SINFUL AMBITIONS
I could always tell how a man fucked by how he kissed. The need to take it further would swiftly diminish if he was sloppy. A sloppy kisser birthed a sloppy lover.
He can’t find the hole.
He’s not long enough.
He’s not thick enough.
He’s stiff.
Doesn’t know how to work his hips.
Doesn’t know how to stroke…
Eager and expeditious ?
I didn’t even bother. He was likely unrestrained. Undisciplined. An impatient man would bust faster than a shaken-up can of Coke. Or he might fuck like an energizer bunny. Keep going and going and going, absent regard for my needs. Fissures of pain, deficient pleasure. Physical trauma absolute . Behavior bound to have me limping in the most insipid way.
But the meticulous, unhurried kisser studying my body’s linguistics, the unsanctioned sounds I made, being both gentle and confident—that was him. He caused the butterflies, the breathless sighs, the lusty eyes, the nectar flooding between my thighs.
I’d let him take me home. Let him stuff me with dick. Sing his name in a quartet of me, myself, and two other versions of myself that I didn’t know existed until the discovery of his existence. He’d make me come.
A stampede of butterflies was what I needed.
Not this nigga dawdling his tongue in my mouth as if he didn’t know what to do with it. As if he were awaiting me to take over.
After weeks of making decisions, I was tired of dominating. Of being in control. I needed a man to take control of me. Every thought. Every word. Every decision. Every sense. Willingly, I’d grant the keys to seize dominion over my body.
Stationed at the helm of two businesses year-round kept me operating in masculine energy. Energy I didn’t desire to possess while in the presence of a man. I craved softness and safety wrapped in that governing energy I’d witnessed my brothers and father wield so effortlessly over the years. Readily, I’d let my hair down in the presence of a ruler. Reveal the real me. The delicate me. In safety and vulnerability.
The date I was on had been going well until the nigga’s tongue was misplaced amongst mine. Like a toddler, he stuck his tongue out and entered my mouth, failing to utilize it further. It just… sat there . Futile and ineffectual, it didn’t dance, it didn’t move. It had no groove. Disoriented and embarrassed, I withdrew my organ of speech, quickly retreating from his face.
“What you doin?”
Blunt never settled for an accurate descriptor of my mouth. My tongue was a sword. I spoke my thoughts freely. Armed with poise and grace, I always would, though, in this instance, I found difficulty. How do you politely tell a man he’s an awful kisser ? I wouldn’t. Couldn’t. At this big age, it wasn’t my job to educate him. Swiping the evidence of his presence away from my lips, I wore my disdain on my face.
“Uh—I thought we were kissing.”
He was nervous.
“Do I make you nervous?”
He chuckled. Readjusted his frame, readjusted his yearning surfacing in his pants.
“Nah. What makes you say that?”
Liar. Liar .
I deadpanned. The facial expression forced an expulsion of more words from the man whose pants were undeniably on fire with desire.
“A little.”
I relaxed my shoulders. Softened visibly, I blinked my lashes. Wispy but lengthy, they added to the allure of my appearance.
“Why?” Sweetly, I posed the question. I needed to know the answer as much as my lungs required my next breath.
“You’ve got it all together. What can a man like me offer you?” He asked, unearthing his insecurities.
“You need a construction project?”
My question made him laugh, but comedy was far from my intent. Not in the slightest. The confession that tumbled from his lips was heard before. My ears had grown weary of hearing it. I needed a nigga to be honest with me for once.
Men like him needed their egos stroked. Men like him needed a woman to need them. To cling to them. To be next to nothing without them. To exalt them at her own expense. Men like him competed with women.
I owned a gallery, Vivid, where I sometimes held art shows, although I had a curator on staff to handle the majority of the workload. I also owned Serenity Spa and Wellness Center in Paramour. My pride and joy. The spa had been performing so wonderfully that I was considering opening a second location. Far from a work in progress, I had my shit together. Far from the average woman, I managed several successful businesses and authored hundreds of employees’ paychecks. The only thing I was focused on building was an empire I’d already begun.
A rich bitch.
A bad bitch .
A blessed bitch .
But far from the connotative bitch.
The man sitting inches from me sighed. I was out of his league. He needn’t say it. I could feel it. His uncertainty. His lack of confidence. His resignation was paramount, as was the conclusion of our time together.
