Chapter 15
Chapter
Fifteen
Gina
“Your voice is truly magical. You know that, right?” Ramel asked as I took my headphones off, came out of the booth, and rounded the corner to meet him.
We’d just put the finishing touches on the piece we’d been working on for a couple of days. I was now ready to listen to it from start to finish to see if we should move on to the next song or keep trying to perfect this one.
“You think so?”
I had never shared my gift with anyone, nor had I been praised the way Ramel had been praising me since the moment we first met. I knew he meant what he said, but my need for validation and confirmation was a natural reflex at this point.
“I do. We haven’t even made it to the last song, and I already know this is going to be hot, just listening to the music you’ve already done, plus what we’ve worked on together. Labels would be fools not to sign you.”
“Thank you so much for saying that.”
“Nah, I ain’t just saying it. It’s the truth. You deserve every word.”
“I really appreciate that. I just hope everybody loves my music as much as you do.”
“You just got to put yourself out there. I already know you’re going to get the recognition that you deserve.”
“Thank you,” I said, playfully kissing him on the cheek.
We both paused as our skin met. I could see the smile threatening to appear at the corner of his cheeks, which made an even bigger smile form on my face. This moment was as close to perfect as I could get for me. Not only was I doing something I loved, but I was doing it with him.
“Come on. We gotta celebrate this moment. You want a drink? I got a bottle of wine downstairs just for this.”
“Just for this? Now I feel special.”
“You should always feel special because you are.”
The words rolled off his tongue so naturally.
It was like, not only did he mean to say it, but he believed what he was saying.
Ramel Method thought I was special. That statement, coupled with him holding my hand tightly as he led me down the stairs, served as the reassurance my brain was always searching for.
Ramel’s love language had to be physical touch because, any chance he got, he was always touching me in some kind of way. It could be as simple as just grabbing my hand, touching my shoulder, or finding some reason to bump into me. He loved for our skin to connect, and I didn’t mind it either.
Before long, we were settling in on Ramel’s plush, all-black sectional sofa.
His home was decorated beautifully in dark, calming colors that matched his personality.
Ramel was the strong, silent type, but there was definitely an undertone that let you know he wasn’t to be played with.
The good girl in me was automatically drawn to that undertone.
Ramel’s jaw clenched slightly as he used a corkscrew to open the bottle of wine before pouring both of us a glass.
I wasn’t a big drinker, but I could always go for a good glass of wine, especially if that glass of wine was in celebration of one of my greatest accomplishments.
I hadn’t had much to celebrate in my life.
If I were being honest, my life felt like it was just beginning, in a way.
“To more success.” Ramel raised his glass and flashed that sexy ass grin in my direction.
“More success.”
As soon as our glasses clinked, Ramel’s lips came crashing into mine.
Although I didn’t immediately return the kiss, I didn’t pull away either.
My whole body froze for a split second before everything relaxed, and I fell into him.
The slight parting of my lips was all the confirmation he needed to deepen the already intense connection.
In a matter of seconds, we were rolling around on the couch.
I was so caught up in the moment that I hadn’t even noticed Ramel had come out of his shirt.
When he paused to look at me for confirmation, his tatted chest was on full display.
He searched my eyes to make sure I was good with what was about to happen, and I couldn’t hide the lust in them. Without words, we both continued.
When his hand slipped under my shirt and gripped my breast, I moaned, and when the other one slipped into the leggings I was wearing, I opened my legs wider to give him better access. I’d thought about this moment more times than I cared to admit, and I didn’t want it to end.
Everything about his body was perfect and the way he towered over me was the biggest turn on.
The way he caressed me as he kissed from my lips to my breasts sent chills down my spine and created a feeling I didn’t even know I could feel.
Before Ramel, I’d never felt this desired by a man.
Hell, before him, I’d never desired someone else this much, but I wanted everything about him.
Within minutes, Ramel had freed me from my leggings and was positioned at my opening. The pressure of him sliding into me was welcomed. I threw my head back at the satisfaction of his moan as he worked his way deeper inside. Ramel dropped his lips to meet mine, and I hurriedly returned the kiss.
“You so fucking tight,” he whispered against my mouth.
The sound of keys turning in his door brought me out of the haze of need that was consuming me, but it didn’t compel me to stop. The only thing that could possibly do that was the looks on the faces of two women who burst in without so much as a knock.
My eyes could barely focus as I tried to come down from the high this man had me on.
I jumped from the couch, down on the floor, trying to hide, as Ramel tried and failed miserably to cover what was dangling between his legs.
He tucked himself back into the jeans he was still wearing before moving toward the door.
“Ma, what the fuck!” he yelled.
“Oh my God. We are going to step out and let you get yourself together, and whoever that is that you have in there with you needs to be gone.”
