Chapter 34
Emma
M iles cured my cramps and my weeklong dry spell coming home last night. I knew he would come back eventually—he’s staying here—but our relationship took a turn with his confessions.
We are inevitable.
We broke a lot of my rules between him spending the night in my house—a first for anyone—and period sex. He said he never sleeps over, but he could have fooled me with the way he held me against his frame like he didn’t want to lose me. I don’t do cuddling and will always gravitate to the farthest end of someone else’s bed.
That didn’t happen last night. I wanted Miles, every part of him, and couldn’t keep the surprise off my face when I woke up to find him watching me sleep. He stayed, with me and in my bed.
My pussy feels like it took a fastball in one of those batting cages. I fell asleep after our shower and the deep strokes that put me straight to bed. This morning was a different story. I checked Miles’s back for batteries the way he harpooned me. He’s not a one-minute man, but what I’d give to have time to recover from the horsepower between his legs. The towel we put down kept my bed from looking like a crime scene.
Muscles I didn’t know existed ache. I pride myself on setting the pace in the bedroom, but I’m a sore loser with the biggest grin this morning.
Miles would helicopter his dick in my face if I admitted he bested me. My confession is unnecessary given the way I go right to sleep after one of our triathlon fucks, but it’s the principle of the thing.
His phone buzzes for the third time in two minutes with the strength of my strongest vibrator. It’s facedown to conceal whoever keeps calling at six a.m. on a Friday. The phone goes silent before it dances across the nightstand again.
Miles feels around for the device, slapping everything but the phone until he picks it up. “What?” The pillow smothering his face filters the bass in his tone but not the irritation.
“Miles Devonte’ Walker! I know you didn’t answer the phone like that!” comes from the other end of the line before it goes silent.
He sits straight up with wide eyes he rubs. “Shit,” is all Miles says before his phone buzzes again. He hits a button on the screen and gives a tired smile on the video call. “Hey—”
“Don’t hey me! I have half a mind to hop on a plane and see who you think you’re talking to with that what .”
Miles chuckles and scrubs a hand over his face. “Ma, chill. I’m almost forty.”
“Boy, you ain’t too old for me to go upside your head. Keep playing with me, and I’ll stand on a chair to pop you good, with your tall ass. You still in bed?”
Miles scratches his goatee. “It’s six a.m. over here. How are you?”
They update each other about their week. Miles and Terrence’s mothers are gearing up for an eight-day cruise that leaves in a couple of days. It’s cute how they make a tradition out of traveling now that their sons retired them.
I manage to pull on a silk cami from my nightstand drawer and am halfway out the bed before Miles’s mother clears her throat.
“What is that?” she asks.
“Just Emma,” Miles says casually, like us in the same bed is old news.
There’s no way—
“Oh, can I speak to her?”
My eyes mushroom, and I dive under the covers. I flatten myself as much as humanly possible to blend in with the bedding, which is now shaking from Miles’s laughter.
“How does she know?” I whisper to Miles through a crack between the duvet and pillowcase. Miles is in my bed, bare-chested. It doesn’t take a detective to put two and two together. She’s too far away to smell the sex in the air, but my post-coital glow would be a dead giveaway.
His hand reaches under the covers to squeeze me for reassurance, but he ends up stroking my breast. Pervert . “Ma, you can’t put people on blast like that. Ease up.”
I pop my head out from the duvet to glare at him. “How does she know?” I ask again, moving far away from the camera. To his credit, Miles keeps only himself in the frame.
“I’m sorry, baby. You talk about her on almost every call, and I haven’t seen her since Terrence and Justice got married,” she confesses.
“ Ma , chill please,“ Miles groans.
“You talk about me?” I stare up at Miles waiting for him to reveal the punchline of his joke, but it never comes. Is he turning red?
“Sure does!” his mother chimes. “Swore me to secrecy and everything!” She backtracks at Miles’s eye twitching. “Of course, I don’t know the details, baby. That’s between you two. My boy was excited to see you at the retreat and said he’d see you again in California. And that he was staying with you, but that’s it. He’s never spoken to me about a woman, and I’ve heard great things from Robin,” she says about Terrence’s mother. “You two get back to your business. Miles, don’t be a stranger, hear?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he grumbles.
“I’ll call you later. Bye, Emma!”
“Goodbye!” I say.
After he hangs up, Miles stares off into the distance in a trance. He shakes his head, leans over, and kisses my forehead. “Morning, kitten.” He can’t look me in the eye, and I don’t blame him. If my mother told my business like that, you’d never see my face again. He finally peeks at me and rolls his eyes at my grin. “Don’t start.”
“You like me, Miles Devonte’ Walker ?” I mimic the bass in his mother’s voice and shriek when he dives for me.
“You got jokes now?” Miles’s sinister smile deepens as he pulls down the duvet to tickle me. “Don’t talk shit and run!”
My head flails from side to side to avoid bites to my neck. There’s no use fighting Miles or the feelings we have for each other. “You told your mother about me?”
