Chapter 6
MADDIE
“I’m not happy, Mama.”
Crying to my mother wasn’t something I liked to do. She wasn’t the type to hold my hand through my pain. Although I had two amazing sisters, they were much younger than me and didn’t know the first thing about love and heartbreak yet. So, my mother was the only person I could go to.
She turned her nose up, and I already knew I wasn’t going to like her response.
“Well, this is what being fast gets you. You were a bright girl with her whole future ahead of her. Now you stuck with a man like Duval.”
“I’m not stuck, and I’m still bright, Mama. I went and earned my degree like I’ve always wanted to do.”
“You are stuck. Where you gon’ go with those kids of yours? You can’t stay here. And you have a degree that you’ll never use. He’ll never let you.”
Rapidly, I blinked my eyes to rid the moisture and sting from them.
“I’m not asking to stay here.” Leaving the couch where I sat with my mama, I went into the kitchen to pour myself a glass of wine.
My mother could be cold-hearted at times.
Her directness was off-putting, and I wasn’t the slightest bit sure how I didn’t turn out like her.
She followed me into the kitchen and leaned against the counter as she stared at me.
“You don’t even dress the same,” she commented as her gaze dragged up my body. “You look like you’re on your way to night service.”
“What’s wrong with church?”
Sherma was married to a minister, so her comment was strange.
She shrugged a shoulder. “You look a mess,” she said instead. “You’re twenty-eight years old with a master’s degree in finance, and you squandered it all to be a stay-at-home wife.” Disgusted, she shook her head. “Now you standing here pouting because you’re not happy.”
My mother downplaying my feelings left a sour taste in my mouth that the wine couldn’t conceal. I sat the flute down and palmed the island to give myself some time to control the anger boiling up inside me.
“Don’t be mad at me. You chose that life,” she added.
“Mama, can you at least try and understand?”
“Nope. What is my understanding going to do for you? Nothing. The real is that you fucked up. Might as well own it and move on.”
Thing was, I couldn’t move on. My mother never even asked me why I wasn’t happy. If she knew why, she still wouldn’t have cared.
The last time I saw my mother was the day after Duval and DJ’s funeral. At the time, she barely said anything to me and didn’t bother offering her condolences. She wasn’t a fan of the Bells and would never be.
It was hard to believe that the same woman who showed me not an ounce of empathy or sympathy in life was now gushing over Genesis. She didn’t even pay Heir or DJ this much attention.
After confiding in my mother all those years ago, I went back home to hell and never looked back.
I spent most of my days praying for a way out, one that wouldn’t end in me losing my life or my kids.
My father was a man who never played about me but was in his own world heavy in the church.
Between the two of them, I zipped my mouth shut and never spoke of my home troubles again.
She was doting on Genesis as if being sweet to him would make up for the lack of love she showed her own kids. Her being inside my house was dredging up negative feelings, placing a weight on my shoulders.
By nightfall, I was happy my mother retired early.
Heir barely made an appearance unless her grandmother was sleeping.
Her memories of her grandmother weren’t so fawn, and she wasn’t about to fake the funk just to get along.
Dinner Cooley had prepared was awkward with just me and my mama, and the goodnights were stale as hell.
“I’m starting to think you love this patio more than the house.”
Cooley startled me a little. Glancing behind me, I observed him emerging from the shadows.
He’d changed out of the slacks and button down he wore earlier.
The fact that he’d gone home just to end up back here made me blush.
It didn’t make me blush harder than recalling what he said to me earlier.
I wanted to taste his lips so badly now.
“Do you ever sleep?” I asked him to deflect the butterflies taking flight inside my stomach and mind.
Snickering, he joined me on the patio couch and sighed. His large thigh brushed up against mine, and he leaned back to position his arm over the back of me. His closeness sent a shiver down my spine as if his tongue replaced the invisible fingers that tickled me seductively.
“I sleep when you sleep,” he said. “Until ya head is resting on a pillow, I’m up and ready for whatever.”
Something inside me settled. Leaning back, I rested against the couch.
Cooley tucked us close and for a while neither of us said anything.
I recalled the last few weeks and how he was steadily making his presence known inside my house.