The two women stepped back out of the door and closed it behind themselves, and I hurried to dress myself.
I couldn’t believe someone had walked in on us having sex on his living room couch, let alone his mama.
Having a key to his place was one thing, but letting herself in at the worst possible moment was a different fucking thing.
Maybe that was why he didn’t want to talk about his family.
It had to be something to it, and now that I was seeing it firsthand, I didn’t know if I wanted to deal with it.
I didn’t do complicated, high-strung, or rigid, and Method happened to be all three.
I knew I should have stayed away from him, but staying away from a man who looked like Ramel was hard.
Now that I knew that, separating myself was about to be damn near impossible
The more he plunged into me, the more I saw myself being a part of his world for the rest of my life.
As a matter of fact, I’d already started planning out our lives together before his mother showed up.
I didn’t miss the look of disgust on her face or the ring on the finger of the woman standing next to her.
I didn’t even know who she was, but the way she couldn’t take her eyes off Ramel told me she was there for him.
She may have glanced at me for a mere second, but all of her attention went to the man who had just been making love to me like I was the only woman he would ever make love to from that day forward.
But there she was, standing in front of me, very much wrapped up in him.
She was gorgeous, way more gorgeous than I ever saw myself being, and if that was the woman in Ramel’s life, I knew I could not compete, especially not with a woman who was so close to his mother and looked like that. I had no place in his life, and that was becoming clear every day.
“Ramel. What is happening right now?” I couldn’t even get my words together. I was so pissed. Two people literally just walked in on me having sex. I had never in my life experienced something like that. And not only was I embarrassed, but I had no idea who those people were.
I could tell he was trying to find the right thing to say before he said anything at all, but his silence only pissed me off more. I was now pacing back and forth, trying to find all of my shit so I could get the hell out of his house and hopefully never have to come back.
“Stop for a second.” He grabbed my arms to hold me in place. He waited until my eyes settled on his to start speaking again. “Look, I’m sorry about this. That’s my mom. Just give me a second to talk to her. Please wait for me in my room, okay? Just one second. Promise.”
Ramel walked me into his bedroom before trekking toward the door.
I heard them as they came back in, and his mom wasted no time letting into him.
I could tell she was used to him doing whatever she said, but Ramel hadn’t given me mama’s boy vibes before then.
Perfectionist, yes, but never mama’s boy.
“Ramel Method, what kind of harlot do you have in this house? How can you be in here with another woman while you are engaged to be married?”
Engaged? There it was—the confirmation I had hoped to never receive. I’d talked to this man on several occasions. We sat in a bar and drank and spilled our whole lives to each other, yet he didn’t get around to telling me he was getting married.
We’d been almost joined at the hip since the day we met, and still, he hadn’t managed to tell me about his impending nuptials.
There was no way that man was hours, days, or months away from walking down the aisle and had not said a word to me.
Not only that, but he had also poured me a glass of wine.
He’d kissed me first. I didn’t lean into him.
He leaned into me… Yet there we were, standing in his house, and I was hearing his mother remind him that he’s a soon-to-be married man.
“How do you think this makes Lacy feel, walking in on you with another woman?”
“Ma, please, chill.”
Okay, so that was his fiancée. He didn’t deny that the beautiful woman who had strolled in there hand in hand with his mother was the woman that he was supposed to walk down the aisle with. And there I was, on the couch, making love to her soon to be husband.
“You know, I don’t give a damn about what Lacy feels,” I heard him say. “Look, Lace, I don’t mean no harm, but I already told you what was up, and I’m not going to tell you again.”
“How dare you speak to her like that?”
His mother kept looking from him to me since the door was wide open, and she could see me sitting on his bed. I wanted to go into the bathroom or somewhere and hide, but he told me to stay put, so that was what I did. Plus, I needed to see how all this played out.
“Listen, I need y’all to leave. I have company.”
“I am not going anywhere until you get that woman out of your house right now.”
His mother crossed one arm over the other as she awaited his response. It wasn’t long before he came back into the room, and before he could even get a word out of his mouth, I already saw the look on his face.
He was going to do exactly what his mother said.
She’d come in there judging me for everything that I was, and she revealed so many secrets that I didn’t know.
I held one finger up to him, shook my head, and marched toward the door.
Not making eye contact with either of the women, I let myself out.
I didn’t know what the hell just happened, but I knew it would be the last time something like that ever happened to me.
I was nobody’s side chick or secret, and had I known Ramel’s current situation, I never would have gotten involved with him romantically.
I was a big girl, and I knew how to keep things professional, but he hid the facts of this whole thing from me.
He didn’t even give me a chance to make my own decision, and that was what pissed me off more than anything.