Chapter 34
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Dark
Someone bangs on Iris’s front door.
Once. Twice.
There’s a pause, and just when I think the assholes will get a clue that we’re busy and go away, it happens again.
There’s a woman fast asleep in my arms, her head on my chest, and I have no desire to change that. Whoever’s here needs to fuck off. Iris is tired. Just as she should be after three orgasms.
The third round of bangs has me ready to commit murder.
To handle this before they wake Iris up, I roll her onto her side of the bed, tuck the blankets around her, get up, throw on the jeans I left in the pile on the floor, and I pad to the front door to peek out of the hole to see who’s here.
Kali. Cell. Till.
Great.
“We know Dark’s here. His bike is out front, so just open the damn door!” Cell yells.
Snorting at her attitude, I unlock the deadbolt and rip open the door, shirtless, with my pants unbuttoned and my fly down. To get my point across that they can come back later, I take up the entire doorway.
Cell’s cheeks turn tomato red when she inspects my scarred chest and state of undress. “Dark.” Her surprised gasp is the icing on the cake.
Kali, immune to me, rolls her eyes. “We came to see if Iris would like to grab ice cream with us and go shopping.”
Well, fuck.
She’d probably love that.
“Iris is sleeping,” I explain.
“It’s three in the afternoon,” Cell throws out with too much bite.
I stare directly at her and arch a brow in hopes she gets the drift without me having to spell out that I was in bed with her friend, making her come. She definitely doesn’t need to know I got off twice and now have a friction burn on my shaft from all the dry humping.
When Cell makes a strangled noise in her throat, Till laughs and clasps her sister on the shoulder.
Message received.
I focus on Kali, who’s grinning like a madwoman. She reaches into her skirt pocket and pulls out a small, tumbled rose quartz that she hands to me with a wink.
Oh, I know what it’s for. Kali’s been in my life for over two decades.
I’m fluent in Crystal Talk. This one is heart-chakra shit for love and a slew of other things I give zero fucks about.
She brought this on purpose because she knew I’d be here.
Which tracks, given that I’m still crashing in my son’s old room.
Shaking my head, I chuckle at her gift and tuck it into my front pocket. “Come back in twenty. I’ll get her up and see if she’d like a girls’ day.”
Not waiting for a reply, I shut the door on them and head back into the bedroom where I find my woman sprawled out all sexy and delicious on the mattress.
Quietly approaching her side of the bed, I draw the backs of my fingers down Iris’s cheek.
Her eyelids flutter open.
“Sweetheart, Cell, Kali, and Till would like to take you out for ice cream and to do some shopping.”
“They would?” Iris yawns and stretches.
“Yeah. They just came by. I told ‘em to come back in twenty.”
Iris drops her attention from my face to my chest, then to my unbuttoned jeans. “Did you answer the door lookin’ like that?” The edge of her mouth ticks up in a cute little grin.
“Yes.” I chuckle and run a hand down my abs as Iris’s eyes widen.
“Did Cell faint?”
“No. Why?”
Dragging a palm down her face, my woman groans. “You need to look in the mirror.”
I offer her my hand. “How about we both look in the mirror, together, when we shower?”
“Together?” she squeaks, staring at my outstretched palm like it’s diseased.
Taking my hand back, I cross both arms over my chest and laugh at her adorable distress. “Yeah. Together.” That’s what people do. People who’ve seen the other naked and done naked stuff. You shower together. Plus, I’m dying to see her standing, with water gliding over her chest and round ass.
Iris flusters. “I… I’m not sure I’m ready for that.”
“What if I promise to only wash myself?” I offer to be polite.
“You wanted to wash me?”
Is the grass green? Is the sky blue? Do bears shit in the woods?
“Uh. Hell, yeah, sweetheart. Why do you think I suggested it?”
“I…” Iris rubs her forehead. “My brain is mush.” She lifts and drops her leg as if it weighs a ton. “And my limbs feel like noodles.”
I snort. “We made out for fuckin’ ever, and you came a few times.” Should I tell her she has friction burn on her face from my stubble?
“Five,” Iris throws out.
“Five? I thought it was three.”
“You were counting?”
“Of course, I was. Those were your first orgasms with a man. I had to make it good.”
A small, tired smile graces Iris’s lips, and she hums. “Then it was five. Two of them were right after another.”
“Noted.” I nod, feeling ten feet tall.
To do what needs to be done before Iris has a chance to get up and do the most common womanly shit by overthinking what went down, I scoop her up.
On a squeal, Iris tries to wriggle away, but I make it fast.
“Dark.” She gasps in surprise, slapping my shoulder. “This is unnecessary.”
