Redemption (Iris Series) (39 page)

He couldn’t wait any longer and moved his hands to grip her hair.

“
Fuck
.” His hips pushed in and out of her mouth.  He was on the verge of losing control and she loved it.

She released him with a pop, his hands still in her hair and he quickly sat up, pulled her to him, grabbed her hips, and slammed her down onto his dick.  She cried out at the force of it, but he settled her there for a moment and plowed both hands up under her hair while he proceeded to kiss her, their teeth clashing and biting at each other.  Then he eventually brought both hands back down to her hips and moved them together into the timeless rhythm of love.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and joined in, grinding herself over and over into him.

“I want you to squeeze me, Yan,” he puffed, his rhythm increasing.  “I want you to come so hard, your muscles squeeze me dry.”

“Yes,” she moaned, getting closer.

“Come on, baby.  Come on, baby,” he kept saying, going faster and faster, lifting her up and down, pumping into her.  She gave herself over to him and let him lead the dance, trusting and loving his desire
for control.

“Jon,” she groaned.  “I’m almost there.”

He reached up and pinched her nipple and that shot her into orbit, forcing a low moan from her body followed by convulsions around his cock.

He yelled out his own pleasure and slammed her down over and over until he came, giving himself over to the sensation completely.

Her body still pulsed around him and they clung to each other...her kissing his neck, him gripping her hair.

Once their breathing got to normal, he picked her up with her feet now clasped around his waist, and took her into the bathroom.  Eventually they found their way to the bed and dropped down onto it.  They cuddled with her draped over his body.

And within moments, they were asleep.

Sunday was a lazy day.  Ayanna and Jonathan took their time getting up, and Ayanna convinced him that it was time
to go to his place for her to make him that spectacular breakfast she’d promised him a few days earlier. It didn’t take much convincing on her part, especially when she agreed on making it naked with just an apron on.  And boy was she ready to get her hands on that Wolf masterpiece.

She made him chocolate chip pancakes and bacon, serving it all with mimosas.  They both recognized that neither of them ate that way often, but then it was time to celebrate, not just their newly discovered love, but the potentially newer and healthier relationship with her parents.

After breakfast, they both did some work.  He prepared for an afternoon appointment with a client at the local Starbuck’s, and she worked on her blog adding another one of Janie’s pizza recipes.  She was also putting out more teasers about Catherine’s opening coming up the following week.

Ayanna had left Jon in his apartment so she could do work in her own place.  She didn’t want to bring up all of the paperwork and notes she usually used while writing in her blog.  They both agreed to meet up within the next hour.

While typing up Catherine’s blurb, she noticed she had received a message through her blog, so she clicked on the icon.

Fucking bitch.  You’ll be dead soon.

Ayanna blinked, not believing her eyes.  She read it again and looked to see who the sender was.  It had come from a gmail account whose address was made up of random numbers and letters.

Her immediate thought was Robert.  She had never received anything but accolades and occasional suggestions via her blog.  This was certainly the first time she’d ever received a threatening message, leading her to believe it wasn’t a coincidence.

She needed to call Emily.  When they had last talked, Emily had made her promise to contact her if she had gotten any weird messages.  She grabbed her cell and when Emily answered, Ayanna told her of Robert’s downfall after the sale of the restaurant, and the email she’d just received.

“I’m not scared of him,” she told Em.  “I don’t think the dickwad has it in him to do anything major.  He’s too much of a chickenshit.”

“Regardless, I’m making a note of it just the same.  The cops won’t be able to do much until we have the origin of the email address, but I have an IT guy I can call to trace it.  You can google how to do it, but you usually have to pay and my guy will be faster.”  She paused.  “Just be careful, alright?  I don’t doubt that the guy’s a chickenshit, but
unstable
chickenshits can be dangerous.”

“Don’t worry.  I can take ’im, if necessary.”  She wasn’t going to let this asshole ruin her life.  No way.

“And if he has a weapon?”  Emily let that question sink in.  “I wanna get together with you to go over some more defense moves specific to assaults with weapons.  We didn’t get to go over that a couple of weeks ago.”

She sighed.  “Do you really think that’s necessary?”

“Yes, Ayanna,” Emily said in exasperation.  “I wish women didn’t have to be so ‘reactive’ in these situations, and that the male douchebag population out there could be ‘
pro
active’ in learning how to deal with their issues without hurting women, but what can I tell ya?  My wish hasn’t come true yet,” she mumbled dryly.  “It wouldn’t hurt to learn a couple of moves.”

“Alright,” she grumbled, sounding like she was stomping her foot. 

“When are you free?”

Ayanna sighed.  “Jonathan has a client appointment late this afternoon before dinnertime.  I could meet up then.  We’re going to Boston at the end of the week and I have a two day event before that, so today would be best.”

“You’re going to Boston?”

“Yeah,” she said sounding nervous.  “To meet your aunt...and the rest of the family, I suppose.”

“Nice!” She sounded elated.  “You’re gonna
love
her, and she’s gonna love
you
.  Apparently Day 41 went well?” Em’s voice went up at the end with barely suppressed excitement.

“Awesome.  Be
yond
awesome.  Honestly like nothing I’ve experienced before,” she said quietly. 

“Yan, you’re gonna do great when you meet them.”

She blew out an anxious breath.  “If you say so.”

“I do.  So, okay.  Good.  I’ll swing by your place at what time?”

“How about four?”

“Works for me.”

