Talking about it makes my eyes burn with tears. Fuck love. Darien is quiet, and his facial expression is unreadable.
“I don’t know what’s going on with us, and right now, I can’t afford to suffer from another heartbreak.”
He straddles me onto his lap. I don’t want his pity. He pushes my tangled hair to the side. “You can’t push a man into the arms of another woman. The coward cheated because he wanted to,” he says, popping a piece of bacon in his mouth. “You act like your heart is the only one that’s on the line. Mine is too.”
My eyes widen at his response. “I’m going to fuck up, a lot,” I blurt out.
“We are not in a relationship and I’m already fucking up. So there you have it.” Tilting my chin to meet his eyes, he says, “We’re not putting a label on what we are. We continue to fuck each other. When one of us is ready to take it to the next step, we will talk about it first.” He exhales. “Stop talking and eat. We have a busy day, and I’m not up to sharing my feelings like a chick.”
“We?”
He nods and says, “We’re running errands today.”
At Super Target, in the dairy aisle, I set a carton of eggs into the red buggy. Ever since Crystal got knocked up, she craves eggs.
We stroll to the furniture aisle, and I grab a painting of music notes playing from a guitar and a small black clock, the numbers replaced with music notes.
As we move to the baby aisle, my heart stops as I glance at the blue boy clothes, reminding me of my baby, Cole. It’s my fault that I lost him. Should have watched him. Should have checked on him, but I was too occupied with cooking dinner. My heart yearns and aches for him.
A tear escapes the corner of my eye, and I wipe it with my thumb, hoping Darien doesn’t see it. I grab a box with a car seat and tuck it under the buggy.
“It’s too soon for us to start having kids.” Darien scratches his head.
“No, silly, not for us, for Crystal. She is pregnant.” I hang my head down so Darien won’t see the pain in my face.
We head to the checkout line and fight over who is paying for the stuff. He wins that battle by distracting me with a kiss.
After running errands, I drop my stuff off at my apartment and head to Darien’s place. I open the door and Darien is in the kitchen, pouring himself a glass of whiskey.
I grab the nail, hammer, and the picture from the Target bag and hammer the picture to the wall, above the television.
“You’re decorating my place?” He turns his head sideways.
“It needs a homey touch to it; your place feels so lonely.” I grab the big musical clock and hang it above the breakfast nook. Turning to face him, I ask, “You don’t want me to?”
“You want to Martha Stewart my place? Go right ahead.”
Smiling, I tap my fingers on my chin, thinking what I should paint on the wall. “I’ll come by tomorrow and paint it, if that’s okay with you?” I glance at the pure white walls. They need color, and my artist’s fingers are itching to paint.
“I’m going out of town tomorrow for business, but I will be home late.” He goes to the hook on the wall, grabs his keys, unloops a gold key from the chain, clasps it in my hand and says, “Use it to let yourself in.”
I smile, tucking the key into my jeans pocket.
“Is Lisa going with you?” I blurt out.
Don’t know why I would ask him something like that. I can’t seem to get my trust issues under control. Charles used to go on business trips with Rebecca and tell me all the time it was her job. Well, the joke was on me—he was screwing her the whole time, and I was dumb enough to fall for it.
“Yeah. She’s my assistant.”
“Where are you going?” I fold my arms across my chest, pushing up my breasts.
“New York City.”
“When you go on overnight trips, do you guys stay in the same room?”
“You don’t trust me?” He furrows his brow.
Putting distance between us, I hurry to the kitchen, dump the crab legs, shrimp, and sausage into a glass bowl and exhale.
Do I trust him? Good question. The answer to that is no. Matter of fact, I don’t trust any man, to be honest. They only think with their dicks. Charles thought with his dick when he was married to me, and my dearest brother has a track record of discarding women like worn shoes. So trust is something that doesn’t fly with me right now. “It doesn’t matter. Forget I asked.” I grab the steamer from the chestnut cabinet next to the stainless steel fridge and place it on the front aisle of the stove. “Plus, we’re not in a relationship, you don’t have to answer that.”
