Talaya, p.7
Talaya, page 7
“But I do want you there, baby,” she said, dragging her tongue over her lip and attempting to grind down over him. “I doooo.”
This time he grabbed her hips and moved quicker than she could blink. He repositioned them so that she was now on her back and he was between her legs, but not inside her. Dammit, she missed his presence already.
“I don’t feel like talking,” she spat and flattened her palms against his chest to push him away.
“Well, that’s just too bad,” he said with raised brows, not budging an inch at her attempt. Then he sighed. With his elbows propped on either side of her face, his hands cupped her face. “I love you, Tee. Tell me what’s going on in your head.” He lowered his forehead to hers. “In your heart.”
Dammit!
She closed her eyes and huffed.
Why did he have to be so sweet, so caring, so utterly irresistible? Why did he have to be so perfect for her? Messed up, confused and seemingly determined to be unhappy, her?
“I’m trying,” she whispered so softly she wasn’t even sure he’d heard her.
But he replied, “I know you are, baby.” Then he kissed the tip of her nose and pulled back enough so that he could look down at her. “Is this just about Yolanda?” he asked. “Because, baby, believe me she is nothing to worry about.”
Talaya shook her head. “No. No. I’m not worried about her silly ass. I know that if you were finished with her, you would’ve cut all contact. And as angry as she was tonight, I’m certain that’s exactly what you did. So, she’s the least of my worries.”
“Good,” he said with a sigh. “Then tell me what is bothering you.”
Again, she shook her head. “I don’t want to,” she told him. And before he could speak again, she continued, “And it’s not because I’m being stubborn or just want to finish what we were doing.” She gave him a slow smile. “Even though I do reeeallly want to finish what we were doing.”
He smiled in return. “I can get with that, but I need to make sure you’re okay first. Can you understand that?”
Now, she lifted her hands, tracing her fingers over his eyebrows, then down his cheeks to his bearded chin. “I do understand,” she said. “You love me.”
He nodded. “More than words can ever express.”
“I know,” she whispered, tears filling her eyes. “I know and I swear that makes me feel better than I ever have in my life. The fact that you want me in your life and you love me enough to deal with all my crap, it fills me with so much joy, Ridge.”
He thumbed away the tears that spilled from her eyes. “Then why are you crying, baby?”
She sighed. “Because I love you too,” she told him. “I love you and I never want to stop loving you. And tonight, I wanted to show you that love. I wanted you to feel it coming from everything I did to you and, in return, I wanted to feel the depth of your feelings for me in everything you did to me.”
He tilted his head then as if he were really absorbing her words. Then his lips spread into a grin.
“Great. So now you’re laughing at me,” she said and snatched her hands from his face. “First, you deny me another orgasm, now you think I’m a joke.” She attempted to squirm her way from beneath him, but he held her to him.
“Nah. Nah, that’s not what I’m doing,” he said and was still smiling even though a somber tone had taken over. “I’m just really happy,” he continued. “I’m happy to hear you saying what I’ve been feeling all these months. To hear the thoughts that have been such a jumble in mind most days, but then at night, once I’m able to touch you and slide inside you become so crystal clear. I love it, baby. And I love you.”
Then his lips were on hers and he was kissing her with the depth of emotion swirling between them. She wrapped her arms around his neck, holding him to her as he deepened the kiss. It was so slow, and so sensual, and lasted for so long that she felt like she was floating even though he wasn’t inside of her stroking her toward bliss.
She was lost in him, in the feel of his weight on top of her, the soft touch of his lips against hers, the stroke of his tongue, and that hoarse moan that came from him when she tilted her head allowing the kiss to go even deeper. She could kiss him all night, lay with him like this all day, marvel in the perfection that their two broken souls seemed to forge when they were together. There would be no other love like this, no other man for her, no other relationship she’d give every drop of her soul to. This was it; he was it for her.
He eased his mouth from hers just enough so they could suck in air as he moved his hips and positioned himself to sink inside of her. It was a slow thrust, a get-every-inch-of-his-dick inside of her motion that had her spreading her legs wider and moaning in welcome. Then his mouth was on hers again and it was his turn to swallow her moans, to stroke her so slowly and completely that her nails dug into his back and her legs wrapped around his waist.
It went on like that for what felt like forever but at the same time wasn’t long enough. He dragged his lips over her jawline, down to her ear where he whispered her name repeatedly. He lifted her legs, pushing them back until her knees were close to her face and his thrusts went even deeper. She felt like he was a part of her now, mentally and physically as his body, his words, everything about him seeped into every crevice of her being, filling her until she wanted to scream with joy. Yell with the pleasurable sound their bodies made together. She kept her eyes glued to him afraid that if she dared to blink or look away, this would all disappear. That it would have been a dream, one she never wanted to wake up from. “I love you, Ridge,” she whispered. “I love you.”
He sighed, nipped her earlobe with his teeth then licked the spot before moaning her name. Then he was pushing back just enough so that he could stare down at her as he continued to pump inside her. His fingers tightened on the backs of her legs and he balanced himself over her, still dipping deep into her, faster now, so fast they were both panting, both climbing, reaching desperately for that blissful end.
