Chapter One
One Year Later
“You are so beautiful.”
I will never get over how good Loyal treats me. It’s like night and day from my ex. Even now, as he kisses down my neck, I am reminded that not all men are the same. Some are way superior.
“I need you,” I whisper into the dark of the night.
“You’ll have me,” he promises.
It sends a shiver down my spine. He never breaks a promise.
He continues to kiss his way down my body, but I stop him.
“As much as I love when you go down on me, we don’t have time. My daughter’s alarm is going to go off in about an hour, so I need you to fuck me and then disappear before she finds you in here with me,” I demand.
He smirks at me. “Anything you want, Mami.”
I keep waiting for him to get tired of my shit, but he doesn’t. He takes what I can give without a second thought.
Like now, he sheaths himself with a condom before pressing into me. My eyes roll back at how full I feel to have him inside of me.
It isn’t sweet. He isn’t whispering that he loves me.
No, it’s raw. Primal even. He fucks me like he has a point to prove.
I don’t know what that point is, but when I orgasm, I swear I see stars.
He wrings every last bit of pleasure from my body, continuing to fuck me until I give him a second orgasm.
It takes everything in me to bite down on my blanket instead of calling his name out.
When he finally comes, he pulls out, taking care of the condom before lying next to me.
“Thank you,” I tell him.
“You know I would do anything for you, right?”
It’s his hushed words that have my heart racing faster than the orgasm did.
“I can’t do this. You know with my daughter that things are hard right now. She is still reeling from the divorce, and I can’t give you more.”
He leans up on his arm. “I’m not asking for more. I only want to be sure you know the lengths I would go for you.”
I snort. “What? You’d kill for me?”
He nods. “In a fucking heartbeat. Without hesitation.”
It should scare me that he is obviously serious about that, but it doesn’t. It makes me feel safe in a way that I have never felt. Like I truly have someone else looking out for me.
I cup his cheek. “I don’t need you to commit a crime for me, but I do need you to head out.”
“I know. I wish I didn’t have to leave you, but I understand. You’ll text me later?”
It’s our routine. For the past year, I text, and he comes. Then he makes me come. I only wish it could be different. I’m addicted to him, though. I can’t let him go, yet I am not quite sure I am ready to let him all the way in.
“I will.”
He leans down, kissing me softly before he gets out of bed. I watch as he dresses quickly before sneaking out my window.
When he’s gone, I get up to shower.
It’s not that he isn’t a total catch. He is gorgeous and sweet. I know he has to have flaws somewhere, but I’m still wearing those rose-colored glasses. It’s easier to wear them when I know that he deserves much better than me. I’m not his endgame.
He is twenty-two. He has his whole life ahead of him while I’m a decade beyond him. He will still be young and chipper when I’m needing my diapers changed at the nursing home.
How could he possibly want me?
Pushing all thoughts of him aside, I finish out my morning routine and head into the kitchen. I start making breakfast when I hear my daughter’s door open.
At seventeen, she is unruly. I know people say the teenage years are the worst, but I never thought my girl would be like that. The divorce didn’t help. She still asks if I’m going to get back with Billy. The answer is always no.
I will never go back to a loveless marriage. To a man who never paid me any attention, and when he did, it was to point out what I did wrong.
I know he wants me back, but it’s not for me. It’s to save face. He can’t stand the fact that he lost the woman he married. Something he viewed as his.
I haven’t been his for a long time. He needs to realize that. As does my daughter.
“Good morning, honey. How did you sleep?”
She yawns. “Fine. I thought I heard something outside my window, though.”
I tense. Loyal walks by her window to get to mine. I better make him take a different route.
“Oh? Did you look?” I ask.
“No. I didn’t hear anything else, so I figured I’d imagined it.”
I frown. “It could have been a burglar.”
I shouldn’t be encouraging her to look when I know it was Loyal, but she needs to have some sort of survival skills.
“It wasn’t. Dad is picking me up after school today. We are going to dinner at that Italian place you like. Will you come?” She sounds so hopeful.
I know this is the moment her attitude will change. It always does.
“Honey, I already told you that I don’t want to have dinner with your father. Or go anywhere with him. We are divorced. I am moving on with my life, and he should be too. We both love you so very much, but we won’t ever be together again.”
I can see the shift in her eyes.
“You wanted the divorce, not him. He isn’t moving on. He still loves you and wants us to be a family, but you hate us that much that you won’t even try. I don’t understand how you can be such a monster.”
She pushes away from the table and rushes out of the room.
I should go after her and tell her that she can’t talk to me that way, but I am exhausted.
Not from my life, but from this conversation.
No matter how many times I try to explain to her that I love her and that I will always be there for her, she refuses to believe it.
My ex has her so convinced that the only way our lives work is if we are together.
I didn’t hate Billy when we divorced. I simply no longer loved him.
