Love Delivered (46 page)

As I replay my day, I search for the problem. Jordan and I got up early and made it to Sunday school. About fifteen minutes later, Stenton was ushered to my pew and sat next to me. Talk about surprised…and flattered. He smelled like a god and looked just the same with his lengthy body caped in a grey gently printed suit and a lavender dress shirt undone at the neck, exposing his tattoos. And as if on cue, I turned to the back to find his security posted like Secret Service. After service ended my family all met up at the country club and convened…like a real family. Although work was busy as usual, even that was uneventful. So why am I feeling so dejected?

Stenton.

“Okay! Okay! Okay!” I snatch myself off the wall of the tub to stand and exit. With considerable planning and very little time, I’m out the door.    

~~~~~~~~~~

I impatiently tap my toes against the shiny floor. Then I knock again. My nerves are just as unsettled as my urgent knocks convey. My heart is beating at a feverish rate.

Oh, crap? Am I panting?

The door clicks open. When it’s pulled back, I see Stenton’s thick eyebrows arching, preoccupied with an emotion I’m sure isn’t pleasing. He’s holding a large bowl of popcorn and is wearing a white tank t-shirt, grey sweats and socks.

“What the fu—” he mutters under his breath. “How did you get past secur—” He must put it together because he rolls his eyes. Then they inspect me starting from my head, but stop at my shoulders. “Are you okay? Why are you wet?”

He then pulls me in, not giving me the opportunity to speak. This so isn’t going how I planned. I can’t even find my tongue to speak. And boy do I look an alarming sight. Nervously, Stenton places his popcorn on a nearby table and rakes his fingers in my soaked, bushy hair, paying me an audit of sorts. Then he smells the alcohol on my breath, likely confirming how I was able to get in without alerting him. There was no way I could drive with the amount of alcohol I’ve drank, reeking to the degree I am.

“Don’t get me wrong: I don’t have a problem with you using my staff, but it doesn’t feel good knowing my driver is working behind my back to set me up.” Then his shoulders drop. “Baby, why didn’t you just say you were coming over?” I can’t speak to answer. I’m trying. There’s something I need to get off my chest. “Take off this coat. You’re going to get sick.” Before I can think to stop him, Stenton has already pulled my trench coat open. “Goddamn,” he breathes.

“I want another baby. And before you speak, I need you to know I’ve figured out my hesitance in opening up to you. In…going full throttle with us. You’ve made demands, presented a sequence for how our future is going to play out. I don’t work that way. I have to go with what I feel. You’ve always manipulated things with me, taking on this “master plan” supposedly for my own good. An equal partnership doesn’t work that way. Love isn’t perfectly orchestrated, it’s combustible and unpredictable. It just happens when it’s meant to happen.” I glance down to gesture my frame. “Like the first time, you don’t get lingerie.” That reference to our first time together in Alpine causes his eyes to snap from my completely naked body to my face. I shake my head, forging ahead. “I know you need to lead in order to feel like the man, I don’t have a problem with that, but this will be an equally charted journey. I want a baby, and I don’t want to have to play quid pro quo to get it. If we’re going to do this, you will adhere to my terms, too.”

Stenton’s shell-shock leaves his mouth hanging agape. After seconds long, he places his fists on his waist, as he contemplatively gazes into the distance. I can see the impression of his desire through his sweats. I wait with bated breath, feeling my chest cave, a sensation I thought I was done with as far as Stenton is involved.

What could this do to us?

“Look, Zo, about the baby. That’s a long and complicated process—”

“Why does it have to be?” I throw my hands on my hips.

“Because it is. It’s not something we can take on right now with you in my vestibule like…,” his marbled eyes trace my body, down to my pointy stilettos, “…this, but it’s also a topic we can’t avoid. I can tell you this; I’ll give you all the babies you want, but not until you’re my wife, Zo. That is my sole term. The details behind it, you can knock yourself out weaving together.”

As my eyes sweep the floor, I feel my face crack, almost into a cry, but I don’t feel sad. I feel relieved. I thought he’d call my bluff. He’s conceding. I can work around that term. My chest is now heaving and I’m trying to hold my poker face for one more condition.