“Mine,” he groaned as he slammed into her again and her thighs began to shake when her orgasm hit. “Today.” He pulled back and thrust deep again. “Tomorrow.” Again. “Always,” he said through gritted teeth before moaning as his release spilled from him.
Hours later, Talaya felt weightless as her head rested on Ridge’s shoulder. They had Sunday brunch with Aunt Birdie and the rest of the family tomorrow, and they couldn’t be late for that. Aunt Birdie would never let them live it down if they were. So, they’d opted not to spend the night at The Corporation. Instead, they’d cleaned up in the bathroom and dressed in their evening clothes again. Only, she hadn’t wanted to put those shoes back on because that little strip of leather across her toes had been painful. Ridge had told her to carry the shoes and he’d carried her to the truck. If Sage thought that was weird, she didn’t say a word, which Talaya knew was a task for her. She liked Sage a lot and had come to depend on her to keep Ridge safe.
It was somewhere around four in the morning and she’d just started dozing off when she heard Sage curse. Ridge tensed beneath her and Talaya’s eyes flew open just in time to feel the SUV swerve, to see a blinding light and then to feel…nothing.
PART TWO
If you want me, show me
If you need me, tell me.
If you have me, keep me.
If I’m worth it, fight for me.
--Unknown
“This is not fuckin’ happening,” Roark said, his voice strained as he dragged a hand down his face. “Not again.”
Ridge didn’t speak. He couldn’t. Instead, he moved toward his bar, pulled out a glass and poured his favorite bourbon almost to the rim. His hand was steady as he gripped the glass, brought it up to his lips and took a slow gulp. Then another. And another.
His head throbbed, the couple of aspirins he’d agreed to in the emergency room weren’t working. Then again, they’d offered him something stronger and he’d refused. The doctors had also wanted to keep him overnight for observation. He’d refused that as well. And so had Talaya. Now at a little after eight in the morning, they were both at home. In a house full of people instead of resting as the medical staff had instructed.
“This is some bullshit,” Slay, Ridge’s closest male friend and the manager of The Corporation Kensington said. “A car just doesn’t drive itself. How in the hell did they not find a driver on the scene?”
“It was four in the morning, who the hell is out at that time anyway?” Roark continued. “And the police showing up at the hospital wanting to do breathalyzer tests on everyone just because they heard the name Donovan! What the hell? They were the ones hit by a damn runaway car!”
Ridge wanted to rub his temples. He wanted to get into the lift and go upstairs to crawl in bed beside Talaya. He wanted to hold her all day and into the night because for the second time in way too short of a timeframe, he’d almost lost her. He took another swallow before looking across his reception room to the people who’d shown up at the hospital and subsequently followed them home.
Roark stood near the couch, his hands going from running down his face to being clenched into fists at his side. His older brother, who was normally the calmer one of the siblings, was visibly upset. The dark jeans and gray t-shirt he’d most likely pulled on in haste after receiving the call about the accident, weren’t wrinkled or in disarray, but they were out of the norm for Roark who was usually always in business mode.
Slay, whom Ridge hadn’t seen much in the past months as his friend had been either traveling with his new girlfriend, Willow, who also happened to be Talaya’s best friend, or working at the club, was in sweats and a hoodie since Sundays were normally his off days. Since Ridge and Talaya only visited the club once a month, he didn’t have as much time as he used to, to drop by Slay’s office to shoot the shit. Willow was a rising star in the music industry and Slay, who was just as new to this monogamous relationship game as Ridge was, understandably wanted to stick close to his woman. That meant, the Saturday night poker games that Slay used to be a regular for, had often left his spot at the table to be filled by Ridge’s cousin, Dane, when he was in town. Truthfully, with all the players, except for Pierce, either married or in committed relationships, lately those card games had been rescheduled more times than he could count.
This morning, Slay sat on the second couch in the room, legs spread as he leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. He’d turned on the television so that the news was now playing at a low volume. There had been a lot of members of the press at the hospital, so much so that Sage, Dino, and Jaheem had circled around Ridge and Talaya as they took the service elevator down to the basement and were ushered out a back door. The head of Team Donovan security was Que, Roark’s guard. Dino had been following behind the SUV Sage drove with Ridge and Talaya in the back. No doubt he’d called Que from the scene along with other members of the team that showed up at the hospital. The only thing Ridge remembered clearly about those first few moments after the accident, had been scrambling over the seat to get to Talaya.
One minute she’d been laying on his shoulder, both of them dozing off after the marathon sex at The Corporation and their decision—which he was now second guessing the hell out of—to go home instead of spending the night there. In the next moments, there was screaming, the cringe-worthy sound of metal crashing into metal and then a deathly silence. Neither he nor Talaya had been wearing seatbelts and they both had been tossed around by the collision. Talaya had been lying crumpled on the passenger side floor when he’d found her. His ears had been ringing, head throbbing like someone had tried to split it open with a hammer, but he’d had to find her before he could do anything else. Needed to know that she was all right before he could start to figure out what the hell had happened.
“Pierce better get here soon and he better have some answers,” Roark was saying, the worry etched in his deep voice pulling Ridge from his thoughts.
