Bright Like Midnight: Chapter 17

in my arms turned rigid at the flip of a switch. My cock was buried deep inside her, my arms wrapped around her, yet she was already gone. I lifted my head, and hers turned to the side.

“Zadie.”

She sighed. “I’m okay.”

“Zadie.” Fingers curling around her jaw, I turned her to me. “Whatever’s going on in your head, cut that shit out right now. You just gave me a gift. Don’t act like that doesn’t mean something.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You took it.”

Sweet voice, rotten words. Fuck that shit.

“Oh, I took it? Is that how this is going to play out?”

Her lips parted, but before she could speak, the fire in her eyes died out. “No. I don’t know.” She pushed on my shoulders. “Can you get off me? Please?”

“No.” I rocked my hips, still hard as steel in her hot little pussy. I’d need to pull out soon to get rid of the condom, but not before she stopped retreating. “Tell me you gave it to me.”

Her teeth clamped down on her lip. The same teeth that bit me and made me lose my shit. I sure as hell hadn’t planned on ending up in bed with Zadie this morning, much less fucking her as hard as I did for her first time. But the second those teeth touched my skin, I became frenzied for her.

“I gave it to you,” she whispered.

“Regret it already?”

She chewed on her lip for several hideous beats before shaking her head. “No.”

That didn’t satisfy me in the least, but I had to pull out to deal with the condom. Zadie winced as I left her body, curling into herself the second I was no longer on top of her.

Condom tied in a knot, I tossed it on my bedside table and rolled to my side, pulling Zadie into me. She tipped her head back, her brows furrowing as her eyes darted around my face.

I reached down to cup her pussy. “Sore?”

She nodded. “A little.”

I kept my hand there, and she didn’t bat me away. “What the fuck’s going on in your mind? You don’t regret it, but you’re looking at me like I murdered your dog.”

She wet her bottom lip and sucked in a breath. Her hand reached down to settle over mine between her legs. “I don’t regret it if that was you,” she lowered her voice, “fucking your girl. If that was you fucking your pet, then I made a big mistake.”

My mouth twitched at the dirty words coming from her sweet, rosy lips. She made it cute and sexy. I’d have to coax more dirty talk from her so I could hear her whisper it while I took her. Yeah, I was going to have to do that. And soon.

“Told you you were mine, Zadie,” I replied.

“Then you called me pet.” Her lips pursed into a sweet little pout. Oh, my pet was mad at me.

“You are my pet, but that’s not a bad thing.” I touched my lips to hers. “That means I’ll take care of you. I’ll make sure you have everything you need. Means I’ll bite the head off any motherfucker who tries to touch you.”

She shook her head. “I don’t like that. I don’t want to be your pet and change your slutty sheets and—”

I slammed my lips to hers, cutting off her stream of bullshit. This girl had no idea. None. She squirmed, but that was her only form of protest, allowing me to sweep my tongue into her mouth, flicking her tongue against mine.

I rested my forehead on hers. “There is no one else, mama. You’ve got me wrapped up in you. That girl downstairs slept in Marco’s bed last night. She hasn’t been in mine in months, and even when she was, she never spent the night. The perfume on my sheets last weekend was from my shirt. No one was in bed with me. Yeah, I had strippers rubbing up on me, and I let it happen because I was wasted. Won’t happen again. If you’re mine—and you are, I just need the words from you—then we’re gonna be slutting the sheets up together. No one else. I don’t share, and you keep giving me what you just gave me, I won’t even another girl, much less touch one.”

Her nose scrunched. “Oh.”

“Yeah, oh. Now, I need you to talk, because I just laid it all out for you. You have to give me more than ‘oh.’”

She trailed her fingers up my arm to rest on my neck. “I’ll be yours if you’ll be mine. I won’t share either. And smelling that perfume on your sheets…that hurt, and we weren’t together. If that happens again, I won’t stay, even if I want to.”

“I don’t like you threatening me with leaving.”

Her brows rose. “Imagine coming to my bed and finding it smelling like cologne. Imagine it. Tell me you wouldn’t walk away.”

“You really want me imagining something that will make me homicidal? Because that’s what will happen if some asshole finds his way into your bed. I know my pet, my loyal, beautiful pet. You’d never invite someone there when you’re with me. So I find the scent of cologne in your sheets, I’ll know something horrific happened, and I’ll tear apart the world to find the—”

She pressed her fingertips to my lips. “I’m sorry I asked.” Then she giggled. The sound traveled through the little bit of air between us, landing like a stone on my chest.

