by Falon Gold
“A blue blood, huh?” I drop more toast on the pile I’ve amassed.
Nobody’s probably going to eat a tenth of it, but I brown more bread to prolong connecting with someone that’s not conceited.
“My sisters are blue bloods. I’m just a chef, the equivalent to being a part of domestic help to them.”
“Well, I’m just a nobody. I don’t even have a job.”
He transfers the eggs to a dish. “That doesn’t mean you’re a nobody.”
“We know that, but you can’t tell the people in the dining room that.”
“Well, Amari Spencer, you’re the first body to acknowledge I’m human here, so you’re somebody to me.” A kindred spirit.
“Right back at you, Tommy.”
Camron materializes in front of the waterfall across from the steps. He mounts them in a hurry, blowing into the room with the strength and thunderous look of a hurricane. “You’re late, Amari.” I know that.
I click my tongue. “See, Tommy. No hello. How are you doing? Did you sleep well? Did you get lost? Just come where I tell you, puppy, or you’ll be punished.”
I drop off the platter of toast on the island on my way out. “Nice to meet you, Tommy, the only other human being who’s like me in the house. Normal.”
His advanced directions put me where I’m supposed to be, the dining room, with Camron bringing up the rear. “Your place is at the other end of the table, Amari.”
Bailey and Sasha snicker while holding court on the far side of the twenty-four-chair, purposely distressed light wood table with double bases. Layla’s opposite them, tittering under her breath. Camron and I unquestionably did not have a breakthrough last night. Just really great, great sex.
And now you’re banished to No Man’s Land.
Yeah, well, I won’t be entirely by myself. I’ll have a goblet of water and juice on an empty placemat and plate to mingle with. Utensils to jab the witches with if they get out of hand. This is pitiful.
“Might as well get used to the loneliness now, oh girl,” I gripe, heading to what feels like the other side of the house. “Six months is a long way away.”
When I pass a china cabinet and hutch mate to the table, Camron asks, “What did you say, Amari?”
“I’m headed to No Man’s Land, Camron. What do you think I said?”
I park in a cushioned-back, armed chair, prop my chin on a fist, and drum on the tabletop lightly, surrounded by elegant, black and gold, damask-designed wallpaper. I’d admire the beauty of the room, but it’s purgatory as long as the witches are here too. Laughter erupts from the women. Camron pins them with a hostile glare I’m grateful to not be on the wrong end of. And then, it’s on me.
“That’s not No Man’s Land, Amari. It’s your place as one of the heads of this household.”
Oh. He’s replicating my parents’ seating arrangement. I’d have got that if he’d accounted for the length of the table, and that the women would flock to his end like crows who are suddenly targeting me with their black stares, coveting my place. Heavy is the head that wears the crown, I adjust an imaginary tiara and grin just to ruffle the women’s feathers.
“Your intentions were good, Cam. That’s all that counts. Thank you.”
When we don’t have so many eyes and ears in attendance, I’ll point out that he pretty much isolated me from everyone, almost giving the women more bullets to fire at me. For now, I let him heckle to himself while taking his seat. One-upping the witches is becoming a game that I like to play.
Petty.
Am not. I can’t beat them, too many witches, so I’ve joined them with Camron as an unaware supporter instead of opponent. Or maybe he knows. Who cares as long as the witches are mad?
Tommy enters, spies me, and cocks his head with a puzzled expression as he delivers the platters to the tabletop before them. “Stay there, Amari. I’ll serve you in a minute.”
More interested in filling their plates than maintaining the stare off, the women send sporadic, hostile glances down the tabletop. Camron simply focuses on me, face devoid of his previous humor. I’m not fooled by his mask. Somehow, I’ve offended everybody but Tommy. When he returns with a single plate with sausage links, scrambled cheese eggs with chunks of ham, buttered toast, and sliced strawberries, I’ve grown self-conscious under Camron’s observation.
I don’t have to be encouraged to look elsewhere. “Thank you, Tommy.”