Smooth recovery, Alana, real smooth. I dump a shitload of Cajun seasoning, butter, and garlic on the meat and mix with a wooden spoon. Darien snatches the bowl from me and places it in the fridge, then corners me into the crack of the brown granite counter. He presses both palms to the counter, leaning closer to me, caging me in like a small animal.
His manly scent is so intoxicating that I can get drunk off of it. This man does things to my chest, my stomach, and my pussy that haven’t been done in a very long time. What are you doing to me, Darien Casey? Why do you keep me on my toes? Most important, why do I always attract men I know will break my heart?
“Ask me the real question you want to know.”
The bastard has the audacity to smirk at me. I gulp as he rubs my cheek, making my body hyper-aware of his touch.
“No. I’m afraid of the answer,” I answer truthfully.
“Ask, Alana.”
He barely uses my real name, only when he means business. My eyes revert to the black tiles. “Have you slept with Lisa?”
“No.” His tone is flat. He tilts my chin to make me look at his eyes and says, “Is that all, sweetheart?”
I shake my head and bite my lips, feeling a bit stupid about my question. “Are you attracted to her?”
I know he is not Charles. Charles slept with his PA and left me for her. Don’t want history to repeat itself. Won’t be played like a fool a second time, even if we are just fucking like it’s a need.
“She’s beautiful, but I don’t want her.”
I ponder on his last few words for a second and exhale a breath that I didn’t realize I was holding.
“Don’t compare me to your piece-of-shit ex-husband.”
“I di—”
“Bullshit.” He brushes his fingers against my nose and says, “Sweetheart, I’ll bend you, but never break you.”
Hate the fact that he saw right through my bullshit. It’s like we are in sync with each other. He knows my thoughts before I even say them. We mesh together like Lois Lane and Clark Kent. Except I don’t want him to be Superman and save my fragile almost-whole heart. And I’m not going to be Lois Lane either. I want to be like Wonder Woman, fierce and strong, but my broken heart won’t let me.
He taps his fingers on my chin in a gentle way. “Don’t be jealous of every woman I speak to.” He goes to the fridge and hands me the bowl with the seafood in it. “Now hurry up and feed me before I turn into a raging asshole.”
Darien
“MAKE MIA SIGN the divorce papers,” I say to Luke Harper. He sips his glass of Coke and looks at me with hate in his eyes. He wears a custom-tailored suit with Gucci shoes. We shop at the same stores, but his stuff was bought with his dirty money. I got this dirtbag to agree to meet me at a high-end restaurant in New York City.
“Why should I?” His voice is colder than the ice that is clinking in my drink.
“Because the Feds are onto you and I can hire the best damn lawyer to help you.”
“I can do that for myself.”
“Not with frozen bank accounts, you can’t. You can’t hire a lawyer with your dirty money. They won’t touch your ass with a ten-foot pole.”
“Your wife doesn’t want you back,” he shoots. Is this fucker serious?
I laugh at his comment. As if I would go back to that manipulative bitch. I’d rather light my dick on fire than be with her, and if
he were wise, he would leave her the fuck alone. She will bleed him dry, take every dime and snort it up her nose. The only reason she hasn’t done that to me is because I took her name off my accounts.
“I don’t want Mia back. You can have her. Just want her to sign the papers so we can stay out of each other’s lives,” I continue. “Don’t you find it strange that the woman you are fucking won’t get rid of her husband?”
“You are worth five hundred million. Why would she?”
The asshole has the nerve to cock his eyebrow at me. Mia and this motherfucker are on my shit list, and it’s not even lunchtime yet. If I don’t get Mia to sign the divorce papers, she can take half of my money, company, and property. Not gonna happen. My dumb ass didn’t make her sign a prenuptial agreement before we got married. Never doing that shit again.
I whip out my checkbook from my breast pocket, scribble a number down, and slide the check across the dark brown table.
“It’s yours.”
This is where I get him to do what I say. Money talks. Everyone has a number they can be bought for, and this dumbass isn’t any different.
