The shock reflected on his face paralyzed him. Like me, he was trying to process the situation. He dropped the money on the table and crossed his arms over his chest, leaning back on his chair.
“I’ll be damned.” He whistled. “Now it all makes sense.”
“What makes sense?”
“And I take it you just found out?”
“Yes. What the fuck makes sense?”
He let out a dry laugh. “Why you’re here.”
Agitated, my right leg bounced. I pulled out a chair and sat facing him waiting for him to elaborate.
“Do you think you’re that special?” he taunted. “There are thousands of people in this city who could do what you do for us. People who could do it better without constantly having a crisis of conscience. Your mother …” He chuckled. “Targeted you. She specifically demanded I recruited you. I went to that bar where you danced and immediately knew you weren’t cut out for the job. But she said, ‘I want that boy.’ If I came to you myself, you’d run for the hills so I got Neo to reel you in.”
I felt like a fool for falling in this trap.
“If it were up to me,” he continued, “I would have killed you the first time you told me you wanted out. But Chichi said, ‘the boy has to live. Ezra stays.’ Well, now I know why she likes you so much. How fucked up is this?”
It was all too much. My mind was about to explode.
“Where can I find her?”
He grasped a pen and wrote on a piece of paper before sliding it to me. It was the name of a hotel with a room number. I wanted answers, but even more than that I wanted Christina. She was the only one who could calm the gale howling inside of me. In a span of five hours my life had tipped completely upside down.
Chichi was my mother.
Everything was unbelievable akin to a worst night terror; except I was awake and it was all real. I lost all sense of direction. Until I had a moment to breathe, think and let everything sink in, I wasn’t going to act.
However, I was contemplating an escape. Maybe I could use my mother to my advantage.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Christina
Ezra: I’m in the hallway.
Ezra: I need you.
My heart palpitated sensing the urgency coming through his texts. I pushed back my chair and rushed for the door, telling Stacie I needed to go to the bathroom.
Ezra was at the far end of the corridor. Head bowed, his hair falling over his forehead. The aura surrounding him was weighted. I quickened my pace to meet him. He raised his head and his jaw relaxed as his mouth curved up into a tender smile that didn’t match the dark emotions swirling in his eyes.
He placed his hands on my hips, lifted me off the floor and swathed me in a tight hug as if transferring all of his tension to me through the embrace.
“I missed you,” he crooned, setting me down.
“What’s wrong?”
“Everything.” The frown on his face cut a deep line in between his eyebrows. “Everything is so fucked up.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Ezra nodded, parting his lips but no words left his mouth, instead he held on to my wrist, pulled me inside the men’s room and pressed me against the wall.
He cupped my face, sealing his lips over mine. His fingers trailed up my legs and paused at the apex of my thighs. The soft touch made me shiver, leaving a path of goosebumps and my nipples pebbled. Then his caress toured higher, and a finger slipped between my panties and touched my flesh. He massaged my bud. My core grew slick with anticipation.
“God, I’ve missed you,” he murmured over my lips, pushing his hips against mine.
I hesitated at first, not sure this was the place but the pain in his eyes told me how much he needed this and I couldn’t deny him. Ezra kissed me again, deeper, with greater intensity. And the little self-control I had disappeared.
His mouth worked my body. Moving lower, he kissed my neck while his hand found the perfect rhythm between my legs.
“I want to feel you inside of me,” he said.
Leaning my head back, I moaned flying over the edge. An orgasm rippled in pulsing waves and my entire body sprang to life.
Still panting I said, “We have to make this quick. Someone could come in.”
“Quick we shall be then,” he whispered over the shell of my ear, lifting my skirt up.
His fingers hooked onto the border of the thin lace of my panties, and then he glided them down to my knees. He cupped my breasts over the fabric of my blouse. I managed to unfasten his pants and lower his zipper.
He then palmed my behind, lifted me off my feet, and sat me on the cold vanity. He pulled down his pants, and I kicked off my underwear, as he aligned himself to my pulsing entrance. The head of his cock pushed forward. I looked down mesmerized as the rest of him slid in smoothly. There was a hint of pain, blended with intense desire. I spread my legs wider to better accommodate him, unable to tear my eyes away from the movement between my legs.
Biting my lower lip, I soaked in all the sensation as he slid further, stretching against my walls. Ezra released a low growl and his pace increased. I met his thrusts, grinding into him. Encircled by a mist of desire, my eyes fell shut.
“Look at me, Christina. Open your eyes.”
I obeyed and watched as his thick cock filled me, and my hands ghosted over the most sensitive part of my body to add to the glorious sensation.
“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered.
Ezra’s eyes fixed on the movement of my hands. I stroked myself faster and moaned louder. He pounded into me even harder, jolting my body. My fingers followed his rhythm. I was suppressing my moans into his mouth and then shoulder. His groans were low and feral; his desperate attempt to stay quiet. Surely he could tell how badly I wanted to scream out my pleasure.
His hands gripped my hips relentlessly, holding me in place. I linked my ankles behind his back urging him to move deeper and faster. He slammed in and out without mercy and the sound of his groans increased. I was done for. Everything in me stiffened and his name rolled out of my mouth almost as a sob. I let my weak body fall forward, holding on to his neck. After a couple more thrusts he came.
Ezra pressed himself forward groaning, “You can’t imagine how good you feel wrapped around me. How much I needed this.”
We didn’t move for a while and I maintained my legs wrapped around his waist, keeping him as close as possible.
“Ezra please talk to me.”
“I met my mother this morning.” He huffed a wry laugh. “I don’t know what to do.”
Dumbfounded, I stiffened. “Are you okay?”
“Not in the slightest bit. Everything is a fucking mess.”
I tried to shift, to look at him, but he held on tighter preventing any movement on my part.
“I thought I knew what I was doing,” he continued. “That I had everything under control, but it turns out that I’m a mess. Her presence changes everything.”
I had no clue what he was talking about, still I listened keenly as he vented.
“This morning when I left you, none of this had even crossed my mind. How will I get out of this mess now? I’m burying myself so deep into this hole that I’m suffocating. I can’t breathe anymore.”