Love In the Red Zone (Connecticut Kings Book 1)

by Love Belvin

  Swallowing hard, I realized I was here. At home, in my bed. I was far from my grandmother’s house where she chose someone else over me when I needed her. I wasn’t a little boy, starved, waiting to be fed by my mother when she, once again, decided to serve someone else over me. Everyone was around, stuffing their faces while I was hungry to the point of my stomach turning mad painful. What made matters worse was no one helped. Not one person in my family decided to get up and fix me a plate, but they watched my mother neglect me…again. Shank was stuck to his wheelchair, so he couldn’t help as I stood there in the corner hungry.

  “It was just a dream. You’re here with me now…in real life and real time,” Jade assured in the gentle voice I’d heard her use with Kyree.

  Instantly, my dick swelled against her knee, causing me to yank my eyes down the bed. I was a fucking trembling mess. My chest beat violently, I couldn’t gain control of my breathing, and Jade’s hands of caress felt like the ideal comfort I needed now.

  With a growl, I leaped onto her. Jade’s thighs opened to me automatically and she pulled my face into hers. I ravished her mouth with so much intensity, I didn’t recognize myself. My hands roughly jerked down my briefs and I fed my rock hard rod to her without prepping. But she was ready for me. Jade was always wet for me. And I took full advantage, plunging into her core. I made sure to fill her to the hilt with vicious determination. I wanted her body to quake for me. Needed to see her reduced to a softer more docile woman. Ironically, I pelted into her, my sweat dripping down onto her, desperate for that source of strength she presented, always.

  I rocked into her so deep and hard, Jade’s head, which once faced the headboard was now nearing the side of the bed. That didn’t stop me. I lunged into her pussy using the same ferocity that I drew from when working out in the pen. I worked against muscle crying of pain in pursuit of my mental breaking point. I rocked into her with the confusion of my motivation, but I sure as hell knew she could survive my deep thrust. Jade was built like titanium, never bowing to shit. And in this moment, I both needed and resented it. I didn’t know how long I would go, but knew I’d know when I got to the destination of satisfaction. I needed this. This challenge of my will against hers. If she were so damn strong, Jade would stay with me as she was now, throwing her pussy onto me. If I was too rough, then she would fold like the little lady she was and tell me to stop.

  That was my theory as I was banging into the back walls of her femininity and Jade launched up with her arms and thighs, clawed her frame to mine and kissed me hard. Her busy mouth moved with a similar hunger and need to connect with me in this feverish state. And when her little hands moved to claw my back as she shuddered beneath me in a violent and raptured orgasm, I had my answer.

  She cried in my ear, “You’re letting me fall! I told you I love hard.” I twisted my hips, driving into her with the intensity of the words I couldn’t express verbally. “I have no chill with you, Trent! I can’t help it.” Her tears ran down my face as I buried it into her neck.

  My damn spine jerked, knocking the air clear from my lungs as my hot nefarious seeds shot into her quivering core. I knew as I shuddered over her tiny frame what I needed from Jade this morning. And that revelation scared the shit out of me, shaming me, pushed my guilt-ridden face into her neck even further as she caressed my back to protect me from a shattering release.

  I felt an unexplained yet familiar emotion while nestled in her stronghold. I felt a power exchange that went beyond fucking sex. They were tears I couldn’t cry yesterday. Refused to expose to my mother an ounce of the boy she’d hurt years ago. I was now the man who could barely manage the blazing flower bomb I could only subdue with my dick lodged in her. That was my only guaranteed method of taming Jade. And now, I didn’t know if I wanted her controlled at all. She was my shield and shooter.

  I unfastened myself from her, uneasy about the rawness encasing me now. I tried catching my breath the moment my sheeny back hit the mattress. Jade lay in the same position, sniffling and wiping her face, her breathing distressed, too. I stared at the ceiling, unable to speak. I had no idea how long I lay there, lost in my head until Jade moved.

  My eyes shot over to her back as she rolled her t-shirt down. “Where’re you going?” A sharp panic rang out in my question.

  She didn’t turn to me when she answered, “I have to get Ky up for school. And you need to start getting ready for work.”