He looks at the check for ten million and says, “Fucking nuts.” His thick Latin accent is not hard to miss.
“I will make that in a day. Get her to sign it, and I’ll throw in a lawyer too. The Feds are watching you.” I whisper it so the worker in a black uniform sitting next to me doesn’t hear me at the bar.
Logan is one of the best criminal lawyers in the state of New York. He wins almost every case, keeping rich murderers, thieves, you name it, out of the slammer. He could get the devil himself out of prison, that’s how good he is. The PI could only do so much, so I called the big dogs—Logan. Logan did some illegal shit so I could pull up more dirt on this motherfucker. Turns out our boy likes sex- and drug-trafficking.
I slide him the manila folder. “That might come in handy when the Feds freeze your accounts, so if I were you, I’d get my affairs in order.”
After my shitty meeting with Luke, I work through the day and have lunch with Lisa so we can work on my schedule for next week. After eight o’clock, I lock my office and pass the night cleaning crew as I exit the building. I grab take-out, from Zoes Kitchen on my way home. As I open the door to my penthouse, I stumble over a pair of black Converse. I hit the light switch, and my furniture and floor are covered in clear plastic. Different-colored paint cans are scattered on the floor by the breakfast nook. When Alana said she would paint my wall, she wasn’t fucking lying—not that I’m complaining.
She lies on the floor like an angel, wearing a dingy white shirt, a pair of faded white sweatpants and a scarf covering her head. She isn’t alone either. Her friend with the cute purple hair wears the same outfit, and she is lying on the plastic couch, sleeping like a newborn baby. Pizza boxes and Diet Coke cans clutter my coffee table. I shake Alana, and her eyelids flutter open. She flashes me her mega-white teeth.
“You’re home early.” She says it like it’s her home too, and my heart does a weird flutter that it has no business doing. With those beautiful blue and green eyes, can’t help but feel something for this woman. She keeps me on my toes and she’s got sass that puts prime Madonna to shame.
“Actually late, it is pushing nine,” I say.
“Oh, shit. Crystal and I got carried away with the paint.” She looks at her sleepy friend and the plastic on the couch squeaks as Crystal rolls over.
“It’s fine. What are you painting?” I look at the work on the wall, a picture of a man holding a woman like she is his lifeline. The woman has bloody tears flowing from her eyes into a black river. Always heard that every artist expresses themselves through their work—musicians, writers, and painters are no different. What’s the meaning of this sad painting?
“A man and a woman in love. I took it from a comic script that I am currently working on. If it’s too much, I c—”
I cut her off, clamping my index finger and thumb over her pouty lips, resisting the urge to shove my tongue down her throat.
“No. Do what you want,” I say. What the hell am I doing letting her decorate my place? I set the food in the breakfast nook.
She shakes Crystal and says, “Pregnant butt.”
Crystal opens her eyes and wipes the drool from her mouth. She looks radiant and pretty. Pregnancy suits her well. She pulls down her shirt over her small belly and walks over to the breakfast nook. “What’s in that white bag, McDreamy?”
Did she just call me McDreamy? Like McDreamy from Grey’s Anatomy? The fuck?
Her eyes light up as she opens the to-go box and digs into the chicken soup. There goes my dinner. “Thanks for dinner. Pregnancy makes me super hungry all the goddamn time.”
I ignore her. I have something else on my mind to eat rather than that cheap-ass food.
Alana loops her arms around my neck like I’m her favorite person in the world. If I don’t divorce Mia, there won’t be a future for us, and I might sound pussy-whipped when I say this, but this woman has got me wrapped around her fingers like a lapdog begging for treats.
Crystal takes the food and leaves.
“I can’t stand the smell of paint, so we’re checking in a hotel tonight,” I say.
“I’m on my period.” She pulls away, grabbing her shoes and sliding them on, lacing up the shoe strings.
“Did I fucking ask if you were on your period? Pack. A. Bag.” I go to my big-ass walk-in fir wood closet and grab suits and ties, placing them in a bag. She leans in the arched doorway. “Why are you still standing there, Alana?”
