Exit Strategy (33 page)

Tristan is such an expert at reading my body. He is a master of withholding my orgasms. My chest heaves, and I want to scream due to release denial. His blue eyes have a wicked glint in them as he rises up, still straddling my shaking body. Then almost immediately they shine with hunger. He does it so swiftly I’m not sure how it happens, but within a few seconds, he’s changed positions and my legs are spread open. He moves into the vee of my legs and closes his mouth on my aching clit.

“Oh!” I gasp and writhe as he alternates licking and sucking with expert precision. His tongue possesses, tantalizes, retreats, and then re-possesses me with an immobilizing skill I’ve only experienced with him, and I shatter with a speed that is unprecedented. My pleasure is his, and he wrings it out of me at his whim. It evokes equal parts terror and audacity that he can do this to me. Surely I have no such power over him. I am suddenly intensely nervous about the inequity. Awareness that he alone has the ability to do this to me has tilted the axis of my world irreparably.

Within seconds, he’s divested himself of his pajama bottoms, spread me wider and settled, thick and pulsing, between my thighs. I am hungry for him to fill me now, and he doesn’t dawdle or disappoint. He presses into me, and I wrap my arms around his neck, lifting my hips to his. He sinks deeper into me at my urging, and once he’s fully seated, he doesn’t move right away. He kisses me so tenderly, my heart breaks and heals again in an instant. God, I love this man.

Tristan has been there for me through some of the most difficult things I’ve ever experienced. He has disintegrated every wall I possess, and I can no longer resist the irrevocable emotions he’s awakened in me. I believe he has always been confident that he owns me, but I can’t say it is reciprocated. I feel as though I’m losing an integral part of me every time he possesses me like this. How can I be this close to him and keep myself from fracturing in a way that can’t be reassembled?

As he begins to move, fear and desire intermingle and lance my heart in much the same way as the thick ridge of his cock brands me with each thrust. He moves into me over and over, until we are both a quivering mass of muscle, withholding release, prolonging pleasure, until it can no longer be sustained. I clamp my walls around him hard and spiral in a way I’m not sure I’ll recover from. I spasm with an orgasm to rival all orgasms.

Tristan follows me seconds later, groaning his and my favorite expletive.

I decide after I’ve unraveled under his touch that I’m going to tell him about my father as soon as the opportunity presents itself, but not this morning. This morning I have something else of greater importance I need to say to him.

Don’t be afraid
, my Fairy Hoochie Mama and Triple-G say in that spooky double-voice thing they do quite often now.

I touch both of Tristan’s cheeks as he hovers above me, his blue eyes cloudy with spent desire. They clear as he regards me inquisitively, our lower bodies still joined.

“Tristan, I know this arrangement we have is temporary and is designed to remain that way. But I can’t resist telling you how I feel anymore—”

“Keisha—”

“You don’t have to feel obligated to say anything to me about your feelings. I know that’s a hard limit for you, for lack of a better way to characterize it. But I need you to know that I love you, Tristan.”

He groans and moves to pull away, but I hold him against me. “You may never love me back, but too much has happened, and I didn’t want to leave today without letting you know.”

Tristan doesn’t move or say anything for several seconds. Then he rolls off and pulls me to him. “How long have you felt this way?”

“If I had to pinpoint a moment when it began, it would have to be when you took care of Mama during her surgery and rehabilitation.”

“I have not been the most lovable person,” he says.

“I beg to differ. You have been so loyal and caring and giving to me and my family.”

“But your timing leaves much to be desired.”

I’ve just poured my heart out to this man, and he’s going on about not being lovable and my timing? My heart sinks. I knew the probability of him reciprocating my feelings was practically nil, but I have gone all in and laid myself open and vulnerable to him, and this is all the excitement he can muster. I pull away from him and roll out of the bed, making a beeline to the bathroom.

“Keisha. Keisha, wait!”

I hear his footfalls behind me, but I am too angry and embarrassed to stop. I close and lock the door, turn on the shower, and drown the tears that threaten in the luxurious warm water. I’m washing my hair when I’m startled by Tristan’s muscular arms going around me, his body melding with mine under the spray. I should’ve known he could get in here if he wanted to. He gently cups my face and kisses me so tenderly tears collect in my eyes again. How can he kiss me like this, be with me like this, and not feel something for me?

“I promise you, we’re going to talk about our feelings, Keisha. I just can’t right now. There is still so much to be done. I thought the trial would make the threat go away, but it hasn’t. Velasquez texted me there was another letter delivered yesterday while we were at the trial. Once this nasty business is taken care of, we will talk. Okay?”

I suppose since he hasn’t shot me down and said my feelings were unwelcome, there is some sliver of hope to hold on to.

I force a smile to match the one he wears. “Okay.”

~*~

On Thursday afternoon, I’m back at KSR. I refuse to allow a miscarriage of justice to keep me down, and to be honest, I’m buoyed by getting my feelings for Tristan off my chest. It didn’t as smoothly as I’d planned, but he didn’t void my submissive contract and kick me out of his condo, either.

One turn of events at KSR bums me out first thing. I find Carmelo’s resignation letter on my desk and the master for the duet we’d written together before the trial. Carmelo finished editing it while I was gone, and it is beautiful. Yet, I’m still flummoxed by his departure from KSR so suddenly. In fact, I’m a little hurt by it. I call him on his cell and it goes straight to voice mail.

“Hey, Carmelo. We need to talk about this. Call me.”

Jorge joins me in the studio, and I show him the letter.

