by Kira Graham
Christ. I see a future filled with many un-won arguments, I think, my heart growing full at the thought of a future. With this perfectly unstable and gorgeous woman.
“I was. I was green with jealousy and so angry that I wanted to destroy stuff. Instead, I ended up destroying the one good thing that had happened to me,” I admit, giving her the romance I know she needs, even though she won’t admit it.
“Oh, Hart,” she sighs, reaching up to cup my cheek. “You didn’t destroy a damn thing. I was just days away from showing up on your doorstep with a suitcase, a gun, and an ultimatum. You and me—we were meant to be, no matter how messed up we make things.”
“Because we’re—”
“Don’t say soul mates! I hate those words. They’re so—”
“Romantic? Accurate? Sweet?” I ask humorously, my heart finally settling because she smiles back and moves closer, wrapping her arms around my neck.
“So, is this, like, the part where you admit that you love me and want me to forgive you? Because I have to tell you, Hart, it’s dragging on a little longer than I thought, and I have better things to do than stand around here all day, sharing our feelings.”
“Oh, thank Christ. I wasn’t going to mention this, babe, but one of the things I love most about you is your complete disgust with sappy, romantic drivel,” I sigh, smiling when she grins and leans in to kiss me.
An eternity later, when my cock is so hard that it pains me to pull away, Cleo finally pulls back and stares up at me, her eyes shining brightly and twinkling with mischief.
“I love you, Cleo,” I whisper, smiling when she sniffles and bites her lip, that very small and almost malformed romantic side of her peeping out at me.
“And I love you,” she whispers, her eyes shining wetly. “I think I knew that you were trouble the moment I walked into that restaurant and saw your bad attitude,” she admits, making me chuckle.
“And I was done for the moment you tried to steal food off my plate and called me a fucking asshole,” I whisper back, giving her a soft smooch meant to convey just how happy I am in this moment.
“True love, huh?”
“True love,” I assure her, my amusement spiking when she gets a panicked, almost terrified look in her eyes and bites into her lips.
“By the way, we are never getting married,” she informs me, doing her best to look convincing while all I can manage is a slow, predatory smile.
See there? That is why I love my Cleo.
She’s always throwing out a challenge.
“I’m almost certain that I didn’t ask, Cleo-mine, but rest assured, we’re going to get married—when the time is right.”
“Nope. Not happening. I don’t know if you remember this part, but I already walked down an aisle, Hart. Nuh-uh. I’m not going to budge,” she informs me, her eyes turning into slits when I shrug confidently and keep smiling.
Oooh, we’ll definitely get married one day. Even if I have to trick her into it, like I have been doing since the moment we met. She may be the sweet part of this messed-up love we have going on, but I’m the heart. Besides, there are so many other ways to make Cleo believe that a wedding was her idea…
Chapter Twenty
Cleo
I giggle as I push farther back into the pillows, Hart’s striptease getting so over-the-top ridiculous that I find myself snorting like a pig when he bends over and waggles his ass at me, his balls swinging back and forth in an obscene way that should not be sexy.
There is most definitely something wrong with me, because even knowing how unsexy I should find the sight, I am drooling as I stretch out and let my legs fall open, giving him a little show of his own.
He growls the moment he turns and his eyes land on me, their gray depths going smoky when I run my hand down my chest and slowly drag it lower towards my wet, aching sex.
It’s been a month since my…whatever it was that happened to me. Hart calls it a near-death experience, though when he says it, he’s talking about himself, because he maintains that he’d have died if anything had happened to me. I call it a superhero moment, the hero being me. Of course.
In that month, we’ve moved back to his apartment, I’ve rented mine out to his cousin Zelda, and I have officially launched my website, which is very rapidly bringing in more work than I actually want to do. Things are going great for us. So much so that when he proposed to me yesterday, I almost said yes.
Almost.
At this point, my refusal is more of a game than a real answer, because the truth is, I really do want to marry Adonis Hart, have his babies, and live happily ever after. That’s a great story, a story that may sound average to most, but that means so much to me that it can’t be anything less than spectacular.