He alternates the dishes. “This is half of my breakfast, but you are welcomed to it, Amari.” He’s about six two, and is going to go hungry for me.
“You don’t have to do that, Tommy. I can—”
“Yes, I did. I found a friend and it’s my job to feed you. Now, eat. See you at lunchtime.” God bless Tommy.
He returns from whence he came. I inhale the heavenly smell from the food. My stomach rumbles, not understanding why I’m filling my senses and not it. I fork the cheesy eggs up before Tommy comes back for them. Orgasmic explosions detonate on my taste buds. He’s not getting these back.
“I swear to God I’m kissing the cook after this.”
“What did you just say, Amari?” Camron asks, eyes narrowed.
In trouble again.
“These eggs.” I kiss my fingertips. “Tommy really should be in Paris, but I’m glad he’s here.”
“Who’s Tommy?” Layla looks thoroughly confused, not the sharpest socialite at the table.
“Tommy is the chef, Layla,” Camron says impatiently. “And you’ll be doing what to him, Amari?”
I swallow hard, knowing a tempest of jealously is coming, but he doesn’t like when I fib, so he’s asked for it. “I said I was going to kiss the cook. You know show your appreciation for someone’s hard work and talents.”
Carmon rocks back, haven’t eaten a thing. Content to watch me eat. I’m happy to let him, until the last bite. It comes too soon.
I close my eyes and savor it. “Tommy, you stuck your foot in this!”
He shouts back, “I sure did for you, Amari!”
Layla coughs out chewed up toast into her plate then chucks the remains in her hand across the table. It skids under Bailey’s plate. who’s horrified instantly. Layla scrubs at her tongue furiously with a napkin. Try as I might to keep my sniggers contained, some burst free until they’re all absconding like criminals during a jailbreak.
Camron sprouts up to his full height, chair tipping over behind him. “What the hell are you doing, Layla?”
“He said he put his foot on it, Camron!” she cries, still swiping residue from her mouth.
Camron retrieves his chair then her toast, hurling it on her plate. “In it, Layla, meaning his cooking is excellent!”
“Oh.” Layla gives her tongue a much needed break.
I’m sure she’s had much worse on it. Needless to say, I’m laughing my ass off, and I’ve changed my mind. Six months here will be a walk in the park.
Camron plunks down in his seat. “Are you done yet, Amari? I have some news for you.”
One last laugh flares up, and then I gain enough control to sip some juice. “What’s the news?”
“Bailey, Layla, and Sasha are leaving after dinner. That’s the earliest flight they could get to the Bahamas. I have to go into the office this Sunday morning because the owner of the Dubai property I was buying didn’t like me pulling out of the deal at the last minute. Threatened to sue me since he declined the other offers that almost matched mine to accept mine, so I’m going to work to see if I can finish the deal from there and avoid going to Dubai. Don’t know how long that’s going to take, but Astrid and Blake are going to stop by for a while today. You’re welcome to invite you family to stay with you if you get lonely or scared. It’s a big house.”
So, he’s put the witches out?
Just when they were beginning to be entertaining, but they should’ve never been here in the first place.
Territorial much?
Shut up. I have bigger problems.
I’m having withd
rawals. He’s already leaving me to my own devices, and I should be more ecstatic about it. I’m not. It didn’t take long for me to get used to his body next to mine in bed.
Bailey reverts her eyes in my direction with a crook to her lips, enjoying my and Camron’s impending parting before it even happens. Yet, she’s not sniping about being evicted from the house. Devious bitch. If it’s not one petty thing, it’s another with her. I can’t wait to see the back of her for the last time.
Camron bites his lip. Dammit, he’s sexy.
“Amari, are you going to be fine here by yourself?”
“Yep.”
He squints. “Talk to me.”
“That’s what saying ‘yep’ is, Cam. Talking.”
“You look like you have something else on your mind.” Quite a few things, but I’m not offloading in front of company.
“I’m fine. If I have any problems, I’ll call you.” Everyday. Definitely at night. Maybe in the afternoons.
