Page 6 of Sinful Restraint

I managed to keep myself together enough to tiptoe back into my room, open my box of blankets, and return to the hallway to cover them up as best I could without waking them.

When I got to Cruz, as soon as the blanket covered part of his arm, his eyes popped open, pinning me in place. Yet, instead of a look of concern or surprise, his expression was intoxicatingly dark and dangerous in a way that I didn’t expect.

Then he licked his lips, and I saw it. The flash of his tongue ring that I forgot he even had. Or more like I forced myself to forget it and not focus on his mouth too long because staring at it made me feel things I’d buried.

I was frozen in place and thought at any moment he’d ease up the tension in his features. But instead, his nostrils flared, and his breathing grew more ragged as his eyes roamed lower, stopping on my chest.

Crap.It was only then that I realized that he could probably see straight down my shirt, and I wasn’t wearing a bra.

Plus, seeing his tongue ring had made my nipples grow hard.

Even more baffling, I realized a few seconds later that I didn’t mind him looking. In fact, I liked it.

chapter three

We’re fucked.Two words that I had repeated more in the past week and a half than I had in my entire life. Santari moving in with us wasn’t an ideal situation at all. Especially when we needed her to stay out of the damn way while we found out who killed Rev.

In the time she’d been living with us, I’d grown well acquainted with the fact that she was the reason candle companies stayed in business because she was constantly buying candles and burning them daily.

When she wasn’t lighting up candles, she was doing yoga in the middle of the living room in those tight ass pants and smallass sports bra as if we didn’t have a fully equipped gym in the house.

However, what really had me grinding my teeth together was how there was a perfectly fine shower in her room, but she claimed that the water pressure was better in the one downstairs. So every fuckin’ day, I had to watch her flutter around the house in a goddamn towel smelling too damn delicious, driving me insane. I was pretty damn sho’ Storm and Titan were struggling just like I was as my eyes would catch theirs randomly, the fight to remind ourselves that she was off-limits was an on-going war in our house.

Santari wasn’t built for this shit, and Storm, Titan, and I couldn’t move the way we wanted at The Omega House with her putting her stilettos in business that could get her killed. If anything happened to her, Rev would rise from the dead and murder my ass, then spend our time in hell lecturing me about breaking BB4L code.

When Rev and I were teenagers doing petty crime shit, it was a running tradition when we got away with mess we had no business doin’ that we celebrate by getting drunk and watchingBad Boyswith Martin Lawrence and Will Smith before hittin’ up the skating rink when we were too young to get into the strip club.

We used to watch the firstBad Boyswhen we committed a crime that was nostalgic. ButBad Boys IIwas our shit since both of us could watch Gabrielle Union on screen all day er’ day.

BB4L—or bad boys for life—really stuck when Rev said Marcus should have shot Mike when he found out that he slept with his little sister, Syd. Not enough to kill him, but to make his ass think twice before getting in her pants again.

I’d laughed off his words, hearing it for the threat that it was, but I knew my friend. Had he caught me doing anything withSantari, I would have hoped that shooting me once was all he did.

I pushed my thoughts to the side as I pulled into the parking lot of Fetish, the chain of nightclubs that I owned in the Miami area. Club Fetish Miami Beach was a staple for spring breakers and tourists eager to explore the night scene on Ocean Drive. Club Fetish Wynwood had more of an artistic vibe and got the attention of folks interested in lounging in a speakeasy.

Yet, Club Fetish Havana in the Little Havana neighborhood was currently taking the most of my focus as it was the most recent to open and had forced me to cut through more red tape than all of Florida kept stocked. Of course I cut though that shit smooth like buttah though. When I wanted something, I always achieved it. And to my fifth-grade teacher who said by twenty-one, I’d be dead or in jail, she could kiss my Black ass. I was thirty-four and thriving.

Tonight, though, I was at my Miami Beach location because it was Freaknik night, a nod to the legendary spring break festival in the ATL initially created for HBCU students back in the 80s.

The rooftop of my club was poppin’, as the city was shining bright beneath us, and the pool was glowing from the neon lights underneath, reflecting the movement of the crowd.

Black Greeks were gathered everywhere as fraternities and sororities locked in their steps to the beat of whatever song the DJ played next. The Jell-O shots were flowin’, the Kool-Aid jungle-juice was a silent killer, and folks had really shown the fuck out for the 80’s theme with their track suits, chunky sneakers, baggy pants, and bodycon dresses.

As I leaned against the glass railing, a slow grin pulled at my lips while my Omega Theta Tau brothers and I joked and talked shit between sets. The ten of us were all in sync with our printedsilk and satin shirts that were a nod to Kid n’ Play inHouse Party, while our gold chains shone in the light as we moved.

Tonight had that kind of vibe like the whole damn city was ours for the taking. It often felt like that whenever Titan, Storm, and I got together with all these other cats. Nothing was missing … except Rev.

“Damn, I miss my boy,” Lil’ Mike exclaimed, tossing twenty-dollar bills at some of the sorority women as if he was in a damn strip club. “Rev would have loved a night like this.”

“You do know they ain’t strippers, right?” I asked.

Lil’ Mike just shrugged, not giving a damn. He came from that old southern money. When we were in college, he used to be bougie as hell, but we thought he would grow out of that shit when we got to the real world. Apparently not.

“We need to be hollerin’ at some of these hunnies,” Lil Mike exclaimed, looking to Osirus for back up. Back in the day, Osirus had always wing-manned for Lil Mike.

Osirus put up his hands and shook his head. “Nah, fam. You know I’m engaged.”

“Fuck you then,” Lil Mike spat, turning to Titan who was already shaking his head.

---