Page 14

14

Ace

All day long, people have been asking me what’s wrong. And I, the man with all the answers, don’t have one to give. I don’t know what’s wrong.

What I do know is that I haven’t been able to concentrate on work. I’ve been getting shit done, but only through sheer force of will. Ain’t no tellin’ if the shit’s done right.

When I’m back in my right mind, I’m gonna have to go back over all of it.

I’m outside my condo right now, sitting in my car, my grip strangling the steering wheel. I’m conscious of my breathing, forcing myself to regulate my shit before my heart pounds right out of my chest.

“This is fucking ridiculous,” I mutter.

I’m Ace Taylor. Lead engineer on one of the biggest projects in the city. People—I’m talking grown ass men with degrees—wait on me to make decisions. I’m the fucking boss. The one in control.

But it don’t mean shit right now.

Because I’m at the mercy of a woman.

My brain is fucking scrambled, bruh. I check my phone again. Nothing. No missed calls. No texts. No notifications. Nothing from Raya. Nothing at all.

Irritation simmers under my skin. It’s been three days. Three entire fucking days. I’ve called. I’ve texted. I even double-texted, something I swore I’d never do. And still, silence.

She has me on a leash, and she ain’t even tugging it. She’s just holding that motherfucker, dangling it in the air, letting me twist myself into knots while she does…whatever the fuck she’s doing.

Well, I know one thing she did. She posted on TikTok yesterday. Some makeup bullshit. Sat up there looking fine as hell like she isn’t single-handedly ruining my fucking life.

I didn’t even watch that shit. I clicked off before I heard her voice. Well, I took a screenshot of her face, but that’s all. And then I looked at it. A few times. But that’s really all.

What the fuck is wrong with me?

I’ve never been this guy. Never. I’ve pursued, but I ain’t never had to chase.

Her fine ass put a spell on me.

That’s the only explanation.

I unlock my phone, checking again to see if she called, disappointed again when I confirm that she didn’t. My thumb hovers over her name in my call log, but I can’t go out like that. Not again. I told myself yesterday that I was gonna let her go. They say to let ghosts stay dead, so why try to resurrect her ass?

I drag a hand down my face, my skin hot with frustration. I need help. I need somebody to talk some sense into me before I pull up on her at—fuck. I don’t know where she lives. I don’t even know where she works. Ain’t no fucking Bradley Academy in the state of Georgia. That’s what I wanted to talk to her about the other day.

See, and that should be enough to knock some sense into my dumb ass, but instead, I’m sitting here spiraling.

Fuck!

I scroll down a few names and hit the call button.

“Yo,” Titus answers.

“I think I’m losing my mind.”

I hear rustling, then a laugh. “Work shit?”

“Nah. The girl.” I can’t even say her name.

“Uh, yeah. We figured.”

I frown hearing that. “Figured what, and who the fuck is ‘we?’”

Titus sighs like this whole conversation is a waste of his time. “You missed the game yesterday. We figured it was cuz you were with her.”

“Fuck.” I shake my head in disbelief, because I wasn’t even with her ass yesterday, I was just pining and shit and missed my boys because of it.

“My bad,” is all I can say.

“It happens. We all saw it coming. You went too deep too fast, bruh.” He pauses, letting an uncomfortable few seconds pass before he says, “I don’t think you built for a woman like that.”

My jaw clenches. “What the fuck does that mean?”

“It means you should have kept that shit light. But no, you let her get in your head, and now you actin’ like a simp.”

“I ain’t no simp.”

“You at home pacing over a bitch who won’t even answer your calls.”

“See, that’s where you wrong,” I say. “I’m in my car.”

Titus bellows out a laugh. “Nigga that’s worse.”

I close my eyes, rolling my neck to release the tension. “Talk some sense into me, man. Give me the real.”

“Listen. I kinda get it, bruh. She’s fine as fuck. Respectfully.”

“It ain’t about that.”

“Well, whatever it’s about, tighten the fuck up,” he says. “Remind yourself that you that nigga.”

Yeah, that ain’t the issue. I know I’m still that nigga. I could be in some new pussy by eight o’clock tonight if I wanted. Easy. But none of them would be her.

What happens when that nigga meets the woman that’s HER ? That’s what I’m dealing with right now.

I can’t admit this to Titus, but Raya is different. She’s literally the most exciting woman I’ve ever messed with, and I’m not just talking about the sex. She makes me feel shit I haven’t felt before. She’s…thrilling. Enchanting. And I don’t ever use those fucking words.

“So leave her alone?”

“What choice do you have? I mean, unless you wanna do some kinda grand gesture. But is she even worth all that?”

I don’t answer.

“You can’t let these hoes think they the prize. You a black man with his own shit. A engineer. Tall. Handsome, pause.”

I laugh at that.

“You need me to keep going, or you gon’ get your shit together?”

“Nah, I hear you.”

“Good. Don’t miss next week, or we’re coming over there as a group to whoop yo ass.”

“Yeah, yeah. I hear you. Thanks, bruh.”

“You got it.”

I hang up feeling not much different than I did before, but I at least have the wherewithal to drag my ass out of my car. I’m at my front door when my phone vibrates.