You’re whipped.
So.
“Everybody out,” dispels from him abruptly.
The witches’ heads twist toward Camron. Sasha’s fork clatters in her plate. Layla gasps. Bailey slings her napkin down and pushes back her chair. They aren’t appreciating being dismissed one bit. Me either, but I’m the only one who has to obey, so they’re getting off easy.
Camron tilts his head. “Not you, Amari.”
How did you not see that coming?
I retake my seat.
While emptying the room, Bailey rolls her eyes heavenward. I have a mind to pluck them out. She’s getting on my last nerve.
Camron rises. His fingertips cleave to the wood grain of the table leading him right to me. “You were ten minutes late when I specifically said eight sharp for breakfast for a reason. Now, how do I punish you for it?”
The arrangement is still in play, but what did I expect? That he’d suddenly want me to be more than a body in his bed after last night? I did, and it sucks.
“Not sure, Cam. What reason? What do you have in mind for me to do? Wash dishes? Mop floors? Go to my room?” What else can he do to me?
He slides my dirty dishes along the surface a few feet away. “I wanted to introduce you to our staff before breakfast, not find you as Tommy’s friendly sous chef.”
“Was I supposed to ignore him? Oh, I get it. I’m supposed to treat him like the help, like you and Bailey and Layla and Sasha do. Well, I’m not you or Layla or Sasha and certainly not Bailey.”
He smiles, and it’s irritatingly mesmerizing. “Now, you’re being feisty, Amari. Lay on the table.”
I stand. “Cam, I’m not doing that. I have to eat on this side of the table, remember?”
“Now, you’re breaking the agreement again, Amari. You’re supposed to move when I say move, no matter where. Not disagree. We haven’t even signed the six-months contract after your last infraction, and you’re working on another one already. Keep standing, and I might demand you stay here for a year.”
“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”
He slants his head. “Very much, and we’re speeding into ‘you living here for one year if you don’t lay down’ territory.”
I hitch a knee on the tabletop that I’m not dining at again. Anything is better than a year here. Barely going to allow half of that.
“No need for climbing, sweetheart.” He clutches my elevated thigh, feeding arousing vibrations to my core. My body eats it up like a glutton, and it’s not pleased when I cut off its supply by removing my leg from his grip.
Camron contorts an eyebrow. “Face down, sweetheart.”
It rankles, but I bend cheek to varnish. Slowly.
“I’m going to do you a favor and warn you about something, Amari.”
My thighs are pressed into from behind by much more hard and toned ones, the split of my ass pierced by a rigid pole that fits neatly between them. Jesus! He’s turned on.
“This is what you do to me every time you fight me. I love your feistiness. Damn near get off on it. Keep it up and I’ll never let you go.” But never love me again either.
That more than sucks. It’s painful.
I lash out in the only way I know how, from my mouth. “You don’t want me to check out on you. You don’t want me to fight you. You want a Stepford wife. Is that it? Because if it is, you’re out of luck. You get nothing or my feistiness. Now, pick.”
“Feisty it is then,” he mutters.
What did you just do, Amari?
He clinches my hips, draws back, aligns his length with my womanhood, and thrusts into me, repeatedly. The fucker dry-humps me until my panties are moist, I think I have on too many clothes, and I’m stifling moans. He could take me right here and I wouldn’t argue. This point goes to him.
“I’ll be good, Camron.”
He stops grinding on me. “I like your nickname for me better.”
“Earn it.”
“I thought I had already.”
“You lost it, prick.”
He chuckles and squeezes my ass. “Fuck, Amari, you have no idea how much of a prick I can be. Apparently, I need to prove to you that you’re quite capable of bringing out the worst in me without even trying.”
“No need to prove it. We agree.”
“Not good enough. I need you to believe it and fear it. One year is on the table now.”
“No,” I croak.
He sweeps my hair to one side, unfastens the button at my nape, squats, and licks up the length of my bare spine. My back bows as a firestorm breaks loose under my skin. Abdomen muscles contracting until it hurts.
