Chapter 6
six
. . .
Aurora’s mouth grew dry and for a millisecond, she entertained the possibility of what staying entailed.
The thought of Khalif’s hand anywhere other than the safe zones forced her to swallow the desert-like lump in her throat.
That was all she could do because she didn’t want to break his contact with her.
If anything, she wanted more. More would have her in his bed, ending her five years of abstinence.
That fact alone was all the more reason for her to leave before her sense fled and she woke up in a state of regret.
Before she could tell herself to remove her wrist from his large, warm hand, he stood and continued.
“I owe you for the burgers. There’s food here. I can cook.”
“Khalif Wright cooks?” Aurora questioned, one of her perfectly-arched brows rose in question.
He nodded proudly. “Roasted duck, lamb chops. I’m a beast on the grill. My pops comes up here every week to hunt so the fridge and the freezer is stocked.”
Aurora was getting lost in his eyes – in his aura. In the club, she could control the room. Out here, with him, control was fleeting, turning into eddies at her feet and vaporizing into the air.
“You said lamb chops,” she replied. “I haven’t had roasted duck since Sunday dinners ended at my grandparents’ house. But lamb chops sound amazing.”
“Help me with the sides while the lamb chops thaw out? Duck means I get to keep you all night.”
“And lamb chops aren’t going to take all night,” Aurora spoke with a slight laugh. “Are you trying to kidnap me?”
“You came willingly and there’s a cellar full of wine to pass the time.”
Aurora toyed with the idea, knowing she was going to say yes regardless of whether her brain was telling her to leave, go home, mind her business, and return to her uneventful life. “Dinner and then I’m gone. Deal?”
There was a glint in his eyes that verified that she wasn’t going home tonight. She knew it by the simultaneous thump of her heart and the throb at the apex of her thighs. Khalif licked his lips and smirked an assuring smirk.
“Deal.”
The first stop was the cellar with wall-to-wall wine bottles – whites, blushes, reds, and bubblies.
“You just keep the cellar stocked for entertainment purposes?” Aurora asked as she wandered around the space looking for a particular blend.
“I invested in a winery a year after I got into the league; Herman Hills.”
Aurora heard the name just as she found the blend, branded with the elegant HH seal stamped in gold wax. “Do you know who owned Herman Hills?”
Khalif swayed his head. “Mm mm, educate me.”
She turned to him, holding the bottle she had seen her entire childhood at all the parties, the same bottle her grandmother pulled out when she graduated from undergrad and had another on hand for when she passed the bar.
“Johnny Walker Wilson. Herman was his father, my late grandfather. He bought the vineyard in Oakridge, and of course, when everything ended, everything ended.”
“Can I ask you a question?” Khalif asked, with the intention of learning her and the things that came along with her.
“Yeah.”
“Why didn’t anyone try to save any parts of his legacy?”
Aurora shrugged. “My grandparents didn’t know where to start or what to do.
So they laid down and took it. My dad was the first one with some money, and some insight to do anything other than working a good job with insurance.
We had a house because he paid for it in full and put their name on the deed.
Trust me, there’s not a day I don’t ask that question or play it over and over again. ”
“I feel like you’re owed something, though.”
It was Aurora’s turn for her eyes to glint. “Don’t worry, I’m going to get everything owed to me and then some. Until then, there’s this to open and lamb chops to sear. So if you’re going to feed me, you should start before I decide to put a fork in this.”
“Aight, come on,” Khalif chuckled, grabbing two bottles of the red blend as he trailed her to the stairs leading back to the kitchen. “You can cook in that?”
“I’m making sides, you’re doing the real work. I’ll be fine.”
In the kitchen, Aurora and Khalif moved around each other as if they’d been together longer, as if they’d known each other longer.
Perhaps, in another life, their souls knew each other.
Bodies finding a way to brush against the other.
Lingering touches and prolonged glances, both trying to control the uncontrollable.
Aurora finished mixing the salad and moved over to drop the potatoes in the boiling water, attempting not to reach out and touch his muscles and run her fingers down the center of his sculpted back.
She watched as Khalif’s brows knitted as he whipped the marinade vigorously. He was trying to whisk images of her out of his mind. He was trying to play this game by her rules. Feeling her eyes on him, he slightly looked at her.
“Why you lookin’ at me like that?” he asked.
Aurora poured another glass of wine and shrugged. “I don’t get to watch often, always focused on what to do next, what to say next.”
“You’re working me? Again?”
“Again?” Aurora feigned innocence. “No idea what you’re talking about. I’ve never worked you a day in my life.”
