Sliding down him, I gripped his neck, arched my back, and inhaled a deep breath. Touching every crevice of my walls, Ishmael squeezed my ass and tugged his bottom lip between his teeth. His eyes lowered but remained locked with mine as I confessed again, “I love you, Ish.” The smack he gave my ass was the right mix of hard and soft, causing me to smile as I squeezed my walls against him and sucked him in deeper.
Chapter 10
Rosalyn
It felt like I was staring at a ghost. No, like the nightmare I’d been having had become my reality. When I rang the doorbell and was told by the housekeeper to wait in the living room for the man of the house, I wasn’t expecting that man to be Jeremy. We hadn’t seen each other in almost five years, and I was praying to God that it stayed that way. Apparently, the expiration date on my prayer had hit because here he stood, in the fucking flesh.
The moment Jeremy rounded the corner my knees almost went out on me as I clutched my chest. Now all I could do was stare at him as his sinister smile made my heart palpitate. My mouth opened and closed, but no words would come out. I wanted to ask him what he was doing here, but not even that would come out.
When he made his request under JD, I never thought that would be Jeremy Dewayne Mitchell. I mean, why would I suspect that? We hadn’t talked in years, and the last time we saw each other, we agreed to never cross paths again.
“Get comfortable and have a seat,” Jeremy offered, and with how I was feeling, sitting down was my best bet. I looked around before sitting on the corner of the sofa that was closest to me. Once I was secure, I felt like I was finally able to breathe. My entire body had grown weak, and I honestly didn’t know what was about to happen to me.
“Would you like something to drink, Paradise?”
Paradise.
The only man who had been calling me that lately was Ishmael. I couldn’t stand hearing another man call me that now.
“Yea. Something strong.” Sitting back in the seat, I closed my eyes and inhaled deep breaths to slow my heartbeat down. Since me and Ishmael started deepening our bond, I had to keep myself from getting too overwhelmed emotionally and having a panic attack. It was never out of fear, because I didn’t fear anything but death. It mostly happened when something really, really good was happening or if I began to overthink something really, really bad happening.
Care, they said.
Felt like I needed someone to show me how without losing my damn mind.
Jeremy returned with two shots of brown, and I didn’t even bother asking him what it was before I took them both and downed them. He chuckled as he sat down, but I found nothing funny about this situation.
“What are you doing here, Jeremy?” I asked as his housekeeper took the shot glasses from my hands.
He waited until he thanked and dismissed her before saying, “I came back for you. Why else would I be here?”
“How did you find me?”
A smile crept across his face as he sat back in his seat. “Social media is a motherfucker, you know? A sponsored ad for your personal shopper shit came up on my feed. When I first saw it, I couldn’t believe it was really you. But when I clicked on it and went straight to your profile, I saw that it was.”
Massaging my temples, I shook my head as my left leg began to bounce. “I paid you to leave me alone. Have you forgotten about our agreement?”
“No, but your daughter needs a mother and I need a wife. It’s been five years, Rosalyn. I’ve given you all this time because I thought you would come to your senses and do right by us. You’ve taken too long, so I’m here to fix us myself.”
Jeremy was one of my main clients. My first clients. During the first year I was in business, the bulk of my income came from him. At that moment, I didn’t know that he was married, and I really didn’t care. It wasn’t my concern. As long as he paid me my money, that was all I cared about.
When I did find out about his wife, it was because she’d followed him and popped up at my door one day. What started out as her threatening me with what would happen if I didn’t stay away from her man turned into us fighting and her being arrested after she was released from the hospital. I confronted Jeremy, and he didn’t deny it. He told me he didn’t think I would care about him having a wife since I was only after his money.
That was true, but I still felt some type of way, mainly because he put my health and safety on the line. Some of my girls didn’t give a damn about sleeping with a married man and offering him companionship, but that had never been my style. Jeremy was the reason I implemented a lot of the rules that I did – including the one about us needing one hundred percent honesty between us.
Long story short, I dropped him as a client, and he divorced his wife. Over the years, he tried relentlessly to get me back. He swore that he was falling in love with me and was willing to do whatever it took to get me back. The more I worked, the more coldhearted I became, so when he offered to pay three times the amount he used to I agreed.
One night we were at his brother’s place because he was throwing a party and Jeremy acted like he couldn’t go without a date. They were having shots of Bacardi 151 and I was excited to try it because it had been discontinued and wasn’t sold anywhere anymore. I ended up having two shots of the shit and I was black out drunk! Now I don’t know if it was because it was super strong or because I had other things to drink that night. All I know is, I remember drinking it, going into the guest bedroom to lay down with Jeremy, and agreeing to have sex.
I don’t actually remember having the sex, but yea.
So a little time goes by and I start feeling like shit. I’ve never been the type to throw up, so I immediately knew something was wrong when that started happening. Jeremy was with me when it happened during lunch one afternoon, and he decided to take me to the hospital. They gave me a pregnancy test even though I told them it was impossible for that to even be a possibility, and we found out I was pregnant.
For about a month straight I avoided Jeremy at all costs. It had become such a headache that I talked to my mother about it, and she ran down my options – abortion or give Jeremy the baby to raise himself. I was cool with giving up my rights, but I didn’t want to have to ever see the baby and face what I’d done, so I paid Jeremy half a million dollars to leave me the hell alone. It took him a little while to actually leave Memphis, and there wasn’t really anything I could do about it because if I took him to court my secret would come out. So I had to wait patiently for him to leave… and now his ass was back.
“It’s bad enough that I had to live in paranoia before you decided to halfway be a man of your word and leave town, but now you’re back. Do you have any honor and integrity about yourself, Jeremy?”
He laughed, and I mean really laughed. Laughed so hard the sides of his eyes crinkled as he sat even further in his seat. The longer he laughed the more irritated I grew. It was taking everything in me to not call Ishmael so he could deal with his fake, fraudulent ass. I couldn’t do that though because then he would know my secret. The secret that I’d been trying so hard to make sure never came out.
“You sit here, a glorified hooker who gave her baby away, and ask me about my integrity?”
It was clear this conversation wasn’t going to get us anywhere. I stood and tried to leave, but Jeremy grabbed my arm. Out of reflex, I spun around and slapped the shit out of him. He released me immediately and palmed his cheek. I could tell by the widening of his eyes, balling of his fist, and flaring of his nostrils that he wanted to hit me back, but he wasn’t stupid.