Believe in Me (Strickland Sisters Book 2) Page 9

  “Send him in,” I said without hesitation, feeling a little anxious and excited at the same time. I wanted to see him, touch him, feel him, but I still felt we were moving too fast.

  “Um, okay.” I could hear the curiosity practically oozing out of Janine, but I wasn’t ready to share Lorenzo with her. I didn’t even know what was going on with us. Could you really call what we had a relationship?

  There was a light knock at my door, and then it eased open to reveal Lorenzo looking so fine I just leaned back in my chair behind my desk and stared at him. My yoni started pulsating and flooding as I took in the navy suit that had obviously been tailor made for his big beautiful body.

  He closed the door behind him, and I looked up into his eyes. He looked…confused.

  “Hey, Zo,” I said softly.

  He was still standing by the door as he asked, “What’s going on with you?” I guess he wasn’t in the mood for pleasantries.

  “You wanna have a seat?”

  “No, Doc, I want you to answer my question.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  He reached up and placed his hand on the back of his head. “Look, I know I said I like playing games, but the games have to make sense. You came to me, said you wanted me, and then you backed away from me for no reason.”

  “That’s not what I did. I told you things have been hectic and I’ve just been tired.”

  “Yeah, well…I don’t believe that. Didn’t believe it when you first said it, and now, looking at you while you say it, I know it’s not true. So tell me the truth.”

  He sounded upset. He was upset, and if I was him, I probably would’ve been, too. And I guess I forgot about how horrible a liar I was. So I sighed, dropped my eyes to my desk, and said, “I’m scared.”

  My eyes rose in time to see him furrow his brow. “Of me, Doc?”

  I shook my head. “Of making a mistake. I just got out of a horrible marriage, Zo.”

  “I know, baby. But I’m not him.”

  “I know that, but…I mean, all we do is have sex.”

  “Shit, you see a problem with that? ‘Cause I don’t.”

  “I don’t know you. We don’t talk.”

  “So you thought the way to fix that was by pushing me away? Hell, I’m beginning to think that’s all you’re ever gonna do. Pull me in and then push me away. That shit doesn’t feel good, Renee.”

  Now I felt like crying, because essentially, I’d been a cry baby all my life and an empath, and he sounded so sad. I could feel his sadness, plus, he called me Renee instead of Doc. “I’m-I’m sorry.”

  “Remember, I asked you if you were sure I was what you wanted.”

  “You are, but it feels like we’re moving really fast.”

  “Maybe we are, but we aren’t kids, Doc. We’re adults who’ve already lived through a lot of shit and have earned the right to live how we want and be with who we want to be with when we want to be with them. We don’t have anyone to answer to, and I don’t see any point in dragging my feet with this thing after all the time it took for us to get here in the first place. Do you?”

  “No…It’s just—you want me to meet your mother.”

  He took the seat I’d offered him and leaned forward. “You’re worried about that? Don’t be. You’ve already met her, the same day you met me. And you impressed the hell out of her. She’s been talking about you nonstop ever since and was excited when I told her we were seeing each other.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Really?”

  “Yeah, so she asked me to plan a dinner for all of us.”

  “Oh…”

  “Doc, I like you. I like being with you. I like having sex with you, A LOT. And I know we don’t know each other well, but we can’t fix that by being apart.”

  “I know. I guess I just panicked. I’m sorry, Zo. And I’ve missed you.”

  He gave me a lopsided grin as he reached up and rubbed his goatee. “You missed me? You planning on doing something about that?”

  “I don’t know. It depends. What do you want me to do about it?”

  His grin widened as he reclined against the back of the chair situated across from my desk. “You letting me call the shots for once?”

  With a wrinkled brow, I said, “You’ve been calling the shots all along. Don’t you know that? I put that distance between us, because otherwise, I can’t resist you.”

  “You think I can resist you?”

  “I hope not.”

  He chuckled. “Then we’re in the same predicament, Doc.”

  “I guess so.”

