Page 15 of This: Blake & Emon

He spoiled her, and he didn’t mind at all. In fact, he wanted to give her her heart’s desire. It was simple. Nothing she could ask of him would be too much, and she was probably sickof hearing it, but she had saved his life. He couldn’t ask anything else of her other than to stop keeping him at bay.

“You spoiled as shit. Look in the back!”

Blake opened the car door and removed the gift bag. She had grown to expect something from him. Sometimes it was small, like a new set of her favorite study pens, or sometimes it was big, like a Chanel bag. She could never tell and she liked that. She removed the paper from the bag and found an Orange Stanley cup full of Stanley Cup accessories and a Pandora bracelet with all the nursing charms he could find.

“You ain’t have that joint yet, huh?”

“Nope, and I love it,” she said, jumping into his arms and planting a kiss on his lip. He caught her, allowing his hands to rest on the cuff of her ass. He grinned because he was knocking whatever walls she had up down, and hoping to knock some others down soon. This was the first time she had kissed him. His heart fluttered and danced, forcing him to turn around, smashing her back against the window of his car. He looked at her for a while before he kissed her again, but deeper, stronger, longer until she moaned into his mouth. That stopped him right in his tracks.

“Watch that moaning shit. Fuck around and have yo’ ass bent over in broad daylight, giving your neighbors a show.”

He thought Blake was a baddie. The baddest, to be honest, and she smelled like heaven, even after the gym. She could cook. She was funny and smart. She was all the things he couldn’t wait to take home to his mama, but he was trying to slow it down himself.

“I’ll be back to pick you up for dinner. Seven p.m. Cool?”

“Yes,” she said breathlessly. Emon took control but wasn’t controlling, and she loved that about him. She didn’t have to wait or plan anything. He was already ahead of her,anticipating her needs and her wants. Even with that, he still checked her temperature before anything was set in stone.

He backed away slowly, like it physically pained him to create distance between them. “Aight then, go study or whatever you need to do. I know you got that big test coming up.”

Blake was touched that he remembered. She’d only mentioned it in passing during their last phone call. “You paying attention to me, huh?”

“More than you know, love,” he said, reaching the driver’s side of his car but still leaning into the open door. “By the way, wear something nice tonight. I’m taking you somewhere special after dinner.”

“Special how?” she asked, still feeling the ghost of his kiss on her lips.

“You’ll see.” That smile again. “Just know I got plans for you, Blake Bishop.”

As she watched him get into his car, she couldn’t help but think that maybe, just maybe, she had plans for him, too. The kind of plans that would let him do whatever he wanted to do with her, to her, for however long he desired. Because he was giving perfect for her.

She touched her lips, still tingling from their kiss, and smiled. Seven o’clock couldn’t come fast enough.

Chapter 8

The Point Palace Nightclub was packed for Ladies’ Night, but being friends with the owner had its perks. Emon led Blake through the VIP entrance, his hand protective at the small of her back. She looked incredible in a copper-colored satin corset dress that made her melanin glow under the club lights. He couldn’t deny that she filled it out perfectly. The Bamboo B heels by Brandon Blackwood complimented the dress perfectly. She was looking and smelling good enough to eat.

“Your friend owns this?” Blake asked, leaning close so he could hear her over the music.

“Yeah, me and Kashdyn go way back,” Emon grinned, nodding at the security guard, who directed them to a private section overlooking the dance floor.

“That’s what’s up. You know, sometimes I like that there’s a certain code we live by and certain access we get.”

“We? You a thug, too, baby?”

“No, but my daddy was.” She laughed. He kissed her cheek and smiled. He loved that she got his sense of humor and that she had turned into someone he could kick back with and also decompress from a hard day of being the boss.

“Thug adjacent, huh? I fuck with it.”

“Exactly,” Blake said. Emon laughed, and so did she. He appreciated her being goofy as hell around him and allowing him to be the same.

Emon hadn’t had it easy growing up. His mom was all he had. His father’s absence taught him early that a man had to know how to get money and provide by any means. There was a special kind of hurt that came from watching your mama cry over late bills or seeing her empty chair at basketball games because she was working her second job. But he never resented her hustle. If anything, it made him love her harder. Watching her sacrifice everything just to keep food on the table had shaped him into the man he was today.

By sixteen, he was already thinking like a provider, starting with his first carwash hustle, using borrowed buckets and stolen garden hoses. Now at thirty three, he owned three legitimate businesses, but that little boy who hated seeing his mama cry still lived in his heart. Maybe that was why he was such a giver. Emon knew what it felt like to want better for someone you loved.

She was still the only person he’d die for without hesitation, at least until Blake crashed into his life with her healing hands and heart of gold. Now he had found someone else worth building the future for, someone who made him want to be better than his circumstances. He wanted to give Blake the kind of love that came without strings or conditions, the type of love his daddy never knew how to give. And now that he had her in his sight, he wasn’t about to let a blessing slip through his fingers.

“I’ll give you that. You look fuckin’ good, by the way.” He leaned in and whispered against her neck. “Smell good, too, mhmm.”

Her body responded exactly how it was supposed to when a man of his caliber was in your space whispering the thingsyou liked to hear. Her nipples perked up against the fabric of her dress, and he noticed. Emon closed his eyes because it was deeper than that with him, but he couldn’t deny that he wanted to eat her like a sundae with a cherry on top.

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