I thought it was cute that he thought I didn’t know that over the years, he was the one gifting me and Heir diamonds and flowers.
Once, Duval asked me about the flowers. He wasn’t privy to the diamonds because Heir and I had so much jewelry it was easy to conceal new gifts.
The flowers, though. They were personal and always came with a message: I’m here.
My answer to Duval was that the flowers were from my father.
Duval had a nonexistent relationship with my father, so he never sought out to ensure that my response was factual.
Watching the stars dance in the sky as the clouds played hide and seek with them was the movie Cooley and I watched. There was no dinner amongst us and no late-night drink. It was just us and our thoughts.
“I want you to get to know me, shawty. Outside of me being ya security guard. I need you to see who the fuck I am, so we can be everything I see us being. We’re gon’ start with something simple.”
Although breathing felt like being under water, I asked, “Like what?”
The question barely left my lips before Cooley’s hand closed around my neck. I stopped breathing, and my eyes stretched as he pulled me closer to him. His moisturized lips came close to mine, and I was sure he felt my heart beating out of my throat.
“What’s my fuckin’ name?” he growled against my lips.
The passion in his tone coupled with the look in his eyes heated every blood cell I owned. Having a hand around my neck should’ve been triggering. Instead, I melted from the contact. His lips pecked mine, teasing me.
“What’s my name, gorgeous?”
This kiss lingered a little. Anxious for more, I whispered, “Baltimore.”
His thumb caressed my lips as he groaned. “Good girl, Maddie. From now on, I’m Baltimore. Or Daddy if you wanna call me that. Cooley works for you. Baltimore belongs to you. Yeah?”
“Yeah,” I agreed.
I expected to feel like I was outside of my body once our lips truly connected.
Euphoria was what I expected. What I didn’t expect was to feel utterly and thoroughly consumed by the passion this man held within him.
He kissed me with a fever that nothing would’ve ever been able to cure.
His tongue touched mine, igniting me even more.
I needed this. I wanted this. I had this!
He moved me onto his lap, grabbed my hips, and placed me just right.
I gasped as his lips trailed from my mouth to my chin, then my neck.
I’d never felt this smitten, never felt this treasured.
His hands lingered but were everywhere at the same time.
He settled them on my ass and, just as I moved my hips, his head leaned back on his shoulders.
His dick was hard and—despite the clothes separating us—felt impossibly long. A shower was in my future because the seat of my panties was embarrassingly wet. It had been so long since I experienced an orgasm, yet one was on the horizon, and he wasn’t doing a damn thing except…
Gasping loudly, I jerked in his lap as his fingers skimmed the hem of my pajama shorts, torching the skin on my ass. He slipped his fingers inside my shorts and ever so softly grazed my covered pussy lips. I shuddered hard.
“Thing is, Maddie. I know what to do wit’ you.”
His fingers slipped inside my panties and slowly parted my drenched lips. He tucked his lip between his teeth, and his nose flared. Vision hazy, I couldn’t tell whether his lips were moving or if I imagined it.
“I know how to touch you just right…”
He pried two fingers into my soaking wet tunnel and groaned while I shrieked and panted. The deeper he plunged them, the more I splashed around them. All too quickly, his fingers retreated.
“No,” I begged, but he had other plans. He grabbed my neck again and trained my eyes on him as his tongue slithered out to lick my juices from his fingers.
He opened his mouth wide to devour them for me to see.
Once he’d satisfied himself, he propped me on my knees and plunged his thick fingers back inside me. His thumb massaged my clit just right.
I held on to his shoulders and threw my head back. He growled deeply as my pussy clutched his fingers tightly before a powerful surge ran through me. Mouth agape, I silently cried as my body bowed and gave him her essence.
Baltimore Cooley offered himself to me, and I would’ve been a fool to let anything get in the way of this.
If this simple act could subdue even the tiniest insecurity inside me, then I had to see this through.
He wanted me to get to know him, and I would.
If I looked crazy in the process, then so be it.
I jolted awake with my heart pounding. Searching my room, I found nothing out of place in the slither of daylight peeking through the drapes. Shocked by the time registered on my nightstand clock, I jumped out of bed. I couldn’t believe I’d slept so long.