Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 84446 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 422(@200wpm)___ 338(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84446 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 422(@200wpm)___ 338(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
“Shh,” he murmured as I tensed when his hand pressed between my thighs. “I can make you come just like this,” he told me, then pressed his fingers into my clit, the pressure firmer, the friction of my pants and panties against me making desire immediately spark and catch, spreading through my whole body.
“You sound so good when I’m touching you,” Renzo said as he started to drive me upward. “That’s it,” he said as my whimpers became ragged moans. “Let me hear you come for me.”
Not much longer, I did, crying out my release against his neck.
“Always so soft after you come,” he said as I snuggled in, his hands drifting over me. “How’re the cramps?” he asked, his hand moving over my belly where I had one of those pain patches from him stuck to my skin.
“Better now,” I admitted. They were always awful the second day, hence the pain patch even though it didn’t last long.
“Yeah?” he asked, sounding intrigued. “I’ll keep that in mind,” he said, and I could imagine orgasms from him each month to ease the pains.
On the table, his phone was letting out a steady stream of dings and vibrations.
He ignored them for a few minutes.
But when I heard his sigh, I knew the moment was over, that I was about to lose him again. Even before he was patting me to get up, then tucking himself away, and standing, before fetching his phone.
I tried not to feel disappointed as I lost all of his attention to his phone, to whoever was on the other side of it.
Then he was grumbling to himself.
“Gotta go,” he said, already forgetting all about me as he turned and made his way to the door.
Within ten minutes of us both coming, he was gone.
I walked on numb legs to the kitchen, turning the water back on, and trying to talk myself out of wallowing in my feelings of disappointment.
What had I expected?
That he would curl up with me for hours, telling me about all his hopes and dreams, asking me about mine?
That was certainly what I wanted.
But I knew it wasn’t something I could have.
I wore his brief moments of kindness like beads on a bracelet, as if I could maybe use it as a rosary, praying for the day he might love me like I loved him.
I took my tea back to my bed that would remain empty the entire night, wondering if maybe the idea of happily-ever-afters was just the stuff of the stories my mom used to read to me, or the books I devoured for years.
That maybe this was as good as it got.
But as I drifted off to sleep, I knew that this, whatever this was, was never going to be enough.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Renzo
Someone was fucking with me.
No, let me rephrase that.
Someone inside my organization was fucking with me.
It took a while to understand what was going on, why these fucking businesses that had been loyal with their payments for so long weren’t paying, why I was getting push-back from smaller crews instead of just giving me a kick-up, why I’d been feeling so much tension inside my own family for the past few weeks.
Someone was being disloyal.
Someone might even be making a move to take me out.
“What’d he look like?” I asked the convenience store owner who, when I’d shown up to collect my bag, had said I don’t have any more.
Something about the wording rubbed me wrong, making me ask what he meant by any more since I hadn’t been around since the last week.
Who’d promptly informed me that he’d paid my man a few days ago.
And, suddenly, it all fucking fell into place.
The owner waved an arm out, his face scrunched.
“Like you. Like him,” he said, waving at Rico. “Tall, dark hair, young, olive skin…”
To be fair, there were a lot of us.
And we did all have similar characteristics.
Biting back a growl, I looked toward the camera on the wall behind him. “What about the camera feed?” I asked.
“Sorry, man, it deletes footage every three days.”
Of course it did.
Fuck.
Fuck.
“Okay. Listen to me,” I said, reaching across the counter for a notepad he had there. “You pay me. If anyone shows up here looking for a bag, you say it’s in the back, then you go back there and call me, you understand?” I asked, jotting my number down on the pad.
“Yeah, I got it. You’ve been good to my family,” he said, shrugging. “Don’t want to start any shit.”
“Good. Plug that into your phone,” I said, waving toward the paper. “I’m not gonna make you pay twice. But I’m who you pay now. And only me. Until further notice.”
With that, I turned and walked out of the store, waiting until I was around the corner and out of sight of the store owner before turning on Rico.