However, and this is a big however, I don’t know how to deal with what’s going on with Rose…
“Cleo! I swear to God, if you’re playing with yourself while thinking about any of your sibs, my sibs, or your other damn family members, I will have a fit,” Hart yells from across the room, dragging me from my straying thoughts and dropping me right in the middle of a moral soup that I do not want to be swimming in.
Lying to one’s significant other isn’t something that most people would find acceptable, and yet I shake my head and silently deny it, because if I don’t, Hart is likely to torture me for hours, like he did just the other day when I forgot that he was with me and fell asleep.
Don’t get judgy. That happened at four in the morning after so much sex, so little sleep, and so much talking that I was plain tuckered out.
“Good. Now. Let’s get serious for a minute,” he purrs, his smile back in full force as he struts my way.
“Serious, huh? I thought we were having fun,” I purr back, a choked snort leaving my mouth when he stops beside the bed and glances down, drawing my eyes down to his cock.
Where a tiny blue box is dangling from his flesh, tied there with a piece of matching ribbon.
“You said you like this,” he croons, waving his dick at me in a taunting manner.
“Oh, I do,” I assure him, coming up to my knees when he bends down, bringing our mouths within touching distance.
“Well, then, Sweet. Why don’t you claim it?”
I think that that may be a dare, one that I don’t think I can resist as I reach down and untie the thing, feeling the weight of not just the ring inside, but also everything else that comes with it. Luckily for Hart, I’m discovering just how much I like the thought of being tied to him irrevocably.
Or not.
We’ll see just how good he is at closing big deals.
Tossing the box onto the pillow beside me, I reach up and pull him down, sighing when he settles on top of me and reaches down to position himself at my entrance, the now-familiar feeling of rightness filling me when he slides all the way home.
Pleasure fills me, overwhelms me, and holds me in its grip as my guy makes love to me, the slow dance of his hips against mine taking me closer and closer until I scream my pleasure and let my mind explode along with my body.
When I’m finally able to swim back to the surface, sated and blissed out to the max, I open my eyes and look up at Hart, his grin spelling a kind of mischief that makes me wonder how I ever got into this much trouble—and how I can love it this much.
“Say yes, Cleo-mine,” he whispers against my lips, his cock still throbbing inside me and setting off small sparks as my climax fades.
“Hart.”
“Say yes. Marry me, Cleo-mine. Tomorrow, next year, in two years, or five years from now. It doesn’t matter when it happens, baby. Just as long as I see that ring on your finger and have your promise. That’s all I need.”
“Fine, but you have to tell your mom that the wedding she’s been planning for over two months is not happening,” I warn, smiling secretly because I think we both know that nothing we say is going to change that.
I’m just going to enjoy seeing Hart try, I guess.
“Deal,” he whi
spers, grinning so widely that I roll my eyes and stifle a giggle.
The man is a terrible loser, but he’s even worse when he wins—as he usually does—because never let it be said that Adonis Hart, master negotiator and megalomaniac extraordinaire, doesn’t know how to work a deal.
Fortunately for him, this deal is worth all the trouble that it’s going to bring me on the daily.
“You’re trouble, Hart.”
“And you’re dirty,” he counters when I reach down between us to stroke his balls, reminding him that he has yet to seal the deal.
“Then I guess you’d better clean me up with a good, long tongue bath.”
And he sooo does.
Epilogue
Rosetta
I hate waking up lately. Not because I want to sleep my life away, or because I don’t have better things to do—because I do. I’m a high-powered attorney who made partner before the age of twenty-four, and who has more victories in court than any other attorney in the greater Georgia area.
I’m driven, smart, and so focused on my goals that it seems laughable that I can’t pull my shit together. And yet, that’s exactly what’s happening here. I don’t sleep well, and when I do, it’s interrupted by hazy nightmares, where instead of saving Cleo, I arrive a second too late and watch as my sister falls to the ground, a bullet between her eyes and a look of betrayal staring back at me.