I’m starting to learn to hate him now.
I hate that he uses our daughter as a weapon. That he only cares about himself. His selfishness knows no bounds.
Yet, I can’t keep her from him. The courts gave us joint custody.
It’s a catch-22. I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t.
I only hope that one day she can see this situation for what it truly is.
The last year has been both a blessing and a curse.
I finally have Sami to myself. She is all mine, but not in the way I truly want her.
We had a talk early on about seeing other people.
She didn’t want to commit to being my girlfriend, but she also didn’t want to sleep with someone sleeping around.
Which was no issue for me. The moment I laid eyes on her, I knew she was special.
Then I dug into her and saw who she was as a person and realized she was damn near perfect for me.
I don’t care that she’s a decade older than me. I couldn’t care less that her daughter is only a few years younger. I want to be with her, plain and simple.
I just don’t know how to convince her to give us a real shot.
Moving to my window, I watch as her daughter leaves for school. Sometimes she takes the bus, while other times, Sami will drop her off.
They must have had a fight this morning because Farrah is storming down the street like she’s angry. I wish I could go over there and ask Sami what it was about. Be there for her the way a man should be there for the woman he loves.
She’s not ready for that level of commitment, though. I need to be patient. Wait her out.
I have already waited this long. What’s a while longer?
Still, something is going to need to change. I need her like I need my next breath, but some days I think she could forget I exist. How long can I stand this torture?
I wait until I see her get in her car and back out of her drive before I follow her. I keep my distance so she doesn’t know, but I stay close enough to make sure she is safe. Once she is parked at the hospital and I watch her walk into the building, I finally head out and start my day.
The drive to Boudoir doesn’t take me long. I hate how close the seedy part of town is to Sami’s job, but I know she loves being a labor and delivery nurse, so I don’t say a word. Instead, I keep protecting her from afar.
When I enter the club, it’s empty. Not surprising since it’s morning.
“No patrons? You losing all of our money?” I tease Fang as I head over to the booth that is only used by him.
“It’s Tuesday morning. All the slimeballs are at work. Wait until lunch. They will trickle in,” he says as he continues to work on whatever paperwork he has in front of him. “Besides, who are you to judge? Don’t you sneak out of cougars’ windows?”
I slide into the seat across from him. “Shut up. I really regret calling you that night.”
The night in question was one where we were fucking like rabbits until her daughter came home unexpectedly.
I found out the next day she had a fight with her father and left.
It was a whole thing for Sami because the cops ended up coming due to her ex claiming she was interfering with custodial arrangements or some shit.
I was more worried about the fact that Sami pushed me out the window in nothing but my underwear. I only managed to grab my phone as she pushed me out of bed, but my house keys were in my jeans.
It was an embarrassing call to have to make to Fang, but he was the only one I trusted. Sure, I could have broken into my own house, but Dex, our IT guy, has the place wired up so that he would have been notified. I love all my brothers, but Dex isn’t the most discreet. So Fang was my only option.
“I’m fucking with you, man. How is it going with the woman, though?” he asks, not using her name.
I appreciate him remaining discreet. Fang’s my best friend, and I have told him a lot of the shit I have been going through. He’s been my sounding board since this all started.
“I don’t know how much longer I can be her dirty little secret. I don’t want to lose her, but something has to give. I feel like she is using the daughter as an excuse at this point. I know she doesn’t want to upset her, but at what point does she start living her life for herself again?”
Fang sets down his pen and looks at me. “Look, I don’t have kids, so I don’t get it.
I’m with you. Live your life, but when a child is involved, even if that child isn’t quite so young, it is still hard.
You need to make the decision. Is this woman worth it?
If she is, then stick it out. Have a conversation with her and tell her where you see this going and let her decide which path you take to get there.
Or maybe she doesn’t see the same path. In that case, you cut your losses and move on.
You can’t keep living in limbo forever.”
He’s right. I know he’s right, but it doesn’t mean I like hearing it.
“Enough about her. What is going on here?”
He chuckles. “Same old shit. Dirty-ass men getting their rocks off to women who don’t see another way. The occasional bachelor party that thinks that our women are beneath them so they don’t have to follow the rules.”
I smirk at him. “Regretting taking over the club yet?”
He shakes his head. “Not even a little bit. Cami has some great ideas to change things up. We are going to start implementing them. Should see an increase in revenue from it.”
“She’s smart as hell, man. How did you manage to get her?” I tease him.
“No fucking idea, but I am not going to start asking questions now. I try to keep her in a dick coma so she can’t think about it too much.”
I shake my head. “All right, well I have to head to the shop for my shift. I’ll catch you later.”
Leaving him behind, I wonder if I will ever have that. A woman way too good for me, but who loves me despite my faults.
I don’t want just any woman, though.
I want her.
Sami.