Set: A Novella (Them Boys Book 1) Read online

  Set

  (Them Boys: Book 1)

  Alexandria House

  Pink Cashmere Publishing, LLC

  Arkansas, USA

  Copyright © 2019 by Alexandria House

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Printing 2019

  Pink Cashmere Publishing, LLC

  [email protected]

  Set - a god of chaos, fire, deserts, trickery, storms, envy, disorder, violence, and foreigners in ancient Egyptian religion

  1

  Kareema

  When I see you, you better not be wearing panties.

  I tucked my lips between my teeth to keep from laughing out loud at his text, and then replied with: Or what?

  Him: Or I’m gonna rip them or poke a hole in them. Your choice.

  Me: Poke a hole with what?

  Him: My dick!

  Me: Um, the last time I checked, it wasn’t sharp enough to poke a hole in anything.

  Him: It ain’t about sharpness. It’s about hardness. Like right now? I’m thinking about your pussy and my shit is hard enough to bust concrete.

  I actually did laugh at that.

  Me: I got work to do. I’ll see your silly ass tomorrow.

  Him: Can’t wait.

  Me: Me either.

  As I placed my phone on my desk, the door to my office flew open, and the only somebody who could get away with busting in there stepped inside. Seeing the look on her face, I sighed. “Since you’re allergic to knocking, could you at least close the door before you say whatever you’re about to say?”

  With a huff, she eased the door shut. I watched as her shoulders lifted and fell, her back to me.

  Somehow, I managed not to roll my eyes as I asked, “What is it, Tori?”

  Finally turning to face me again, she crossed her arms over her chest. “Yolanda needs to go. She’s…she’s being divisive.”

  “Yolanda is my best teacher. I’m not firing her because she has a child by your new man.”

  “That’s not why she needs to be fired. She has a bad attitude!”

  “With who besides you?”

  “So you’re not going to fire her?” Her eyes were wide with genuine shock.

  “No.”

  “But—Mama! I can’t work with her!”

  “You have your class, and she has hers. You don’t work with her.”

  She stared at me and I stared right back.

  “But—” she tried again.

  “Tori, when I hired you, I told you there would be no special treatment. I’m not firing a great teacher because you have personal beef with her over a negro who isn’t good enough for either one of you. And why exactly does he have your car today?”

  That made her leave, as I knew it would. She failed to close the damn door, though, so I was left vulnerable to any complaining parents who might happen to pass my office while on their way to pick up their precious babies, and since my only child had exhausted what little patience I had left this late in the day, I closed it. A week didn’t go by where she didn’t make me regret giving her a job, but that was more for me than her. She’d dropped out of college and now had a three-year-old son to take care of, so either it was give her a job or keep dealing with her sitting around my house doing nothing.

  But she was so damn spoiled—my fault. And entitled—also my fault. And lazy—her father’s fault.

  With his sorry ass.

  I was a hustler, always had been. I merely kicked that into overdrive when I finally got rid of his ass.

  His super sorry ass.

  Sighing again, I told myself not to think about him and to concentrate on wrapping up the business of the day instead. I had to fight not to say fuck it and leave, because all I wanted to do was get on a plane and make my way to my escape. Yeah, that’s what he was, the man with the concrete-busting dick, I mean—he was my escape. Shit, in more ways than not, he was my salvation. He saved me from destruction every time I saw him, every time I was in his presence, and that was more than a little frightening. In my experience, a man with that much power, that tight of a hold on your heart, was a dangerous man.

  Downright deadly.

  Shaking off those thoughts, I made myself wrap up my paperwork, and once I was sure it was late enough for the building to be empty excluding me, I began gathering my things, hoping my favorite nail tech hadn’t left my regular salon yet, because I was in desperate need of a mani and a pedi. Unfortunately, I’d miscalculated the time of my escape, because no sooner than I’d stood from my desk and swung my purse over my shoulder did a knock sound at my door, a timid knock. Dropping my shoulders and my head, I sang, “Come in,” unenthusiastically.

  It was Tori, wearing a sheepish expression as she opened the door and slid into my office with my grandbaby on her hip. I loved that baby despite the fact that at forty-one, I was too damn young to be a grandmother.

  “Hey, baby cakes,” I cooed, reaching for my grandson. “How’s Gigi’s baby?”

  “Good,” he said, planting a sloppy kiss on my cheek.

  “Aw, thanks for the sugar, punkin’!” I said, turning my attention to Tori. “What can I do for you, Tori?” If she was looking for a babysitter, that was out. I loved Lil’ Man, but I needed to prepare for my trip.

  “Nothing, I mean…” she sighed. “I’m sorry about earlier.”

  “Apology accepted,” I stated, trying to hide my shock.

  She smiled, relief on her face as she said, “Monté said I’d feel better if I apologized and he was right!” After that declaration, she reached for the baby, and after planting him on her hip again, added, “Have fun on your trip, Mama.” Then she left, and all I could do was shake my head at it taking her man to talk some sense into her, a man who barely had any sense himself.

