25. Chapter 25
“So your phone works again?” Vert asks as I stand in his doorway. The sparkle from my neck chains bouncing across his face as I turn behind me.
“Are you talking to me?” I ask, facing him again. “My phone service is excellent in ATL. I’m never without service.”
“Just when I call then,” he says, stepping toward me instead of letting me into his spot.
The spicy scent of him is headier now with the weed strong on his clothes.
It’s not just on his clothes, the puff of smoke curls around him as he leans his head back to exhale before looking down at me.
Instead of craning my head back to see him, I lean in to smell more of him.
He doesn’t miss the action and grabs my chin.
His grip isn’t firm but he does tilt my head back.
“You answer when I call you. Could have been an emergency.”
“You would’ve have just come to get me if that were the case,” I sass, slipping out of his hold and walking into the room.
The package gets tossed onto the bed when I go to sit on the very desk that he had taken me apart on before.
“You’re a fan of kidnapping women into your trunk, right?
” I straighten my skirt out on my lap and adjust my crop top gratuitously.
Of course, I went home and made myself presentable. I wasn’t showing up to this place again, looking emotionally wrung out.
Even if it was true.
Liezel said I should let him in. Tell him what has lead to the murder he feels is so wrong. That he can’t admit he has had a part in helping me conceal.
It’s only his life on the line—I want to see how he fairs with the truth.
I’m not going to be the one to make this confession on my own. I don't know if I have the strength to do it, but I know that I want to, and that's the crutch here.
“Drastic measures when you’re dealin’ with brats who run from their feelins’,” he scoffs before meeting me where I sit.
I continue messing with my outfit instead of giving him my eyes. His words are too accurate for my liking right now. “Have a lot of experience with brats, huh?”
“Enough,” he brokers no further explanation and I suppose that’s fair since I haven’t given him much either. “If you’re here to play games, I ain’t playin’. Why are you here?”
Shrugging, I rub the desk top, “Maybe I just wanted to see you.” He gives me an unimpressed look as I wander further into his room. Most men would be happy to see a beautiful woman show up at their door,” I tilt my head toward the package I tossed on the bed, “and I brought gifts.”
“Most men don’t know you for real,” he says, following me in the suite.
I gasp, “That was rude,” I say on a pout, still wandering around and taking stock of what he still has out. It doesn’t look like he’s packed much.
“It’s accurate and you prepared it to be that way. Don’t act offended.”
“It’s still rude,” I assert.
“You’re not leavin’ so you must want somethin’”
Turning toward him, “What makes you think that?”
“Because you only bait me when you want somethin’.”
He has been paying attention. He’s not wrong. I do think that there could be more fun to be had until he figure out why I’m here. My tongue ring tinks against the blade in my cheek but I put on a smile. “So wanting company couldn’t be what I wanted?”
“Nah.”
“It could be that I missed you.”
“Not that either,” he says, taking a long drag from his blunt.
When I laugh, he doesn’t. Something crawled up his ass so there is nothing I can do to get him off mine. I walk to the bed and sit on the edge of it.
He narrows his eyes, commanding, “Get out of my bed.”
“I’m not in your bed.”
“Sittin’ on it.”
“Technically,” I pat the spot next to me, “I’m sitting on the edge. I’m not in it.”
“Nina—”
“Vert?” I grin, as he exhales for patience.
“Told you I didn’t want to play these games.
You know what you’re doin’.” He doesn’t sit next to me, choosing to loom over me.
“Need to know what the fuck is goin’ on with you and these men.
” He’s lost patience with me and avoiding his eye contact and grabs my chin in that way that he does. “What happened?”
I laugh again but this time it’s too bright and sharp. Too shrill to convey any enjoyment. “Nothing happened.” God, the lie comes out too easily. I’ve forgotten why I’m here because he’s pressing too close to my truth.
“You’re lyin’”
Still in his hold, I can’t look away. My body is too warm even though he keeps this room ice cold. “I do that,” I admit and it’s barely audible between us.
“Know it,” he says, not looking away.
My eyes flit back and forth between his. A beat passes and I swallow the thickness in my throat. “Stop asking,” the please, silent in my plea.