“You’re a beautiful, talented, and successful woman, but you might not be the right woman for me.” He shook his head in reflective anguish. “I’ll pay for dinner. I had a great—”
The opulence of my rear was out of the seat before he could utter another word. I shuffled my Chanel handbag onto my shoulder and listened to the sound of my heels as they echoed off the restaurant’s floor. Leaving was never my issue. At a sniff of my presence being unwelcome, I dismissed myself.
Out of the restaurant and toward the valet, I click-clacked. Arms crossed, vicious stance, I waited for my car. From my peripheral, I noted the eventual presence of Jason, the man I was on a date with minutes ago. He avoided my eyes. Angled his body away from me as if we weren’t recently swapping spit.
Whatever .
Humming and buzzing, my phone alerted me of a call. I ignored it as my i8 was brought to the front of the restaurant. Without another glance at Jason or the valet, I was inside my car and burning rubber away from the place where yet another rejection remained.
“You’re a beautiful, talented, and successful woman, but you might not be the right woman for me.”
Gratitude filled me. The breeze of the night’s air thrilled me. Thank you for confirming what I already knew, John—Jason. Whatever .
I chuckled as my wheels came to a halt at the red light of Cherry Highway. Fourteen days of dates and not a single one had been fruitful. Of the twelve men who’d wined and dined me, I wasn’t intimate with a single one. The sex would likely be as lukewarm as they were. Considering I’d been ovulating, I didn’t care to tutor a soul on how to please me. I’d dodged bullets and would settle for the pleasure and vibration of my bullet located in my nightstand.
Delayed but not denied .
The reminder surfaced, preventing me from lingering on the failure of yet another rendezvous. Feelings weren’t hardened toward Jason. He’d saved me wasted time and even more energy. For that, I’d always appreciate his honesty.
It was early. Far too early to be turning in. With the top down on my two-seater, I pandered in all the sensations offered by the evening. The city was flavored with the lust of a dying summer. At 76o, the wind blew through my hair, reminding me that despite disappointment, beauty existed everywhere.
From Cherry Highway, I made a left on Love Boulevard, cruising aimlessly down the strip. Shades on, hair laid, body set, I was on the prowl.
God, I’ve become my brothers .
The thought bullied me as I sought a place to take the sting of rejection from my mind. My wheels slowed to a creep as I approached Sin , the establishment owned by my youngest older brother, Sincere. It was a Thursday. Old-school night. Without a word to the valet, who knew me by name, I exited the car and stalked up to the front of the extensive line wrapping around the building.
“Ms. Miller.”
“Sam,” I nodded to the Polynesian muscle as my heels exploited my presence. I entered the club, absent a pat down or a cover charge. The section I would pay for and the bottle I’d be ordering at my table would suffice for recompense. Had my brother been present, he’d insist that I paid nothing. Paying for my entertainment was the least I could do.
I loved old-school nights at Sin . The men were like characters from a movie scene or a classic romance book. Polite, attentive, chivalrous, funny. I needed that, especially living through the present era.
An era of feminine men with insecurities deeper than the average woman. An era where women were expected to chase and court them. An era of ghosting and an inability to communicate like adults. An era where men weren’t handy and didn’t fix shit around the house. An era of lukewarm attraction and an inability to express feelings openly. A dating scene where words like serious and long-term were punchlines in an endless mockery of real love.
The current dating scene could absolutely and expediently direct itself to the pits of hell.
Flirting, deep conversations, and quality one-on-one time were the types of emotional intimacy my heart craved. These new niggas didn’t know anything about that. Those types of connections wouldn’t likely be found in Sin , but it was something to do aside from going home to turn in for the night like a grandma.
And there was always the prospect that I might find him. The salt and pepper goatee of a man who fucked like a king before a room full of women. Despite the stretch of time since my experience at Genevieve , I was still looking for him. Always looking. Always playing with myself to the memory of him. Shamefully, Sin on old-school nights had become one of my frequent haunts. Always because my freaky ass had been searching for him . The masked man.
With my legs hiked up on the leather lounger and heels kicked from my feet, I scoped the scenery.
A waitress poured a glass of Dom Perignon, and the bottle left behind for self-serving. Music flowed through the speakers of the club until throngs of younger women entered, diluting the mix from sixty percent women and forty percent men to something more like seventy-thirty. Inwardly, I scowled my displeasure.
These hoes discovered my spot.