  Shit, where did I go wrong?

  I was only nineteen when I had her. Maybe that was it.

  Before I slid all the way down the rabbit hole of regret, I left, making it to the salon just in time to get my nails done.

  ******

  I hated airports and flying. I really did, but since this little arrangement with my guy started, I’d found a tiny bit of joy in the rituals of checking luggage, going through TSA, waiting at gates, and praying I didn’t end up seated on the plane next to a jerk or someone with poor personal hygiene. And if I scored a window seat? Well, that made for the best flight.

  As I sat in the gatehouse a full hour before boarding began, I smiled about what had become the best part of my life, my mini baecations with my part-time man. Not part-time as in he had a wife or a girlfriend other than me—at least I didn’t think he had one—but part-time as in when we were together, it was literally everything. He was everything. But we lived separate lives, and that was the way we both wanted it.

  I stopped daydreaming, pulled out my earbuds, and was in the middle of watching a YouTube video on my phone when a call popped up on the screen—my BFF Tricia.

  With a smile, I answered her call. “Yes, I made it on time, and I’m sitting at my gate.”

  “So you’re calling me predictable?” she squawked.

  “When it comes to checking up on your oldest and dearest friend, you are, and I love you for it.”

&nb
sp; “But you don’t love me enough to tell me who your vacation bae is after three damn years. You acting like you’re messing with one of them bad-ass Mitchell boys.”

  I chuckled. “What made you think of them?”

  “I don’t know. Because they were such damn terrorists back in the day, always fighting and getting into trouble, I guess. Damn demons. I suppose you keeping this nigga a secret like his ass is wanted by the FBI all this time made me think of their probably-in-jail asses.”

  With a smirk, I asked, “How do you know he’s black?”

  “Because I know you, hooker! Been knowing you longer than everyone, including your baby daddy.”

  “You tryna make me vomit? Why’d you have to bring his ass up?”

  “My bad. Anyway, I know your sometimes bae is a negro because every time you come home from one of these fuckations you always have that big black dick glow.”

  “Trish?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Okay, tell Shu Mitchell I said hey.”

  Shaking my head, I ended the call and navigated back to the YouTube app in search of a good fashion haul.

  *****

  I ended up with a got-damn middle seat and spent the flight shrugging Mr. Window Seat’s uncontrollable sleepy head off my shoulder and trying not to notice the aisle seat guy’s incessant sniffing. I hoped I didn’t catch anything from his ass.

  I gotta stop buying these cheap-ass plane tickets.

  I was so relieved when the plane landed that I was among the folks I usually criticized for hopping up the second the “fasten seatbelt” sign was turned off, damn near climbing over the aisle dude to make my escape, and felt like twerking when I was finally able to step off the plane and into the terminal.

  At my arrival gate with my carry-ons slung over my shoulder, my eyes rounded my immediate surroundings. Surprisingly, this airport was one of the quieter ones I’d ever been in at that moment, quiet and not nearly as crowded as I expected it to be. I should’ve been able to easily spot him, but I didn’t see him anywhere. We’d said we were meeting at my arrival gate, hadn’t we? Had he gotten the wrong information from the monitors? Or was he running late? Had something happened to him? An accident?

  I was already nervous, because I was in his town and would be seeing his home for the first time. Now my ass was panicking on top of the anxiousness. Biting my bottom lip, I stepped from the gatehouse onto the walkway. Still no him. Through a heavy sigh, I pulled my phone out of my bra—yes, my damn bra—to see if he’d texted me while I was in the air and almost jumped out of my skin when I felt an arm slip around my waist but smiled when my braids were moved and lips met the side of my neck as the scent of his cologne enveloped me.

  “Where were you?” I asked, as he held me in the middle of the walkway, forcing people to navigate around us.

  “In the restroom. Had to take a piss,” he said in that panty-dropping, gruff voice of his. Then he spun me around, gripped a handful of my ass, and proceeded to explore every centimeter of my mouth with his tongue. When we parted, I was dizzy, my eyes glued to him as he licked his lips, took possession of my hand, and said, “Come on.”

  2

  Set

  I smacked Kareema’s ass cheek, clutched a plug of it, and growled, “Whose pussy is this? Huh?” It was an unfair question, but she knew to answer it.

  “Oh, got damn! It’s yours!” Her voice vibrated from the impact of me plowing into her with long, deep strokes.

  “Say my name, Kareema!”

  “Set!”

  “This pussy belongs to who?”

  “Set!”

  “You got-damn right!”

  I closed my eyes and kept stroking, trying not to bust, because being inside of this woman felt so damn good that I lost a little more of my sanity and my will to do anything other than fuck her every time we were together, which wasn’t often enough. And we were never together long enough when we were together, either. But this was what it was, and wasn’t shit I could do to change it.

  “Set! Shit!” she moaned, her face in the pillow as she threw her ass back at me. I felt the orgasm when it hit her, felt her walls squeezing my dick, felt the liquid she squirted splash against me and roll down my thighs, felt my damn nuts tingle, and before I could get ahold of myself, pull out, stop stroking, do anything to delay the end of what we were doing, I fucking exploded, and that felt almost as good as being inside her.