  My office fell silent for a few moments as we just stared at each other. Things were moving fast, but there was an energy between us, a pull that I knew wouldn’t allow us to slow down.

  “Zo, you didn’t really answer my question. What do you want me to do about the fact that I’ve missed you?”

  His gaze intensified. “Nothing you’d be willing to do in this office.”

  “Try me and see.”

  He cocked his head to the side. “Come here.”

  I did, standing between him and my desk.

  “You should lock the door.”

  I shook my head. “Like you once told me about Rell, no one is going to bother us. Everyone knows not to barge in here on me, and if they do…” I shrugged. “I don’t really care. I’m co-owner of this place and their boss.”

  He stood in front of me, peering down at me with a look on his face that set my panties on fire. “Do you have any idea how much that shit you just said turns me on?”

  “No. Show me.”

  Without touching me with his hands, he captured my mouth, sliding his tongue inside to taste me. I tried to touch him, but he grabbed my wrists before I could. Then he backed away from me and let his eyes survey me from head to toe. “You know the rules. I do all the touching. You don’t move even a finger unless I tell you to.”

  I nodded and tried to catch my breath. His eyes bore into mine as he placed one hand on my cheek, untied the drawstring on my violet scrub bottoms with the other, slid his hand into my panties, and began stroking my bud. I gasped, reached for him, but he shook his head.

  “No touching, Doc.”

  I closed my eyes, and as my legs began to tremble, reached back, and braced myself on the desk. “Zo…”

  “Turn around, baby.”

  I did as he said and gasped as he yanked my pants and underwear down over my butt. Stepping out of them, I spread my legs for him as I bent over my desk, nearly knocking over a framed photo of me and Cass.

  “Cock your leg up on the desk.”

  I followed his command, my knee bumping up against a stack of books. Then I closed my eyes and waited. I could hear him unzipping his pants, and the anticipation was driving me wild. But instead of feeling him enter me, the next sensation I felt was the heat of his mouth as he lavished my core with his tongue from behind, groaning as he groped my ass with his hands. I sucked in a breath and released a soft, low moan. I had almost reached the edge when he stood and slid his hand up my back, gently resting it on the back of my neck as he eased inside of me.

  “Ahhhhhhhh!”

  “Shh, Doc,” he said through his own moan, as he squeezed my butt cheek with his other hand and slowly glided out of me.

  He kept up this relaxed pace for several minutes before increasing the tempo of his thrusts, driving into me mercilessly, causing the sound of his body slamming into mine to fill the room along with my moans and whimpers.

  I slid my hand over my heavy desk, knocking papers and charts to the floor, groping for something to hold onto as the energy inside of me pooled to my core and threatened to ignite. Sucking in a deep breath, I’d opened my mouth to release a satisfied scream when Zo covered it with his huge hand, effectively muzzling me.

  A few seconds later, he softly grunted and groaned before collapsing onto my back.

  “Baby,” I murmured as he wrapped his arm around my waist, spun me around, and plunged a finger inside of me, “y
ou trying to go for round two?” I was completely spent, but I wouldn’t have refused him.

  “No, that nosy receptionist is probably out there right now about to knock on your door because of all the noise you made.”

  As he finally slid his finger out of me, I said, “Was I that loud?”

  “Yeah, you were screaming at one point.”

  My mouth fell open. “No, I wasn’t! Was I?”

  “Yeah, but maybe no one heard you. Maybe they were all busy or something.”

  I frowned.

  He zipped up his pants, leaned in, and kissed me. “See you tonight? Dinner, and we can finish what we started here?”

  I nodded.

  As he turned to open the door, I said, “Wait, I have my own bathroom if you want to wash your hands and freshen up.”

  He smiled and lifted his hand to his nose, closing his eyes and inhaling deeply. “No, baby. I’m good.”

  20

  “…so I finally pull myself together and decide to leave for lunch, and as soon as I step out of my office, Janine is standing there by the door with this weird look on her face. And I got all paranoid, wondering how long she’d been standing there, but then I thought you would’ve told me when you left.”

