Page 5 of This: Blake & Emon
He knew it wasn’t going to be a one-meal situation, but he didn’t want to seem too pressed, especially about a woman who needed someone’s approval to experience life with a man who would change hers. She had to see his weight in gold because it was heavy.
“Yeah, but am I safe with you? I don’t even know how you got shot or if that’s handled or what.”
“My bad, baby. You’re right. It’s all good. You good with me. You can take that to the bank,” he declared knowing he should’ve led with that. She didn’t budge. “Damn you gon’ do me like that?”
“Exactly like that! I don’t know you, and it took you weeks to come back here,” she fussed with pouted lips and folded arms.
He thought it was the cutest thing he had ever seen in his life. “But fuck all that,” he thought, “she been thinking about me.” That confirmation hit him somewhere foreign. And those damn lips of hers did something to him. Right then, watching her pout about missing him, he knew she was going to have his heart and pockets sewn up tight, and he wouldn’t even protest. That was a promise.
He stepped closer, erasing the space he had graciously given her earlier. With no distance between them, he braced one hand above her head on the wall, then reached around her with the other to slide her phone from her back pocket. He swiped up, watching her face, waiting for protest. But she didn’t move, just stood there with her chest rising and falling rapidly, arousal evident in her quickened breath. The air grew thick between them as her breathing turned labored. Emon’s tongue swept across his perfect juicy lips before he smiled down at her. Her exhale was shaky. He didn’t mind the chase for now, but it wouldn’t last long. When he came for something he wanted, he went hard like a rabid dog.And he wanted her.
“I’ll be in touch. Something about hearing no just don’t sit right with me. Plus your body ain’t saying no and I’m inclined to listen to it,” he said, plugging his number into her phone and calling himself. Emon disconnected the call and kissed her temple softly before turning and dropping a few hundred dollars on the couch and heading out.
“Lock this door behind me. I mean it,” he said firmly but gently, his protector instincts already kicking in. He didn’t need another nigga dropping in with a gunshot wound, this was his sanctuary and his only. And he’d hate to have to resort to his old ways about Blake, but he would.
She stood frozen, watching him leave, her skin still tingling where his lips had touched. The man moved like he owned every room he entered, and somehow he’d just claimed space in her mind too. As the door clicked shut behind him and his boys, Blake touched her temple where his kiss still burned.
“What the hell just happened?” she whispered to herself, but deep down she knew - her life had just shifted on its axis, and there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it.
Chapter 4
“Shouldn’t you be home resting?” Blake asked, sitting across from Emon in a booth at Urban Griddle. It was a new breakfast spot in the city, and he loved trying new places to eat and felt blessed that she agreed to let him steal some of her precious time. He was happy that she had put his number to use after two weeks of waiting. He was so turnt up when she texted ‘when?’ that he didn’t care where they went. They could be at Jersey Mikes for all he cared.
Blake had stalled putting his number to use because she wanted him to feel exactly how she felt in her waiting.
He already had. Little did she know. The minute he left her apartment that day, he hadn’t been able to get her out of his mind. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw her gentle hands working with practiced care, blowing softly on his skin to ease the sting. He’d watched her sleep before leaving, memorizing the peace on her face, knowing even then that he’d find his way back to her. But first, he needed time. Time to settle that street business properly. Time to make sure no drama would follow him to her door. Time to prove he was more than whatever assumptions she might have made about him that night. And he felt he had done that.
Emon didn’t have a nine-to-five, and that was obvious to her, but he also wasn’t deep in the streets. He wanted her to know that.
“All healed up, thanks to you, but check it…about how we met. I ain’t no gang banger or criminal. I own my own businesses and shit. You caught me on a bad day. A really bad day.”
“Yeah, wrong apartment.”
“But still kismet,” they said in unison. Emon nodded his head, unsure of how he was feeling. Being around Blake had his stomach doing flips. It had been years since he felt the need to impress someone, but he wanted Blake to understand he’d be the nigga she needed. There was no doubt in his mind about his capabilities.
“If you aren’t in the streets, what was up with that? How does a business owner get shot and need a back alley hospital or whatever you thought you were coming to?”
“Gambling, but it’s handled. I shoot dice here and there; shit gets a little crazy. Niggas hate getting cracked for the rent money,” Emon said with a shrug. The truth was that even though he wasn’t in the streets anymore, he was a street nigga to the core. It was in him, not on him. He didn’t need to shoot, rob, or steal from anyone to make sure people knew not to fuck with him or what belonged to him. He was no stranger to the streets and the code they lived by.
“Sounds like you got a gambling problem,” she noted through slanted eyes.
“You got jokes.”
“Who joking?” she asked, tilting her head and sipping her mimosa. She liked the spot, and despite his recent news, she was enjoying his company and the atmosphere, but she didn’t do men with addictions and obsessions that weren’t her. It was just how it was.
“Hell nah. I’m a hustla and got street nigga tendencies from time to time. I got self control.”
She nodded her head, understanding. “That’s what they all say.”
She wanted something to be wrong with him so bad. She hoped a busted ex popped up with the shit to stop her, but it hadn’t happened. Emon was here to wreck her world in the most gentle, perfect way possible. She could feel it. It was in the way he stared at her, the way he leaned in when she spoke, and the way he sent a text every day until she agreed to come out with him. It didn’t matter if she responded or not. He still sent it.
“Stall me out.”
“Ok, but I don’t have to worry about Baybay and Taytay nem running up in my apartment or grieving you, do I?”
The last part slipped out before she could catch it, and she looked away quickly. She hadn’t meant to reveal that much. Hadn’t meant to admit she was already thinking about losing him before she really had him, but something about treating his wound, about seeing him vulnerable, had her mind going places she wasn’t ready for.
Emon reached over, his fingers gentle but firm as he guided her chin back toward him. His eyes locked with hers, and there was something in them that made her breath catch.