The vibe transformed into a modern-day speakeasy. Men, I guestimated to be thirty and up, were dressed in their best. Some had just come from the confinement of stuffy offices and tense board rooms, others from the mutual home with their wives who shared the Jack and Jill sink of their master bedrooms.
Single, divorced, married, poly, one foot in a relationship and the other in Sin … Hell, there were so many poisons. I merely needed to make a selection.
The club was bursting at the seams with potential for mischief. Women young enough to be daughters or even granddaughters of the eager, mature suitors littered the space. Everyone lurked in the shadows unfed. Demon time searching for the divine . The men, possibly seeking the thrill of more youthful company or simply companionship, The women in search of their next sugar daddy.
When I wasn’t skimming the scene for the masked man, I was seeking a deviation from the norm. Someone with enough years of meaningless encounters under their belt to have grown bored of it. Someone who understood my plight with the current dating world. Someone mature enough to silence the voices in my head telling me all was lost.
Someone .
He could be anyone. He could be my age. He could be older. He could be younger. I cared not. Far from desperate, mutual connection was what I sought. The wasted energy put forth with men who couldn’t make it past the first date or the first fuck had become immensely tiresome. Feathering over the bass, The Isley Brothers sang “Groove with You,” and my head bobbed in tandem as I tried and failed to suppress a yawn.
Go home, grandma .
Internally, the thought taunted me. Externally, the low, husky bass of a soul nearby did as well.
“You look like it’s past your bedtime.”
My head tilted up to an impressive stature of caramel fine. For days, his limbs stretched. For seconds, my heart two-stepped.
Steady, Serenity .
“I’m just tired of the bullshit,” I admitted considering the way yet another date ended. Those thoughts were swiftly and viciously replaced by the presence before me. Without trying, he owned them. Commanded each and every one.
“So stop entertaining it,” he proffered of my obscure dilemma. “May I?”
The illusion of choice was floated above the music and from his full-pink lips. motioning toward the empty seating area of my section, he made the command known.
“Go ahead.”
Loneliness gravitated to loneliness. I’d found my entertainment for the evening.
“Duke Stepford, the third .” With a half grin that could inspire sin, he held his hand out for me to grasp.
Clean nails, firm grip, perfect level of palm coarseness…
Maybe he didn’t chop wood, but Duke fixed things.
He could chop me with his wood. He could fix me.
Absent shame and brazen, I unraveled his presence. Up and down, my eyes brushed his frame, consuming every inch with high regard. Duke was absolutely stunning, from the dizzying obsidian waves of the medium fade atop his head to the salt and pepper goatee that clung to a chin beset by a chiseled face. His beauty was imposing and exposing. Imploring cinnamon brown rounds bore into me with amusement and curiosity.
That smile.
Those teeth.
That fucking goatee…
He was a marvel and far from gray and ornery. Had it not been for grays peppering his goatee, he could easily pass for a younger man. Maybe he was my masked man.
“How old are you?” Voracious, my appetite was to learn more of the soul who’d joined me. I didn’t give a fuck about his age, to be honest. I wanted to ask him about Genevieve , but he was a stranger. That line of questioning might have been… inappropriate.
“Why does that matter?”
“The inquiring mind is famished,” I admitted. My eyes diminished to slits, granting me a better lens to study the fine-ass specimen. He was dressed in a brown short-sleeved button-down. Ivory slacks hung loose but left an impression of glory between his legs. Matching loafers covered his feet. A Keith and James fedora crowned his head before he removed it. A gold Patek hugged his wrist along with a gold chain around his neck. You would think we’d entered Cuba the way he dressed and clung to the cigar, lacing his fingers.
Paradise .
He looked like paradise.
He looked like the thrill of a ride I’d been searching for all this time.
“See something you like?”
Those brown eyes roved over me, shamelessly penetrating my limbs as the inquiry was presented. His grin prompted my upper teeth to plow into my bottom lip. Panties stained and addlebrained, shame fled. Lust remained.
“Too much,” I confessed.
And I can’t think of anywhere else your face ought to be than between my legs.
With an arched brow, he issued a smirk that made my center defrost. “We should fix that.”
Settled into the space beside me, Duke held his smile like a banner, inviting me to be vacuumed into his world. That eye contact. So magnetic. So intimate. So fascinating that I couldn’t look away. It was powerful. As powerful as the man behind it commanding my thoughts, leading my senses, and ruling my words.