Every time I have those dreams, I wake up drenched in sweat, my heart pounding so hard that I start to panic on the off chance that I’m having a heart attack.
But that’s not even the problem here. You’d think that experiencing a trauma—like almost seeing your sister murdered by a guy you set her up with—would be my beef. And yet, no, that’s not it.
The problem is, I’m depressed. I’m down. I’m caught up in a vicious cycle of pathetic self-pity that I just can’t shake, no matter how hard I try.
The problem is that I was in love with Achilles Hart, and the man told me, in no uncertain terms and with plain and unavoidable language, that he doesn’t love me back. Not in the way that I want him to.
Unrequited love.
It’s so fucking clichéd that I could kick my own ass for falling victim to it, and yet here I am, awake at four in the morning, my chest tight with unshed tears that I refuse to let loose, pining away for a guy that I shouldn’t even want.
My phone buzzes on the bedside table, and I pick it up with a frown, my mouth turning down into a grimace when I see Zeus Hart’s name pop up, followed by at least ten poop emojis and the words “don’t be a baby.”
How many times do I have to tell this man that he can only use emojis when they give the words meaning?
SweetRose: Shouldn’t you be sleeping?
Hart2: Shouldn’t you?
SweetRose: Answering a Q with a Q is a sign of a lazy mind.
Hart2: Not answering is a sign of avoidance. Tell Zeus what’s wrong. You still getting wet for Chilli?
Oh my God. I hate this guy, and if I had any other friends, or anyone else to talk to besides my sibs—thank you very much, but no, I don’t want to be the laughingstock of my family—I would tell him to go to hell. In fact, I’ve told him exactly that on numerous occasions, but he just keeps texting and calling. And randomly sending me lunch, as if he knows that I haven’t been eating much lately.
SweetRose: Screw off! Am not.
Hart2: Then why are you awake?
SweetRose: To masturbate.
I mean the answer as a sarcastic middle finger—pun intended—but the ass doesn’t seem to understand sarcasm, or plain speak, or anything that he doesn’t want to hear.
Hart2: Cool. Can I watch?
SweetRose: You’re sick. And obviously needy.
Hart2: Needy can be good. It means I’m in touch with my feelings.
SweetRose: Then go feelings your dick and F yourself. Go away.
Hart2: Can’t. Woke up thinking about you. You see the T yet?
Me, go to therapy? I think, snorting in disgust. I don’t need therapy. I’m strong enough to handle one little shooting and get over the fact that I not only killed a man, but also enjoyed it and would do it again if I had to. I would pull that trigger a million times over if it meant saving the life of someone I love, and you know what else? He deserved it. So what if it doesn’t make any sense to me that Cameron Black was stalking my sister? I shouldn’t be this bothered by the fact that it doesn’t add up. Crazy is crazy, and you don’t have to understand it for it to be real.
And yet, I still can’t quite believe it. It just doesn’t make sense. I’d known Cameron for three years, ever since I started working for Donald and Donaldson, the law firm run by one of my dad’s closest friends, and the first place that headhunted me out of law school.
He was a client, someone I considered a friend, and a person I definitely never thought would do something this insane.
He did, though. He kidnapped Cleo and almost killed her. He raised that gun, aimed it at her, and was going to pull the trigger. If I hadn’t shot him first, he would have done it. I know that. And yet, I still feel so sad and guilty about the whole thing.
It just doesn’t make sense.
I guess that that’s why I can’t just move on and let it go. I need answers, and with the only person who can give them to me dead and gone, it’s a mystery that is bound to drive me crazy.
Hart2: Rosie?
SweetRose: Not yet. I told you, I don’t need it.
Hart2: Do it anyway. For me.
SweetRose: No. I don’t care about you.
Hart2: Rosie. Come on.
SweetRose: No. I hate all that feelings crap they do, wanting me to talk. Would rather deal with it on my own.
