Chapter 8 #5
My breathing staggered, and my chest rose and fell. “I… I don’t know what you talking about,” I mumbled. And I truly did not. I was just counting down the seconds until the ladies called me over. I wanted to laugh too.
“You know… You know a lot of shit, Glow. Just like I know a lot of shit.”
“Okay, enlighten me. Inform me about some of the shit you know, even though I have the faintest idea of the context you’re speaking about.”
“I know your panties are wet.” He tossed that out like an erratic, summer storm, as if he were discussing the weather.
He was right, but I refused to confirm his statement. Instead, I inhaled as heat rushed to my neck.
“I know you want to be a part of the ‘wives club,’ and it’s hurting your pretty little feelings that you’re not.”
I swallowed down a thick pool of saliva, still refusing to confirm.
He then leaned over and pressed his lips to my ear. “I also know you know I’m not no fucking store runner, my baby.”
“Tunnnaaan.” I stomped my foot, clicking the high heel harshly on the marble floors.
“Aite, aite. I’m through,” He held his hands up in surrender with a mischievous grin. “I got a proposition, though, Greedy.”
“God, no. The answer is no.”
“Marry me.”
I whipped my head around so hard that it snapped, cracked, and popped. “Nigga, what? Are you high?”
With this being a Sniff-and-Sip, Tunan must have taken it literally because his being high on cocaine was the only explanation for him to ask me some shit like that.
I didn’t know this man at all. Did I think he was the store runner for real?
No… Yes… Maybe. But, still, I didn’t know shit outside of him having a way with words and a skillful dick.
“High as a muhfucka. But I’m in my right mind, fasho.”
“You in your right mind by asking a complete stranger to marry you? Not only that, you didn’t even try to dress it up.
You standing here in Forces, leaning against the wall, asking for my hand in marriage.
Boy, if you don’t get on somewhere.” I was in utter disbelief.
This further proved I, too, had lost my damn mind by giving this man the nookie.
“So if I got on my knees, would you say yes?” His eyes burned through mine with that question, and I knew he wasn’t talking about getting on his knees to propose. We hadn’t kissed that night, let alone him going down on me, and with the dick being grade A, I knew that mouth was lethal.
Shaking that image from my head, because we’d never go down that hole again, I tried to steady my breathing. He couldn’t be serious. I mean, he was joking, right? He had to be because no sane person would ask a one-night stand for their hand in marriage.
“Tunan. You can’t be for real. You realize who you talking to, right?”
“Yeah, good pussy…” He flashed that smile again.
Closing my eyes, I counted down while biting my molars. He was stressing me the fuck out. “Yeah, no. My answer is no.”
“That’s your final answer, my baby?” He cocked his head.
“Nigga, yes! The fuck!” I scream-whispered.
“Even if it meant that shit would only be on paper? Even if it meant you could get accepted into your beloved “wives’ club,” or circle, or whatever the fuck you call it?
Even if it meant you wouldn’t be left out of top-secret mob shit?
Ooop! My bad, I’m not supposed to say dat ’round you. ” He smirked.
Now, he had my attention. “What are you saying, Tunan?”
“I’m saying… If you married me, you in. All-access pass. Unless you still trying to run with that store runner narrative.”
I mentally ran down the list of single men in the mob, and Tunan wasn’t one.
Hell, his name had never even come up in the conversations I was privy to.
I did know that Demise had brought in men who weren’t family, like Lorenzo, Big Zan, Rut, and the other young guys I saw around, but they were all married or on their way down the aisle.
I didn’t know if Tunan was pulling my strings, or what?
Hell, I wanted to be part of the pact, but I didn’t even know if I wanted to be married, for real.
It wasn’t anything a husband could do for me that I wasn’t already doing for myself—except disturb my peace.
Unless he had mob money.
I took another look at Tunan. He was just as handsome as any of the mob men, if not more, even in his modest clothing and jewelry.
He had just as much aura as the other men at this event, but he’d come from nowhere.
However, the other men at this party wouldn’t be caught dead sitting in a car that was barely better than a hooptie.
And Shio being connected to Tunan somehow further confused me unless…
“You need a wife.”
He held my gaze and said, “I do.”
“You need a wife to get in,” I repeated.
“I told you, you know shit.”
“You don’t want to marry me, Tunan. Get somebody else to do it.”
