Chapter 10 Salvage
Chapter ten
Salvage
My iPhone alarm cut through the air like a siren, vibrating against the nightstand and rattling my brain.
I groaned, my arm feeling like dead weight as I fumbled to kill the noise.
The room was still pitch black and my body desperately wanted more rest. Between the sleeping pills and the short night I felt like I’d been hit by a freight train.
I mindlessly rolled back over and was met with a face full of curls and the scent of lavender.
Nique’s body heat was so comforting that the thought of getting up became depressing.
My morning wood was pressed right against the small of her back, poking her through my joggers.
Being that close to her took me from wood to brick in seconds.
My hand was resting just above her hip, close enough to feel the warmth coming off her thighs. I wanted to slide it under her robe so bad to see if she was as wet as I was hard.
I shifted, grinding into her just a little to see what she was gonna do.
“Dex, please get your little ass dick off my ass,” she mumbled, her voice all scratchy from sleep.
I let out a low dry chuckle against her neck. “It’s little?”
I didn’t back off. I pressed into her harder, letting her feel exactly how much she was bothering me. A soft whimper broke out of her that made a nigga want to lose his mind. Before I got carried away she shoved me back.
“Stop,” she groaned, rubbing her temples. “My head hurts too damn bad for this.”
The reality of last night hit me, cooling my blood fast. I backed up and sat against the headboard, rubbing the grit out my eyes. I looked down at her, tangled in the white hotel robe, looking good even when she was a mess.
“We need to talk about what happened,” I said.
Nique buried her face in the pillow. “Dex, please. The sun ain’t even up.”
“For real though. I have to head to work in a bit and I don’t want to walk into the office with you being in a cell on my mind. Talk to me.”
She stayed quiet for a minute, then finally rolled over.
She walked me through her version of brunch, how that turned into the mess with Kel, finding out about Trisha, and how a conversation became a fight that ended with a vase across the back of her head.
The hospital told her she probably blacked out from the combination of adrenaline and the hit.
“The glass scratched my neck up,” she muttered, touching the mark. “My hair took most of the force though so I didn’t need stitches. Thank God for this bush.” She tried to laugh it off.
I couldn’t find the humor in it. I was so pissed my jaw stayed locked. I would never put my hands on a woman, but I was seriously contemplating paying somebody to handle Kel and her ex the grimy way.
“You really thinking about not going to the wedding?” I asked after a beat.
Nique let out a dry laugh. “Dex, I have court Wednesday. Depending on what that judge says I might be doing time. I ain’t thinking about Tulum. I’m thinking about a jumpsuit.”
“I can get you a lawyer,” I said. “A real one. You get your name cleared, you promise me you’ll be on that plane.”
She looked at me sideways. “Why do you want me there so bad? Your favorite piece of pussy is already gonna be there,” she said, talking about Amina.
I chuckled and leaned in close, dropping my voice until I was right in her ear.
“You know damn well my favorite piece of pussy is between your thighs,” I told her. “Always has been.”
Nique didn’t flinch but I saw her breath catch. “I can’t tell. I ain’t the one who had your baby.”
“You want to have my baby, Nique? Is that what it is?”
She made a face and shoved my shoulder. “Ew nigga. Back up with that hot ass morning breath.”
I laughed and finally swung my legs out the bed. As I stood up the print in my joggers was still very much present. I caught her eyes drop before she caught herself.
I grabbed it through the fabric and looked at her. “You want some of this before I leave? Clear that headache right up.”
Nique rolled her eyes, her face flushing. “Nigga, I like girls or did you forget?”
I headed toward the door and grabbed my keys off the desk. I looked back at her one last time. “Nique, you know damn well you ain’t gay. I’ve known you almost seventeen years. You can play that role for everybody else but don’t play it with me.”
“Aren’t you leaving?” she snapped.
I nodded, smirking as I slipped into my shoes. “I’ll be back later.”
“Why?”
I looked her up and down. “You plan on wearing that robe for three days? You don’t have a charger or a change of clothes.”
She opened her mouth and then closed it, realizing she was literally stranded in a five-star hotel with nothing but the skin she was born in.
“That’s what I thought,” I said, opening the door. “I’ll see you later.”
I didn’t wake back up until nearly ten in the morning.
The room was silent, but my body felt like it was vibrating. I was hungry as hell and restless in a way that had nothing to do with food. That was a dangerous combination when you were trapped in a luxury hotel room with nothing but your thoughts and the lingering scent of the man who just left.
I hated the effect Dex had on me. It was the whole reason I stayed away from him. When he was around, I couldn’t think straight, so I stayed mean just to keep my guard up. Being a bitch was the only thing standing between me and falling right back into that trap.
I reached for my phone on the nightstand, the dead screen jogging my memory from the night before.
“Great,” I muttered, tossing it back down.