  I rubbed her bare shoulder. “Nah, she wasn’t out there when I left. Did she say anything?”

  She shook her head against my chest. “Nope, just gave me that crazy look. Didn’t even reply when I told her I was going to lunch. And some of the other staff were looking at me crazy, too.”

  I chuckled. “I’m sorry, Doc. Didn’t mean to cause any trouble. I really didn’t think you’d yell like that.”

  “Don’t I always yell when we have sex, Zo?”

  “Yeah, but then you should’ve stopped me.”

  “I told you I can’t control myself around you.”

  I laughed. “Oh, yeah. I forgot.”

  She lifted herself from my chest, and a second or so later, she was straddling me. She leaned forward to kiss me, and asked, “I know you said you don’t have a girlfriend, but are you seeing anyone else at all, Zo?”

  With knitted brows, I replied, “When would I have time, Doc?”

  She shrugged. “When I’m at work, or when I distanced myself from you.”

  “No, baby. I’m not. Are you?”

  She shook her head as she sat up straight. “No. So we’re exclusive then?”

  I nodded. “Yeah.”

  I laid there for a second, watching the wheels turn in her head before I asked, “Your husband cheated on you?”

  She sighed quietly. “Several times.”

  I placed my hands on her hips. “I’m sorry. That’s why you left him?”

  “I left him after he cheated for a third time, or at least I know of three times. Anyway, I left after his woman dropped their baby off for me to babysit for her. I was blindsided, didn’t know about her or the baby. That was it.”

  That little ugly-ass nigga really was a moron. “Damn, Doc. I don’t know what to say. He has to be the stupidest fool in Creation to do that to you. But I guess for some men, even the best isn’t good enough.”

  “The best, huh?” she asked, biting her bottom lip, making that dimple appear.

  “Hell, yeah. The absolute best.”

  “Better than Sofia Vergara?”

  “Who? I ain’t never been with her.”

  “Your little date at the benefit.”

  I lifted a brow. “Are you jealous of Veda?”

  She pursed her lips. “That’s her name, huh? Veda…”

  “Yeah, you jealous of her, Doc?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Don’t be. We had an arrangement, kind of a mutual understan—”

  “What, like regular booty calls or something?”

  “Yeah, but after I met, smelled, and tasted you, I cut her off. She’s still pissed about it.”

  “Hmm.”

  “You know you got me on hard sitting on me like this, right?”

  She smiled. “Mm-hmm. I was hoping that would happen.”

  “You gonna do something about it, then?”

  She reached between us and grabbed me. “What you want me to do?”

  I stared at her. “Ride that motherfucker, Doc.”

  *****

  “Why’d you become a nurse?” I questioned, as I stood at my stove making her breakfast the next morning.

  “Are we playing the question game again?”

  “We can.”

  “Okay, well…I like taking care of people. I became a midwife, because I love being a part of one of God’s greatest miracles. When everything goes right during a birth, it’s pure magic.”

  I glanced at her sitting at my kitchen table in turquoise scrubs. “It really is.”

  “Why’d you become a drug dealer?”

  Damn, she was hitting hard this morning. “Uh, well…I needed money, and plus, it was what I’d grown up seeing. My father was a drug dealer. Got killed on the streets when I was like ten. I really think it was my twisted way of honoring him. He was my idol.”

  “Do you regret it now? Being a drug dealer?”

  “Yeah. It wasn’t a good decision, worried my poor mother to death. Looking back on it, I know it was the wrong thing to get mixed up in.”

  “Were you good at it?”

  “At selling drugs? Yeah. Made a lot of money.” I hesitated, and then added, “I actually used drug money to buy this house, my cars, my mama’s house, made some investments with it. Book money helps maintain things, but drug money built my empire.”

  “So you lied about being able to afford this place from writing?”

  “Maybe…a little. Where do you live? You know my address, but I don’t know yours.”

  “I live with my mother in the Lancelot subdivision.”