Miles winces, a flush deepening his mocha complexion. “Not like that. We don’t have a weird relationship. I just”—he blows out a breath and steals a glance—“I don’t know, Em. Fuck. I’m not good at this. You’re in my life, and I didn’t want to hide that shit. I mention you in passing, but the moments are adding up.”
I pull him down and seal his lips to mine. He jerks at first but softens, curling me into his chest. Every doubt and fear drains to give way to the passion radiating from my core. An uncontrollable sensation bursts from within, freeing me. Fulfilling me.
His lips touch me like a whisper. “What am I going to do with you?”
“Don’t let go.”
I groan at the sting of my nipple between his fingers and gasp at a flick to the other.
Miles’s dick hardens in my hands, which are wrapped around his length. “Damn, woman. Shiiiiit .” He rises to straddle me and presses my breasts together to slide himself through. I curl my chin and let my tongue swipe his tip. He shudders, but not before he makes the hoo-hoo sound like the animated Pillsbury mascot. He hates it, but I love it.
I sit up, grab his firm ass, and swallow his dick to the back of my throat. It took some deep-breathing exercises, but I got it down—literally. My tongue twirls his crown before it makes long, ice-cream licks up his shaft.
“ Shit , baby.” Miles jerks. “Fuck.” His hips move at a lazy pace until another giggle freezes his movement.
Miles becomes a statue when he’s getting good head, and it doesn’t stop me from bobbing and slobbing for him. I cup his balls, and he damn near sings.
That’s another thing about giving him head: he doesn’t last long—at least, not with me.
I slurp down his release and hollow my cheeks for a hard suck to pull out one last giggle.
“Want eggs?” Miles points to the skillet with the spatula, then swivels back to the stove at my head shake. The muscles in his back flex as he moves between two burners. He’s shirtless in basketball shorts and slides after working out at the gym an hour after we finally got out of bed. The pheromones wafting from his body will attract every animal in heat within a ten-mile radius to scratch and sniff the Michael Jai White body on display.
Having a man cook breakfast isn’t normal for me, but it’s a sight I can get used to. He loads up his plate with eggs, tomatoes, sliced avocado, and turkey bacon and balances it and two coffee mugs as he joins me at my shiplap top dining table. Miles absorbs half of the upholstered banquette Justice and I found at a flea market in Pasadena and places his plate next to my parfait of mangoes and mixed berries.
He bows his head to say grace. Then he says, “What you got going on today?” His forearms dwarf the circular table as he forks his first bite.
“Meetings about a photo shoot in Big Sur next week for our collection,” I say. “Going over mood boards with hair and makeup, pulling looks together to make sure they’ll work on shoot day. Reassessing the budget and finalizing the shot list.”
Miles nods into a sip of coffee. “Okay, boss lady. Work your magic. When do you go up?”
“Wednesday. We’ll do an extra style-out the day before the actual shoot on Friday.”
He nods again and says, “I’ll move some stuff around to make it,” between chews.
I choke on my coffee. “You—what?”
“I go where my lady goes.”
My lady .
It takes a long sip, but I swallow the compulsion to squeal and flip my hair. Get it all the way together. “I don’t want to take you away from work,” I say.
“It’s nothing. Plus, I need more time with my lady. She missed me.”
“Miles—” My breath skips as his thumbs rub circles into my thigh under the table.
He drags me over to him so our knees touch and flips up one of the edges of my silk robe. I’m bare underneath, giving him full access, and he takes advantage with an evil grin.
“I’ll leave her alone for the rest of the week. Next week, though? It’s on.” I bite my lip at his thumb inching up higher. “Sucking on this pussy.” He moves higher. “Stretching out this pussy.” I moan. “I want my baby to sing for me.”
I damn near convulse at the graze against my lips and fight gravity to keep my head from falling back. I’m a mess of nerves, from my period and him teasing the bundle below that’s screaming for more of his attention.
Miles pins me with a teasing smile. “I’ll show you some love too. Until then, it’s me and Bernadette.”
“Bernadette?” My question comes through a snort.
He lifts a shoulder like he’s not about to say something reckless. “Me and my lady are about our Good Times .”
We bust out laughing.
“You are a fool!” I throw a napkin, and he dodges it.
His charm is on full display, along with all of his teeth. Miles licks his thick lips. “I meant what I said, Em. We’re inevitable. I want more time with you in the open, whenever you’re comfortable. I want to try.”
An odd twinge knots my stomach. It tells me to settle back into the facade I’ve perfected over the years. To not let anyone or anything penetrate my armor and wound me.
“I’ve never had a serious relationship, and I don’t want to mess this up,” I confess. “What we have could implode if this goes wrong.”
There it is. All of my cards on the table.
Vulnerability has always been a weakness in my eyes. You expose yourself to unnecessary pain if your guard is down, but the loss of not taking a chance could cost a world of regret.
Miles’s voice breaks through my thoughts. “This is a first for me too, baby. We’re more than the arrangement we have. I know you feel it. It’s okay to be scared. You’re not alone in that. If you want this, we’ll figure out the rest together. Distance. Justice. Terrence. We’ll deal with it as it comes. You and me.”
“You and me,” I repeat.
I take his hand and make the leap.