I was a thug to the rest of the world, but for the right man, I’d melt. For the right man, I’d yield. For the right man, I’d transform into a full-blown lover girl.
His warmth faltered, shifting his focus to the rolled tobacco in his hand. With the cigar in one hand and a propane lighter in the other, he paused and fixed me with yet another glare.
“What?” I chuckled. Slid a wisp of hair behind my ear. The man was making my black ass blush. Making my fucking cheeks flush. This was beyond lust. This was a nineties schoolgirl crush.
Left and right, his tilted head shook, adding to the many layers of his sex appeal. “Fucking unreal,” he praised.
Spine erected, I slid back into my mules, crossed my legs, leaned forward, and smacked my lips. “I Believe” by Ray Charles took over where the Isley Brothers left off. As my body instinctively drew closer to the immaculate specimen, I seized the scent of bergamot and vanilla dancing with something ridiculously manly. Something heated and assertive, yet tender.
“…Warm sunsets.”
At the uncertainty dancing in those cinnamon browns, I clarified.
“You smell like warm sunsets, baby.”
That tickled him. Absent hysterics, it was more of a stifled chuckle.
“ Baby ? I’m old enough to be your—”
“—Embarrassingly young daddy or shamelessly fine uncle. Yet you still crawl your ass into this club on a night when you know plenty of women my age or younger seek to quench vulgar appetites.”
“And what are you quenching tonight, gorgeous?”
The pitter-patter in my chest could easily be mistaken for rainfall. Wildly, my lashes fanned my face. Tongue outstretched, I licked my lips and freed a breath. “Boredom.”
“Are you quenched yet?”
“That remains to be seen.”
“I see.”
I wondered what else he saw. Did he see my frustration? My resignation? Did he see I was ready to reject formalities and indulge in furtive fantasies? Up and down, my eyes roved, unabashedly taking in his presence again. From him, I’d never get enough. Far from quenched. I was fucking famished.
“What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Your reason for being here.”
“I’m here on business,” he revealed, taking a puff of the cigar and scrutinizing me with eyes that failed to depart from the art of my frame.
Our ogling transformed into intercourse of the verbal variety. We flirted for what felt like mere minutes, though an hour had passed as we breezed through the get-to-know-you stuff. I learned that Duke had lost his mother to cancer some years back, was single, divorced, forty-two— twelve years my senior , and was a leader in the oil business.
Top dog.
Leader
Commander
Head honcho.
The boss.
Everything about the man was big. Big hands. Big feet. Big dick. Big money. Big, quiet money. Not that haughty and loud new money. Being born into wealth helped me discern its many variations. Duke was of the former.
“Where’s your man?”
“In front of me.”
That made him laugh. Made those flawless pearly whites go on full display.
“What happened to your happily ever after, Duke?”
“You’re forward,” he noted, widening his legs and taking a puff of the cigar. “I like that shit.”
Up and down, his eyes roved. “ Love that shit.” He drove it home.
“How else would I hit my target?”
A waitress brought another round of whatever was in his glass and another bottle of Dom for me. When the order was placed was lost on me. I hadn’t seen Duke call or motion to anyone since being seated.
His wide eyes squinted. Again, the cigar was brought to his lips before he puffed.
“She cheated.”
“ Ouch .”
His pain was felt in those two words. Plain words and plaintive sentiments. A wounded man sat before me, though his level of emotional control was venerable. On the surface, one could never tell. With eyes adept at reading souls, I craved what loomed beneath.
“How’s recovery?” Genuinely concerned, I longed to know the well-being of the handsome stranger. Compassion for others was my superpower.
“I fucked her self-care team.”
Well… shit . Shifting slightly, I adjusted my hair, tossing it over my shoulder.
He was erecting a boundary. Showing his hand. Masking the villain. Keeping the mysterious man at arm’s length. Maybe he was the masked man. An hour of flirting would have never revealed such info. He’d been such a gentleman. For now, his boundaries could be respected. Saying nothing, I pushed no further and instead changed the subject.
“One day, I’m going to leave all this behind. This fake-ass society, the rat race, the capitalism…”
“What’s stopping you?” He asked, fully invested in my thoughts.
“I don’t know. Fear.”
“That’s not real.”
“Fear is very real to the soul experiencing it.”
“Touché. Where would you run off to?” Setting the cigar down in an ashtray nearby, he adjusted in his seat.
“Why do you ask?”
