Urban Love Prophecy Read online

  The police showed up and took a report along with my statement. They surveyed the mess that was now my apartment and went on mumbling to each other. I chose to tune them out and stay locked in my head where I could avoid the reality of what was happening.

  “Excuse me, miss. We’re finished up here. I recommend you staying elsewhere tonight until the broken window is fixed. Do you have someone you can stay with?” The burly officer said from behind me after what felt like forever.

  “Me,” Kim said and I was grateful for the offer, but I wouldn’t feel safe next door. Not tonight anyway.

  “I’ll call Jeff.” At the dejected look on her face, I continued. “Kim, honey. I can’t stay next door. I’m sorry, but I need to be somewhere else or I’m going to lose my mind.”

  “Okay,” she said quietly.

  I dug my phone out of my purse and dialed Jeff. After a few rings, it went to voicemail, and I cursed. That left the only other person I felt comfortable asking—Jay, and he was in California, which meant he may or may not have a problem taking me in for the night. I looked at the time on my phone before dialing. It was just after ten o’clock there so hopefully I wouldn’t be interrupting anything.

  He answered on the second ring and the sound of his voice made me lose it. Until that moment I had been holding it together. It’s a true testament to how safe he made me feel that I would consider him the safe haven when I needed to break down and show my vulnerability.

  “Jay,” I whimpered and let the floodgates open.

  “What’s the matter, baby.”

  Instead of answering I sobbed into the phone. If I had thought about it, I would have felt like a whiny baby, but I didn’t. I just went with the emotions that were coursing through me at the time.

  “Tori. I need you talk to me. What has you so upset?” Worry was evident in his tone the longer it took me to answer him.

  He continued to try and get answers from me for the next several minutes. Eventually I calmed myself long enough to stutter out, “I was robbed. My apartment is trashed.”

  “Fuck. Did you call the cops? Please tell me you aren’t alone right now.” His voice was alert. Knowing Jay, he was trying to figure out a way to take care of the situation.

  “I’m not alone.” I sniffled and wiped my nose on my sleeve. “Can I stay with you? Well, I mean, at your place?”

  “Of course. I told you earlier, anything you ever need. I’m going to hang up and call Keesha to have her meet you there. She has a key and can give you the alarm code.”

  “Can you have her pick me up first?” I hiccupped from crying so hard.

  “Are you too shaken up to drive?”

  “No. I went out drinking tonight and took a cab home.”

  “Where’s your car, baby?”

  “Downtown, outside Talulah James. It’s a bar.”

  “I know where it is and I don’t want your car left there overnight. Give Keesha the keys when she gets you and she’ll make sure someone brings it to my house for you. Okay?”

  “Okay.” I sniffled again.

  “Okay, I’m going to hang up now. You going to be okay if I do?”

  I nodded and then remembered he couldn’t see me. “Yes.”

  “I’ll talk to you in a bit.”

  “Okay. Thank you, Jay.”

  “Anything, T,” he reminded me.

  I hung up and looked over at Kim. She was biting her lip and looked guilty.

  “What?” I asked.

  “I feel like this is my fault. If I hadn’t unloaded on you earlier, we probably wouldn’t have gone out. And if I hadn’t forced shots on you, we probably wouldn’t have stayed out for so long.”

  “It isn’t your fault. Besides, if I had been home, I might have gotten hurt.” I moved to sit next to her and wrapped her up in my arms. The consoling gesture was more for me than her, but I had a feeling she needed it to. She nodded her assent, but I wasn’t sure she actually believed me. She would eventually.

  “I’m going to miss you,” she said quietly and I gave her a squeeze.

  “I’m going to miss you, too. But it’s only for a night. I have to come back eventually,” I tried to joke.

  Kim shook her head and gave me a small smile. “It won’t be for one night. Trust me. Neither Jeff nor Jay are going to let you stay here after this.”

