Maine-
"Momma, wake up," I whispered urgently.
Tiffany turned over, her bloodshot eyes staring blankly at me.
She smelled like weed and bourbon.
Jason had given me until the end of the month to get her out, but now, completely sober and freshly showered, I was scared. I didn't want Troy or Scarlett to find out she was here. Now that they were back together, they could easily drop by to pick up DJ or something for him and see her here. Then I'd be screwed, because Scarlett did whatever Daddy said, and Daddy would cut me off if he found me associating with Tiffany. I didn't know what they wanted from me, why couldn't I speak with the woman who gave birth to me?
"I told you not to call me that," she snapped.
I rolled my eyes.
"What, Momma? You are my mother, though."
I left out the fact that she didn't have a problem with Noah calling her "mother."
"What do you want, Maine?" she asked, ignoring my question.
"I need you to get up and pack so I can take you to a hotel.
Jason doesn't want you here."
"I'll go later, Maine.
Just let me sleep." She waved me off and turned away, burying her head in the couch pillow.
I clenched my fists, trying to keep my emotions in check.
"Momma, I can't let you stay here."
I was met with her light snore.
Fuck, I wanted to scream.
I knew I should have left her where she was.
I hadn't seen her in years before Creed called her out of spite. I had been talking to her, though. She'd call when she wanted something. Everybody acted as if I was supposed to hate her for abandoning me, but I didn't know how to hate her. Deep down, I understood the choices she made, the predicaments she found herself in. Despite it all, she was still my mother, the woman who carried me, who brought me into this world. How could I simply shut her out?
Running my trembling fingers through my hair, I gave her one more glare before leaving the house.
I would make sure to move her as soon as she woke up and got herself together.
My phone rang just as I clicked the door shut.
"Devon's" name flashed across the screen, and I couldn't help but smile.
Now that he and Creed weren't together anymore, he'd been calling more often.
He'd even sent over papers for me to sign. We would be sharing joint custody. He sent a twenty-thousand-dollar check for child support. I could feel it in my bones that we would end up a family. Devon just needed to let go of some of his hang-ups about what a family looked like. They didn't all have to be the same skin color or race.
"Hello," I sounded too cheerful to my own ears and cringed.
"I'm only calling you because they're DJ's grandparents, but your father attacked me when I picked up DJ and told them he would be living in Atlanta with me."
My heart fell to my stomach.
"What do you mean he'll be living with you? I never agreed to that."
"Yes, you did, Maine.
You gave me full custody after I wrote you a check."
I shook my head as if he could see me.
"That's not what you told me." He had lied.
"You should have read the papers, Maine, and they'll stand up in court.
I can't have my son living in an unfit environment.
You party every night, leaving him with your parents who fight all the time, and now your sisters and brother are having an incest baby."
"What?" I shouted.
"Jason and Creed are not involved in incest."
"I'm talking about Creed and Noah," he said.
"They're not involved, and they're not brother and sister.
Why would you even say something like that?" He was calling me unfit but making up stories.
"He told me right to my face that the baby she's pregnant with is his."
I paused to think.
"Could they be?" I ran all the times they'd been together in my presence through my memory.
"Oh my fucking god." It was true.
The looks. The touches. I thought Noah liked Creed since he was about eighteen, but he wouldn't admit it.
"Tell your parents to have their lawyer speak to mine about visitation." He hung up the phone, leaving me numb.
Creed had messed up everything.
She had a perfect momma.
Our daddy liked her better, and now she was using my brother to get under my skin because her man didn't want her.
I stood there.
My mind raced, trying to process everything that had just transpired.
My entire family was falling apart, and it was Creed’s fault.
I knew now I had to make everybody see how awful she'd become. Starting by letting everybody know how she was using Noah. Noah didn't have the best mental judgment when it came to women. He'd become fixated with them to his own detriment. I tried to rectify that by hooking him up with Ashley. She was perfect for him, but he ruined that, had her scared of him. I raised my phone to call Jason. He needed to know what his sister was doing.
Jason-
I liked it when they gagged and didn’t stop.
It showed commitment.
The way they kept going even when they could barely breathe, their eyes watering and their throat tightening.
It told me they wanted it, wanted to please, wanted to push themselves just a little further. It was the way they looked up at me, eyes wide and desperate, that made me feel like I had them in the palm of my hand.
The alley was dark, barely lit by a single, flickering streetlight.
The sounds of the city—cars passing, distant shouts—echoed around us, but all I could focus on was the warm, wet mouth wrapped around me, the soft gagging sounds as he took me deeper.
I could smell rain in the air.
It was even stronger than the smell of rotting food coming from the dumpster we stood near.
A car passed, illuminating the alleyway behind the club, giving me a glimpse of the twink on his knees in front of me.
Deep-set blue eyes and a soft face stared back at me.
I usually preferred the older, alpha types.
I liked to see them squirm underneath me. There was something about reducing a powerful, masculine-presenting man to whimpers that fed a dark part of me.
This one was too pretty.
I pulled my dick from his mouth and slapped it against his face, smearing precum and his saliva on his skin, feeling an urge to dirty his beauty.
He moaned, then knocked my hand away and slid me back into his mouth, relaxing his jaw.
I slipped into the back of his throat with no buildup, no ease. His mouth was so wet. I grabbed his hair, pushing him down further. He gagged again and placed his hands against my legs, bracing himself before he started moving, up and down. He pulled my dick out, spat on it, then swallowed me whole again. Wax on, wax off. Chills crept up my spine. I could feel his hand moving against my leg as he jacked his own dick to the same rhythm he sucked mine. I wondered what he tasted like. His hair had smelled like strawberries when we danced.