Before Emily could disconnect, Ayanna quickly said, “And let’s not scream about this to Jon, okay?  I don’t need him gettin’ all crazy about this.  It’s probably nothing.  If you’re still here when he gets home, we’ll just say you swung by for a visit.  Maybe to see him about his mom, or something,” she said biting her lip.

There was silence on the other end.  Then Emily spoke.  “I’m not gonna lie to him, Yan.  And you shouldn’t either.”

“For the record, I’ve never lied to him.  I just don’t want him to
worry
.  And he likes to take care of me which I love, but I don’t want him goin’ all caveman on me.”

“I’m glad your reunion was good.  So don’t screw it up so early on in the relationship, okay?  You two need to work it out, but like I said, I’m not gonna lie.  And if the tables were turned, you would be pissed beyond belief if he didn’t come straight with you.”

She sighed with a growl.  “Okay, already.  Shit, you’re worse than Ryann.”

“Love you too,” she drawled in a sing songy voice.  “Later.”

They disconnected and Ayanna sat there deep in thought.  She was so used to taking care of things on her own.  But she also knew if she didn’t tell him, and he found
out
she didn’t tell him, there would be hell to pay, especially given their talks about Robert already.  The makeup sex would be stupendous, but she didn’t know if it was worth the ‘lying by omission’ argument beforehand.

The makeup sex
would
be stupendous, though.  Decisions, decisions, she thought wryly.

She mentally shook herself.  She would tell him, dammit, but she wasn’t happy about it.

A half hour later, a knock came at her door and she knew it would be Jon.  She opened it and before he could speak, she said, “So,” she hemmed and hawed, “I need to show you something.”

He raised an eyebrow.  “O-kay.”

“I wasn’t going to show you, but Emily said I should, so,” she said as she walked him to the bedroom, “but I’m not worried about it.  I just wanted you to know so you didn’t think I lied to you.”

“Okay,” he said again, stroking his hand down her hair.

She pulled up the message on her computer which was sitting on her bed, and stepped back so he could see it.

His brow furrowed.  “What the fahck?!”  The Boston was appearing.  He turned to her and pointed to the message on her laptop on the bed.  “When did you get this?  Where did it come from?”

“It came through my blog this morning.”

He ran his hand through his hair.  “And you weren’t going to
tell
me about this?  Why the hell not?!”

Maybe they would be having stupendous makeup sex after all, but it seemed they needed to get through the argument first.

“First of all, Mr. White, I’ve been taking care of myself for a long time now, so just back up a bit, would ya?”

“I don’t give two flying fucks how long you’ve been taking care of yourself, Ayanna.  If you’re getting messages like this, I damn well want to know about it.  Have there been others?”

“No.  This is the first one, and you need to calm down.”

“Like
fuck
I’m gonna calm down.  Someone threatened to
kill
you.  And you needed Emily to convince you to
tell
me about it?” he ranted.  “I wanna
shake
you right now,” he growled, running his hand through his hair again.  “How did she know about it?  When did you call her?”

“I called her after I got it because she asked me back when the whole Robert thing happened to let her know if I ever received any contact from him, or if I got any strange messages.”

“Why didn’t you call
me
when you got this, Ayanna? 
Shit
.”  He closed his eyes and sat hard on the bed leaning his elbows on his knees.

How long
did this argument have to last before it got to the stupendous makeup sex, she wondered.

He pressed at the bridge of his nose under his glasses.  “So do we know that this came from Robert?”

“No, but I suspected.  Emily has an IT guy who’s going to look into the email address.”

“I can’t believe you weren’t going to tell me about this,” he said looking up at her.

She sat down next to him.  “It wasn’t because I wanted to shut you out, or even that I didn’t think it was important, necessarily.  I just didn’t want you to worry.”

He grabbed her, then pulled her onto his lap and put his arms around her.  “You let me be the judge of whether I need to worry or not, Ayanna.  You don’t pick or choose whether you think I should know this stuff.  I
need
to know it.  Wouldn’t you want me to tell you if something like this was happening to
me
?  I mean, this isn’t like some surprise party you have to keep me in the dark about or something, Yan.  Someone threatened to
kill
you.”

She sighed.  He was so like his cousin.

“That’s not how relationships work, Yan,” he said quietly.  “We’re honest with each other.  Period.”

“I know,” she sighed again.  “This relationship thing is kinda new to me, champ.”

“Hey,” he put his finger under her chin to lift her eyes to his.  “Like I said to your brother, we’re both gonna screw up plenty of times, and we’ll figure it out as we go.  But for the record, I absolutely want you to tell me this kind of stuff, okay?  No ifs, ands, or buts.”

“Alright, baby.”  She paused then said, “I was afraid to tell you because I didn’t want you to turn into a Neanderthal about it.”

“My knuckles aren’t draggin’ that much, are they?  Can’t a man be protective of the woman he loves without being accused of overreacting?”

“Yes,” she said, touching his lips, then his jawline.

“So what else did Em say?”

“She’s coming over when you’re at your appointment later to teach me more defense moves,” Ayanna said sounding disgruntled.

“Good.  I also think we need to take precautions about your transportation.  I don’t want you taking the subway alone.”

“Oh, no?  You don’t think me riding with a hundred other people is safe?” she asked, raising an eyebrow, feeling her blood start to boil.

“Don’t be like this, Yan,” he growled.  “This isn’t a joke.”

“I know it’s not a joke, but we also don’t need to move into fuckin’ DEF CON 5, either.”

“Being cautious and aware of your surroundings isn’t DEF CON 5, Ayanna.  DEF CON five is me locking your ass up in this apartment and getting you a security detail if you have to go somewhere.”