  I shrugged. She had a point, so it wasn’t worth arguing over. “We’ll still see each other. I love you like a pesky little sister,” I reassured her.

  “I love you, too,” she whispered.

  I stared at my phone on the table and waited for Jay or Keesha to call me back. Replaying the phone call with Jay, I realized how soft and gentle he had been with me when I lost it. It was sweet and made me feel protected to know that he could handle me with care.

  My phone finally rang and I answered it.

  “Girl, I’m on my way. I’m ten minutes out,” Keesha said into the phone when I answered.

  “Thanks. I’ll be here.”

  Now all I could do was wait. Damn, but this sucked.

  * * *

  The bed dipped, and my body froze. When I went to bed, I was the only person in the house. Now I obviously was not.

  “What—” I got out just as a warm hand settled on my hip. Panic closed my throat up, and my body prepared to take flight from my unknown assailant.

  “Shhh… It’s me, T.”

  “Jay?”

  “Yeah, baby.” His weight fully settled on the bed. The length of his body pressing into the back of mine.

  My body relaxed knowing I wasn’t about to be attacked. Jay’s arm snaked under my nightgown, around my middle and over my chest. His hand cupped my breast possessively. This certainly wasn’t what I was expecting.

  “Why are you here? I thought you were in LA?” I asked, attempting and failing to stop my body’s reaction to his thumb rubbing back and forth over my now pebbled nipple.

  “Didn’t like hearing you freaked out about your place. Flew home so you weren’t alone.” His lips ended that statement by grazing the nape of my neck. A full body tremble started as he ran them along my shoulder.

  This was so wrong and yet so very right. We had been dancing around each other for weeks now. Knowing what he looked like naked and felt like as he moved inside me was almost too much at times. I had given myself numerous O’s with visions of him and me in my head.

  What I didn’t get was why he would fly home from California just because my apartment was burglarized. Wasn’t it enough to know that I was staying in his house behind a security system that was so sophisticated that Keesha had to talk me through it three times before I finally got it?

  Up until now, Jay had made it clear that he only wanted sex, but his sweetness laced with an undertone of desperation, had me feeling like this was more. I so badly wanted it to be more.

  His hand left my breast to skirt down my body, cupping me between my legs. I could feel he was already hard as his hips pressed into my ass.

  “Tell me you want this. Tell me you want me, baby. That’s all I’m asking.”

  I bit my lip as he started to stroke me tenderly over my panties. I wanted where this was going so badly. The more time I spent with him the more I wanted him. Something deep within me knew that we needed to be together. If not, there would be no reason why we would have this strong of a connection with each other.

  The future and what it held for us could be worried about in the morning. Right now, I was going to grab life with both hands and take what it was offering. Any subsequent hurt or joy could be experienced when it was meant to. Not everything in life could be planned out, and I was learning that this was one of those things. You just had to see where it took you and enjoy the ride.

  “I want you,” I whispered and tried to beat back the growing vulnerability I experienced at how true that statement was.

  Jay rolled me to my back. His hands gently cupped my face when he leaned in to kiss me gently on the mouth. He took his time showering me the sweetes
t affection I had ever experienced. He pressed kisses to each eyelid, the tip of my nose, my cheeks, my chin, over my neck, and down even further. All the while his hands ran feather light over my body.

  He undressed me slowly, taking his time to savor each new piece of skin he uncovered. His touch was turning me inside out. His kisses were lighting a flame deep within that grew higher and hotter with each passing moment. When his mouth finally closed over a taut nipple, I cried out and arched my back, craving more.

  My legs spread wider when his fingers started rubbing my clit and sank inside me. My hips rose and fell, encouraging the movement. I felt myself sliding headlong into an orgasm, but I didn’t want to come without him. So far, our encounter had been too perfect to not experience our gratification together.

  “Not without you,” I breathed against his mouth.

  Jay moved slightly and grabbed a condom from the top of the nightstand on his side of the bed. I watched as he stripped from his boxers and rolled the condom down his length. Then he came over me and settled between my legs before slowly sliding inside me.

