~~~Chapter 16~~~
Sitting up in the couch, I confusingly scratched my head. I’d just woken up, and it was clearly now the next day, when I hadn’t intended on sleeping on my sectional.
The last thing I remembered was watching Malice hold Khari, while carrying on a full blown conversation with her.
I was laying on my side, rubbing my feet together, truly satisfied with the picture.
My baby had her daddy, and now I no longer had to rehearse the talk I was eventually going to have about his absence.
Nonetheless, while yawning and stretching, my eyes landed on Malice and Khari. He was holding her in the crook of his arm, while he moved around my kitchen, shirtless.
“Let’s see what your mama got in here to eat,” he told Khari as if she fully understood him.
He was sifting through my fridge, before grabbing some eggs, bacon, onions, bell peppers, mushrooms, jalapenos, cheese, and butter.
Curiously, I sat back watching, while he cooked breakfast, with Khari in his arms the entire time. Which was impressive. Because I knew several seasoned fathers who seemingly couldn’t multitask to save their lives.
“Malice, you must have a lot of nieces and nephews,” I assumed.
He glanced at me and nodded. “I got three. One boy, and two girls.”
I arched a brow. “You babysit?”
“Mmm…you can say that. Their mamas would really leave them with Paisley, and I’d help her.”
“Oh. So, she’s real close to your siblings?”
He nodded. “They love her. My mama too.”
“Oh, damn. Then they’ll probably look at me sideways.”
“Nah, cause my three sisters and lil’ brother already called me about it. I laid everything out for them. Told them that you came along while me and Paisley was broken up. Then you even kept your distance once you seen us together.”
“You told them all that?”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “Because I didn’t want no assumptions when it comes to you. You deserve coming around with nothing negative attached.”
I tilted my head. “Coming around?”
“Yeah.” He nodded, while checking on the bacon in the oven. “You gotta meet your family.”
I frowned in confusion. “Don’t you mean Khari’s family?”
He paused and locked eyes with me. “She makes us family. So, you’ll have to meet everybody. Plus, you should wanna know what type of people your baby will be around.”
“True.” I had to agree with that, while scratching my scalp. “Ooh, my hair is dry.”
“Yeah?” He moseyed over to the sectional, and sat awfully close. “You need me to grease it for you?” He questioned, as he reached in and massaged my scalp.
I tittered. “You’re joking, right? Cause what the hell do you know about greasing scalps?”
“I know plenty,” he claimed.
Poking out my bottom lip, I nodded. “Then we shall see.”
An hour later, I was thoroughly fed, my scalp was now properly moisturized, and I was lounging on the couch, with Khari fast asleep on my breasts.
At some point, somebody had called Malice’s phone, so he was actively talking, and had absently placed my feet in his lap. My eyes were rolling into the back of my head, while he was massaging the heel of my foot.
“Nah, nigga, you know me. I’m chilling,” he told whoever he was speaking to.
“I'm with my baby. She’s sleeping on her mama, right now. So, you know she’s in heaven.
Hell, yeah,” he grinned. “And no cap, I got the prettiest lil” girl in the world.
Don’t get me wrong. She got some of my features, but that shit mostly comes from her mama.
Yeah. She can probably be in a beauty pageant or some shit.
” He tapped my thigh. “Say, did you ever model when you was a little girl?”
I opened my eyes and giggled. “What made you ask that?”
He licked his lips. “Cause. You…you like extremely pretty. Like I know your mama used to get stopped everywhere she took you, because people was gushing over you and shit.”
I laughed. “I mean, according to her, people acted like that with all her kids. So, I wasn’t special.”
“Yeah, Ion know about that.”
I hooded my eyes. “Know about what?”
“About you not being special.”
Look, I considered myself a confident girl, but that nigga had me blushing, right then. Suddenly, I was also reminded of why I’d been so smitten with him from the start.
***
Rolling over in bed, I could smell the aroma of bacon wafting through the air. Glancing to my left, I realized that Khari was no longer lying next to me. Malice had obviously gotten up, and taken her with him, which was no longer surprising, at this point.
It had been a week since Malice had gotten those DNA results, before walking through my door. And he’d been camped out at my house ever sense. Sure, he’d get up and go handle whatever it was that he had to do, but rain, sleet, or snow, he’d end his night with us.
Of course, this was all new to me, but had been easy to adjust to.
Being around Malice was a different pace for me.
