Page 9

I’d spent more than thirty minutes cooking breakfast, and this woman had the nerve to not eat it. I’d cooked shrimp and grits with salmon and eggs. I wasn’t a chef or no shit like that, but I at least knew how to keep myself from going hungry. I was trying to do something simple for her but she clearly didn’t give a fuck about my effort.

Sadly, her stubbornness was what turned me on the most about her. I’d known her for less than a week, and she had already tested my patience more than anyone else I knew. I wanted to snatch her ass out of bed and drag her down the stairs, but that’s what she was expecting.

She expected me to be upset and take that anger out on her. I was convinced she wanted me to fuck her up. If it was anyone else, I wouldn’t have hesitated to oblige, but something about Tash made me think before I acted.

The way she challenged everything I said showed me she wasn’t as afraid for her life as she made out the other night. If she was willing to challenge me as much as she had she still had a little fight left in her. It was time I showed her why that wasn’t a good idea.

I knew I should walk away from this thing I felt for her. Burner had made his offer, and I’d accepted it. In less than forty-eight hours, I was supposed to turn her over if I wanted to salvage the world I’d carefully curated for my people, but my heart was telling me doing that would be a mistake. Watching her bend to my will and then do a complete 180 made me want her even more than I already did.

As I laid in the bed with both hands tucked behind my head staring at the ceiling, my lack of sleep made it painfully clear that I was too far gone. I couldn’t have her acting out, at the same time I was trying to decide what the fuck I was going to do. On one hand, it would be easy to snuff the life out of Natasha before eradicating the whole Southside Burners gang, but on the other hand, peace had been long fought for.

I knew they didn’t stand a chance against me in a long war, but the small battles still mattered. I would take loses trying to erase Burner and his crew and that was the only thing keeping my hand steady. I didn’t want to sacrifice a single soul if there was a better way to get things done. Too much shit was going on when I stepped foot outside my house to let Tash rob me of my peace at home.

Pulling my phone from the nightstand, I navigated to the app that controlled everything in my house, including the temperature. I turned it down as far as it could go. Luckily, I preferred the cold. The only reason I’d turned the heater on at all was to make sure she was comfortable. Now, her comfort was something I no longer gave a fuck about.

In less than an hour, I heard her yelling my name from the other room. That tiny ass voice did nothing to move me. If she wanted to speak to me, she would have to get up and come to me. My catering to her had given her the impression that she was in charge.

I tried to close my eyes, but even still, thoughts of her consumed me. Behind closed eyelids, I could see the chill bumps that covered her supple breasts earlier. Her thick thighs that my t-shirt did nothing to hide still lived rent free in my head. No matter what I did, I couldn’t escape her.

It wasn’t long before I heard loud knocks on my bedroom door. She gotta be out of her damn mind to be knocking on my door this time of morning. Did she know what happened in the bedroom of a nigga like me during these hours? Was she truly ready for what would happen if I opened that door?

Since I knew she was probably still wearing only the t-shirt and panties I’d left her in, I hesitated to get out of the bed. The thought of her filling out that damn shirt made my dick harden under the sheets. I imagined her cheeks hanging out the bottom of it.

When the third round of knocks sounded off, I reluctantly threw the sheets back. The distance between my bed and the door seemed to shorten to only two steps because I was tired of her tap dancing on the grace I’d given her. Swinging the door open, I was fully prepared to unleash my wrath, but the sight I was faced with had me rethinking it all. Turning Tash over to the Southside Burners was not only going to be hard, but that shit was looking more impossible by the day. It was only so much a nigga could take before he eventually surrendered to what the fuck it was he wanted.

“Can you please turn the fucking heater back on?” She sassed with her hand on her hip.

Her filthy mouth made me wonder if she could get as nasty as her words. Instead of answering her, I crashed my lips into hers, and to my surprise, she welcomed me. Her body easily melted into mine. I wrapped my arm around her waist to pull her closer as she moaned into my mouth. No more words were exchanged as I picked Tash’s little ass up off her feet and carried her over to my California king.