“We’re not having sex on my period. That’s gross, Darien.”
She still thinks I just want her for the ass? How cute is she? “Did I ask you to?”
Biting her lips, she says, “You’re not my boyfriend, Darien.”
“No shit, Sherlock.”
“We don’t have to hang out when I’m on my period.” She frowns.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” I corner her until her back hits the wall, pressing my palms on the wall above her head. Her beautiful eyes widen as I purposely press my dick to her stomach, urging her on. Her cheeks turn the same shade as her hair.
“Nothing. I’m PMSing.”
I grab my bag and sling it over my shoulder as I follow her to the living room. “You don’t say. What gave it away?”
I’m an asshole. Doubt she will go to the hotel with me now.
“I’ll meet you in the lobby,” she says, before slamming the door.
At the lavish hotel, I unpack my bags and hang up my suits in the closet. The shower echoes throughout the room. I go to the bathroom and lean against the white marble counter and watch her scrub her body through the shower. Debating if I should jack off. The scent of lavender wafts through the bathroom. Removing my three-piece gray suit, I lay it over the door, and join her in the shower. Her breath hitches as her eyes rake over my hard dick. She’s awfully quiet. What the hell is eating at her?
The three brass showerheads spray warm water over my body, and I grab a white linen rag, squeeze soap on it and wash my back. She continues staring at my dick, and she blushes as she jumps out of the shower.
I turn the knob, shutting the water off, and step out, grabbing a thick cotton white towel, wrapping it around my waist. Alana watches me through the small mirror as I dry my hair and my body, tossing the towel on the white tiles. She pops a blue pill from a foil packet and pops it in her mouth, washing it down with a bottle of water.
“You’re taking birth control.” It comes out more of a statement than a question. She nods her head. A pair of Burberry black cotton boxers hangs loosely on her hips. My boxers. She must have taken a pair. She looks so fucking cute wearing them. She throws on some clothes.
“We can stop using condoms,” I say, pulling on a pair of black boxers on my waist.
“No, we can’t.” She brushes her straight, wet, frizzy hair.
“I’m clean.”
“I’m sure you are, health freak.”
>
“Are you?”
“Of course.”
“Then why we gotta use condoms?” I stand directly behind her, brushing my dick across her ass.
She shudders, bites her pouty bottom lip and says, “Don’t want any kids.” She goes to the bedroom and plugs an HDMI cord into the back of the flat screen television. A blue screen pops up with the PlayStation logo. “Let’s play a game,” she says, popping a disc in the console.
“Sure.” I pull out the leather chair from the dark brown desk and slouch in it, rolling on my black socks. She throws me a black controller, and I catch it in mid-air. “You ever played Injustice 2 before?”
I look at her sideways. Haven’t played video games since I was in high school. “No.”
She explains the basis of the fight game and what button is to punch and kick. I choose the Flash, and she chooses Harley Quinn—of course she chose her. My girlfriend has a weird-ass obsession with the villain.
Did I use the word “girlfriend”?
I am pussy-whipped.
“Whoever loses has to answer the other person’s questions.”
An hour and some change later, I hit the square button and kill her character. I throw my hands in the air and say, “Start singing like the fucking mockingbird.”
“Fine. What do you want to know?” She sighs heavily and folds her arms across her chest.
I rub my three-day stubble. “Why did you draw lovers on my wall?” She could have drawn anything, even some girly, flowery shit, but she chose to draw something meaningful.
Her cheeks turn red, and she says, “I like drawing couples.”
“From artist to artist”—I place my hands on her chest—“we create from the heart. I write and play music because I like the way that it makes me feel. Same with artists.” I usher her to sit on my lap. Now she’s facing me, her toned legs dangle on each side of me and her hard nipples press against my chest. She has on superhero pants and a white shirt with holes in it. I think she’s trying to look like a bum so I won’t touch her.
Chasing Darien (Chasing Series Book 1) Page 9
