Serayah was lying on her back and stared at the ceiling. “Wow, that’s crazy, King. But it’s the past. You have a new life here now.”
“I do. Heartline Security was a second chance for me. An opportunity at redemption for all the terrible things I’ve done in my life. It’s why I didn’t want to risk anything happening with this job. And then…” I paused. I didn’t want to make her feel bad.
She sat up again and leaned into me. “And thenIhappened…” She ran her finger down my chest to my lower abs, where she drew little circles in my hair.
I admitted, “And then you happened. You little seductress. Vixen. Temptress.” She laughed loudly, and it was such a beautiful sound. It was almost painful because I wanted to hear it all the time, and I couldn’t. While I loved being with her, completely, I still needed to wait until the job was done.
I patted her hand and then started to move to get out of bed and get dressed. Serayah watched me as I got up and asked, “What? What’s wrong?”
I was pulling my pants up and fixing my belt when I said, “Nothing. I just… we can’t…”
She sat up quickly, pulling the sheet up with her and hopped out of bed. “Don’t say it, King. Don’t say we can’t do this.”
I pulled my shirt over my head. “We can’t, Serayah. It’s against the rules, and I could lose my job. Ican’tlose my job.”
“Bullshit.” She said.
“Serayah, calm down. I’ve made so many mistakes in my life.”
She walked up to me and playfully pushed me, making me growl at her. She asked, “Mistakes? So now I’m a mistake?”
“That’snot what I meant.”
“I hate you,” she tried to say seriously, but with those warm brown eyes that softened the intensity of the moment.
I replied, “Yeah? I hate you too, baby, but it still doesn’t change the fact that we can’t be together right now.”
She side-eyed me. “You know you want to be with me, though.”
“Serayah, itdoesn’tmatter.” I put my watch and shoes on. “I have to go.”
Then she pouted, “Don’t leave. Really, don’t leave me.” Her eyes were pooling, and it was breaking my heart. I had to leave. She stood there, staring at me, begging me with her sad eyes to stay, to choose her, and I just couldn’t.
I left her in the bedroom and walked out to the living room, ready to leave and not come back until the assignment was over. She followed me, so I said, “I have to go. Chase is outside if you need anything, and Mack is downstairs.” Then, I turned to her and added, “Maybe in another life, we could be together right now, in this moment, but in this one, I’m still atoning for my sins.”
I wanted to tell her I was hers, but instead, I walked up to her, kissed her on her forehead, and walked out.
Chapter 16
Serayah
A few days later, my phone rang and it was Tasha. She asked, “Girl, where the hell have you been?”
For some reason, hearing Tasha’s voice made me cry. “Tash, can you come over?”
“Oh shit, girl. Okay, I’m on my way.”
I felt so pathetic crying over someone who I barely knew and slept with twice. King had put some space between us. When he left me a few days prior, it truly felt like he was saying goodbye. I hadn’t seen him since. Chase was upstairs, and when I asked about King, he would tell me he was downstairs, keeping watch. I felt like he just didn’t want to be near me.
King and I had chemistry, and we knew it the first time we met at the club. Since then, it’d been this building spark. The spark turned into a fire, which became an inferno, and I’d been trying to catch my breath ever since. I missed himsobad.
Tasha knocked, and when I opened the door, she could tell I’d been crying. She opened her arms and I hugged her. She said, “Tell mama Tasha what’s wrong, baby!”
Explaining the events that had happened over those last few weeks to Tasha made me cry all over again. “I miss him, Tasha. It’s the little moments in between the big ones where he was just being a bodyguard. It’s the glances. The care. He knows it’s about more than us sleeping together. We haven’t spoken, at all since he left. I think he’s just scared.”
Tasha took a breath, looked me in the eye, and said, “You love him.”
Lowering my eyes to the floor, I said, “I can’t remember when Ididn’tlove him. It was instant. As crazy as that sounds, we hardly knew each other, but it was instant. And now, he’s just gone. I feel like a part of me is missing.” When I said that, I broke down again.