“Don’t say shit like that to me, mama. I’m not levelheaded when it comes to you.”

“I’ve noticed.” Her cheeks glowed red, and if I wasn’t mistaken, she seemed happy. “I should get dressed. I didn’t make breakfast yet and the boys are probably starving.”

I propped myself on my elbow, tracing the rounded curve of her cheek. “Things have changed. You get that, right? You don’t have to cook and clean, Zadie.”

She bit her bottom lip, eyes drifting to the side. “But…I want to. Not every day, and I’ll skip cleaning, but I do like cooking for you. It makes me happy to do it. Unless you don’t like my cooking…”

Dry laughing at her obvious fish for a compliment, I gave it to her. “Best home cooking I’ve ever had. Marco and Julien would revolt if I told you not to cook for us anymore.”

“Then it’s settled.”

The two of us threw on our clothes, Zadie spent some time in the bathroom, and we headed downstairs. Julien was slumped over the kitchen island, staring into his mug of coffee. Vanessa and Marco were nowhere in sight. Hopefully he’d gotten her out of here. I’d make it clear when we were alone she wasn’t welcome in this house anymore. Marco could get her dank pussy elsewhere.

“Good morning,” Zadie chirped.

Julien’s head shot up. He took in her wrinkled clothes, wild curls, swollen lips, and looked at me, all mellow and light on my feet. One look, and he got it. A slow smile spread across his face. I gave him shit, but Julien was my boy. I didn’t have to say the words for him to know I’d been wanting Zadie for a while now. He didn’t have to say a syllable for me to know he was happy it had finally happened.

“All right, all right. About time.” His smile fell. “Does this mean no more dinners? I don’t think I can survive on dollar ramen anymore. I can’t fucking do it, Zadie.”

She peeked around the open refrigerator door. “Don’t worry your pretty little head for even a second. I’ll still be here.”

Julien grinned at me. “Your girlfriend called me pretty.”

“Yeah.”

Motherfuck, that was a head trip. I met Zadie’s eyes over Julien’s head. They were bright, sparkling, and her cheeks had taken on a permanent blush. “She can compliment you all she wants. It’s you who has to watch that shit. Maybe don’t even make eye contact. Even better, address her as Ms. Night.”

Zadie laughed as she passed me with an armload of veggies and eggs. “If you address me as Ms. Night, I’ll poison your food,” she singsonged.

Julien threw out his arms. “I thought you were saving that for Amir.”

She looked at him over her shoulder. “Who told you I don’t have enough for all three of you?”

Laughing, I pulled up a stool beside Julien and joined him in watching my girl cook. Fuck, she was pretty. It grated on me to see her and Julien having an inside joke, but at the same time, I liked that he liked her. We had both been with enough low-quality women the other couldn’t stand. No fucking need to repeat those mistakes.

My phone vibrated with a text from my brother and reality struck. As much as I wanted to toss Zadie back into bed and lick the pain away from her sweet pussy, I had a job to do. I had money to collect, people to deal with, and Reno to answer to.

I’d give myself an hour of this. My girl, my house, my kitchen. An hour of being the guy who deserved a girl like Zadie. Who got to have lazy Saturdays. Who wasn’t beholden to a power-drunk brother who’d sooner blow up the whole town than rein in his reckless brutality.

I walked into Reno’s warehouse, one of his guys by my side. When I collected money, I took backup, but I never involved Julien or Marco. They were as clean as I could keep them, and they’d stay that way.

Reno wasn’t in his office, but I opened up his safe to drop my weekly deposit. He’d count it later. He trusted me implicitly, but when it came to his money, he didn’t leave room for error. That was the one thing he was on top of. Money was god in his books, and he’d sacrifice anything to get more of it.

Blood was his sacrifice of choice. Not his blood, though.

I found him in a room in the back, the place where he took those who made him unhappy. He was pacing around a bloody man tied to a chair. Reno’s knuckles were cut up, his forehead sweaty. He’d been at this for a while.

When I caught his attention, he grinned. “Yo, man. Your runs go good?”

“Yes. No problems.” I nodded to the man who was too swollen to identify. “What’s up with him?”

Reno flashed a wicked grin and gripped the man’s hair, yanking his head back. “Joshy asked for an extension on his loan. You know I’m a reasonable guy. I allow one extension, which I think is more than generous. Joshy’s on extension number three. Joshy obviously thinks I’m a little bitch. I had to do a little work to relieve him of that notion.”