I rolled out of bed and turned on the TV just to have something in the room besides my own thoughts.
I picked up the room service menu, my eyes going wide at the prices.
A Mobile Omelet and some grits were going to run me almost thirty dollars.
I didn’t even care. I picked up the bedside phone and ordered the heaviest breakfast they had and told them to put it on the room.
Twenty minutes later the food arrived and I ate every last bit of it. Even with a full stomach the restlessness didn’t go away. I laid back down and that’s when his scent hit me again.
Bergamot and that expensive laundry detergent he used were baked into the high thread count sheets.
It was everywhere, in the pillowcase, in the duvet, clinging to the air I was breathing.
My body started humming in a way I couldn’t ignore, and I knew right then I wasn’t going to be able to just sleep this off.
I tried to focus on the TV, some mindless talk show, but my hand was already moving on its own.
I hadn’t taken care of myself in a minute.
Usually I didn’t have to, but this ache was becoming a problem.
I slid my hand under the hotel robe and found myself already slick and ready. I let out a shaky breath and closed my eyes. Instead of the ceiling I saw broad ebony shoulders. I felt the phantom weight of Dex’s body pressing into me just like it was earlier when he was teasing me against my back.
I started slow, my fingers finding a rhythm. I pictured him inside me, that arrogant smirk on his face while he talked me through it.
“Damn it Dex,” I whispered into the empty room.
I got into it then, my hips arching off the bed as I chased my release. I was so far gone that I didn’t even think about anything else. When the climax hit my toes threw up gang signs and I soaked those crisp white sheets in a way that a towel was not going to fix.
I was still in the afterglow, gasping with my robe hanging open and my hand still hovering between my legs, when the electronic beep of the door key snapped me upright.
The door swung open and the noise from the hallway spilled in. I scrambled to pull my robe together, but my fingers were shaking and clumsy and I was nowhere near fast enough.
Dex stepped in with a Starbucks cup in one hand and shopping bags in the other. He stopped dead in his tracks.
He didn’t move or say a word. He just stood there taking in my flushed skin, my wild hair, and the very obvious evidence soaked into the middle of the mattress.
The silence was so loud I could hear my own heartbeat.
Dex let out a slow dark whistle, his eyes dragging up to mine. That smirk was back but this time it had an edge to it, something darker and more deliberate.
He dropped the shopping bags in the chair and the Starbucks on the desk without looking away from me.
Then he walked toward the bed, his eyes never leaving mine.
I tried to pull the robe across my chest, but he was on me before I could cross the fabric.
Without a word he pushed my knees apart and dove in.
“Dex—”
The protest died in my throat the second his tongue found me.
If I was raining before I was a hurricane now.
He knew exactly what he was doing, working me with a hunger that had my toes throwing up gang signs all over again.
I gripped his head, nails raking through his waves as he chased that second orgasm.
When it hit, it was more violent than the first. My back arched, and his name tore out of my throat loud enough for the whole floor to hear.
I reached for his belt before the trembling even stopped. I wanted him. I needed that solid weight inside me to finish what he started. I went after his slacks with both hands.
Dex caught my wrists.
He hovered over me for a second, his breath uneven, the struggle written plainly across his face. Then he slowly shook his head.
“As bad as I want to right now, we can’t,” he rasped, his voice rough.
He pulled back and stood up, smoothing out his shirt, though the evidence pressing against his slacks said otherwise.
“I need you to shower and get dressed. We got an appointment with my lawyer in forty-five minutes.
"The word lawyer hit like a bucket of ice water.
Everything rushed back in sharp and stinging.
I sat up clutching the robe around me and the self-loathing followed right behind it.
What the hell was I doing?
I hadn’t even been single for twenty-four hours.
I was fresh out of a jail cell and already folding for Dex like I hadn’t spent two years reminding myself exactly who he was.
This was the man who chose another woman over me and got her pregnant.
I knew better than this.I looked at the sheets, then at him, and felt the wall go right back up.
“Whatever,” I muttered, my voice flat.
I grabbed the shopping bags without looking at him and headed for the bathroom.
“Nique,” he called out, his voice low.
I kept walking. I stepped in the bathroom and locked the door behind me.
I turned the shower on as hot as it would go and stood under it scrubbing my skin until it was red.
I was so disgusted with myself for being weak.
For letting him walk in and erase everything I knew about him with one move.
By the time I stepped out I was dressed in what he brought.
A simple black halter maxi dress and black slide sandals from Walmart.
It was exactly what I would have picked for myself, which irritated me even more.
I wasn’t giving him the satisfaction of knowing he did good.
Dex was standing by the window staring out at the river when I came out. I grabbed my dead phone and the new charger he’d left on the nightstand and walked straight past him toward the door.
“Let’s go,” I said, not looking back.
I had a life to fix before I made it any worse.