AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Walking past each other’s bedrooms.
Putting Niko to sleep together.
Making dinner together.
Playing games together.
I start imagining a beautiful black woman leaving the bathroom in the morning, foggy smoke curling around her. A towel slung low over her body, exposing most of her chest and legs. I see her casting sultry eyes at Sazuki, the very eyes he fell in love with in Japan so many years ago.
My nostrils flare.
I push at him, trying to jump out of his lap.
He holds me. “Let me finish.”
“No, you’ve said enough.” I fight with him, my heart pumping. The weight of what I’ve agreed to, the man I’ve decided to open my heart to, is starting to sink in.
If it was just a matter of Sazuki being older than me, I could survive it. Age does not determine a good man. Some teenagers are mature enough to take care of a family. And some old men still have the emotional maturity of a fetus.
I can even live with us coming from two different cultures. My parents are open and accepting. And Sazuki mentioned his mom was more open-minded than anyone in his family.
I’ll learn from him.
He can learn from me.
We can work through what those differences mean and how they affect our lives together.
I can accept almost anything.
But having his first love parading around in front of him…
I think of Jordan and the pain I felt when I saw those messages in his phone. If he had cheated on me with a random woman he’d met in a bar, it might have hurt less.
But he didn’t.
He was still emotionally entangled with his first love. There was a pocket of his heart that belonged to her even though he claimed to love me and, when she sauntered back into his line of sight, he realized that he didn’t love me enough to turn her away.
“Dejonae, look at me.”
My stomach heaves.
“I can’t,” I croak.
Sazuki settles his fingers on my chin. “I told my mother that she could have the house, but Ashanti would stay in the guesthouse at the back of the property.”
His hand flattens on my back with a possessive heat, drawing me closer to his chest, to the warmth of his body.
I breathe hard, struggling to believe him and the effort he’s making when my last experience taught me that I shouldn’t ever believe a man who’d been reunited with an old lover.
He tilts my head down and presses a desperate kiss on my forehead. The softness of his lips belies the firmness of his hand. Then he kisses my nose with the same intense focus, as if each kiss is a stamp of his initials. Finally, slowly, he kisses my mouth.
I kiss him back, even if my heart is still aching.
Sazuki scrubs a thumb over my cheek. “My heart is with you.” His voice is dark and grave. His eyes are heated. “You do not have anything to fear.”
I want to believe him. With all my heart and soul, I do.
But men staying away from their exes?
