimes I feel like I am.”

  “Your father loves me in his own way.”

  “You were better off without him, and you’ll never convince me differently. Matt, either. You and Sully can embrace him all you want, but he needs to stay away from the rest of us.”

  I feel like I need to tell them about Sadiq approaching me, but I don’t want to watch them fight any longer. “This has all been enlightening, but it changes nothing. I can’t trust Sully. I want to—you don’t know how much I want to—but I can’t.”

  “You can honestly say you’ll be happy without my brother in your life?”

  No, I can’t. These past two weeks have been everything I’d wanted from him before. Well, not everything, because we’re not having sex, or going on dates, but they’ve been great. Not having anything with him would be devastating. Maybe it’s time to give him another chance, even if I’m afraid.

  “I’ll give him a chance.”

  Sully

  Tonight’s dinner at Matt and Reina’s is for my family. Only my mother and I knew she was bringing my father, and it hasn’t gone over well. We knew it wouldn’t, but it has to be done. Yes, he fucked up big time, with Matt and Nev especially, but he can’t change that. He’s apologized, and practically begged for their forgiveness, and it’s time for them to give it to him.

  “We can’t change what happened, but we can live together now.”

  “It’s not so easy to forgive someone trying to kidnap you,” Nev tells me.

  “Or letting you take the blame for his death,” Matt adds.

  Dylan speaks up next. “Being blackmailed isn’t exactly fun, either.”

  “I did many things wrong, but I don’t regret them. I’m sorry I hurt all of you, but we are all alive, and that is what is most important,” my father tells them.

  “Is it? Is being alive enough? I was alive for ten years, but I wasn’t living.”

  “You got what you always wanted, Matt. In the end, you are here with Reina.”

  “Only because I wouldn’t follow your plans, Sadiq,” Dylan tells him. “If I hadn’t fallen in love with Nev, and put her before you, no one is this room would be okay.”

  “They would be fine,” he says, and my blood begins to boil.

  He thinks I’d be fine without my sister? “Fine? Without someone I love?”

  “You are fine without that ridiculous girl you were infatuated with.”

  “Do not speak of Beckham like that. In fact, don’t speak of her at all.”

  He is showing me the man Nev and Matt tried to tell me he is. He’s showing me the ugliness I’ve refused to see before now. Even my mother looks horrified.

  “She is too different from you.”

  No. He didn’t. “What did you do?”

  “Do?”

  “You just used the same words she said to me. I’m going to ask you again—what did you do?”

  He sighs, regarding me as if I’m a boy, and not a man. “I merely showed her some pictures she needed to see. She was already doubting you, and I merely helped her on her path of knowledge.”

  “Sadiq, no!” my mother says, and I hear the anguish in her voice.

  “What pictures? Show me the pictures.”

  “I will not be spoken to like this.”

  “I will kill you, right here and now, if you don’t show me those pictures. Is that how you wish to be spoken to?”

  “You don’t have it in you, Baba.”

  “For Beckham? Fuck yeah, I do.” I pick up the steak knife next to my plate as I stand.

  “Neveah, Matthew—do something,” my mother wails, but they don’t move from their seats.

  The man who gave his seed so I could be born takes out his phone, finds what I want, and holds it out to me. My stomach turns as I flip through them, knowing how Beckham felt after seeing these pictures. I treated her like shit, and now some pictures taken at just the right angles made it seem as though I had interest in other women. I fall back into my seat, and throw the phone back at him.

  “How could you? How could you show her those pictures, knowing what they looked like?”

  “Those women in the pictures are better suited to you.”

  “Because they’re Muslim? I should just marry any random woman I meet, and forget the Christian woman I love. Is that what you’re telling me?”

  “Yes.”

  “You are dead to me. Dead.”

  “Stop being so dramatic. She’s just a fuck to you.”

  I leap across the table, only stopped by Matt and Dylan’s hands on my arms. “He isn’t worth it,” Matt tells me.

  “You need to leave, Sadiq. I do not care where you go, but you need to leave us, and never come back.”

  We all turn to look at my mother. Her eyes are like ice, and she is shaking with rage. None of us have ever seen her like this, and it takes the bastard before me a moment to speak.

  “You don’t mean that.”

  “I do. I took you back, because I believed you when you said you wanted to change, but what you have done to our son, and Beckham, shows me you haven’t.”

  “I will have a team meet him at your house, Aqeelah, so that he takes nothing of yours,” Reina tells her.

  “Thank you.”