And I will, I tell myself, sinking back against the bed as I wait for another text to come through, our usual four a.m. text session just getting started. I will deal with all of this, and I will figure out just why I keep talking to Zeus Hart, even when I could swear I despise the man.
Zeus
She’s a mess, and it’s killing me to watch her walk around, pretending to be fine, when the truth is, she isn’t. Rosetta Sweet is the strongest woman I have ever met, and yet beneath that suit of armor, the porcupine quills, and her sharp tongue, I see a woman drowning in a sea of regrets, loneliness, and self-doubt.
I would never say that to her face, though—not if I want to live to woo, fuck, and then marry the woman of my dreams. And most definitely not if I want to finally get to the next stage of my plans and convince my sweet Rose that I am the man of hers.
Staring at the empty text box on my screen, I swipe out of the app and dial a number, patiently waiting for the ringing to stop.
“This had better be really fucking urgent, asshole. I was busy,” Adonis snarls, his out-of-breath panting and the feminine muttering on the other end making me smile and wonder if Adonis ever sleeps.
Or if he ever lets poor Cleo sleep.
“You owe me a favor, if I recall,” I drawl, my smile turning into a chuckle when he curses and says something so vile that my mother would wash his mouth out with acid if she heard it.
“This couldn’t wait until morning?” he snarls, murmuring something to Cleo before I hear him sigh and rustle against the sheets.
“I’m done waiting.”
“Are you sure about this, man? It’s only been a few weeks since Ach—”
“I’m sure,” I say, cutting him off because the thought of Rose’s still wanting Achilles turns my stomach.
She’s my girl, and I will prove it to everyone if I have to. More importantly, I will prove it to her. Or I’ll kill Achilles. Every man needs a backup plan, you know.
“Christ.”
“What? Who is it? Why are you rubbing your eyeball to death?” Cleo yells, her questions followed by a scuffle, several curses, and then her sweet, very demanding voice. “Hello?”
“Hey, honey bee,” I sigh, my mouth pulling into a reluctant smile.
I love Cleo, but she’s beyond no
sy, she’s mean when she gets upset, and she’s just plain untrustworthy when it comes to Rose. If she finds out what I have planned, she’ll spill the beans so fast that I’ll be dead before I can run away from Rose.
I have no intentions of getting my ass killed by my woman, much less letting the Sweet family know what I’m up to. No, I want this operation to go as smoothly as possible, and, for it to work, I know that I’ll have to do the one thing that no one would ever expect from me. Pull an ambush.
Or knock Rose up. Or both. Hell, at this point, I’d settle for just being close to her.
“Zeus? Holy hell, man, don’t you sleep? It’s four in the morning, and I was getting head! Not cool, Z,” she chides me.
“Sorry, Cleo.”
“Agh! It’s fine. Hart’s jaw needed a break, anyway—didn’t it, booboo bear? Now, what’s going on? Are you okay? Do you need a cleaning crew? Because me and Rose took a class from one of her cop friends. We could have it done, like that,” she assures me, as the sound of her fingers snapping, and of Adonis cursing, causes a bark of mirth to escape me.
“I have no doubt, honey, none at all. And I’ll be sure to remember your kind offer should I ever kill someone.” Again, I think, leaving that part out. “But I’m good. I just needed to call in a favor that Adonis owes me.”
“Ooooh, sounds interesting, but I’m pretty sure you’re not going to tell me. Hmmm. You know, I could do you a favor…”
There’s another scuffle, and this time, Adonis curses and yells, the sound of his annoyance drowned out by Cleo’s shrieks.
“Ow! Dammit, baby. You can’t bite me there!” he bellows, muttering some other crap that makes my stomach turn before he sighs and comes back on the line.
“Sorry, she’s skipped off to the bathroom in a snit. I should kill you for calling at this time in the morning. But I won’t, since I won’t need to. Because when Rosetta finds out what you’re planning, she’s going to kill you herself.”
No shit.
“Then she won’t find out,” I say easily, knowing that it’s a lie.