He was typically an early riser, and routinely cooked breakfast every morning.
Hell, he’d also cook dinner for us. He was super tidy to be a man, and would wash dishes, before it would even cross my mind to do so.
Surprisingly, he spent a lot of time with Khari, which I didn’t expect, given his occupation or whatnot. I thought that hustling was demanding, but that didn’t seem to be the case for Malice. He’d leave for a few hours, here and there, but was never gone for more than like five-hour stretches.
On my end? I think that I was still in my observation faze, wanting to see what was what.
So, I hadn’t hopped up to go brunching with my girls, and my mama was fussing, because I hadn’t been to the house.
I had never fully left Khari alone with Malice, and I wasn’t quite ready to do so, even with Ms. Shelia coming in to do her part.
Overall, I just wanted to know who I was dealing with, and didn’t want to move too hastily, until I knew everything there was to know. Malice was undoubtedly still an unfinished puzzle to me, but I had pieced enough together to see that I liked it here.
I felt like me and Malice were on the same page.
We both acknowledged that there was still…
a spark there…and perhaps what we were doing was going beyond what co-parenting was supposed to look like.
We knew that under ordinary circumstances, two people who weren’t together had no business sharing a bed.
Still, Malice would fall asleep in my bed nightly, and I’d let him.
After going back and forth to his mama’s to grab some clothes, he’d eventually just brought his duffle bag here, and it was now taking up space in one of my closets.
Still, make no mistake. I realized that he hadn’t made any permanent moves.
He was shuffling around clothes from house to house but hadn’t officially moved out of the home he shared with Paisley.
From what he’d told me, he also had three other vehicles, back at that house, along with a few toys, like four-wheelers and dirt bikes.
There was no telling what else he still had at the house with Paisley, which told me that he was basically playing things by ear. Maybe the option of going back home was still on the table, and I didn’t find the unknown alluring. It was really giving me strong reasons to pause.
Now, I was trying to keep my legs closed, until I had more clarity, but my hormones were raging, and I was tempted to see if the dick was as good as I remembered it to be. Then I felt like Malice was into mind games, as he would give nightly booty rubs, but hadn’t attempted to fuck.
Hell, I was horny, right then, and quickly decided that I’d grab my rose, and bust a little nut while I was in the tub. So, I rolled out of bed, stripped out of my nightie, and grabbed my rose, when the bedroom door popped open.
Malice stepped into the room, as I was stark naked with a sex toy in hand. “Oh, you finna hop in the shower?” He asked as his eyes traveled down to my hand.
“Yeah,” I responded, feeling fully exposed. Literally and figuratively.
He briefly glanced back, like somebody was gonna come in behind him. “Okay. Ms. Shelia just got here, so she got Khari.” He shut the door behind himself. “You need me to help you with that?”
I frowned. “With what?”
He gestured with his head. “I see you got that rose, right there. So, you gotta be in need…and Ion want my BM going without anything.”
I gave him the side eye. “Even if it’s some dick, huh?”
“Yeah.” He smiled. “Even then.”
My eyes traveled down to the obvious bulge in his basketball shorts.
“Damn.” I licked my lips. “Fuck it. Come on, before I change my mind.”
Lightly chuckling, he followed me into the bathroom, while simultaneously stripping down.
You’d swear that he lived in the gym with all the cuts and definition his lean body possessed.
Abs looked to be made of steel. A little drool slipped from my lips, once he was stark naked, and that heavy dick stood out at least a foot in front of him.
Then before I could do anything, he grabbed my hand, pulling me closer. “Come here. And drop that.” He knocked the rose out of my hand.
Gripping my chin, he nastily dipped his tongue into my mouth. His other hand traveled to my breast and cuffed it. He toyed with my nipple, as he drove me against the counter.
Breaking our kiss, he grabbed my thighs and lifted my ass onto the countertop. As my legs spread, the secretions between my slit could literally be heard. Lowering his head, he flicked his tongue over my pebbled nipple.
“Ummm,” I moaned, as he drew my nipple into his mouth. The way the tip of his tongue twirled while he sucked made my toes curl.
I was squirming with anticipation, as his head traveled lower. I gasped, after he buried his head between my thighs, and flicked his tongue between my split.
“Oh, God,” I wheezed, as he loudly smacked on my pussy.
It wasn’t long before I was rocking my hips, while gripping his dreads. Without a shy bone in my body, I erotically rolled my hips, while grinding my pussy into his mouth.