“Hmmm.” I tucked my hands in my pockets and rocked on my heels. “How much does he owe?”

Reno chuckled. “That’s the funny part. Joshy was down to the last five hundred. He was so close to the finish line, but he had to go fuck it all up.” He bent down, getting in the bloody man’s face. “Not gonna do that again, are you, Joshua?”

Bloody Man grunted in what I assumed was affirmation. I wouldn’t want to get on Reno’s bad side, not because he was so scary, but because he did not give a single fuck. Violence didn’t bother me, but it delighted my brother. He’d barely made it out of high school because he kept getting in fights over the slightest provocation. He’d even punched a teacher, the idiot.

When he finished beating the shit out of Joshua, we went to his office where he counted out the money I’d collected, just as I knew he would.

“How’s it going?” he asked as he put the cash back in his safe. “How are classes?”

“Good. A lot of work.”

He sat down in his chair, shaking his head. “My baby brother, the genius. You’re gonna go straight and make more money than I ever will.”

I turned my hands over in my lap. “That’s the dream. We’ll see.”

He leaned forward, steepling his hands under his chin. “Nah, you will. God didn’t give you that intellect for nothing.”

I narrowed my eyes. “What’s with the flattery?”

That made him rock back in his chair and laugh. “Fuck you very much. I can’t admire my kid brother?”

“I know you. I know you want me to get into pharma. If you’re trying to butter me up, it’s not happening. I can’t take on anything else, and this summer, when I’m interning, I’m going to have to cut back. You support me going legit, then you need to drop the talk of me diversifying my product.”

He turned serious. “I heard you the last time. I’m bringing in Eddie on that front. He has contacts in TJ we’re going to work with.”

I pressed my fingertips to my eyes. “I don’t want to know, all right? Just don’t get yourself killed.”

“How can I when I’m immortal?”

That had me grinning at him. “Is this like the time you convinced me you could fly and fractured your arm in three places?”

Reno’s brain didn’t work the same as other people’s. His sense of danger was pretty much nonexistent. So when I asked him to prove he could fly when I was seven, he took me by the hand, walked me to the nearby park, climbed to the top of a huge tree…and he flew. The asshat was lucky to survive that stunt.

He rolled his eyes. “That tree grew ten feet after I climbed it. The wind changed directions. Someone put lead in my boots. There was kryptonite in someone’s pocket. A witch cursed me.”

I chuckled as he spouted off all the excuses he’d given me when he’d crash-landed with an arm bent the wrong way.

“I don’t give a fuck what anyone says, those were good times,” he said.

Huffing, I let my head fall back. There was a lot of bad in my brother.

. I was under no illusions about who he was as a person. But the asshole had always been a good brother. When he talked about me going legit and being successful, pride seeped through every word. I didn’t know if he really cared about anyone else on earth besides me. I never saw it if he did.

Marco and Julien didn’t get why I stayed. Why I kept working for Reno when the risks weren’t worth it. This was why. Times like these when we were just two brothers who grew up with no one to count on but each other.

“Yeah, we made our own good times,” I replied.

Our parents had been around, but they were pretty indifferent to us. It’d been just me and Reno most of the time. That kind of history was pretty much impossible to turn my back on.

“Are you going out tonight?” he asked.

“Nope.”

“No?” He raised a brow.

“I’ve got my girl.”

He cocked his head. “The pretty thick one? What was her name?”

I nodded. “That one. Zadie.”

“And she’s yours?”

“Yep.” Now this…this, I was proud of. My chest was full of it. “She’s mine. My nights out are going to be different.”

His shoulder shook. “Guess the missus doesn’t like you having girls park their asses on your dick, even if they’re getting paid to do it.”

“Nah. And I’m not interested in anyone else’s ass on my dick. Not when I’ve already got the finest one I’ve ever had in my bed.”

He hummed, swiveling in his chair. “She seemed like a good girl. Does she know what you do?”

“She has an idea.”

As far as I was concerned, Zadie knew enough about this side of my life. She didn’t to know more, nor did she need to.

“Be careful,” he warned.

“I will.”

I’d be very careful with her. I had a lot of ugly in my life, but she was pure beauty, the kind that didn’t belong in my world. But I had her. She was mine. Like Marco and Julien, she was my clean in a lifetime of dirty. There wasn’t much I wouldn’t do to ensure she stayed that way. Not much at all.