“You too damn beautiful to be a liar,” Khalif replied with no restraint. “I’ve told you already.”
Aurora’s entire body was on fire, the only thing that would extinguish it was to get out of his space, out of the reach of his grasp, from beneath his gaze.
Breathlessly, she nodded. “Yeah, you’ve told me.”
Khalif abandoned the marinade, wiped his hands off on the nearby towel, and entered her space. He boxed her in and peered down at her, lust mixed with certainty in his eyes made her feet want to slip from under her. “Stop working me.”
Aurora tucked her lips between her teeth.
“No more control,” he grumbled as he lifted her chin.
Aurora’s last two rules were suspended in the air, ready to disappear. Never go home with a patron, rule broken. Never get in the car with a patron, broken. Never tell a patron your real name, broken. Never sleep with a patron, pending. Never lose your control, pending.
“Control keeps me from making mistakes,” she muttered back, his mouth millimeters from hers. “Keeps me from jumping off into the deep end and making a mess of myself and things. And-”
Khalif cut her words short with a soft peck against her lips.
Slow, but intense and needed. Overdue. The simple kiss intensified to open mouths, tongues accepting swipes over the other, bottom lips being nibbled and sucked.
The space between their bodies erased as Khalif held her into him firmly as if he were trying to fuse them together.
Aurora’s hands gripped his shirt, sense now gone.
“We’re cooking,” she muttered, trying to grab some form of control.
“It can wait.” Khalif moved her from the counter to the island. “This dress, is it special?”
“No, picked it up off the clearance rack,” Aurora muttered as he spun her around. She moaned slightly at the swipe of his hand over her shoulders removing her hair out of his way. He kissed her neck and shoulder before asking.
“Can I touch you, Aurora?”
With ease, she droned, “Yes.”
He palmed her ass through the silky fabric of the dress. “Can I taste you?”
“Yes.”
Khalif effortlessly ripped her dress off of her at the seam and watched the fabric cascade to her feet. Every part of her he wanted to touch the night before was explored by his fingertips.
“You’re beautiful, Aurora,” Khalif shared.
His thick fingers pressed against her lace-covered center before ripping them from her.
With every hiss of her breathing, his dick stiffened.
Sliding his hands into her panties, he studied the way her body reacted to his touch.
He wanted her to melt in his palm. “You know that?”
The euphoria of expectation rendered her speechless.
“Fuck,” he blew, spinning her around and placing her atop the island. Spreading her thighs, he asked again, “You know that right?”
The question was accompanied by the glide of his finger into her taut center.
“Mmm,” Aurora hummed, trying to focus on anything other than what feeling he was provoking over her.
Khalif kissed her again, working her center with precision. “Answer me, Aurora Wilson.”
“Yes,” she slurred. “I’ve been told.”
“But do you know?”
Aurora’s eyes ping pong between his.
He smirked, demanding her eye contact with the squeeze of her clit between his fingers. “Can I make you feel it? Know it?”
“Y-yes,” she whimpered, as he pushed another finger inside, making a mess of her. Aurora watched as he kneeled in front of her and took her center into his mouth. “Ahh shit.”
She took his nectar-covered fingers into her mouth while he drank from her river.
Hungrily licking and sucking, Khalif gripped her thighs and moaned.
She watched, trying to commit all of this to memory to get her through the lonely nights.
While suspended in lust, she knew not to expect forever out of this.
“Uh uh,” he groaned. “Come back to me, stay in this with me.”
His fingers back inside while he continued to devour her like she was the last meal. Just like that, she was back letting herself float away under his touch. Aurora raked her nails over his head and released her cries of pleasure.
“Khalif,” she stammered, feeling her body come apart at the seams. “I’m. Shit. Khalif!”
“Let it go. Give it to me,” he coached, proud he’d found the equation to make her fall apart in his hold. “Come apart.”
Aurora came apart on the counter clawing at the top of his head, her thighs squeezing so tight they threatened to take his head off of his shoulders. He would have let her. Khalif cleaned his plate before kissing back up her body and finding her pouty lips.
Her hands reached into his sweatpants, finding the dick behind the print that had been taunting her. Thick. Long. Heavy. Khalif stepped back slightly so she could pull it out and observe it. Even complexion, slightly darker than the rest of him. Free of blemishes – that was important.
“Is it clean? You’re not going to give me anything I have to go to the doctor for or can’t get rid of?”
Khalif shook his head. “Clean, haven’t slept with her in months. You?”
“It’s been a long time. Clean. I have an IUD, so trapping you isn’t possible,” Aurora shared. “So…make me remember how beautiful I can feel.”