“What the fuck do you expect me to say? That I’m fine with it? I’m not. Don’t ask me to be. I can’t…” She presses her lips together and blinks rapidly. For a moment, I wish I didn’t know her as well as I know my own hands, my own heart. There’s so much hurt under her fury and I know her too well not to see it.
“I’m just hearing all of this for the first time,” I say. “Just like you. I don’t know what the hell is going on. Don’t know what’s true or—”
“But it could be true. You did sleep with her, right?”
“Once. One time in months, and we’ve lived together for ten years. You can’t actually be angry that I slept with my ex-girlfriend once weeks ago before you and I even started.”
“Not so ex.” She laughs, the sound void of amusement. “This is her home, that’s her bedroom, possibly your baby she’s carrying. Not so fast with the ex.”
“Chaz is literally standing at the door.” I take her hands, holding on when she tries to pull away. “If Aiko is pregnant, it could just as easily be his.”
“This is some Jerry Springer shit,” she says, her breath coming hard. “I don’t need this. If I were a client of mine, I would advise them to walk away and not look back.”
“Is that what you want to do?” I ask, my voice solemn, my heart cracking. “Walk away from me?”
She squeezes her eyes shut, blocks me out. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything right now.”
“You know this.”
I clasp her neck and drag her close, pressing our lips together. She withdraws, but I pursue, needing the tinder of our passion to catch fire, to remind her. It only takes a second. As soon as our lips meet, I hunt for the taste and texture of her tongue and the sweet, slick lining of her mouth. She softens, moans, leans into me, clenching her fingers in my hair, gripping my jaw, prying my mouth open wider. I let her take as much as she wants, touch me how she wants. I run my hands in a tight wave down her back and clutch the swell of her ass.
She feels so good.
She was made for me. She can’t forget that. No matter how bad this cluster fuck with Aiko looks right now, Kimba cannot lose sight of us. With subtle thrusts of my hips into her, I remind her how instantly hard the feel, the scent of her makes me.
The seeking movement is a faint echo of what we shared just hours ago at the lake house. She was mine. I was inside of her where I belonged, and if it wasn’t broad daylight on my front porch, I’d turn her dress up and be there again.
“Shit.” She groans, reaching between us to palm my dick. My teeth clench. I want to lose myself in this, desperately wish I could let her take me out, fall to her knees and suck me off. But Chaz is inside just feet away and my neighbor two houses down just came outside to mow his lawn.
“Baby,” I mumble against her lips. “Come back inside so we can figure this out.”
My words shatter the spell our bodies always work on each other and reality filters back into the haze we made. Bob’s lawnmo
wer fires up. Two moms chatter at the stop sign, pushing strollers. An alert sounds from Kimba’s phone.
She glances down, licking lips swollen and wet from my kisses.
“Lamont’s here.” She stomps down the steps toward the Prius idling in front of my house. “I have to go.”
Chapter Forty-Three
Kimba
“So the publisher is softening some on the legal end,” Keith says. “But exerting your wrath of Kimba Allen pressure would probably help. Are you calling them today?”
I blink a few times, dispelling the mental image of Aiko yesterday standing in their bedroom crowing about having Ezra’s baby.
“What?” I clear my throat and focus on my brother’s frowning face. “Yeah. I’ll do it.”
I look around the office at our family foundation’s headquarters, like it will give me a clue of my next step. “What am I doing?”
“Where is your head?” Kayla demands from behind her desk. “Everything I’ve said to you this morning I’ve had to repeat.”
“I’m sorry.” I lean back in my seat and release a long breath. “Just a lot going on. Yeah. I’ll call the publisher. Piers found the real name of the author. She’s writing the biography under a pseudonym.”
“What’s the name?” Kayla asks.
“Um, lemme see.” I glance at my phone, flicking past Ezra’s name and all the messages he’s sent that have gone unanswered and find Piers’ last message. “Serena Washington.”