  He stilled when he was fully seated inside me and looked down at my face in the shadows. I couldn’t make out all his features, but I wanted to believe that he was as blown away by how right this felt as I was.

  “Jay,” I whispered, wanting him to move, but at the same time wanting to experience him buried so deep a little longer.

  He slid out slowly and pressed in again. He repeated this over and over. Never once did his eyes leave mine in the dark. His body pressed into mine and with each slow thrust his chest hair scraped my breasts in the most decadent way.

  When my O washed over me, tears leaked from my eyes at the realization that Jay was making love to me. We weren’t fucking. He wasn’t taking from me. No, he was giving to me. It was the most memorable and incredible feeling I had ever experienced in my life. It felt profound and I knew I would never forget a single minute of it.

  Until that moment, I had never truly known sex as being anything other than a physical act. Now I felt that spiritual connection beyond what my body was feeling. It was like a tether that bound us together. It was almost too much to bear knowing that he was in me, connected to me in the most intimate of ways, filling me completely, becoming a part of me.

  His thrusts stayed unhurried, but intensified until he finally planted himself to the root and came, whispering my name.

  I took his weight when he fully collapsed on me and ran my hands up and down his spine. All the while tears continued to run down the side of my face. A true contentedness settled over me. A peaceful bliss even.

  Jay pulled back to look down on me. His hands went to either side of my face, and his thumbs traced over my temples.

  “Why are you crying?”

  “Hormones?” I joked lightly. I wasn’t sure how to put into words what I was feeling and even more so I was scared that he wouldn’t want to hear them.

  “Don’t joke about this, T. My dick is still in you and what we just did was beautiful, baby. You having tears in your eyes makes me think something’s wrong. And if something’s wrong, I want to fix it.” His tone was earnest yet soft and soothing, like this was truly important to him.

  I ran my hand up his spine, around the side of his neck and down his chest to where his heart rest. It beat steady and strong beneath my palm.

  “You’re right.” His body stiffened at my words. “Not about something being wrong, but that what we just did was absolutely beautiful, Jay. No one has ever given me more beauty than that.”

  His body relaxed and an exquisite smile took over his features. He lightly pressed his mouth to mine. “Plenty more where that came from, baby. But first I need to take care of this condom. I’ll be right back.”

  I laid in the bed and listened to him rustling around in the bathroom. Several minutes later he came back and lay beside me, wrapping me in his arms so that my head rested on his chest. My fingers danced across the exposed skin, drawing random patterns there.

  “Thank you for coming home,” I whispered.

  “If you ever need me, all you have to do is ask. Coming back was long overdue.”

  I wondered if he was referring to us or just the fact that he had been gone for nearly a week again. I chose to believe he meant us and snuggled in closer to him. In response, he tightened his arms around me.

  “And the awards show you’re going to miss?” I asked, referring to the BET awards he was scheduled to go to with Nessy and her group.

  “Don’t care. They don’t really need me. I was just going for the publicity.” Good answer. I smiled inwardly, knowing she didn’t factor into his decision to come home to me.

  “Now, you’ve got a choice. You can either go back to sleep or you can come sit on my face before I fuck you. Your choice, baby.”

  That got a quiver in some very good places.

  “What kind of choice is that? Of course I’m going to pick the second one. Do I look like a nun? Passing up a chance at your tongue would earn me ten Hail Mary’s.”

  He chuckled before dipping his head to my face. “Then climb on and quit yapping.”

  Without further ado, I did as I was instructed, and it was almost as amazing as before, but in a more wild and out of control way. After two more orgasms and Jay finding his, we burrowed into the covers and slept wrapped up in each other. It was arguably some of the best sleep I had ever had.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Wake up, gorgeous,” a deep, rumbly voice began to penetrate my sleep.