  Blowing out a breath, I fell onto my back, closed my eyes, and threw my arm over my forehead. “Shit!” I mumbled. Then I opened an eye, grabbed Kareema’s limp body, and pulled her on top of me.

  *****

  It wasn’t until I woke up that I realized the pussy had knocked me out. I instantly missed her weight on my body and sat up, my eyes racing around my bedroom. I could tell through the closed blinds that the sun was setting, and shit, she was probably hungry and in my kitchen looking for food. At least I hoped she was and that she hadn’t left. She’d been real hesitant to come to my city and stay at my place. Maybe she’d left, gone to a hotel?

  Climbing out of bed, I hit the toilet before pulling on my boxers and leaving my bedroom, quickly finding her in the living room. I smiled a little and blew out the breath I’d been holding as I stepped behind her and placed my chin on her shoulder. “What you doing?” I asked.

  “Just checking things out,” she replied, reaching back to touch my head as I kissed her neck.

  I wrapped my arms around her. “Yeah? You like what you see?”

  “Mm-hmm. I wish I could’ve seen one of your matches.”

  I lifted my eyes to the display case she was staring at full of pictures of me in my prime along with a pair of my boxing gloves and my belts. “For real? You wish you’d seen me get fucked up?”

  Turning to face me, she raised her eyes to meet mine. “Um, from what I heard, you were doing the fucking up.”

  I grinned. “Yeah, but it wasn’t always pretty for me. Besides, I wasn’t the same back then. You got the best version of me.”

  “Do I?”

  I stared at her for a moment before nodding. “Yeah, you hungry, baby?”

  “Starving. You screwed all the nutrients out of me. My ass is probably anemic and dehydrated at this point.”

  I laughed and grabbed both her ass cheeks. Kareema didn’t have a huge ass. It was proportional to her slim body, but it was so soft that I couldn’t keep my hands off of it. Everything about her was perfect, including those titties she swore were too big and didn’t match the rest of her body.

  “Well, let me order us some food and replenish your energy, ‘cause I’ma need some more pussy,” I said.

  She smiled. “You want some more already?”

  After I’d kissed her, I replied, “Hell, yeah.”

  Kissing me back, she said, “Tricia brought you and your brothers up today.”

  “Word? You thank her for…this?”

  She giggled. “No, I didn’t, but I definitely should have. Her ghosting me that night was truly a good thing.”

  With a lopsided grin, I said, “Come on, let’s order some food.”

  “Yessir, Mr. Mitchell.”

  3

  Kareema

  Three years earlier…

  Standing in the doorway of the event center, my stomach lurched. I didn’t exactly have fond memories of high school, had skipped the five, ten, and fifteen-year reunions, and was only here, at the twenty-year celebration, at the insistence of my lifelong best friend, Tricia Gurley, whose ass was MIA. She hadn’t answered my texts or phone calls, and standing there staring at my classmates doing what they’d always done—clique up—I felt like as much of an outcast as I had all those years ago.

  I was the smart, quiet girl who blended into the background, camouflaged by shyness and cloaked in low self-esteem. All of those feelings came rushing back as my eyes perused the crowded room bathed in green and white and full of tables, a buffet line, a dance floor, and a godawful co
ver band playing Alanis Morrisette’s You Oughta Know. Deciding that I could either keep standing there like a moron, leave, or find a seat, I opted to step deeper into the room and locate a chair to sit in and rest my feet since I’d gone all out to look like someone other than the old Kareema Sperry, donning a black wrap dress and heels that were way out of my comfort zone in height. Fortunately, I found a table with just one guy sitting at it, one fine guy. I could recognize that even in the dim lighting.

  “Uh, is this seat taken?” I yelled over the music, pointing to one of the five empty chairs at the table.

  He stared at me for a few seconds before shaking his head no.

  “You mind if I sit here?”

  Again, he shook his head, and in response, I plopped down in the chair and released a sigh of relief as the feeling returned to my feet.

  “I’m Kareema Sperry, by the way,” I said to the handsome man I didn’t recognize, but then again, there were nearly five hundred people in my Caruso High School graduating class.

  “I know,” he stated in a gruff voice that inexplicably made my pussy water like an onion-fumed eye.

  “Oh, you do?” I asked, genuinely surprised. Shit, I didn’t think anyone knew me besides the teachers and Tricia.

  He nodded. “Yeah, we had Coach Benton’s World History class together.”

  “Oh, wow! You must’ve really changed. I don’t recognize you. What’s your name?”

  His eyes left my face and focused on something beyond me, then refocused on me. “Set Mitchell.”

  Ohhhhh, shit.

  No wonder so many seats were available at his table.

  “Oh…” was all I managed to say. Now I could see it, the toasty brown skin and those eyes that fueled rumors of the Mitchell boys being part Asian. Set’s were the same brown as his skin, which had always seemed weird to me. Now? Those damn eyes made my belly jump.