My timid eyes meet his searing gaze as I brave, “One last thing.” Stenton steels. That’s all I’m getting from him. I shake my head repeatedly as I assert, “No condoms. No more. Not ever. It creates more than a fluid barrier. It
does
feel different, unlike my assumption before…Alpine. It makes me feel you
want
a barrier against me. Like there’s a wedge—”

Stenton grabs me at the face and pushes his tongue hungrily into my mouth, silencing my grievances. Lifting me onto his waist, his long arm crossing my arched back makes me feel precious and protected. He walks over into the living room where I feel him tugging beneath me. Then he slowly falls to his knees with me clasped to his torso. Suddenly I see those marbled eyes filled with a torrent of emotions.

“I love you so fucking much, Niña,” he gritted. Then I felt him breach me below, a pain striking, causing me to swing my legs to balance myself in a squatting position over him. “I swear, I’m going to bust my ass to make up for all that I fucked up between us.” With a firm grip on my bare waist under my coat, he pushes me down onto him. My head swings back in reaction to the discomfit. “Look at me!”

My eyes shoot open and focus in on the ardent expression he’s wearing. That quickly, I’m caught up in rapture with him. I take to his mouth, stirring my tongue, rubbing my lips greedily against his. I grind my hips atop his pelvis, filling myself full of Stenton. I can’t believe we’re creating this again…together. Fighting against the stubbornness of my walls, each time I push onto my feet and raise, drop my sex further down him, swallowing him, inch by inch. The pain is worth being with this man again, having him claim me again without the cloud of time over our heads. We can take our time, expressing our need of each other. I’m in no rush to end this, completely satisfied, discerning each sensation he stirs within my walls.

“Fuuuuck,” he cries out into my mouth.

Hearing him swear while inside of me, filling me, incites my plunges to a new speed. I rock harder, grip tighter, relishing in this connection with him. Stenton’s clutch on me is fierce, needy. Desperate. Urgent with his upward thrusts. His control is fleeting and I feel that familiar quickening only experienced with him.

“I’m not gonna be able to hold out. Come, Niña!”

Effortlessly he lifts and pulls me onto his lap and before I know it, my body trembles as my movements become artless and disjointed. Stenton grunts and chest jolts.

“I love…you! I…love you! I…love…you!” he chants in my ear repeatedly as he ascends.

All I can do is take all he gives as I hold him in my arms, anchoring myself during my own climax. We sit in that position, my face burrowed into his neck and his face in my hair, breathing violently into my scalp. I’m content. I’m in his arms, breathing again with Stenton. I don’t know how long we remain, it doesn’t matter for a while.

“Shit. JR,” Stenton whispers before jumping up with me still attached, I assume not wanting to be out in the open living room for Jordan to possibly stroll in, half asleep and find us.

He manages his pants and heads for the stairs and straight into his shower where I wash him from top to bottom, not being able to get enough of his chestnut skin and hard muscles. For a while we don’t speak. There’s no rush for words. We communicate through admiration of touch and the sounds produced from that.

Then I drag my eyes from his inked chest to gaze into his marbled orbs.

“We’re together,” I mutter.

“Forever,” Stenton qualifies.

I nod as I try to hide my grin.

“I’m serious, Zo. No more bullshit. I allowed too many years of it. It ended back in Jamaica.”

“I’m not questioning our status anymore.” I’m now drawing soapy S’s into his broad pecs.

“Then why the face?”

“Because I’m wondering if you’re going to restrain me tonight,” my chords tremble then my eyes slowly rise to meet his.

I feel a smack against my belly and look down to find Stenton’s thick appendage wedged between us.

I glance up amused. “My…my…my. I guess
he
comes alive at that mention.”

Studying my eyes, sans humor, he replies, “I haven’t had any gear here in years.”

“Did you get rid of it?” I try masking my disappointment.

“Kinda.”

“Kinda? What’s kinda? You were with Jen—” I hesitate, clear my throat, and then regroup. “Your last relationship was less than “years” ago. So this can’t be true.”