“He’s on his way,” Sage said from where she stood guard at the entrance to the room. There was a bandage on the right side of her forehead and red cuts over the rest of her face and down her neck where she’d been hit by shattered glass from the windshield. If the scowl on her face wasn’t message enough that she was pissed, the wary stance she held—legs spread, arms folded over her chest—as she positioned her body to block anyone she didn’t want entering the room, and the cold edge to her tone said it all.
She’d apologized a dozen times. From the moment she’d gotten out of the truck and come back to yank Ridge’s door open, to the second he and she were alone in Talaya’s room. She was blaming herself for what happened to them when Ridge had already stated it wasn’t her fault. Whoever had hit them was totally to blame. And that person was, unfortunately, now in the wind.
Again, Ridge desperately wanted to rub his temples but he knew that wasn’t going to soothe the pain that sliced through his skull. Nothing but that driver’s head on a platter would give him any relief at the moment.
“We should call the Seniors,” Roark said. “I don’t want them to hear about this on the news. Aunt Beverly won’t be happy if that’s how she finds out.”
“No,” Ridge finally spoke. “She won’t.” He didn’t want to worry his aunt or any of the Seniors in their family for that matter, but he knew Roark was right. They needed to get ahead of the press. Which is why he wasn’t surprised when he heard a slight commotion from the foyer and then saw Que ushering Neshawn in.
“What the entire hell?” she asked before crossing the room to stop in front of Ridge. “I send you off to a glamorous party looking ahhhmazing and you come back looking like you’ve been run over by a freight train.”
Ridge took another gulp of his drink, emptying the glass. “Not true. If I’d been run over by a freight train, I’d be dead.”
“That’s not funny,” Neshawn continued. “Are you alright? Where’s Talaya? How is she? Why did I have to wake up and see this news on the television?”
“Maybe we take one question at a time, Neshawn,” Roark said and came to stand beside her. “Roya’s brewing tea and we’re waiting for Pierce to get here with an update on the accident, so come on over here and have a seat with the rest of us.”
Neshawn kept her gaze on Ridge, who had begun to fix himself another drink. He didn’t have a new response for her and wasn’t even going to try to come up with one.
“I want to see Talaya. Where is she? Is she still in the hospital? The news reported you were both released,” Neshawn continued to rattle on. Roark had taken her elbow and escorted her to the couch situated directly across from the matching one where Slay sat, but she wouldn’t sit down.
“She’s upstairs resting,” Ridge told her.
“Alone? You left her alone at a time like this?” Neshawn asked, her brow furrowed.
Ridge stopped with his newly refilled glass halfway to his lips. “Willow and Suri are with her.”
“Then I should probably go up there too,” she said but Ridge was already shaking his head.
“No.” His tone was stern, his gaze intent on her. “Her friends have her for now. When I’m done down here, I’ll go be with her.”
“But—”
“But nothing,” he continued. “I don’t want you in her face telling her what’s best for our reputation right now. We’re going to figure out what’s going on and how best to handle it in the media. She doesn’t have to be a part of this.” Her being a part of this was exactly why Ridge was trying to hold back his rage right now. While he’d assured Sage it wasn’t her fault, he readily harbored enough blame of his own.
Earlier tonight she’d referred to them being all over social media and how she hadn’t expected so much coverage of them. He had because that’s what his life had always been like. Not that the UK branch of the Donovans always did things to keep them in the news, but there was no denying they were one of the wealthiest Black families in London, and that alone garnered a certain amount of media chatter. Add to that the international connections the family name had through their different business ventures, and he’d had to become adept at dealing with the press. Had to get used to his picture popping up in tabloids, magazines and even newspapers.
Talaya had also grown up in a spotlight, one that was vastly different from his and now that he was responsible for putting her in this place again, he wanted to shield her as much as possible.
“Fine,” Neshawn said and then plopped down onto the couch a couple of feet away from Slay. “I can schedule a press conference for later this afternoon. Roark you can do the talking, but Ridge you and Suri should definitely be there.”
“No press conferences,” Ridge said adamantly and finished his second glass of bourbon of the morning. Yes, it was definitely still morning. The ticker running along the bottom of the television gave news highlights as well as the weather and time, while reporters covered the issues of the day. It wasn’t even nine o’clock yet but it seemed like he’d been going all day long without a moment’s rest. “I said I wasn’t doing any more press conferences after I had to do the ones about the families involved in the explosion.”
And that had been hell since most of the families despised him and his family, regardless of how big of a settlement Donovan Oilwell UK had bestowed upon them.
“I’ll do it alone,” Roark said. “Ridge and Talaya have been doing the bulk of the press since Tamika delivered the baby, but it’s time for me to get back into action.”
Ridge had been wondering how long it would take his brother to get out of the new fatherhood haze and return to being the totally focused workaholic Ridge and everyone else knew him as.
Neshawn pressed her red painted lips together in a tight line. “I guess that will work.” She reached into the bag she carried and pulled out a tablet. Before he could say another word, she had the tablet open and propped up on her lap. “I’ll just shoot an email over to my contacts at the local stations. Then I’ll hit up the radio stations so they can link into as well.”
