Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
KAIRI MOORE
A FEW NIGHTS LATER
“Nah, you ain’t slick, Kairi,” Makari said, and I giggled. “You came on to me!”
All he wanted to do was go on and on about how I turned up at his house and kissed him first.
“But you’re the one who took my clothes off. I just wanted a kiss,” I lied. He suddenly pulled me from behind him, making some of the water splash out of the tub, and made me straddle him. I was laughing so hard because he had a deep frown on his face.
“You think you could kiss me, and I wasn’t about to take your fucking clothes off?”
I smiled, wrapped my arms around his neck, and pecked his lips.
“Make me find out you wanted this ass,” I teased.
His deep laughter rumbled in his throat as he threw his head back. I smiled because I loved seeing him laugh. He had a cute smile, and the sound of his laughter always sent a shiver down my spine.
“I craved it,” he responded with his eyes low. I felt my heartbeat race. He leaned forward and kissed my nipple.
“You sure you gotta go to work?” he asked.
“Yep! So don’t even think about trying to make me stay,” I said and laughed when he rolled his eyes. I kissed his lips and held his hand to carefully climb out of the tub. He got out next, and I squealed when he wrapped a towel around my body and lifted me in the air.
“Put me down!” I screamed laughing, but he just ignored me and ran with me into his room. “Boy, if you drop me, we’re gonna fight.”
He put me down on my feet and playfully put his hands up in a boxing stance.
“Fight who? Shit, you can’t fight, girl,” he said before he pretended to fight me. I shoved him away from me and walked over to the bed to get dressed before I was late. As I looked over my shoulder at him, I smiled when he winked at me.
“You not working tomorrow, are you?”
“No, it’s my day off,” I let him know.
“Cool. You gonna come back over tomorrow?” he asked, sounding so innocent. Since he brought me here after the night he popped up on me, I’d been coming here every night. I thought he would have been sick of me by now.
“I would say tonight, but I gotta work, so I won’t even be back until the morning. I wouldn’t want you to stay here by yourself,” he explained. I put on my panties as I thought about what he said.
Maybe I was spending too much time with him, but truth be told, I was enjoying his company.
We spent time talking, not just having sex, and I was liking being around him.
My days of loneliness had gone because of him.
I stayed busy working to ignore the fact that I was single.
I had my dad and now Shakur again, but nothing beat the intimacy someone of the opposite sex gave.
Most of the time, men wanted something from me, but not Havoc.
He accepted whatever I offered and genuinely wanted to be around me.
The fact that he was asking me to come back tomorrow said he felt the same way.
I turned to look at him with a smile and said, “Yeah. I’ll come back tomorrow. ”
I would have preferred to be anywhere but at work right now, but the fact that I was going to see him tomorrow made it bearable. It was crazy how I just left him and already wanted to go back.
Havoc felt warm. Familiar. Like home. He gave me the stability and the companionship that I craved, which was all I wanted from him. To not feel alone anymore. So, it was hard parting from him.
Every time I thought about him, I couldn’t help but smile.
Someone suddenly grabbed my arm, scaring the shit out of me.
“Sparkle! Girl, are you crazy?”
I had completely zoned out while at work, and this girl wanted to give me a heart attack by grabbing me. Sparkle laughed, and I shook my head.
“You never told me you were coming tonight,” I said as I headed for the restroom.
“Wanted to surprise you, hoe…surprise!”
“Fool,” I said, and we laughed together. She followed me into the restroom and sat on the sink countertop while I went into a stall.
Once I was done, I used the sink next to her to wash my hands.
“Uh, bitch, what the fuck is that?” she suddenly called out and pointed at my neck.
“What?” I questioned and looked in the mirror. My eyes widened at the big ass passion mark right on my neck for the world to see!
Sparkle turned me to face her, and her eyes were narrowed into slits as she stared at my face.
“I saw you just two days ago, and that shit wasn’t there. That’s new,” she pointed out before her mouth dropped.
“Kairi, no. Don’t tell me you’re still messing with him?”
My mouth fell, but no words came out because it was the truth. I was still sleeping with Makari.
“Oh my god, I shouldn’t have told you to do it,” Sparkle said, pulling at her hair.
“It wasn’t because of that,” I started to explain.
“But it wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t for me,” she said, sounding down.
“Sparkle, no.”
I felt so bad that my friend was blaming herself. Things had just gotten this far.