He twirled his tongue against my shaft, causing me to curse, “Fuck, you suck a good dick.”
I sounded breathless, my knees shaking.
I was so close when a car's lights illuminated us and crept up the alley, but I didn’t dare stop him, and he didn’t seem to notice.
I sucked in air like you suck a cigarette when an SUV stopped right in front of us; the window slid down slowly.
My eyes met Vince's.
A dangerous glint danced in his.
My dick got harder. I stared at a very angry Vince while I continued to fuck my little twink's mouth without regard. It wasn’t long before we came at the same time. He was groaning around my dick as he swallowed ropes of my cum. He set a fire in my spine that stayed there even after the euphoria from my nut wore off. I hoped he didn't nut on my brand new Jordans.
My cocksucker slid up my body off his knees.
He buttoned my jeans, then zipped them, all while sucking at the spot right below my chin.
The fact that someone was watching us didn’t seem to bother him at all.
I grabbed his short red hair, tugged him away from my neck, and slammed my tongue into his mouth. He tasted like me and fruity alcohol. I pulled away when he purred like a cat in my mouth. “I’ll be back Saturday, four days—be here.”
Then I walked around him.
I thought about heading for my car, but I knew it wouldn't get rid of Vincent that way.
He’d just follow me or have his bodyguard driver cause a scene.
That would upset DeMarco. He’d been keeping my secret about coming to his sex club for years. I wouldn’t ruin that.
I slid into the car without looking back.
I could see the grimace on Vinces face out of the corner of my eye.
He tapped at the divider that separated us from the driver, and the SUV started moving.
“You promised you would stop coming here.”
I smirked, looking straight ahead.
I could see my reflection in the black divider.
My waves were on point.
My beard framed my chiseled light brown face perfectly. I didn’t look like I had just been doing nasty things in an alley. “You made a lot of promises you did not keep. Without me asking for anything, might I add. Which makes it worse.”
“Look at me, Jason.”
I did, with a smirk on my face.
Vince had aged into a Javier Bardem lookalike, but with dark Moreno skin, long hair, and a slim but muscular body.
Wearing a white V-neck and khaki skinny-legged trousers, he looked fifteen years younger than he was.
"Everything I promised you, I’ll make good on.
You just must give me time," he pleaded.
I ran my tongue across my teeth.
“And if I no longer want any of the things you promised?”
His voice was monotone, and his gaze was blank, but he still managed to roll his r’s when he threatened me.
“You’re playing a very dangerous game with me.
You're mine.”
I laughed.
“I’m not scared of you—”
His hand wrapped around my throat, cutting off my words.
He brought our faces close together.
“You should be.”
My breath whooshed out when he jabbed me in the ribs.
I retaliated without thought, punching him in the side of the head.
He let me go.
I shoved him into the door, jabbing a finger in his direction. “I told you the last time you put your hands on me would be the last time." Nobody but me and Vince's husband knew he had a penchant for tussling. He had a temper and didn't like being told no, which was why he left my parents' band. They had no problem telling him no when he made ridiculous demands.
He stared at me in shock.
The last time he’d actually hit me, I was twenty and scared to hit him back.
I wasn’t that Jason anymore.
His face twisted with anger, his eyes big.
He held his face.
I knew his ear was ringing like a motherfucker. Good.
I banged at the partition.
It shook under my fist.
“Let me out of the car.”
The driver lowered it and waited for Vince's instructions.
Vince nodded, and he pulled over.
I got out.
I cursed as a car zoomed past me. I was standing on the side of the highway on I-4. The SUV window rolled down.
I pulled the iPhone from my pocket and threw it into the window; it hit Vince in the chest.
“You can have your fucking phone.”
I knew it was how he tracked me down.
My everyday phone was in my pack, strapped across my chest.
Vince sneered.
“While you were getting your dick sucked, your crazy mother and father were arrested.”
He yelled.
I ducked as the phone flew back out the window.
The SUV took off.
I walked until I was safely away from traffic to dial my mother and then my father's number, but both went to voicemail.
I called Maine, wondering if that’s why she’d been calling me all day.
“Why the fuck didn’t you answer your phone, Jason?" she went off.
"Scarlett and Troy were arrested.
Daddy has no bond! Your fucking friend kidnapped DJ, and we can’t find Creed; she never got on her plane, and she’s fucking my brother.”
The least surprising news was about Creed and Noah.
That was bound to happen.
But most of my family was too self-absorbed to see it coming.
I knew I wouldn’t get anything worthwhile out of her.
I hung up and dialed a number I knew by heart.
“Jason, I told you not to call me ever again,”
Tempest hissed.
She was always so hostile now, so different than four years ago when she let me suck every inch of her flesh until she nearly crawled out of it.
She didn’t want her Top Cop husband to know that while he was off in Quantico, ignoring her, she was wetting my lap.
He thought he was the only man she’d been with. I don’t understand how. Where did he think she learned the things she could do with her mouth? But that was the past. “Where is Creed? Nobody knows where she is; she didn’t make her flight.”
“Um,”
she hesitated, “Noah kidnapped her, but she’s okay.
I helped, and I’ve checked on her.
She couldn’t have their baby alone.”
“Noah did what?” I yelled.
Then the rest of what she said sunk in. “Baby?”
I yelled louder.