Counterattacks, that’s what he does every single time I defy him. Deny him. Get smart with him. Frustrate him. Fall a little deeper in love with him. Hell, even when I breathe, he gets even by inciting my body into betraying me, craving him.
He’s going to stamp out all my defenses like that. Turn me out. It’ll be a slow process, but eventually, I’ll crack, surrendering to him without his love, and I literally signed up for it.
“Camron, I’m going home.”
“No deal.”
He hauls me up by my forearms then swings me up into his. I enfold his neck with my hands, for steadiness, but I’m still clinging to him, his counterattack successful. Then he lays me out on the table gently, as if I’m a damn buffet.
Ripping my loose top down, he suckles my nipple. I feel it tighten while encased in his mouth that’s excruciatingly hot. Feasting on me. I backbend toward him, nails skewering over his scalp. He groans and laves the valley between my breasts with his tongue before tenderly kissing the underside of my chin.
Animalistic lust slams into me like an eighteen-wheeler. The tender things he does are what fucks with my head and heart the most, initiating a greed that my body is compelled to satisfy. I have to get Camron out of my system or him inside me. One of them will keep me from going insane. Both require the same outlet; him.
“Fine, Amari,” he says out of the blue.
He’s letting me go. I won. It doesn’t feel like, but I wait for him to move away.
He doesn’t. “Six months. You can talk to Tommy, even help him cook, but you stay here, and we make love tonight.”
“What does this have to do with Tommy?” An epiphany knocks me sideways. “This isn’t about me being late for breakfast. You’re jealous again. Have you been holding it in the whole time since you found me cooking toast on the other side of the kitchen?”
“Yes,” he deadpans.
“Why?”
His throat works to swallow, as if he’s consuming the first words to hit his tongue. “Because I am. You’re mine.” Not a real explanation.
“Don’t hold your feelings in, Camron. Talk to me, or it’s no deal.”
“Then Tommy doesn’t work anywhere ever again. Here or Paris.”
Not only is he using my family to keep me in line, now the people I genuinely like. “Jesus, Camron. When does this stop?”
“When you accept you’re my Godd
ess.” The ferocity in his tenor should be staggering. Frightening. But he’s adamant about me being his Goddess. Something about that nickname that does it for me, probably because he has me on a pedestal at the moment, so forgive me for being off kilter mentally.
You’re just as crazy as he is.
Probably.
“Do we have a deal, Amari?”
I nod stupidly.
“Tommy!” he yells.
Why is he calling Tommy? I cover my breasts just the chef appears, wiping his hands on a dishtowel.
“Yes, Mr. Powers.”
“Do you see this beautiful woman on the table in this dining room apart of this house? Everything I just mentioned is mine, Tommy. You can’t take it with you when you leave. You can’t have it in any way when you’re here. Do you understand me?”
“Don’t touch the merchandise, Mr. Powers,” Tommy states plainly.
“Correct. You may leave.”
By the time Tommy nods, I’ve buttoned my top with shame and humiliation burning in my face, no longer on the pedestal, more like under Camron’s feet.
I dive upwards. “What the hell, Camron? You might as well pee on me or bite my damn neck. You can’t make people feel like meat. It’s not alright.”
Tommy chuckles low in his throat. “Looks like your merchandise has a mind of its own, Mr. Powers. Good for you, Amari.”
Tommy goes back the way he came, while I try stabbing holes in Camron with just my eyes.
He crooks one side of his mouth. “Sorry about that, love, but I reverted back for a moment so you could see how bad I can be.”
“Reverted back to what? A jackass?”
“To the old Camron. The one I was taught to be.”
I grind my teeth. “Point made. Your parents should be tarred and feathered.”
He roars with laughter. “It didn’t take you long to figure out I didn’t have the best role models growing up.”
“You’re laughing, but I’m serious. They ruined a potentially much more powerful man than they tried to raise. Being a good person would’ve increased not just your family’s power but your inspiration on more people to strive.”
