Chapter 19 #4
Leaning against the counter across from Bahati, I grabbed an apple from the fruit basket and bit into it.
The pastor had brought home steaks, and of course, he didn’t give a damn about my fitness goals, so I wouldn’t need a meal prep tonight.
Bahati eyed me with lust, some shit she’d been doing even when her arm was dangling on the plane.
It seemed she had one agenda since she’d stepped into my home, and I’d had another.
She needed dick. I needed answers. And she wasn’t getting what she wanted until I had what I needed.
I needed to know how the Rodríguezes knew I had a child before I did.
I needed to know how they knew how to find Bahati.
It could very well be through her father, but dead men couldn’t talk.
I knew because I’d paid a hefty fee for a grave that I stood at periodically, and the corpse buried underneath it didn’t talk back no matter how much I prayed that he would.
As much as Bahati’s father was in the streets, you would think he had friends, but he had no true friends who could tell me anything that I didn’t already know.
The apple crunched between my teeth as its refreshing juice hit my tongue after the bite. I preferred my fruit cold, but apples were one that I could deal with lukewarm.
“How long Shya been asleep? I thought I was gonna catch her before she went down.”
Bahati swirled the mahogany-colored liquid in the glass.
I’d given her free rein of my home, so I expected her to enjoy the wine cabinet.
What I didn’t expect her to do was open a three-thousand-dollar bottle as if we were celebrating.
Little did she know, we had nothing to celebrate after the call I’d just gotten.
“About an hour. Since you’ve been spending mornings with her, she’s been less fussy. Thank you.”
“She’d be a whole lot less fussy if she got outta this fuckin’ house, Bahati.”
“Shio.”
“Bahati,” I replied as I swallowed down the chewed-up apple.
“I don’t know this city. My arm is broken so dealing with her in public will be a hassle. You see how she acts around people… How spoiled she is. And…” She looked off. “I know you said we are safe, but I don’t know, Shio. I don’t feel safe.”
Her East African accent intensified the more she spoke. It did the same thing when she was aroused. It was even deeper than normal because not only was she aroused, but she was tipsy too.
“You’re safe. Both of you are. You can roam this fuckin’ city as much as you want, Bahati. Ion know how many more ways I can assure you that ain’t nobody gone fuck with you.”
I knew Bahati had her reservations, but I was feeling like a fucking broken record.
Every day, I was declaring that she could get out and enjoy the city.
She had a limitless card and a brand-new Range Rover to go do whatever the fuck she wanted.
But I was starting to get the feeling Bahati preferred something else, and her next statement confirmed my internal thoughts.
“I’d rather us go out together, Shio. I’ll feel much better if you’re with us.”
The second bite I took was louder and nearly cleared half the apple. Bahati ran her hand down the length of her braids and clutched her glass tighter as she waited for me to respond.
“If you need some assistance to go out, I can arrange that.”
“Someone from your family?” She perked up.
“Nah.”
“They won’t meet Shya?”
“They will.”
“When?” She sighed as if this conversation was not going the way she wanted.
I shrugged. “When I allow it.”
“Shio…”
“Bahati.”
She sipped her wine, which was a good idea because I didn’t want to hurt her feelings if she got out of pocket. “Are we a secret?”
“Yeah.”
“Wait, what?” She choked on her words and the wine.
“You been a fuckin’ secret for all this time. So, yeah, you a secret.”
“You know why I did that, Shio.”
“I really don’t.” I took another bite of the apple. “I get it, but then I don’t, Bahati, because I know you.”
“Are you mentally well? I thought we had an understanding. I answered all of your questions. I was living my life! I didn’t bother you after you tried to kill me.”
“I’m very mentally stable. But the libra in me… Ion know. Sometimes, while seeking balance, I become imbalanced. I have too many muthafuckas randomly poppin’ up in my life, and miraculously, everybody is connected to the same muthafucka in some way. That tips the scale.”
“I’m not setting you up!” Bahati clenched her jaw as her chest heaved under the robe.
“Shit. I ain’t say you was. Time will tell, though, if you are or aren’t.”
“Shio, don’t do this. I can’t live around you, walking on eggshells.
Either you accept us as innocent in all of this, or you let us go.
I’m not going back to Chicago. I’ve already decided to move across the country or the continent after this.
But I will not let you blame me for what has happened to me. ”
“You mean to you and Shya…”
Crunch.
As I chewed on my fruit, I watched as Bahati’s chest heaved.
