Page 103 of Dare You to See Me
She stares at the necklace as it rests in the palm of her hand. I see a fat tear splash on the diamond and it looks like the sun shining after the rain.
I take the necklace from her hand and unclasp it and she lifts her hair, letting me clip it in place. Her hand touches it from where it hangs and I watch one more tear breach her lid and trail down her cheek. Without thinking, I lean in and kiss it away.
“Thank you,” she chokes out and takes my hand.
Placing our clasped hands on her lap under the table, we look at Dahlia who stares at us with an animated face.
“You guys love each other, huh?” The bunny is wrapped tightly in Dahlia’s arm and I feel a piece of me heals.
My girls. Smiling. Laughing. Happy.
“Yeah,” Soleil’s small voice sounds like a bullhorn in my ear. “We love each other.”
I pull my hand from hers, tuck her into my side, and whisper into her ear, “You’re my everything Soleil and if you let me, I’ll be yours.” I kiss the top of her head just as the waitress walks up to our table. “Let’s order. What do my girls want?”
FORTY-THREE
SOLEIL
Love doesn’t always makesense. It may not always follow the same path for everyone. What matters most is that each person defines and accepts the love they need. I need to be loved fiercely, deeply. Malik needs constant and big love. He needs to know that love isn’t fleeting, that it isn’t conditional.
Our time apart made him think that it was. It made Malik believe that I could only love him if he fit into a box of how a man in love is supposed to look and act like. Honestly,Ithought I could only love him if he was that carefully constructed man. But it was that cookie cutter type man that I fell in love with and thought he loved me, only to be played for a fool. Maybe the “typical” kind of love wasn’t the kind I needed.
It was that night at the pizza parlor that I realized I needed that gut wrenching, all consuming, out-of-your-mind love. I wanted him to see red if another man talked to me. The possession that falls over him when a man smiles at me –the narrowed eyes, flared nostrils, and that arm that wraps tightly around my waist– makes me pulse between my thighs.
Malik will look at me with such tenderness but with the same breath, he’ll bend me over the counter, spank my ass and tell me to come for malakiun.My King. Being with, and away from him, showed me that I needed just that.
I told him he was obsessed, that he was crazy. But the more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea of being someone’s obsession. I was the object of his desire, Helen of Troy he called me, and I loved being worshipped.
He opened a new door for me and it’s one I never want to close.
Sweat drips from my hairline, droplets landing on my eyelashes, splashing off the tip of my nose, and my lungs burn with exhaustion. I close my eyes as my head falls between my shoulders, but my hair is ripped back, forcing them open.
“Don’t close your eyes, doll face. Look at us. Watch the way you fall apart for me.” Malik’s face is pressed next to mine, an equal amount of sweat drenching it.
I look up into the mirror that sits across from our bed. Reflected in it is a man and a woman, madly in love. Emphasis on the madly. My fair skin is splotched with red, and if I could see my ass I’m sure it wears his hand prints. My arms and legs shake as they work to hold me up. Malik kneels behind me, but he’s the powerful one. He rules my heart, my soul, and currently, my body.
One thing he’s taught me is to take joy in observing. The first time I watched us, I was nervous. But the minute he played back the recording for me, I was scratching at him like a cat in heat all over again.
We were phenomenal. We were hot and I was instantly addicted. Soon after, the giant mirror was put in place. A small camera hidden in our bathroom was installed. And the house cameras were placed in prime viewing spots. The kitchen, the living room, the garage –he may or may not love taking me on his bike.
Any time Dahlia is off to spend the weekend with her grandparents, or a night with Auntie Kyle, we playback our moments together like it’s a homemade erotic movie. And I guess in a way, it is. Seeing the way my eyes roll, the way my body bends and shakes, is like adding dynamite to a raging inferno. It doesn’t take much of watching Malik’s powerful thighs flexing as he thrusts into me before I’m climbing in his lap.
Fucking while watching us fuck, only to look back on it later and do it again. It’s like that never ending mirror.
The bed shakes violently as he pumps harder. His large hand fists around my breast and a cry spills from my mouth.
“Malik…I need to come.”
He smacks my ass and I wince from the bite. “That’s not my name. Say it, Soleil.”
“I need to come, malakiun.Please?”
A sinister laugh rumbles from his chest and my breast is freed from his clutches. His hand slides up my throat and stops right under my chin. He forces my head back, and I see his face hover over mine. He kisses my lips then releases me.
I find his eyes in the mirror. His stormy grays are a foreshadowing of what’s coming, and I surrender to the destruction.
I surrender and I watch…