“No.”
A single word holding so much space in the room where we stare at each other.
The air is heavy but I don’t want to be the one to break it.
My confidence is fading more and more as I’m here.
This doesn’t happen to me. I would normally make a joke or poke at him to get past this stiffness but I’m still raw from the rejection and the words that Liezel said earlier.
I can’t hide behind anything as effectively as I’d want to.
Vert is making it impossible to with his focus so pointed on me.
I need to push him away before he sees the ugly parts, but he wants to see.
“You never make anythin’ easy do you?” He stabs what remains of the blunt out. A rough finger sliding into my mouth before I can object or react quick enough. He flicks the blade from my cheek retrieving it and setting it next to his ashes.
Lifting my chin out of his grip, I decide right then and there. “If you want it, then you’ll have to take it.”
“Okay, doll. The hard way it is.” He walks away, taking his comforting scent and the warmth with him. I’m already limp without the support of his hold.
So, as he sits in his chair, I follow dutifully.
He sets a pillow in his lap before I lean over it. My skirt is so short that he doesn't have to do much to be able to see my ass exposed here. I’m not concerned. He’s seen it before and it’s the least of my concerns as I lie here.
“If it were anyone else, I might tell them to count. For you, I'm goin’ until you can't anymore, or until I'm satisfied with the answers that I'm gettin’.” Vert’s words are simple and his expectations are low for me.
"I understand," I say, leaning over his legs, turning my head, eyes falling shut.
Since I'm not watching him, I can't see when the first strike is coming, but as soon as his large hand meets the tender flesh of my ass, I feel the strike down through my thighs.
It stings like nothing I’ve felt before. The intensity of it, only met with the warring intrigue.
I’m floating and falling at once, head empty of my own thoughts. Dropping is so easy with him. I’m already checked out of my awareness to let him have it.
The second spank I'm also not prepared for, as he switches cheeks accurately, pinpointing exactly where on my backside to get me with the most impact.
My core clenching tighter over nothing, the heat and the sting from the hit registering immediately each time I receive one.
I'm barely keeping count, but at the sixth strike there is nothing.
I expect there to be something, but it's not a hit.
Though thrilling and equally as shocking.
It's simply him plunging his fingers into my pussy.
I'm dripping wet, dripping down my thighs, and the cool air has done nothing to help me come down from my arousal. It just keeps getting higher.
Barely registering the tears on my face, the heat from my ass is a far more present sensation.
As soon as I begin to talk, I can taste the salt from my tears pooling into my mouth at the corners.
I have to start somewhere with this and I think I can safely say this is a good place.
“F-find them online,” I manage through my ragged breaths.
“Sometimes from comments women have left that want revenge. Sometimes it's from girls who are too scared to tell anyone in their personal lives but can admit what happened to them online. Sometimes the men are dum enough to brag about what they’ve done. Other times they find me.”
My throat is dry by the time I finish, countless faces that seem to flash over and over again through my memory, threatening to pull me up.
“Then what?” He asks, as if our positions are normal in general or normal for us.
“I make sure they can’t do it again.” I haven’t specified what the it is, but I think he can put the pieces together. Maybe he can’t but that is an issue for a different me, future me.
I feel like I've been lured into a false sense of security when the questions stop being about the men and start being about me again.
I thought we had moved past this, but we hadn't, because I dropped so deep that I couldn't keep a hold of what was being discussed.
My mind feels warm and fuzzy and light and impossibly cared for, because my body doesn't really understand that my mind is trying to keep this information under wraps.
These tears I felt, the others I didn't, as I began to tell him exactly what happened to me.
Vert’s hand soothes over my warm cheeks, the warmth from his hand doing wonders over the warmth from my stinging ass. I’ve even caught my breath as he rubs me with one hand and his fingers still nestled between my folds.
There’s a beat where he says nothing and starts to curl his fingers inside me. The switch from pain to pleasure is doing wild things in my mind.
He knows exactly how it's affecting me. His hand in on my back now, holding me in place as my thighs squeeze against his hand. It does nothing to stop the expertly placed stroking of fingers against my inner walls.