“Kairi, you can’t get mixed up in him like this. You better stop before feelings develop,” she warned me and then looked at me. “Unless they already have?”
I looked away from her because I was scared that she might have seen the truth in my eyes because I did like him. I liked him a lot. Enough for me to stupidly forget that he was set to marry someone else.
This started as a revenge thing, but it had clearly turned into much more than that before I even realized it. I’d gotten used to him and, in doing so, opened myself up to feelings I never should have.
Sparkle grabbed me by the shoulders, looked me in the eyes, and said, “I’m worried about you, Kairi. Just know what you’re doing.”
I had it under control, right?
THE NEXT EVENING
Sparkle had me thinking, wondering if I truly had it all under control or not. I liked to think that I did, but did I?
It was only supposed to be a revenge thing—a one-time thing, and I’d done that. So, why had it changed?
What I wanted, since I broke up with my ex a year ago, was being handed to me by Makari. The laughter, the joy of being around someone, how comfortable he made me feel—all of it, I wanted, and he’d given it to me, but I had to stop it.
I paced my bedroom floor as I watched him call me.
Just ignore it, and he will stop calling, I thought. Only for that call to go to answerphone and he called right back.
Seeing that he wasn’t going to stop, I decided to answer just so I could tell him that we could no longer see each other.
It was the right thing to do. All that was going through my mind was what would happen if my dad, Shakur, or Ocean found out.
It was enough to knock some sense into me, and I needed him to see it too.
“Why you ain’t answering your phone?” was the first thing he asked when I picked up the call.
I sighed.
“Makari, I’ve been thinking. I think we should stop seeing each other now,” I said, holding my breath. He was silent. A little too silent.
“Say that again,” he finally answered. I expelled a sigh.
“I said I think we should stop messing around now, okay?”
He didn’t answer me again.
“Hello?” I asked when he still hadn’t said anything and then pulled the phone from my ear only to see that he’d hung up on me.
I guess that was easier than I thought but so needed. He was set to marry Ocean, end of story. This had to stop.
Maybe I should just go back to working with Carlene because I never saw him before when I did that.
This all started because I got the job at The Cove, so maybe it would end if I left there too.
Knowing what I needed to do, I picked up my phone to send a message to Mr. Blair giving him notice of my intention to quit, but my phone started ringing in my hand. It was Makari again.
I was confused about why he was calling me. Shaking my head, I answered.
“Why are you calling me back?” I questioned.
“Come outside.”
I froze.
“I’m sorry, what?” I asked just to be sure that I heard him the first time.
“I said, come outside.”
“I’m not at the club, Makari,” I said, since it was obvious that he thought that I was at work.
“I know.”
So why did he want me to come outside?
Frowning because I still didn’t understand what he was talking about, I looked over at my bedroom window, and a weird ass feeling hit me in the pit of my stomach.
“Wait? Are you outside of my house?” I asked, slowly approaching, and damn near passed out when I saw his car was in fact outside.
“Oh, my days. Are you crazy?” I was completely stuck seeing him outside of my house. Like, how did he even know where I lived?
“Come outside, Kairi,” he said, voice flat.
“No!”
“Either you come outside, or I’m coming inside. I don’t give a fuck who’s in there with you. Can’t nobody stop me.”
My mouth fell open, and I looked at my bedroom door.
My dad was due home any minute now, and if he saw Makari outside of our house, I knew that all hell would break loose.
There was no way for me to explain even knowing this man.
My dad made it clear—stay away from anyone mixed up with The Society.
Not only was Havoc well and truly mixed up in this mess, but he was the son of the damn man my father worked for.
It didn’t get any more involved than that!
I’d been fucking the boss’s son. A son that I shouldn’t even know. There was no explaining that away.
“Five—”
“Okay,” I said, cutting off his countdown. Satisfied, Makari hung up on me.
I quickly grabbed my backpack, made sure I had my keys, and rushed out of the house after turning off my bedroom light.
This man was sitting back in his car like he had the right to be here. I walked over to his car, slid in, and quickly closed the door behind me before someone saw me.
“Are you crazy? Why would you come to my house like this, Makari?” I asked. He looked at me and sped away.
“Why are you hiding from me, Kairi, when I told you I don’t like that?” he switched his eyes my way before looking at the road again.
“So, that means to show up at my house? You acting like you don’t have a woman, Havoc!”