I smiled, sensing the swell of overbearing nerves at how intimate our conversation had dipped. Shifting slightly, he stretched an arm across the back of the sofa and leaned closer.
“So that I know where to find you. I can’t be your man and not know your whereabouts.”
Diving to my lips, his eyes lived there.
“Italy.”
“ Really ? Why Italy?”
“I’ve always dreamt of spending time in Italy or some small French town. Enjoying the stillness. The quietness. The present. Maybe France. Being nude on the French Riviera. Eating grapes while being eaten…”
As I mused, a thumb pressed into the corner of Duke’s mouth. His lids lowered over those intoxicating set of cinnamon-brown eyes. He was intrigued, aroused, impressed, or all of the above.
I wanted to kiss him. To taste him. To please him. But I wasn’t in control of my body. As the duke, he’d have to make the first move. He could have taken it further. Could have exploited my vulnerability. Willingly and wickedly, I’d allow it. He could have pressed for sex. I’d allow it. He could have bent me over and arched my back. I’d allow it.
But he didn’t. That self-control impressed me. A man not governed by his dick could have anything. A man not governed by his dick could have me. A man who could govern. That was Duke.
We entered a discussion of work and expansion of my spa business. Immediately, he began offering suggestions that could benefit the spa’s growth. Where it concerned business, Duke was a wealth of knowledge. His advice, while unsolicited, was both sound and selfless. It would be applied in diligence.
I loved a man who could lead, guide, and direct. I loved a man whom I could both desire and admire. That shit made my pussy wet.
Despite the age difference, he checked all my boxes. He was handsome, successful, and far from intimidated by my achievements. To that extent, Duke was in first place. The dick hadn’t even been sampled, and I was smitten.
“ Serenity Miller . Sister to Supreme Miller,” he grinned.
“I am,” I smiled. “Is that a problem?”
Recognition never surprised me. Known in Paramour, I was often described as a socialite despite being so much more. Vivid hosted numerous events where my photo was often taken. The Miller family was also a household name in the city. We did a lot for our people. Giving back in the form of jobs and charity work was the norm.
“A problem with regard to what?” He smirked. That devilish smirk besmirched what was left of my panties.
“Do I intimidate you?”
It was the second time that evening I’d asked the question.
Duke toked his cigar, his eyes never leaving mine. Only after clearing his lungs of smoke did he respond. “I don’t fear a soul walking this earth. Not you. Not your brother or anyone else connected to you.”
“You said that like it’s a Wheel of Fortune fact, boo.”
“It may as well be. Lock that in your pretty head for safekeeping. And don’t call me boo . Save that lingo for your homegirls, gorgeous.”
Swiftly, he issued the reproach. I took no offense, finding his sternness wildly attractive. The remainder of my existence was prepared to dissolve at his command.
If he can tell me what to do, then he’ll tell me what to do .
Raking through that beard of pepper with flecks of salt, he shrugged. “Pre and I go way back.”
His attention turned to the device retrieved from his pocket. After a few taps and several swipes, he handed me his phone, revealing a photo of him and my eldest brother in more youthful years. Way back was an understatement. Those niggas were boys . Seeing Supreme and Duke in such a carefree, unserious manner warmed the surface area of my chest. Without thinking, I swiped left, seeking to find another image of the pair.
What I located forced my poker face into immediate effect. Stripped down to nothing, Duke’s naked body was striking. Toned abs, envious quads, biceps, and triceps worthy of worship filled the frame. His manicured groin caught my attention, followed by his flawless chest.
In the video, he ravished a woman equally beautiful. She was spread wide, hands to ankles open for him as he dug inside her depths. I watched the brief video until its conclusion. He removed himself from her center, revealing the density of the third limb between his legs. It forced me to clench my thighs.
Teleporting, my mind raced back to that night at Genevieve . That undeniable need. The subtle bend of his knees. That hunger. That repetitive plow and plunder. Duke was him. The masked man . He had to be. The memory of that body, paired with the video confirmation, sent tingles and sprinkles of tiny pimples through me. Gasping, I swiped right toward the picture of him and Supreme, pushing his phone back into waiting hands.
Shit .
“You all were so young,” I flushed, taxing my body to grab ahold of myself.
My legs tattled on me as the left—still crossed over the right—bounced incessantly. Heated, my body was. Readily, lust secreted between my thighs. I was ready for him to take me home and bend me over to alleviate the tension I housed. Duke had fucked all sense from that woman. I was ready for him to fuck all sense from me.