  “Mmmm,” I mumbled and pressed further into the pillows, pulling the soft sheets up my body until they completely covered my face.

  In an instant, they were pulled back down, and I swatted at the hand that began shifting the hair from my face.

  “You need to get up.”

  “Must sleep,” I mumbled and tried to roll away, but that damn hand halted my progress.

  Why was he waking me up so early? It felt as if I had just fallen asleep.

  “It’s almost noon, T. Time to get up and get stuff done.”

  At the mention of the time, I bolted up. My eyes squinted as they adjusted to the bright sun now shining in through the windows on the other side of the room. Those floor to ceiling windows I enjoyed so much when I first saw them were now my own personal enemy. I narrowed my eyes in both annoyance and confusion. Hadn’t I shut the curtains last night before I went to bed?

  Not wanting to waste time wondering about trivial stuff, I scrambled off the bed and walked over to my overnight bag where I began rooting around for my toiletries and an outfit to throw on. I couldn’t believe I had missed a whole morning worth of work.

  “What are you doing?” I could feel Jay’s heat at my back as he pressed against me and his arms wrapped around my waist. God that felt good. I allowed myself a moment to melt into him and enjoy the closeness before I went back to my task. Although my movements were severely limited thanks to the hold he had on me.

  “I need to get to work. I never sleep through my alarm. This is so unlike me.”

  “You have the day off. That’s why I turned your alarm off after you fell asleep.”

  “But… why would you…” I sputtered indignantly. How dare he make those decisions for me?

  “I did because one, you needed the sleep after we went for round two last night. Two, because you just went through a traumatic experience and could use a day to process. And three, because we need to go to your place and pack your shit up today.”

  I turned in his arms and looked up at his beautiful blue eyes and thought for the thousandth time how lucky I was to look at them nearly every day. Then I gained my wits and dropped the hammer.

  “I’m glad you think you know what’s best for me. However, only I have the right to decide that and what I would have chosen for myself is going to work in order to keep my mind off of said traumatic experience. Besides, the fantastic sex last night would have more than made up for the lack of sleep today. Every time I yawned
I would have been reminded of what we did and it would have made me smile.”

  His lips twitched, and his eyes went soft. He clearly liked what I said.

  “Don’t you dare, Jayson. Don’t you dare look at me with those lazy eyes and think I’m going to forgive you for this.”

  “There’s nothing to forgive. It’s over and done with. I’m not going to apologize for trying to take care of you. It’s what I do. Now, as adorable as you are when you get your panties in a bunch, we still need to get into the shower. I want to eat you before we go pack up your shit.”

  “You mean breakfast?”

  “No. I mean you.” His voice dipped low, and his eyes raked my body.

  That caused a delicious curl in my belly. I could make do with a shower where he ate me. Then again, I could make do with anything as long as he was eating me.

  “Which brings me to my next point. Where am I moving to? It isn’t like I have first and last month’s rent for a new place. Plus, I’m locked into a lease.”

  “You’re moving here.”

  “I’m not so sure that will work.”

  “Why not?” He let me go and took a step back to assess me in that dangerous and commanding way he does with his arms crossed over his chest.

  “Because… It’s probably a really bad idea for us to live together. Don’t you think? And I don’t want people at work thinking I’m getting preferential treatment or whatever. I can imagine mouths are running feverishly today knowing that I’m not working after I slept here. Add to that the fact that you flew back for me. All it takes is for one person to find out in order for it to trickle through the ranks. I swear that place is like a big soap opera with the way people gossip. More than that, I don’t want to ruin our friendship.”

  “I don’t care what people at work say. If they have a problem with it, I’ll fire them. We’ve known each other for months, T. We get along. If things turn sour, we’ll worry about it then.”

  If things turn sour? Well, wasn’t that just a ball of positivity the morning after we made love?

  “Maybe you can explain to me what it is exactly that we’re doing. That way I’ll know if things turn sour.” I narrowed my eyes at him and mimicked his stance.