  “I can ruin you! I can tell the world the truth about what you do!”

  Reina looks to my mother, who nods. “Do what you must, Reina.”

  “What? No! Aqeelah, no.”

  Security comes through the door, and I move to my mother’s side. Nev does the same, all of us holding hands as he’s led out. He was dead in o
ur minds for many years, and now he will possibly be dead again. Either that, or his mind will be wiped of all knowledge of us. It is probably better that we don’t know.

  My mother reaches up to cup my cheek in her palm. “Go to her, Sully. You now know what was stopping her from giving you the chance you want so badly.”

  “What if she doesn’t believe me, or thinks I’m like him.”

  “You are nothing like him, my son. Nothing. She knows this.”

  I hope so. Only one way to find out. I practically run to the elevators, because it’s time to lay it all on the line, and hope she believes me this time.

  Chapter 18

  Beckham

  The frantic knocking on my door comes just as I’m settling in with a book and some pasta. I get up, and open it to find Sully on the other side, looking a little crazed.

  “Those pictures were manipulated. We were with the group, and I never had any interest in Muska or Lian. I only want you. I swear it. Please, you have to believe me. Please!”

  “Take some breaths, Sully, and come sit down.”

  “My father—he’s a horrible man,” he tells me as he sits at my kitchen island. I get him a glass of water, and wait while he drinks some of it.

  “I found him to be creepy, yes.”

  “Where? He didn’t tell me where he got to you.”

  “At the movie theater. I went to see the movie you went to without me, and he was waiting for me in the seat next to mine.”

  “Motherfucking asshole.”

  “He didn’t say anything to me I hadn’t already been thinking, but yes, those pictures were what sent me over the edge, so to speak.”

  “I need you to believe nothing happened with them. Nothing will ever happen with them, even if you don’t let me back into your life.”

  “I believe you. I’ve already let you back into my life.”

  “Not fully,” he says, looking toward my bedroom.

  “No.”

  “Is that one of the things he said? It is, isn’t it? I was going to kill him when he made a comment about me just fucking you. Matt and Dylan had to hold me back.”

  “Yes,” I say, looking down at the counter.

  “It was never about just sex with you, I swear it.”

  “Even when it was only sex? When I let you have me, even though you were ignoring me and standing me up?”

  This is my issue and not his, but I’m still blaming him. I should’ve stopped him, and sent him away, but I never did. I was so weak with him, and I’m ashamed of myself. So ashamed by it, that I’m now forcing myself to be too strong. I know it, but I can’t stop it. I can’t stop myself from refusing him everything, even if it costs me my happiness, too.

  “Don’t cry,” he says, pulling me into his arms. I didn’t even realize I was crying until he said it. “To answer your question, yes. Even then, it was never just sex. I love you, Beckham. I think I’ve loved you since you threw my water on me. I’m well aware you don’t believe me, but I’ll keep doing everything you need, in order to convince you.”

  “These past two weeks have been nearly perfect.”

  “They have.”

  It’s time. I know it’s time. He’s here, he’s saying he loves me again, and I believe him. I know he never cheated, emotionally or physically. And I know he’s found the balance he needs between his friends and me. Now, I need to take the leap, and expect him to catch me.

  “Ana Bahebak.”

  “You do? You love me?” he asks. He looks so hopeful, and my heart hurts, knowing I kept this from him for so long.

  “Yes. Bousni, Sully.”

  He doesn’t hesitate to grant my request, kissing me softly. When I bite his lip, he growls, and takes my mouth like I need him to. Like I’ve missed for the last two weeks.

  “What else, Beautiful. What else kept things from being perfect.”

  I know what he wants me to say. I feel his erection pressing against me, and I know he’s expecting me to say I want it, but there’s more I need.

  “Dates.”

  “I have some in my apartment,” he says with a smirk.

  “Ass.”

  “You love my ass.”

  “I do.”

  “I’m going to take you on dates five nights a week. Some mornings and afternoons too. All over this city, and other places too. Matt once offered his jets to me so I could whisk you away, and I’m going to take you on weekends to new places.”

  “You have volunteering on Saturdays.”

  “I can take one Saturday off per month. It’s still more than I’ve done in the past.”

  “Only if you’re sure. I won’t take you from your Pillars.”

  “I know. Now, is there anything else you were missing out on?”

  “Hmm…I’m not sure. Maybe you can help me remember.”

  “Oh, I’m going to help you remember,” he says, lifting me up.

  I wrap my legs around his waist, and suck on his neck. “Do you need directions to my bed?”