Hands to ankles.
Jealousy and need were relatives showing immense resemblance in a cyclone of thoughts. Whoever the woman was, she was a lucky girl. Lucky fucking girl .
Every semblance of peace I held transformed into carnal desire, causing what appeared to be restless stimulation. I failed to miss the way he watched my fidgety leg.
“What’s constricted your nerves, gorgeous?”
You. It’s you . I wanted to say it, but the words failed to surface.
In an instant, my foot stopped moving.
“Don’t stop on my behalf.”
“I’m starving , Duke.”
Eye contact was far more intimate than words. He studied me. Held me in captivity with the warmth and curiosity of bottomless eyes. Eyes that said, liar . Eyes that yapped millions of words, though he hadn’t uttered a single one audibly.
“Why didn’t you say something earlier? We could have ordered something. Wait —don’t tell me you’re one of those women afraid to eat in front of a man.”
Not that edible food, love . Suppressing the thought, I pursed my lips.
“Tell me something, Duke.”
“ Something .”
I laughed. His eyes dipped lower. He smirked and leaned closer. My right ankle commenced to the incessant rocking beneath my left leg. Thoughts of him on stage at Genevieve encroached on my self-control. My leg was fidgeting again. That fucking leg betraying all sense. All cool. All calm. All composure. Memories that didn’t belong to me revisited a video of a well-lit bedroom with the weight of Duke’s generous dick destroying an unknown woman’s center.
Hands to ankles …
A dismantled decorum. His sex tape. The memory of Genevieve . Together, they’d devastated me. I’d worked hard to project a woman tamed. A woman who had it all. A woman who needed not.
Nothing about Duke screamed tame. From the moment of his arrival, he’d signaled the revival of a lover girl. He craved wild and free yet soft and submissive. It was threaded in his clothing, from the unbuttoned shirt bearing a well-developed chest to the allure of his gentle and playful eyes. Total devastation and elation simultaneously. Those were his motives.
Well-groomed nails on long, tapered fingers seized my restless ankle, stopping the motion.
He knows.
God.
He knows.
He remembers me, too.
I stilled. He stilled. We waited. Him for permission. Me, to see what he was asking.
Fluidly, his hand removed my Loewe mule, and firm fingers dug into the rigid muscles contained in the heel of my foot. Had there been money on the line to do so, I would have failed to inform what was occurring around us. Though startling upon impact, his hands were favored by God. With every motion, he annihilated a week’s worth of keyed-up nerves. Dissolving, my guard withered to bits.
“Pity,” his pink lips freed.
Me?
“The lady pedaling relaxation and ease is tense,” he answered my silent question. While a jab at my lack of composure and not necessarily my spa, it prompted several of my own internal queries.
“You told me you were here on business. What type of business takes place in a club named Sin on a night like this?”
In need of a shift of topics, I motioned to our surroundings, trying to ignore the pressure points he’d awoken in my foot.
“The kind requiring distractions to alleviate financial inhibitions and heavy liquor to loosen the tongue.”
A glance at the timepiece on his wrist altered his countenance. The spell was broken. That magnetism—that need, that Edgar Allen Poe shit? It gathered its belongings, preparing to flee. His energy shifted, welcoming in sadness in his absence.
“The kind which will pull me away from you shortly,” he stated, confirming my suspicions.
Gently, my foot was freed from his grasp and lowered. I mourned the absence of his touch, praying my face didn’t betray me and reveal my feelings. The ones he’s unzipped me of and placed on display without effort. My shoe was replanted in its proper place and slid on from toe to heel. Leaning in, he kissed my neck, lingering for seconds before drawing back. The brief connection was enough to set me ablaze internally.
“You shouldn’t let strange men touch your feet. They may have unhealthy appetites, gorgeous.”
He was far from strange. Armed with the knowledge that he knew Supreme well, the value of our interaction was enhanced tenfold. My brother didn’t fuck with anybody. The men in his circle were just like him. Supreme . Before I knew it—before I’d met him, Duke had been vetted, screened, stamped, and approved.
“I’m not worried about you, Duke.”
“Nothing about me yells worry. I was referring to these…” Left and right, his eyes roamed. “ Niggas in here.”
His eyes flitted to an ambiance of women I imagined looked like me in the arms of men who were nothing like him. They danced to Mokenstef’s “He’s Mine.”
Imposters .
