Chapter 46
Justice
Last night, Chevelle, Erika, and I went bar hopping. We’d seen the Venice Beach location late with Erika’s maternal uncle, Edward Dorsey. He’s proven himself to be a reputable businessman. While I suggested researching the bars in the general area, learn their signature drinks and what’s working well, what’s not, Edward took another approach. He said he’d have a team run reports on the foot traffic of the nearby bars for the last ten years. After he left, the three of us had the time of our lives. We knew that the location in Venice Beach was the one. It was early morning when we dragged ourselves out of the last bar.
Last night was a perfect reprieve from a broken heart. Chevelle offered a room in their new home, but she’s already allowing me to live rent-free in Long Beach, so I declined. I’m second-guessing my decision to ride solo tonight, though. The walls are caving in on all sides while I circle through the motions. I emerge from an excruciatingly cold shower. I wrap a purple towel around myself and slink down the hallway to my bedroom in Chevelle’s old home.
At the bedroom door, my hips stop swaying. My hand falls from tussling my freshly shampooed and conditioned kinks. I’d washed my hair after removing my individuals. The braids had a minimal amount of hair growth in the past few weeks, but I’d needed to immerse myself in something, a distraction.
The object of my unrequited affection sits wide legged in a chair next to my bed. Brody runs a hand through the crown of his dark blond hair. When he looks up, a fissure ruptures my mutilated heart all over again. The weight of true sorrow resides in Brody Mackenzie’s eyes.
“How did you get in?” I ask, tone dry while fisting the knot in my towel.
“Easy.” His eyes devour every inch of me.
My knuckles tingle from the grip of keeping the rest of me to myself. He’s already seen straight through me. “Then you need to leave just as easy.”
“Nae.” His subdued tone stirs more than my wayward sex. “Ye said ye wanted to kill me.”
My head cocks. “Why is everything about you, Brody?”
“Nae, not just me, Justice.” His hand slams onto the nightstand with such force that the wooden legs teeter. “This is about us.”
I turn away, teeth chattering. I should’ve gotten dressed in the bathroom. I stalk into the hallway, my narrowed gaze on the front door across from the living room. I’m talking shit under my breath about how there is no us, and he needs to leave regardless of who owns this house.
Brody catches up to me, presses me against the wall. My wrists are bound in his hands and over my head. The towel slips past my breasts, gliding over my ass and into a heap at our feet. Brody’s pained eyes lock onto mine. His bulging muscles plaster to me, and his beautiful, engorged dick burns a hole at my lower stomach.
“Who owns this house don’t matter, Justice. Ye move, I can find ya. I can get in anywhere.”
Throat shut tight, I hardly manage, “I ha-hate you so bad right now.” Let me get over you, Brody. Damn.
“Ye have to stop hating me, lass.” The low rumble in his deep voice becomes a salve to every tear I’ve ever shed. More than lust clouds my judgment now as my mouth draws open for his tongue to dip inside. Brody grips my hair. His abdomen vibrates against me in a growl of approval. His mouth mops over my neck, descending to my breasts, nipping and biting. Every inhalation is saturated with the heady scent of him as I pant, tugging him close.
There’s moaning. Feminine moaning. After a few quivering, delicious seconds, the neurons in my brain are restored. Brody has stopped dominating my wrists seconds ago; however, they stay in place. I fight my body’s innate response to belong to him. To be the toy that bends to his will and gets tossed into a treasure chest of other collectible things he no longer plays with. My hands come down into his hair, fisting the thick, dark blond strands and pulling him away from my sex.
“Stop it, Brody. Stop!”
“Nae.” His exhale is hot, skirting across my clit and walls. My pussy muscles clench as if powerful enough to suck his tongue straight through my throbbing slit.
“No. No!” I push away.
Brody jumps up. “Listen, Jus—”
“I was always the fat girl. I’m also a Black woman. That’s a bad combination, statistically speaking for being chosen first, huh?”
Agony flashes across his face. “If ye would lis—”
“I’m listening—to me—Brody. I should’ve remembered how to love me when Lance was alive. I remember now. I’m a child of God, no second-choice material here.”
“Ye’re not my fecking second choice, Justice. When you were in Boston—”
“Lance cheated. Literally. In my face.” I blurt it out. My breathing becomes a sharp, astonished pant. “Multiple fucking times, in my face. Groupies in the dressing room. Oh, let me tell you,” I pause to sigh, “he had this stupid music video production.”
Brody forks a hand through his hair. I anticipate being cut off or that his irresistible hold on my body will subdue my chattering mess. Instead, he just stands there, listening to me bleeding myself bare.
“The song was deplorable. The music video—asinine—a parody. Lance thought he was the shit. The hoes all over him, while the videotape was running, were all over him when it ended. Right in front of me.” My voice breaks, crumbling into a million tiny scraps of raw pain.
“Let me tell you, though. My parents reared me better than the credit I gave myself. I had positive self-esteem before he had wild dreams.” I shove a hand through my hair. I still harbor feelings of guilt for suggesting to Chevelle that she shouldn’t love her childhood best friend, her damned husband so, so much.