  “I could find it in complete darkness. From downstairs. After climbing the stairs.”

  He punctuates each answer with a bite on my neck. He is marking me as his, and I love it. I want everyone to know. Sure, we’ve had lunch together, but since I’ve held him at bay, it looked to all like co-workers sharing a meal. The gifts he left me could be seen on my desk, but only I knew they were from him.

  I held him back, but no more. I’m finally giving all of myself to him, and it changes everything. It all feels better, because it is. Love is better than lust, even as they go hand in hand.

  Sully

  I speak to her in a mix of Arabic and English as I remove her clothes. She loves me, and she wants to be with me. Just those two things are making my brain jumbled, but the sight of her in a simple bra of lace triangles, and a matching lace thong, fries what’s left of my brain cells, and I say random things to her, as I remove my clothes, and pull her to face me on the bed. I place kisses all over her neck, and shoulders, whispering my love to her.

  Habib albi. Love of my heart.

  Ya Helo. My Beautiful.

  You are my soul. Ya rouhi.

  My life. Ya hayati.

  ‘ant laa. You are mine.

  “Later, you’re going to tell me everything you said to me.”

  “Not now, Habibi?”

  “No, not now.”

  “What shall I do now, Helo?”

  “Make love to me, Sully.”

  How can I refuse her? I can’t, especially when it’s something I also crave. Lying her back on the bed, I suck her perfect nipples through the lace, biting down a little. Back and forth, as her back arches, and her moans fill the room. Sliding the lace over her head, I feast on her bare breasts until she comes, screaming out my name.

  “So perfect, so responsive,” I praise her, as I move lower down her body.

  My cock is so hard, it’s painful, but she needs to know I cherish her, even if she’s not telling me she does. I never consciously used her, but I took her body without honoring her heart, and I will spend the rest of my life making that up to her.

  My tongue grazes over her clit as I move slightly lower, and lap at her opening. She’s wet and ready for me, but I need another orgasm from her before I let my cock out to play. I know her body, so I know what I need to get her there fast.

  Sliding two fingers into her, I move my mouth back to her lips. I suck and lick as I pump my fingers into her. As her clit swells, I know she’s getting closer. I’d know it from her cries, but it’s her body I’m listening to right now. It’s telling me what she needs, and I’m giving it to her.

  She bucks against my mouth, and fingers, taking control. “Sully, like that. Suck harder. Please. Sully!”

  That final scream is when she comes, coating my fingers even more. I look up at her as she loses control, and start to come myself. I can’t help it. Who could help it if they saw her like this, wild and beautiful?

  I’m not done yet, licking her down from her orgasm
, as she continues to ride my hand. I pump my fingers softly as I feather my tongue over her. She’s not done, and neither am I. That orgasm took the edge off, but it’s not what my cock needs to be satisfied. I’ll never be truly satisfied, until the day I die, knowing I made love to Beckham as much as I could over my life.

  When neither of us can take much more, I flip us over, so she’s on top of me. Sliding up the bed, I place her body over my cock. “Ride me, Beckham. Ride my cock like it’s yours, because it is.”

  She sinks down without a word, taking me all the way inside her. It feels so good, being skin to skin with her, which is when I realize I don’t have a condom on. I start to speak, but she places her hand over my mouth.

  “I’m on birth control, and clean. Are you?” I nod. “Hold on, Sully, because this is going to be a hard ride.”

  Fuck. Me. She proceeds to do just that, grabbing onto her headboard for leverage.

  It’s fast, hard, and glorious, as she moves me body up, and down, over mine. I’m momentarily mesmerized by her tits moving above me, but I recover, and start sucking on them again. I know it’s going to make Beckham even crazier, and that’s what I want. I want her as crazed with lust as I am.

  She doesn’t disappoint, grinding down on me every few seconds, taking the friction she needs. I glance down once, and nearly lose my mind. Her creamy white pussy taking my dark cock into it is the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. She’s waxed clean, making the differences in our skin even more prominent. We look perfect together.

  So perfect, I can’t stop myself from gripping her hips, and thrusting up into her. She’s still getting her ride, but it’s even harder now, as we work together. I’m so far inside of her, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to leave.

  “Sully!”

  “Come for me. Milk my cock dry. We both need it.”

  She screams again, but not my name this time. She just screams in pleasure, and I roar in response as I come inside of her. She falls onto me, and I automatically wrap my arms around her, pulling her close. Neither one of us speaks at first, because we can’t.