Her eyes are humble and sexy as hell through those long eyelashes. I grab her by the sides of her face and lunge my tongue in her mouth. I feel savage. I want to ingest her. She can be so difficult at times, but tonight she did well. She didn’t let the clouds of doubt and uncertainty of my deed gloom over our heads for too long. This is how she knows to love...to coexist. I can do this. I can meet her halfway. I can love her.
With my left hand, I hook her by the shoulders and scoop her up with the right by the ass and lay her on the couch. I maneuver enough so that we’re laying side-by-side with me resting on the back of the couch and our heads on the armrest. She giggles. I don’t.
“I love you, you know that?” I need her to know.
“Of course I do,” she smiles while flashing the engagement ring.
“Oh, yeah,” I snort. “But that’s for others to know. I need you to know in your heart.”
She’s still smiling contently and being entirely contrary to the woman she was earlier.
“Azmir, I told you, I just needed to process everything. That was a lot…” her voice trails off.
Shit. No. Stay with me here.
“I know. And I want to move at your pace and not a measure faster. With everything.” She knows I’m alluding to setting a date for our wedding.
“Yeah, about that.” She wrinkles her little brows pensively. “How does next spring sound...March?”
Finally—a date! My heart sighs in relief. Rayna reaches up to caress my face. “I sure wouldn’t mind holding out a little longer. I would love to see how long you’ll grow this.” I smile.
“I told you I’m not cutting it until you’re legally mine.”
“I know,” she whispers, still wearing a giddy smile. I lay with a full heart, drinking her in.
“What?” she asks.
“I wanna fuck you so bad right now,” I growl.
Her eyes grow to the size of lemons. “I think you’ve caught me at a time where I’m indecent, Mr. Jacobs,” she retorts, referring to her period.
I glance slyly down her body. She slaps my arm.
“What did you say to me in Puerto Vallarta?” she asks as she taps her chin with her index finger. “Hmmmm…a haram?” Rayna reminds me, playfully chiding.
“A haram it is,” I agree. Though the level of intimacy that I’ve come to have with Rayna defies everything previously believed as immoral. I want no barriers to her. No restrictions to her heart and/or body.
I shift to my feet and lift her from the sofa. We head back to the bedroom where I pull back the linens and gently lay her down before getting in myself. I pull Rayna into me so close. I don’t want any measure of distance between us—not physically or emotionally. Having Rayna in my world has taught me just how fragile life is, how vulnerable I am. My world is complicated, extremely sensitive. So far, I’ve managed to rope her in with blinders. But how long they’d be effective, I don’t know. And when they come off…
A shiver runs through me at the prospect.
“Hey…” Rayna calls out, turning to face me. Her soft hands cup my face as she examines my eyes intently, searching for something. “What was that about? You were trembling. What’s wrong?”
If only I could be transparent, baby...
In this moment, I hate my existence. I detest the life I’ve built over the years. It’s too convoluted, very much alloyed for Rayna’s innocence. For fuck’s sakes, she said she vowed to never date a drug dealer when we were in NYC, last summer!
And I’m beyond that: I manufacture drug dealers! I develop them under my careful tillage. Though I’m at the end of my reign, a month seems decades away. I wish I could keep her here, in my bed, wrapped in my arms until I’m no longer responsible for organizing a multi-million dollar drug trade.
How can I make this plausible: Rayna, here, in my bed, until the New Year? Hmmmmm…
“Azmir,” Rayna calls again, pulling me from my sick thoughts.
I push her soft frame further into me, needing her warmth. Her inquisitive gaze doesn’t waver, though I’m damn near smothering her. Shit!
“I’m just thinking about what we’ll be like as senior citizens. Would we eat Jell-O, pudding, and shit like that—that old people like,” I lie. “Will our arguments go from the amounts of money I spend on you to who used the last of the denture adhesive?”
Rayna belts out a gut-wrenching laugh. It causes my heart to leap in my chest. I enjoy seeing her light-hearted.
Now, in a more sober place, I murmur, “You know life won’t become magically problem-free once you take on my name, don’t you?”
Nestled under my shoulder, Rayna nods her head with her eyes suddenly humor-free and mouth slightly ajar.
“I mean, Brimm, things may become a little more intensified if only because of my career trajectory,” I warn with a pleading tone. “There will be lots of…outside forces,” I quickly think to use a term that she’ll understand. It’s the one she used to describe that asshole, Thompson, the night after her firm’s charity ball. I need her to get this.
Her eyes race in their sockets, assessing my face as she muses over my words. Rayna nods her head as she murmurs, “Okay. I know…I get it.”
“Well then, why the pensive face?”