Stenton turns to shut off the water then grabs my hand to leave the shower. He hands me a towel to dry while I gawk at him tentatively. When he finally turns to me, apparently ready to speak, my belly flips.

“Look, I know sharing about our past...in between or after...” He waves his hand dismissively as he dries himself. “...whatever you wanna call those bullshit ass relationships we were in, is somewhat necessary, but I don’t care to speak on them. It’s an act of futility considering their relevance. But, I’m gonna try to quell whatever curiosities you may have about them now. The last time I had sex was back in March with someone who doesn’t matter. It was something I did during the final low period before I decided to man the hell up and go after what I knew I needed all along.”

He takes me at the shoulder, drawing slow and soft circles in my damp skin, a fortifying move, I’m sure. This isn’t easy for him.

“But before then, the last time I played with restraints, again, was in the summer of ’10, and that was with you. When I realized I needed to keep my sanity, I packed up all that shit and had it sent to Alpine for storage. I didn’t want any reminders of you, and I damn sure had no desire to play with Erika. Jenna would’ve never opened her mind to it even if I wanted it with her. I never had a comparable connection to a woman since you, and I damn sure didn’t have anything meaningful before you.”

I feel the air rushing into my mouth as it hangs open. I don’t know how long I’m dazed before he takes me at the sides of my face.

“Hey. Stay with me here,” he whispers in my face.

“I’m here.” I assure with wide eyes, a bit jarred.

“You don’t look it, and I don’t want you tripping off dumb shit,” he breathes even closer to my mouth. So close I can feel the whiskers of his face.

I’m backed up against the wall and the next thing I know, I’m being lifted in the air until my legs intuitively wrap around his narrow waist.

“No more dumb shit, Niña. I mean it.” With an unexpected upward thrust Stenton enters me. I suck in a sharp breath, instantly enraptured by his fullness. His chin raises as his eyes widen and he shakes his head. “Eh-eh… Remember, we now breathe together. Open your mouth and let me hear it,” he taunts deliciously as he fluidly moves in and out of me.

My head swings back, bumping the wall without pain. The only sensations I feel are Stenton’s actions below until he takes my left nipple into his mouth and sucks on it with wild abandon. My arms wrap around his shoulders and neck, and eyes slam shut as my dampened back suctions against the cool tiles of the wall. My inner walls are aflutter with increasing sensations. I can feel my orgasm nearing in no time, unlike earlier. 

This is how we spend our first night together, rekindling our passion. Reveling in the magic we make together. We take on small talk and laugh in between touching and rediscovering. There is no more hard talk, just light banter and exploratory play with our bodies. I feel myself falling in love with him all over again that quickly. It’s surreal, impulsive. Terrifying. But I let myself go.

At some point during the wee hours of the morning, Stenton dozes off and I lie awake, thinking. Of course, Stenton’s former lovers carousel in my mind. I still feel a pinch of jealousy to know they’ve had this level of intimacy with him—lying bare next to him after rounds of passion—but I don’t feel it’s akin to what I experience with Stenton, and I guess that helps. Oddly, Bernard comes to mind. I really need to speak with him. It feels wrong how abrupt our ending was. Though the decision feels right, the final look in his eyes still haunts me.

After some time of wrestling with that, my pondering turns to my future with Stenton. What will it entail? How soon is he trying to get married? Do I want to get married? I completely and unequivocally want to be with Stenton—forever…whatever that may mean. I want more babies with him…well, maybe just one more, because I want to expand
Niña’s Sweet Cakes
. I wonder how he’ll feel about my plan. Will he be open to me expanding my business when he’s retiring? Will he want my world to slow down because his career is coming to an end?

I’m trying to balance my fears against my needs when Stenton rolls over onto his back and faces me. He’s still asleep—or so I thought until his eyes slowly open and widen as he recognizes mine.

He snorts. “I guess I didn’t put your ass to sleep like I intended.” His thick vocals do something to me. To my core. Is it wrong that I consider it a privilege to be experiencing it with him? Am I viewing him as Stenton Rogers…
Number 2 Overall Draft Pick
,
three-time MVP Awardee
, and
four-time Champion,
Stenton Rogers? “Come here, Niña.”