Raya

1286 Omestan Way. 11 pm. Come to the 1st floor window on the right side of the house.

A chill moves through me.

We’re so back.

Is that where she lives?

It’s 10:15, and I’ve been thinking about this for the last few hours.

While I ate. While I showered. While I watched TV. It’s bothering me.

It’s lowkey hood over there. For a minute, I consider Ubering instead of taking the whip. Some little knucklehead will surely break into my shit the second I take my eye off of it. But do I really wanna be stuck there without transportation for who knows how long? That’s even worse.

Funny that it’s never a question of me going or not. Raya has that effect on me, hate it or love it.

Tighten up.

I keep hearing that echoing through my head.

Titus wasn’t wrong. Not even a little bit. That shit haunts me, because it’s a warning.

Tighten up. Tighten up.

The words are red like a siren, swirling behind my eyes, making the world around me look sinister and threatening.

I don’t know what the fuck I’m walking into. Niggas get set up and robbed all the time out here. But Raya wouldn’t do that. She’s pissed at me, yeah, but not enough to set me up. I don’t even know why that crossed my mind.

But she’s up to something.

And dammit, I wanna know. I can’t think about anything else.

I’m in my car before I can talk myself out of it. GPS tells me I’m twenty-four minutes away. That’s long enough for me to get in my right mind and turn around. Long enough to text her back telling her to take her little electronic subpoena and kick rocks.

But I don’t.

I’m locked in now. I gotta know. At this point, there’s no going back.

Raya’s wasted at whatever school she’s teaching at. Baby girl needs to be in marketing or advertising or some shit. Anticipation is racing through every cell, vein, and artery in my body. I’d pay admission to whatever this shit is.

The neighborhood looks exactly like I imagined—cracked pavement, uneven driveways, overgrown grass and weeds. Some of the houses are decent, some are straight up condemned, and some have bars on the windows, telling me exactly what type shit goes on around here.

What the fuck is she doing living out here?

Maybe the neighborhood was nice once upon a time. Our communities tend to decline after a while for systemic reasons I learned about in Econ class. The houses are brick and look well-built, they’re just in disrepair.

Her street is almost completely dark. More street lights are out than working, and the ones that are on have cloudy bulbs, creating a hazy glow that looks more like a halo than beams.

I creep up against the curb in front of 1286. This shit is a little less raggedy than the other houses on the block, but not by much.

I breathe deep and check my phone to see if she changed her mind, or explained, or even noticed me pulling up.

No messages.

She ain’t making this easy on me.

My eyes dart around me as I slowly open my door. Hot air hugs my face. I swat bugs away and stick one foot out, then the other. I feel like a little bitch being all cautious like this. Nobody’s out here. Nothing but quiet. Eerie quiet.

I close my door as quietly as I can and creep up the cracked driveway, looking to my left and my right. I look back a few times, too, but there’s nobody there. Not even my own shadow.

The house is mostly dark, and deadly silent. The only sound is the distant echo of a siren somewhere in the city and my own heartbeat pounding in my ears.

There it is.

A window.

I walk up on it and stand there, confused and bewildered. Am I supposed to knock? Throw a pebble? Hoist a big ass radio up on my shoulders and blast a Jodeci joint at her window?

I rub my hands on my jeans to dry the sweat off my palms.

The blinds are closed, but there’s a small section at the bottom that looks like it got chewed up by an animal. Just big enough for a desperate man to look through.

Faint light glows behind it, drawing my curious eye. I hesitate for all of two seconds before I inch closer and duck my head, putting my eyes level with the break in the blinds. I know I shouldn’t be doing this, but I don’t know what else to do but exactly what she said.

I look inside.

What the fuck?

It takes me a few seconds to understand what I’m looking at. It’s black silk, and I only know that by the way the candlelight hits it.

Raya is about ten feet away, standing in front of a mirror with her back to me, winding her hair around and clipping it up at the top of her head. She looks cute with that bun, or whatever. The back of her neck is…sexy.

I swallow hard and shift my weight back and forth from one foot to the other.

This shit is weird, but I wait for her to come to the window and let me in. There must be a good reason I can’t come through the front door. She’ll tell me.

The belt drops to the floor.

I frown at this development. The robe goes slack, then falls slowly down her shoulders. Her bare shoulders. She’s naked underneath, looks like. I lick my lips and step closer.

The robe falls to the floor and now I can see her entire naked body from behind. She’s so fucking fine . Goddamn. My mouth falls open.

I exhale sharply through my nose, pressing my palm against the brick wall. The second she bends over, my vision blurs.

This woman is the devil.

You’d think I’d never seen her naked before. That I’d never been inside her. I almost close my eyes and let a flashback claim my attention, but I don’t wanna miss anything.

I swallow hard and squint through the hole in the blinds. I don’t even realize I’m gripping my jeans, my fingers pressed against the throbbing ache between my legs.

I guess this is what she wanted. Got my ass out here playing peeping Tom in the dead of night.

This shit is so wrong.

And I don’t care.