Duke smirked. The satisfaction domiciled on his face revealed he’d driven his point home. The absence of his touch. The yearning. It was his intention. He’d claimed his domain. These cum-colored toes were his.
“Be careful, Duke. I’m not one of these ones. I’m more like one of one.”
“I already told your fine ass I’m not afraid of you.”
“You should be,” I tossed back.
Something about my fire enthused him. He didn’t seek to suppress it, tame it, or claim it. He was impressed.
“You don’t scare me, Serenity. Only a fraud of a man would shy away from you. Your business acumen, your wittiness, your tenacity, your leadership—none of that is off-putting to me. I find it… wildly attractive.”
He made “wildly” sound like a vulgar word. Drawing closer, he prompted that damn two-step in my chest. Inches from my face, his heated, minty breath brushed my face.
“Somewhere deep within that chest cavity—” He pointed, “lives a soul longing to lay her burdens down and be weightless. I see it. Feel it. Can almost taste it and smell it.”
“For a man who hardly knows me, you read me so well.”
“Any man can read if he pays attention to the words clearly inscribed on a woman. You must be accustomed to illiterates,” he chuckled, giving me room to breathe as he attempted to take the sting away from the jab far too aligned with truth.
“You have no idea, Duke.” Recalling my disaster of a date, I shook my head of the regret.
“That fire churning and emulsifying like scorching lava in your chest? Keep that tender, love. Your soft season is coming.”
It was a promise. One that floated between us. I trained my gaze on something else. The Dom Perignon. The bucket of ice on our table. Anything to keep me from melting under Duke’s heat. Anything to keep me from begging him to take me down and spread me out.
The man smelled of toasted vanilla and bergamot under a warm fucking sunset. This was no play-play man. This was a man on Saturn. On big business. On his square. Tirelessly, he worked, owning more zeroes in his bank account than not. Aggravating my attraction to his success, the nigga was sculpted from the firmaments and likely modeled for MLNIN in a past life.
Duke Stepford was impossible not to want and difficult to forget.
“When might I get the pleasure to see you again?”
Ever forward, I made my desire for his presence known. An unseasoned approach, I’d never been one to encroach upon a man’s time. Far from default, it was by design. I wasn’t myself in his presence. There was a different aura about me. Something sweeter in my essence. Between my thighs, a tumescence. I was a lover girl. He’d unearthed me, and I was thirsty. But not for anyone.
For him.
“ Pleasure ?” His brow spiked as if opening the floor to an invitation of it.
“It was,” I smiled and blinked slowly and seductively.
“What does your weekend look like?” He probed.
“Work.”
“What does the following weekend look like?” Again, he attempted to unearth a morsel of my leisure time. The yearning was burdening him as much as it was me.
“ Work .”
My shoulders fell, as did my face. Work had been placed on hold over the past week to entertain a host of fruitless dates. It was time for me to get back to business. My bag wouldn’t wait for Duke. This was a novel case of bad timing.
“Don’t force it,” he advised, noting my hesitation. Fluidly, he reached into his pocket and extracted a business card with several numbers.
“Maybe your end of the month will be more inviting . Don’t make this card decoration, Serenity.”
Hastily, I summoned my mental calendar, recalling what my end of month looked like. He was in my head, requesting it, attesting to his power. Controlling my thoughts. Commanding me. Demanding I make time to be free.
Hurriedly, I scurried over the mental date, noting my calendar’s unavailability. It was filled with more business I couldn’t dismiss.
“There’s an investor’s conference.”
One I couldn’t afford to miss for what I wanted to accomplish. Again, more bad timing for the right man. It was pathetic.
Despite the doom and gloom, his eyes bloomed. “The one in the city?”
“The very,” I nodded, already feeling the sting of his absence. Though he hadn’t left yet, this was our farewell from titillating conversation and pleasant flirtation.
“I guess I’ll see you there, Busy Bee.”
A man of patience, he lacked the eager energy men half his caliber exuded. Where his presence would soon depart, an impression would remain. One that had me considering him in an elevated space in my world. A wild thing for someone I’d only just met.
The business between us? Considerably unfinished. The desire to be pursued was greatly diminished. Already, I’d been caught. Willingly tied, tangled, wrangled, roped in his web.
He stood, placing the red-bottomed hat back on his head.
“And Serenity?”
“Hmm?”
Training my lids to the sepia orbs left me in a daze.
“The pleasure was mine, gorgeous.”