Chapter 7
The Duquesne Art Collective’s annual winter auction was packed—oil money, old money, and curated Black excellence in one restored warehouse off Penn Avenue. Champagne flutes. Soft jazz bleeding through ceiling speakers. Sculptures lit like sacred things.
I was in a deep emerald silk dress—backless, cut low at the sides, the fabric skimming my hips like it knew what lived beneath it. Gold cuffs at my wrists. Hair sleek and freshly sculpted. Heels high enough to shift my posture into something deliberate.
I felt him before I saw him. That quiet pressure in my spine. I turned and took in the finest man my eyes had ever seen. Off duty. No uniform. No soot.
Dark charcoal slacks tailored just right. Black sweater fitted across his chest and shoulders like it had been made for him alone. The sleeves pushed slightly up, revealing thick forearms and the faint sheen of his brown skin under the gallery lights.
His hair was low and even. Clean. The sharp line of his beard framed a mouth that had once ruined me. And his eyes. Those soulful and sexy eyes of his.
Dark brown. But tonight they were darker. Focused entirely on me. My pulse betrayed me immediately.
He moved toward me slowly, like he had all the time in the world.
“You following me now?” I asked, lifting my glass but not drinking.
“I called your office,” he said casually. “Spoke to your secretary.”
I nearly choked on air.
“Oh, did you?”
“Sweet girl. Very helpful.”
I made a mental note to fire her. Not really. But close.
“What do you want, Tariq?”
He paused—actually paused—like that question was loaded.
My pulse quickened because I read him instantly. The flex in his jaw. The way his gaze dipped to my mouth. The darkening in his eyes.
He wanted me. Still.
“I reviewed the scene again,” he said instead. “The accelerant pattern doesn’t match an electrical fault. Someone poured it along the west stairwell. Deliberate trail. Clean exit point.”
My fingers tightened around my glass.
“So it was arson.”
“Yes.”
The word hung heavy.
“And,” he continued, “I know who owns that house.”
There it was.
We shared a look. I started strolling through the gallery again, waiting for him to follow.
“You shouldn’t be working that close to men like him,” he said low.
I laughed softly. “You don’t get to police my clients.”
“I get to point out danger when I see it.”
I stopped and stepped closer. “I’m not in danger.”
His jaw flexed again.
“That dangerous man,” I said lightly, “once tried to set me up with his son.”
Tariq went still.
“What?”
“I mean, I considered it,” I added, shrugging. “He’s fine. Looks like he could handle me. Intense. Focused. Strong. Maybe your pussy, as you called it, would have enjoyed—”
I didn’t get to finish.
His hand wrapped around my wrist—not rough, but decisive.
“Tariq—”
He pulled me through the crowd, through a side corridor lined with framed canvases, into a narrow storage room behind the main gallery. The door shut, leaving us in silence except for muffled music outside.
We were breathing hard.
“You think that’s funny?” he asked.
“I think you don’t get to be jealous.”
His eyes dragged down my body slowly.
“You don’t get to tell me what I feel. You left me, remember.”
I stepped closer. “You’re the one who made sure I walked away.”
That landed. All that control in him. All that discipline. I hated it. It was that control that pushed us apart.
“You always do this,” I said softly. “Stand there like you’re above it. Like you don’t feel anything.”
His nostrils flared.
“You think I don’t feel you?” he muttered.
“Prove it. If you feel me. Show me.”
That was it. His mouth crushed into mine. This kiss was hungry.
My hands flew to his head, fingers brushing over his hair, his jaw. I’d forgotten how good he felt under my palms.
He lifted me easily, placed me on a cabinet stacked with canvases and supplies. My thighs opened for him without instruction.
His hands slid up my legs slowly. I was already wet. Dripping wet.
He hadn’t even touched me yet. Not really. Just his voice in the dark, that knowing murmur in my ear, the weight of everything we hadn’t said pressing between us.
When his fingers reached the thin strip of my thong, he paused.
“Already?” he murmured.
“Don’t start.”
But he did.
Dragged the fabric aside with two fingers—slow and taunting—then tore it straight down the middle. The rip cracked through the air like a whip. It made me jolt. Gasp. My breath caught, thighs trembling like they already knew what was coming.
He didn’t say a word. Just held the torn lace in one hand, his eyes devouring mine as the other dipped between my legs.
His fingers found me soaked—with no hesitation. He swiped slow, his knuckles brushing my folds, then drew his fingertips through the slick seam of me, gathering everything I’d been holding in.
The glisten caught the light—his eyes darkened.
“Still like this for me.”
“Shut up,” I whispered, my voice barely there. Weak. Wanting.
He smiled—but it didn’t reach his mouth. It was in his eyes, in the hunger pooling there. Then he dropped to his knees. Like he’d worshiped here before and knew exactly where to place his hands.