“What the fuck? He was just here yesterday.”

“Tell me about it. He couldn’t wait until I got back to tell me to my face?”

Carmelo has never struck me as a coward, and I’m going to read his ass the riot act when I see him again.

“Hey, cuz. Listen to this. At least he left this as kind of a peace offering, but he’s not getting off easy with me.”

While playing the song for Jorge, I shoot Carmelo a text.

Don’t think I’m not going to ream your ass out about leaving before we got a chance to talk. I thought you were happy here, but apparently not.

Jorge behaves like my shadow all afternoon long. It gets ridiculous when I’m headed to the restroom and he falls in step with me.

I stop at the door outside the studio and eye him warily. “Um, cuz?”

“Yeah?”

I hook my thumb toward the ladies’ room door. “I’m going where few brave gentlemen have gone before unless they expect a little something, something. You know what I’m saying?”

His eyes widen when he realizes where I’m going. “Oh! Sorry.” He begins to back away from me.  “I’ll wait for you in front of Tracey’s desk, then.”

“Okay,” I say with grin and shake my head. I’m washing my hands at the sink when it dawns on me that he’s been acting weirdly protective all morning.

When I swing by Tracey’s desk, Jorge falls in step with me again and we enter the showroom together. I do a midday register check, and he chatters away while I do so.

On our way back into the studio and office suites, I try to put his mind at ease. “You do know the trial is over, right?”

“Yeah, I know.”

“I don’t think Byron is stupid enough to try to take revenge out on me or anything. Contrary to what Tristan believes, I think everything’s going to go back to normal. If that trial wasn’t a wake-up call for him, I don’t know what would be.”

“But they don’t think the note sender and Byron are one and the same.”

“Who’s ‘they’?”

“Tristan’s security team.”

I stop in front of my office door. “Since when did you become apprised of information known only to the members of Tristan’s security team?”

“When he brought me up to speed just before the trial. It didn’t take much convincing. I was there when that fool rolled up on you in the parking lot, remember? I’m not taking any chances on him or whoever else might be looking to do you dirty making any headway on my watch.”

“Why, Jorge, that’s very sweet of you.”

“You’re my employer now. I need you around for the long haul, especially if I expect to get any paychecks in the future. Besides, I still need to be looking out for my shot at getting Mr. Moneybags to fund my business venture.”

“Speaking of Mr. Moneybags, what else did you two talk about so before the trial?”

“Oh, I’d asked him about some investments I wanted to make with the money I made while I was on tour last year. Dude has some solid investment strategies.”

“Mmm hmm,” I say, not believing that bullshit for a minute. If I knew Tristan control-freak White, his sole purpose had been to ask Jorge to watch out for me. I just wish I knew what else he had up his sleeve.

~*~

“That’s a hard foul!” Jada screams at the television. Nate is playing an away game in Philadelphia at an away game. We came. We’ve come in from KSR, armed the iron-clad alarm Tristan had forced upon us, and settled in for the evening.

I look up from the song I’m writing. “When did you learn to officiate?”

“You go to enough games and watch enough of them on the tube, you learn the lingo.”

“Why didn’t you go to Philly anyway?”

She glares at me.

“Oh yeah, we were busy with that farce of a trial.”

“Speaking of which,... I understand why you kept it from me, but I didn’t like having to hear with all of Chicago and the AP viewing area that Byron hurt you.”

The elephant in the room goes from snoozing to stampeding in five seconds flat.

I put down my pad and pencil. “I’m sorry, Jada. Here you were this strong woman who didn’t take any man’s shit, and I was literally becoming my mother. I didn’t like myself very much then.”

“Even your mother has Mrs. Searles.”

“I know. I don’t even know where my head was then. I thought I had given in too soon, because we had the music thing in common and he was really sweet up until I refused to sacrifice my grades to be with him.”

“No man is worth you living in fear of being hurt.”

“I know that now. I wonder if BDSM is how I reconcile the cycle of pain I witnessed living in my parents’ home?”

“BDSM is in a lot of ways another coping mechanism. It allows you to play out fantasies and deep-rooted desires in a safe and consensual way.”

“But it’s not because underneath it all I yearn to be abused like my mother was, right?”

“Absolutely not. There’s a big difference between kink and abuse.”

“You’re right. I don’t know why I still stress over that.”

“What you do with Tristan makes you happy, right?”

“Yes. I even had a bit of an epiphany this morning.”

“Yeah? How’s that?”

“I told Tristan I love him.”

“Oh my God! What did he say?”

“That he was unlovable and my timing was bad.”

“What?”

“I kid you not. That’s; that’s what he said, in a nutshell.”

“I’m sorry, Keke. You deserve better than that. Tristan needs to get his shit together before I go after his balls with some goddamned wire pliers.”

“No need to wreak violence on his family jewels, J. Let’s let him retain the ability to procreate if he so desires in the future.”

“I’m going to ask Nate to hold him while I beat his ass, then.”

“Can he do that?”

“Nate bench-presses an obscene amount of weight weekly. What does Tristan do, bench-press paper?”

I laugh. “Probably.”

“You’re not as upset about this as I thought you’d be.”

“I can’t make him love me, but he didn’t say he didn’t have feelings for me, so I’m just going to give him time to figure shit out. You know? Tristan hasn’t had a real girlfriend since he was in high school. This freaked him out so bad with Aimee, he still hasn’t gotten over that incident. He blames himself for what happened to her. I’ve gathered that much. I’m just going to chill and show him that I’m not going to be another her.”