Carrying her from the room, I kiss her cheek. “No. It’s necessary.”
She wrinkles her nose at me. “Ugh. Put me down.” She kicks her legs, and I do put her down, but only once we reach the bathroom, where she turns on me and shoves my chest. It’s more playful than angry.
I cuff the back of my woman’s neck and drag her flush against me. Not asking for permission this time, I take her lips in a rough kiss that leaves us breathless.
Thankfully, it also keeps her from fighting me any further, so when I turn on the shower, undress completely, and step under the spray, Iris takes one look at my half-hard cock and removes what little clothes she has left on and joins me.
I hand her a loofah already sudsed with soap and keep my word.
She washes herself, and I wash myself. Sure, I end up with an erection, but we ignore him.
You can’t blame the guy when we get a solid view of her ass and the pink slit between her curvy thighs.
Or the way the water rushes over her bald head and over her breasts when she steps under the spray to rinse off. I commit every moment to memory.
Once I’m done ogling my woman, I climb out before she does, wrap a towel around my waist, and have one waiting for her when she steps onto the mat.
“Thank you,” she whispers, looking at the tiled floor, not at me.
“Anytime,” I say and mean it.
Not wanting to encroach on her after-shower routine, which, from my experience, is a woman’s self-care time, I gather my dirty clothes and leave her be.
With the towel secured around my waist, I pay my bike a visit, snatch the change of clothes from my saddlebag, and stuff my dirty ones inside to wash later.
By the time I’m done doing what I gotta do, Iris still hasn’t emerged from the bathroom, so I pop a squat on the couch to watch television.
There’s a knock on the door when Cell, Kali, and Till return. This time, I let them in, and the four of us chat in the living room as we wait for my woman to finish.
“What is taking so long?!” Cell hollers loud enough that Iris should be able to hear her in the bathroom, or the alley out back, or the moon. This woman has a set of pipes on her.
Iris doesn’t respond. Not a peep.
Well… fuck.
Maybe I was wrong about the self-care routine, and she’s having a bathroom crisis. Before Cell can stick her nose where it doesn’t belong, I leave them to their conversation about the best ice cream toppings and gently knock on the bathroom door.
“Sweetheart?”
“I’m fine,” Iris croaks.
Iris
The door to the bathroom opens, and the sexiest man in a fresh pair of clothes walks in to find me on the floor, still naked, sobbing like an idiot.
Worry etches the lines around his eyes as Dark drops to the ground and pulls me into his arms, my head on his chest. “What’s wrong?”
That’s it. I don’t know.
Maybe I was worried he was gonna leave again after what happened? He’s had his fair share of women. Sure, he might say all the right stuff, most of the time, but men do that, don’t they? They lie to get into bed with a woman. He called me his. They build you up to tear you down.
When he left the bathroom and I heard the front door, I assumed he had run out again.
By the time the television turned on, I was already on the floor, halfway through this meltdown.
Now that the women are here, I’m not even close to presentable. There’s this… ache in my chest, and if that wasn’t bad enough, my clit is so sensitive. Too sensitive. Washing it turned me on. I’ve never experienced that before. Just as I’ve never used a man to get me off.
That’s what I did.
Used him.
That’s not me. I don’t do that—use people.
Don’t get me wrong. I’ve used men when they’re my marks, but that’s part of the job. That’s what Dark did, too, isn’t it? Use women? Am I one of those destined to have the same outcome? Another notch in Dark’s bedpost. Even if we didn’t have sex, it sure feels like we did in a way.
Dark cuffs his hand around the back of my neck. “Iris. Ya gotta give me somethin’ here.”
I tuck my knees closer to my chest, essentially turning into a ball in his lap. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“Using you.”
“When did you use me?”
“You know what we did. What I did…” I trail off so I don’t have to say it. He knows what went down.
“Yeah, I do, and it was hot. You can’t use someone who consented. I got off, too. Remember? Is that what you’ve been doin’ in here, worrying about what happened?”
“I thought you left again.” I hide my face against his pec, hoping that’ll somehow stop me from feeling this way.
“I didn’t and I won’t.”
Whatever. I don’t believe him, but my saying that doesn’t change anything.
“How am I supposed to have ice cream with your ex-wife after what we did?” I ask instead, my words muffled by his shirt.
Somehow finding what I said funny, Dark’s body vibrates in a low chuckle. “Kali fucks my father.”
Oh. Duh.
“Right,” I half-laugh. “I kinda forgot that part. That must be weird for you.”
“It is, but I deal. So, there’s no reason to be uncomfortable around Kali. Eat ice cream. Go shopping. Braid each other’s hair. Meditate. Or whatever you women folk do. You need to get out and make friends.”