He spread me open with both palms, fingers biting into my thighs like anchors. I was perched on the edge of that narrow table, knees bent, ass just barely on the edge. Paintbrushes clattered behind me. My spine arched. I couldn't think.
“Fuck,” he muttered. “You smell the same.”
My hand slid into his coarse coils, reflexive. Desperate.
“I wonder if you’re still sweet.”
His mouth hovered so close my clit twitched. And then he licked. Slow. Deep. From my entrance to the top—tongue firm and full, like he was reading me with his mouth.
I cried out.
He didn’t stop. Just locked his grip tighter, lips sealing over me with maddening precision. He sucked, slow at first, then greedy. Like he was taking back time.
I grabbed his head, rocking my hips in rhythm with the pull of his mouth, the flick of his tongue. My body was molten. Barely holding together.
When he pushed two fingers inside me—crooked them just right—I nearly came undone. My body clenched around him so hard I heard him groan. Felt the sound tremble through my cunt.
“Fuck,” I whimpered.
He looked up at me then—lips wet, eyes fierce.
“I’m not leaving here until you fall apart on my tongue.”
And God, I believed him.
I cried out—sharp and breathless—as the pressure behind my clit turned volcanic. My orgasm was coming fast and heavy.
He dragged my thighs higher, pressing them wide until my knees trembled. Then—without a word—he placed what was left of my soaked lace thong into my mouth.
“Use it,” he ordered.
The music outside swelled louder. Laughter and bursts of voices of the unaware.
But here, I was helpless. Wrecked. A dripping, needy mess pinned between him and the rest of the damn world.
He dove back into me—tongue lapping deep, wide, messy strokes between my folds. His fingers didn’t slow, didn’t pause—two of them working inside me, fast and precise, curving with cruel accuracy. He pressed his tongue flat against my clit and shook his head side to side until my body rebelled.
I screamed behind the lace.
The orgasm took me hard. My body locked around his face. My thighs trembled. My pussy clamped down on his fingers so tight I felt him grunt against me. My back arched, and I shattered on his tongue, every pulse dragging me under.
“Tariq—”
He stood. His mouth slick. His beard soaked in me. His eyes—wild, dilated, locked on mine like a threat and a promise.
“I told myself I wasn’t gonna do this,” he rasped.
But his belt was already undone. His hand found his wallet, pulled out a condom, and bit it open like he needed it to live.
My mouth watered.
His dick sprang free—thick and angry, veins bulging, the head flushed and glistening like it had missed me. Long enough to make me blink. Heavy enough that his grip had to adjust.
“You still mine?” he asked, stroking it slow.
I couldn’t answer—not with torn lace still stuffed between my teeth. But he saw my pussy. Saw how I was leaking onto the table. Saw how my hips rolled, already chasing him.
He took that for the yes it was.
He sheathed himself in one motion. Grabbed me by the hips and dragged me to the edge of the table.
Then he pushed inside. Deep. Brutal. No hesitation.
My scream choked on the thong still in my mouth. My pussy stretched wide to take him, my walls clenching around every inch like I’d been waiting for this.
Because I had.
He fed me more, inch by devastating inch, until I felt him in my stomach. My hands clawed at the edge of the table. My body seized around him.
“Fuck,” he groaned, gripping my ass and slamming into me again. “Tight as ever. Still sweet. Still mine.”
His hips punched into me, hard and filthy, every thrust pushing the table into the wall. Paint jars rattled behind me. My nipple slipped free, and he caught it between his teeth mid-stroke, his tongue circling until I sobbed.
My legs wrapped around his waist. He leaned in, kissed me with his fingers still wet from my pussy, then yanked the thong from my mouth and tossed it behind him.
He growled when he felt how deep he was. When my pussy clenched again. When I begged.
“Say it,” he demanded, slamming into me so hard my eyes rolled. “Say this pussy still mine.”
“It’s yours,” I moaned. “God, it’s yours. Just fuck me—”
He did. Viciously. Like he was pulling memories out of me one stroke at a time. Our bodies slick with sweat, his name falling from my mouth over and over.
When I came again, it wasn’t a whisper—it was a war cry. My walls spasming, gushing around him, soaking us both.
He didn’t stop. He chased his own release. Groaned like a man breaking open. And when he came, he drove so deep I felt his whole body tremble against mine.
We stayed locked together like that. Shaking. Breathing each other in.
Then—slowly—he pulled out and lowered me to the floor, holding me upright like he always did. Like I was something to care for even after the ruin.
My dress was crooked. My thighs glistened. I couldn’t walk straight if I tried.
He leaned down, pressed a kiss to my pulse, and whispered, “You’re coming home with me.”
I didn’t argue. My body had already made the decision. I was his again—and I wasn’t done burning yet.