  Then her little frame lifted from the mattress and padded into the bathroom. My eyes squeezed and I let go of a shaky breath.

  “I was…” My lids stretched at the ineptness of my articulation. “…just…mad.”

  I didn’t know how to explain past that. But I still felt the remnants of sour emotions from that day and yesterday where they lingered.

  “Mad at whom?” Ezra asked, posted up in his chair in the Malcolm X posture with his legs crossed in his suit pants and chin resting on his fingers.

  My eyes widened then squinted. “At…hell, everybody. Me, my mother, and Jade—especially Jade, but at the same time I feel guilty for feeling that way about her. She was riding for me.”

  “Why were you mad at your mother?”

  “Because she did it again, E.” I scoffed, sitting up. “You know how that goes, man. She’s just cold toward me, and for a minute—like the past ten years or more—I felt like I could handle it. Like I was good on her bitterness toward me.” My neck jerked back as I lowered my eyes to nothing specific below. “You know what time it is. We’ve been down this road too many times.” I’d been his patient for longer than I cared to recall.

  It still fucked with me that I needed a shrink. Yeah, Ezra eased me into the whole upchucking your guts for help with sorting shit out, but… Who does that?

  “And why were you angry with yourself?” He yanked his beard, clearly in deep thought.

  “Because like a punk, I folded in front of everybody, but especially these new people in my life: Jade, Kyree. I was used to my family seeing her…disdain for me. But it seemed like Sunday, we all were shocked by it. The whole living room and hallway went quiet. And after I thought about it, it was because my moms didn’t come around the family until a few months ago when my grams had another stroke. So, we forgot how tough she got with it.” I nodded my head with my eyes to the table. “That shit hurt. The pain…the same familiar, helpless ache I felt as a kid no more than Kyree’s age.

  I exhaled, sitting back in my chair, recounting it all.

  Jade…

  “And her… Jade is so damn pushy, Ezra. When she sees something she wants, she just jumps on it. She ain’t from nothing like the CMD. She had a nanny and etiquette school, but you woulda thought she was from, at least, the next town over, used to that type of environment with the way she put on—well.” I had to rethink that phrase. “The way she pushed her way into my family, tryna’ to talk to everybody I mention to her over the months. It was a little annoying and at the same time impressive.”

  My head swung back.

  “But that’s her. She’s so determined and protective. I know she’s got jealousy issues.”

  “Troubled self-esteem, too,” Ezra added.

  Shocked by what he knew, my eyes went wild. But he was right. I nodded in agreement.

  “But at the same time, she can walk into a room and steal everybody’s glances. She has a mean walk and just the right package that makes you either want to be her as a woman, or be inside her as a man. She’s cunning, so you gotta keep your eye on her. When she wants something or somebody, she’ll get them. Look how she admitted to purposely losing her Section 8 to stay at my crib. That’s dangerous, man!”

  “Or determined risk,” Ezra suggested calmly.

  “Huhn?”

  “Jade seems to be the type that gambles her pride to meet her endeavors. She goes all out…cashes them all in for her end prize. Her method may be risky and, in this case, immoral, but don’t translate that into impure motives.”

  “So, you’re saying I
should trust her completely?”

  That would be hard for me. Jade was too damn unpredictable. I could never admit out loud how lost in feelings I felt with her. She made me plain stupid, I was so crazy about her. She was my weakness.

  “I’m saying there is such a thing as this “in love” phenomenon, and oftentimes, it’s uncontainable, irrational, and untimely. Broken and unsuspecting people also qualify to experience it.”

  Flashes of how rough I was with her yesterday shot through my head. I wanted her to break. I wanted her to cry out helplessly. To need me in the moment.

  Shaking my head with my eyes fixed to the table, I murmured, “I reacted in a manner that showed I’m definitely just as broken.” I didn’t want to detail my sex life with anyone. Men never should talk. That’s some bitch shit. “I was rough with her, wanting to see her weak.”