“You don’t want me to do that, my baby.”
“I do.”
“So…” His voice dropped. “You cool with a new bitch joining the pact before you? Not only a newbie, but one that’s gonna be fucking me and sucking me?”
His words were an immediate turn-on, but I felt an eerie and unfamiliar feeling settle in my gut.
Envy? No, Glow. Can’t be from just one session, no matter how good it was.
“You don’t. But you cool, Greedy. No pressure. Ion even got the time to convince you.”
“How much time you have?” I squinted.
He looked down at his invisible watch. “’Bout five days.”
“Five days!” I screeched so loud that Jisei looked over at me with a raised brow. Her gaze shifted from me to Tunan, and her brow lifted even higher into her hairline.
“I’m good,” I said slowly so she could read my lips rather than hear me.
Turning my back to them, I stood directly in front of this crazy-ass man. “Five days, Tunan?”
“Yeap. Apparently, he, who must not be called Don in front of you, gets a kick out of fucking with my kind.”
“Your kind?”
“Forget it, my baby. Just say yes.”
“To being your wife?”
“To being my wife.”
“But, why, though?”
“I just told you why. We both can get what we want.”
“Seems like you get more out of the deal than me…” I sassed my words, hoping they weren’t shaky due to my nerves.
I was trying to process this while calming my body down.
Tunan was too handsome for his own good.
Throw the elephant dick in there, and he was a fucking problem.
He had the potential to be my downfall, and I didn’t need that.
I didn’t even need a fucking husband, to be clear; I just wanted to be included.
A few unlimited shopping sprees, a mansion, and a big rock on my finger wouldn’t hurt either.
That’s it. Some would say I wanted the impossible, but anything was possible, especially in the world my friends had been married into.
“You don’t want to marry me because there would be no sex, no love, no living together, no communication—unless we absolutely had to talk, and you wouldn’t be able to have other women out in public. I would be an intolerable wife. An impossible one. Find somebody else.”
“No sex from a woman I already fucked the shit out of?” His thick brow rose, and I wanted to slap that sexy-ass smirk off of his face.
Laughing, he held his hands up. “Aite. No more sex. No love, no living together, no communication unless it’s business, no flaunting these bitches, so that my greedy, impossible wife that won’t give me no more coochie won’t get mad.
Got it.” He said the words tentatively, as if me not letting him screw me again was merely an idea instead of a fact.
“Could you stop bringing that up? It was just one time, and I was drunk. I barely remember anything,” I lied, my voice drifting into a hushed tone.
I remembered everything.
Every inch. Every pound. Every which way he dug me out.
How could I forget the time when a man was able to knock my period on in a mildew-smelling-ass car?
“I need it in writing too… Drawn up by a lawyer and notarized, please. Stamped and sealed.” I couldn't believe my own words.
“Anything else, my baby?”
“And don’t call me that.”
“Don’t call my impossible wife my baby because it makes her pussy moist. What else?”
“And you’ll pay my mortgage. It’s no way I’m going to be paying bills when I’m married, on nobody’s earth. I’ll handle my car note and other bills.”
“Pay the mortgage, even though I can’t step foot in that muhfucka. Noted. Anything else, Greedy?”
“No wedding—it’s not real. A judge and that paper drawn up is good enough. Demise would be okay with that, right? Being that it’s not real?”
“That nigga don’t give a fuck what we got going. He just want us married.”
“Okay, that’s it… No, wait. If we argue, for any reason, you have to walk away.
That’s non-negotiable, ” I stated, being sure to look him directly in the eyes.
My parents used to argue as if it were just the two of them in the house, instead of the four of us, with two being their adolescent daughters.
I refuse to ever have a screaming match with the man whose last name I took. That was dead.
He grew serious. “I’ll never put my hands on you, Glow. I was raised by women,” he assured.
“Well… good.”
“Aye?”
“Hum?”
“You gone tell your followers we married and shit?” He grinned sexily.
Rolling my eyes, I turned as I heard Jisei calling my name.
As I stomped away, I looked back, and he was still in the same spot, his eyes on my backside.
All the while, I questioned my sanity. I had to be the most grouped-out bitch on the planet to agree to that shit.
But as long as he followed my demands, nothing on my end would change, except I would finally be added to the other group chats.
I didn’t know about five days, though. I still needed time to process this shit.