I want her to acknowledge me. Even better if she lets me in. But she doesn’t. She’s moving again, reaching, pulling something from a drawer…

A toy.

My mouth goes dry.

I shouldn’t be doing this. I should leave.

But I won’t.

I can’t.

She turns, and I step back on instinct. Then I remember—she knows I’m here. She planned it. She made sure I had a perfect view.

And then she sits. Facing me. Legs open.

I let out a slow, shuddering breath.

My eyes fall slowly. Inch by inch, they traverse her smooth brown skin, gliding over every curve until they reach her pussy. It’s completely shaved now.

I stare at her pretty lips and suppress a groan when her clit peeks out at me from between them. I’ve never wanted to taste something so bad in my life.

I take a mental picture. This is something I’ll need to recall later tonight when I’m back at home beating my dick like it stole from me.

Because something tells me she ain’t letting my ass inside her house.

It’s all good, though. This is my penance. My thirty pieces of silver.

She holds up the toy.

It’s black. Light glints off the silver ring around the center of it as she lowers the hand that’s holding it. She presses it between her legs, and the low, dirty hum of the vibration wraps around my brain like a vice.

This is insane.

I’ve never been this worked up over a woman in my life. Never let one have me out in the dead of night, standing in the heat, sweating and shaking and needing. Never let one make me feel like a fucking criminal, lurking outside her window, about to beat off like a teenager with no self-control.

But here I am.

My hand slides down my stomach and grips my belt buckle.

She moans when it touches her clit, tilting her head back, rolling her hips against the toy. I bite my lip hard enough to draw blood as my hand wraps around my dick.

I need to be inside. I need to be the one making her sound like that.

But she’s punishing me for a crime I don’t know I committed.

Apparently, I deserve it.

Her lips part. Her eyes flutter open. Her hips still.

She reaches for her phone.

My brows knit together, confusion slicing through the thick haze of lust.

She presses a button. Raises the phone to her ear.

My stomach drops.

“Yes, I need you to send somebody to my house. I think someone’s watching me through my window.”

I freeze, my mind racing trying to figure out what the fuck is wrong with her. Sweat beads across my forehead. My palm is slick, my fingers curled tight around the throbbing weight in my hand.

What the fuck?

“He’s watching me fuck myself.”

A sharp exhale bursts from my lips.

I smile.

She’s fucking with me.

My dick twitches in my hand, desperate for release, aching from the game she’s playing. Fuck, she’s got me by the throat, and she ain’t letting go.

“I know his name, yes,” she says, her voice dripping with mock innocence. “It’s Ace Jackson Taylor.”

She moans as she says it.

I shudder, then I stroke, while somewhere in the back of my mind, I wonder when I told her my middle name.

Her lashes flutter as she spreads her legs wider, her smooth brown thighs glistening under the flickering candlelight.

“What does he look like? Mmm, he’s so fine, Officer. Tall. Handsome face. Muscles. Dick like a horse.” Her hips jerk slightly. “Oh my God, just thinking about him is making my pussy wet.”

I groan, biting my tongue to keep from losing my shit.

I shouldn’t love this as much as I do.

Every fucking second of it.

I stroke myself in time with her movements, my breaths coming faster, harsher. My fingers tighten around the thick shaft, my thumb dragging over the sensitive tip, smearing the wetness there. Every stroke is agony and ecstasy all at once.

“Yes, that’s what I said. Dick like a horse.”

Her lips curve into a wicked smirk, and she cracks her eyes open just enough to stare at the opening in the blinds. Enough to make me believe she’s meeting my gaze.

The direct hit of her attention sends fire through my veins.

I bite the inside of my cheek, stifling a groan as I watch her grind against the vibrator. The way her pussy leaks, the way her stomach quivers, the way her hips jerk with every slow, torturous circle—it’s the filthiest, most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. I pump faster, my body tensing with the build-up, my knees almost buckling from the pleasure.

She drags it up and down her folds before circling back to her clit. Her chest rises and falls in uneven breaths, her body trembling as she pushes herself closer and closer to the edge.

I’m right there with you, baby.

“Yes, Officer. My pussy is so fucking wet…oh, God, I’m cumming…”

My eyes roll back. My whole fucking body’s on fire, my strokes speeding up to a desperate, punishing pace. Each one sends a sharp bolt of pleasure up my spine. The pressure builds, coils, and threatens to snap at any second.

She throws her head back as her lips part around a high-pitched moan. Her face collapses, her thighs tense, her back arches, and her stomach flexes as the first waves of release hit her. The sight alone pushes me over the edge. My body seizes as I spill into my hand, the pleasure so sharp and intense, I almost collapse against the wall.

I stand there panting into the night. My hand is a sticky mess, my jeans are embarrassingly low on my ass, and post-nut clarity is hitting me like a freight train, but I really don’t care. All I can do is watch her as she comes down. Her eyes open slightly, and she’s looking in my direction again as a slow, satisfied smile curls her lips.

She knows what she did.

I stagger back, still drunk on her. My legs are weak as I make my way back to my car, each step a mixture of victory and defeat. I got to experience… that , but at the same time, I’m at her mercy.

And the worst part?

I’d do it again.