  Ezra took a quick, unimpressed breath. “It’s never healthy to express anger through sex, Trent. That act can be one of the most powerful expressions between two individuals. The same event can go from pure and edifying to immoral and debasing in no time.” My chest tightened in rebuke. “But knowing how your mind works, it’s revealing your desire, and perhaps need, to communicate your shortcomings with her. I say that’s remarkable improvement. Just make sense of your emotions outside of sex first.”

  “How can I?”

  I was clueless to the topic and direction of this conversation. I’d called him to meet me today after a long day of drills. I couldn’t go home and face Jade another night without some resolve. We may have exchanged ten words to each other last night when I’d gotten home, after fucking her brains out earlier in the morning. I called Ezra first thing this morning, on my way to work out. We agreed to meet at the coffee spot in Closter again.

  “By isolating the points of your anger.”

  “Huhn?”

  Ezra readjusted in his seat. “You said earlier your mother did it again. She did what again?”

  “She slighted me. And then embarrassed me in front of my girl!” My arms flagged in the air.

  He sat up in his chair, resting his elbows on his knees. “And there we have it. Your anger at Jade derives from your embarrassment at your mother’s treatment of you in her presence, and you did nothing to defend yourself. Your…lover—for the lack of a better term—defended you during a moment of your weakness. It’s not easy for virile men like you and me to accept any form of our mortal beings, particularly when it’s in view of our women. But in this case, your offender was a repeated one. One that has constantly had defeat over you since you were defenseless. You’re no longer that, Trent. You even have an ally. An unofficial partner, co-captain. Using her doesn’t make you weak. Having her is your added armor. Ammunition. Jade is your extra coating of strength.” His brows met sternly. “Unofficially.”

  My mouth dropped, and not at that last add-on about my relationship being unofficial because Jade wasn’t my wife; I understood that. But my shock came from the ease of his articulation of the confusion and conflicting emotions I’d been feeling for the past two days.

  “So that’s it.” I yanked my neck back while pushing my lips in the air to express simplicity and finality. “Is that what you’ve always carried as a therapist or it’s marriage that does it to you? Make you quickly able to identify issues in relationships?” I partially joked.

  I’d been seeing Ezra for years, but never for relationship issues with women. Only for my anger issues and then depression after my conviction.

  He chuckled, sitting back in his seat, his eyes cast out the window unseeing before straightening his spine. “Make no mistake, I’m good at what I do with and for others, but when it comes to the dynamic between a man and his wife, I can attribute all of that to my beloved.”

  That admission was packed with more than he spoke, but I got it. Lex had my man by the balls. Who was I to clown him about it? Apparently, mine were in vise grips, too.

  “A’ight, man. I’mma let you go. Plus, I gotta get home before I find myself on freeze with her.”

  Ezra stood and we slapped hands before parting ways. It was always good getting it all off my chest with him. He never judged or belittled and he’d always inconvenienced himself for me. And for that, I was crazy grateful.

  When I turned into the kitchen, I heard Kyree speak first.

  “Told you he was coming home soon, Mom.” He scooped his fork in the little bowl, twirling pasta around in it. “Plus, he don’t want no Madden problems with me.”

  I chuckled at that stolen phrase. I also noticed Jade didn’t look my way. Across from her was a plate set for me. She rubbed the back of her neck awkwardly as she repeated the same act as Kyree, sitting on her one leg. She wore gray leggings and a pink fitted t-shirt. That’s when it hit me.

  “Spaghetti with shrimp and sausage?” My stomach growled. “That’s what’s up.”

  Slowly, Jade turned her neck and finally offered me nervous eyes.

  “Yup!” Ky garbled with a mouthful. “And my favorite: garlic biscuits! MmmMmmMmm!”

  “Yeah, buddy!” I shouted, matching his excitement. “Let me get cleaned up for some good grub.”

  It really was sincere. Jade had made a statement with preparing my favorite meal, but instead of me viewing it as manipulation, I decided on gratitude. She made it with me in mind. Kyree pumped his palms in the air while I headed for the nearest powder room to wash my hands. By the time I returned, Jade was up spooning meaty tomato sauce with thick chunks of tomatoes, shrimp, and sausage over a pile of pasta. My mouth watered.