She didn’t bother to correct herself or respond because she was too busy watching me eat this apple as if she was imagining it was her pussy.
Her robe came undone and now hung from her shoulders.
I glanced down to see that her nipples were poking through the lace fabric of her bra, and from where I was standing, I could see goosebumps form on her skin.
“Come ’ere, Bahati.”
With her wine glass in hand, she took a step, but I stopped her. “Put the glass down.”
The glass touched the marble countertop with a soft ting. She invaded my space with only a hair separating us. The smell of shea butter was strong, and the way her skin gleamed was an indication that she’d lathered in it.
Good, she hasn’t used Solana’s shit again, I thought as I scanned her pretty face.
“I didn’t bring you here for you to walk around on eggshells.
You’re safe to do what the fuck you wanna do when the fuck you wanna do it.
But me? You ain’t never safe with me. You’re safe in my home.
You’re safe in this city. But I ain’t a safe space for ya, and I mean that in every which way it can be articulated. ”
Bahati gulped, but the scent of her wet pussy that hit me like a tidal wave let me know she wasn’t feeling what the fuck I was saying like I wanted her to. She was aroused by the danger I’d just warned her about if she was playing with me.
“You have shelter. You have wheels. You have an unlimited fuckin’ credit card.
Sitting in this house cookin’ food that I’ll never eat and cleanin’ when I have a damn company that does that shit for me ain’t gone up yo’ ranks.
And I ain’t sayin’ this shit to hurt your feelings, I’m sayin’ this shit to be transparent so you can stop walkin’ around in the skimpiest shit you can buy online. ”
Her lips parted, and with my free hand, I palmed her face and tilted her head back. I didn’t need to run my hand between her legs to know that she was drenched. Her body language and the smell coming from her were enough indication.
“I ain’t good for you, Bahati. And ion think you good for me either.”
Dragging my thumb across her lip, Bahati was damn near hyperventilating.
I could put her out of her misery. I didn’t like seeing a woman horny when I knew I had the tools to satisfy her, but Bahati didn’t do it for me.
Her plump and sticky bottom lip was soft underneath my thumb, and her eyes fluttered constantly like a newborn butterfly, but I wasn’t turned on in the slightest.
“I look good. I fuck good. I eat pussy good. I trick good. I talk good. I walk good.”
She was panting at this point, and her silent plea sounded desperate in my mind.
“But when I’m played with…” I snatched her into my chest. “I torture good. I slice good. I shoot good. I fucking kill good.” Leaning down and placing my lips at her ear, my beard scratched the side of her face. “I fuckin’ bury good.”
Keeping her pressed to my chest, I leaned her head back so that I could get a clear view of her. “I’m poison, Bahati. And not the instant kind. I’m the kind that slowly creeps in your veins, shutting your organs down inch by inch.”
“I… I didn’t do anything. I swear! I’m innocent!”
“You innocent?”
She nodded. “I’m innocent, I swear it to you, Shio. Maybe this all happened for a reason. Now that we are united, maybe we could… We could—”
“What? Be together?”
“No. I… I… I didn’t say that.”
She did, but in true East African fashion, Bahati was stubborn.
Her head was as hard as titanium steel. She’d never ask to be with me, but she’d do shit to ensure that she was.
Just like she’d never ask for dick, even though she’d been walking around this bitch twitching like she had Tourette’s syndrome.
Taking the apple I’d placed on the counter, I placed it to her lip. She bit down, and I released it, leaving it in her mouth.
“Nitakuoa,” I spoke in her native tongue, Swahili. It was the same language that had connected us—the one she’d taught me fluently years ago.
Her eyes expanded as her body tensed as if she was waiting for me to replace the apple with my lips.
“Ikiwa huna hatia kama unavyosema wewe ni katika haya yote, nitakuoa. (If you are as innocent as you say you are in all of this, I will marry you.)”
She moaned, and for the first time since she’d been in my home, my dick hardened.
The problem was I wasn’t sure if I’d gotten hard from the thought of her being guilty and me having probable cause to kill her ass or if my body was finally ready to let her have it.
Not knowing which one triggered it frustrated me more than I already was from that flawed-ass doctor.
“Nitakuoa (I will marry you).
Letting her go, I took a step back. The apple gagging her mouth, her hardened nipples, the smell of wet pussy, and her heaving chest had my dick on brick.
Maybe I am ready to fuck her, I thought but quickly dismissed the notion.