  “Hmm, I was right about you growing up with money.”

  “I guess you were. Why’d you stop selling drugs?”

  “Because I got tired of it. Got tired of worrying my mom, got tired of watching people I knew die…” I placed her plate before her and then started making my own. “You come from a big family, Doc?”

  “Not really. I have two sisters, Angela, and the baby, Nicole. I’m the oldest. Angie and her husband are big-time YouTube celebrities. Nicky just retired from being a professional student and works in student recruitment at Romey University. Were you ever arrested?”

  “A few times, but nothing ever stuck.” I sat across from her with my plate. “See, I was dumb to get into that life, but I was a smart businessman. I started trapping when I was sixteen. By the time I was twenty, I was basically running my own empire in my ‘hood in Chicago.”

  “Chicago?”

  “Yeah, my mom moved us up there after my father died. She had folks up there and wanted to be close to them. Anyway, I rarely got my hands dirty, had other people for that, so the police could never get anything to stick. Plus, a bunch of them were on my payroll or paying customers, anyway. Shit, I even had a few judges on my payroll. Money can get you out of a lot of things. Are you going to give me your address?”

  “That depends.”

  “On what?”

  “Are you dangerous?”

  “Do you think I am, Doc? Do I feel dangerous to you?”

  “You feel dangerously addictive to me, but I mean, are you violent?”

  I shrugged. “I can be. But you don’t have to worry about that. I’d never hurt you.”

  “You’ve killed?”

  “If I did kill someone, it would’ve been in self-defense.”

  “So you have killed someone?”

  “Technically, no.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means I have never directly killed anyone.”

  “But you have ordered someone be killed?”

  “Give me your address, and I’ll answer that question.”

  “Am I safe with you? Is anyone looking for you?”

  I almost dropped my fork. “Doc, I will rip a motherfucker’s beatin
g heart out their chest if they even look at you the wrong way. And what I don’t finish, Rell will.”

  “Do you own a gun?”

  “More than one.”

  “Will you hurt me?”

  “What? No! I wouldn’t put my hands on you!”

  “I mean my heart.”

  I leaned back in my chair. “You think I’d do what your ugly-ass husband did to you?”

  She frowned. “How’d you know he’s ugly? Did I tell you that?”

  Shit. I shook my head. “I just figured he was. Now answer my question.”

  She dropped her eyes to her plate. “I don’t know, Zo. I just know nothing really frightens me about you, not your past profession or any potential danger attached to it. Not the fact that you’ve probably caused a few deaths. I know those things should scare me, but they don’t. What petrifies me is having my heart broken again. I cannot go through that again. Being betrayed, disrespected, lied to? I just cannot do it.”

  “Doc, I need you to look at me.”

  She lifted her eyes to meet mine.

  “You see this fine nigga you’re looking at?”

  She laughed a light little laugh. “You really are fine.”

  “I know, shit. And I’m rich and sexy. Can I get violent? Yeah, I can, but I don’t like to and I’m old enough to know how to exercise some self-control now. But look, one thing I can’t control, don’t want to control, is how I feel about you. I’m crazy about you. I wanna be with you, protect you, take care of you. I want to hurt the people who hurt you. I want you to heal, but I’m so damn selfish, I want you to heal for me, so we can have a future together. I’m asking you to believe in me, Doc. Believe in me and what I’m saying. Believe in us. I’m a smart man, unlike that fool you married. I know when I have something good, something worth holding on to. All that shit your ex did? Been there, done that. I’m ready for something real…with you.”

  She leveled a stare at me, opened her mouth, and said, “My address is 116 Du-Lac Circle, Romey, Tennessee, 37027.”

  21

  “I can’t believe you own this movie! It’s one of my favorites!” I said, as we settled on the huge, overstuffed sofa in his home theater.

  “Come on, now. I used to be a thug. You know I gotta have Harlem Nights,” he said with a grin, as I rested my back on the arm of the sofa and put my feet in his lap. He rubbed my toes. “Damn, you got some little-ass feet.”