  “How was your day, big guy?” Kyree asked before biting into his biscuit.

  I froze, eyes flew to his mother. Had he been listening to Jade’s nickname for me? Should I have been embarrassed and grossed the hell out? I mean… Yeah, I was the big guy of the house. Bigger in size than everyone in it, but that name had several meanings. Jade placing the plate of pasta before me at the table, broke my concentrated gaze from Kyree, who was more engaged in his bread than his reference to me. When I looked to her, she covered her mouth, softly snickering. Again, I decided on another thought.

  “It wasn’t all that great until my ride home when I texted my coaches and told them I’m finally taking off for a few weeks like everybody else.” Ky’s face wrinkled as he chewed. Jade’s eyes stayed fastened to me for the same reason. “We’re going on vacation,” I finally clarified.

  “Vacation?” Kyree gasped. “Where?”

  Jade’s wide eyes were filled with the same excitement as his. She was just better at containing it. I’d surprised myself with the idea so quickly after kicking it with Ezra.

  I shrugged. “Maybe somewhere in Florida for a long weekend. You,”—I pointed dramatically to Kyree—“have school. So, somewhere that’s sunny to give us a break from this weather, but close enough that we can get in and out without long travel.”

  I immediately went to praying over my food, partially hearing Kyree shout about what would be his first time on a plane. That reminder warmed something inside of me. It made me even more excited about the prospect of going away with them. I had no excuse now with a steady income. I was cheap, but knew I could do something special with these two who had grown to be like family. Something more, even.

  I devoured my plate and blissfully had a second. After playing a game with Kyree and reading him a story, I got ready for bed myself. Just when I expected Jade to play the sneaky horndog, I learned I was wrong. It had been almost an hour since Kyree’s lights went out. She did come into my room, but sat at the end of the bed, cross legged with her laptop, looking up flights to Florida.

  “You have to do that now?” I asked with my fingers laced behind my head as I leaned on the headboard.

  With her back to me, she mumbled, “It’s last minute and I know flights are going to be high now. I don’t want you spending too much.”

  Jade understood I was cheap, which for once, didn’t make me feel good.

  “Man, put that away.” I sat up, snatchin
g the laptop to place it on the other end of the bed. Then I grabbed her, lifting her little ass up in the air before placing her on my lap. “We’re good. I know it’s last minute, but I can afford it.”

  Jade didn’t fall into the giggling fit I’d been anticipating.

  “I just don’t want you to spend much on us. I can cover food for the three of us, I think,” she spoke with somber eyes.

  “Jade, I got this. I’m not broke.” My face hardened. “Never was, now that I think about it.”

  “I know. It’s just that I don’t want to…”

  My hands were cupping her chin, forcing her to look me in the eye.

  “I’m good. I need for you to be good with that.”

  Licking her lips with narrowed brows, Jade nodded her head. I knew it was my fault she turned uncertain about our friendship. I’d made her feel insecure when she was simply defending me against an unfair, long term opponent. I pulled her into my arms, squeezed her, and rubbed her little back. I could hear whimpers from her quiet tears. But I deserved all of it. I made a bad call, and learned from it. Moving forward I would learn to trust her more. It wasn’t her fault I had trouble with the concept in the first place.

  Jade, Kyree, and I took that mini trip to Disney World the first week in April where I lived vicariously through him. Poor Jade had two kids to calm and scold when things got out of hand. We didn’t spare a dime on the resort, food, and/or activities. We lived it up with the freedom of enjoying each other’s company. It was the same vibe Jade and I shared as we continued to date while running scrimmage at learning to trust one another.

  In May, I invited them up to Connecticut for a weekend, toured the Kings’ grounds, and did the local tourism thing. Jade finally got to peep the condo the Kings made available to me, though I rarely used it, opting to commute back and forth, seeing the drive was only about an hour and half without traffic. Spring turned into summer and we found ourselves going away again once Kyree was out of school. We hit up the Maryland shore for a week in July, having a blast once again. I resumed work with the Kings in late July, still disgruntled, but grateful for the distraction of having Jade and Kyree on the home front.