Claimed Darker by Em Brown
Chapter 41
DARREN
Past
Igo up to the second-floor balcony of my club to find JD sitting with his forearms resting over his knees, his head hung low as he stares at the coffee table in front of him.
“You okay?” I ask.
JD straightens. “I’ll be fine. Just reflecting on some of my missteps related to work.”
I sit down next to him and lean back into the sofa. “Are these missteps permanent?”
“You want to know details?”
If I’m going to become more entrenched with the triad, I suppose I might as well understand what all the different players are up to, but I fall back to my old adage of knowing less. I can always catch up with JD later, once my position is official.
“No,” I reply.
JD thinks for a moment. “Nah, they’re not permanent. I had a shipment go bad. My first one. But I learned. And the second one will go more smoothly. I do have a new problem I wasn’t expecting, but I’ll fix it soon enough.”
He studies me, and I almost think that I’m related to the problem somehow.
“When’s your flight to Hong Kong?” he asks.
“Midnight tomorrow.”
“I think I might pay a visit to the mainland, too. Check on that side of the business arrangements to ensure a smoother transition of the exports.”
“You want to book the same flight?”
He knits his brows. “Got to take care of some things here first. Maybe in two or three days. Hey, I’m proud of you, man. Following in the footsteps of your old man. You tell your mom yet?”
“No. She’s going to flip when I do.”
“Well, you can’t be your momma’s boy for forever.”
“Who is a momma’s boy?” asks a woman’s voice.
JD and I turn around to see it’s Olga and Tatiana, the latter another tall and beautiful model. Both of them wear skintight dresses that show off their long legs and swollen tits.
“Tatiana, long time no see,” JD greets, getting up to give her a hug and kiss.
“I heard you two were both in shooting?” she asks.
He sits back down. “Nothing major. Caught a bullet in my leg, but I’m all good now.”
Tatiana turns to me. “Did you miss me, Darren?”
I only smile because the honest answer wouldn’t make her happy.
She looks at me slyly beneath thick fake lashes. “I know you missed me.”
“Nyet. He has girlfriend now,” Olga says.
Tatiana raises her brows. “Kimberly?”
Olga shakes her head. “A woman who likes ugly sweaters.”
“Is she here tonight?”
“She will be,” I answer.
“He’s no fun anymore,” Olga pouts.
“I’m still fun,” JD offers with a big grin.
One of my staff members comes to tell me that Bridget and Amy have arrived.
“Amy?” I echo. I look over to JD.
“I’ll explain later,” he says.
I turn to the women. “All right, ladies. Why don’t you move along?”
“See?” Olga says to Tatiana. “No fun.”
Tatiana purses her lips. “That is sad. So sad. Not even hug and kiss from Darren? I am old friend, no?”
I get up. “Hug and kiss, and then goodbye.”
Tatiana wraps her arms around me, and just when I’m about to plant a kiss on her cheek, she turns her head and our mouths connect instead. She presses my head down while pushing her lips against mine.
“I want hug and kiss, also,” Olga says.
“Do I have to get in a line?”
Looking up, I see Bridget standing at the top of the stairs. I disentangle Tatiana’s arms from me.
Tatiana raises her brows. “Is she the girlfriend?”
“Go,” I tell her.
Olga knows not to disobey me and struts away without even acknowledging Bridget and Amy. Tatiana follows, murmuring something in Russian to Olga.
“Ex-girlfriend of yours?” Bridget asks.
She wears a half-decent sheath. The dark gray is not her color. But her lack of fashion sense no longer bothers me. She looks good to me no matter what she wears.
“No,” I reply. “Tatiana’s just friendly.”
“Like your ex, Kimberly.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“How often are you sexually assaulted by women?”
“That wasn’t sexual assault,” I blow off as Amy snuggles happily next to JD.
“Oh, so that was consensual lip-locking?”
“No,” I grumble. “Fine, if you want to see it as sexual assault, then it’s sexual assault.”
She knits her brows.
“What?” I ask.
“I just wonder, given how often it happens, if maybe you’re giving off vibes that invite that kind of behavior?”
“What do you mean ‘often’?”
“Well, there was Elaine in Phuket—”
“All right, I’m done with this conversation.”
“I’m not.”
I step toward her and whisper in her ear, “You want me to spank you in front of Amy and JD?”
She stares at me, possibly wondering whether or not to call my bluff. If she thinks I’d hesitate to bend her over my knee, she doesn’t know me well.
She wrinkles her nose at me. “Fine, we’ll continue the discussion later.”
We hang out for a while. Amy and JD look as if they’ve picked up where they left off. I notice Bridget studying them carefully.
Despite being twenty-one, Bridget still opts for nonalcoholic drinks. Amy goes for her usual Mojito with extra mint leaves. After two of them, she needs to use the restroom, and Bridget goes with her.
“Why is it women always have to go to the bathroom in pairs or more?” JD asks when the two have left.
“I don’t know. Strength in numbers?” I reply as I go over to the railing and see Tatiana talking to Ronnie at the bar.
“Or the chance to talk shit about us behind our backs.”
“That.” I text Cheryl to look into Tatiana. I okayed her for tonight, but she has to clear an updated background check if she wants to return. After I’m done, I look to JD. “So you’re back with Amy?”
He shifts on the sofa as if in discomfort. “Yeah, she called and texted a lot, you know? I guess I felt bad.”
I study my cousin. He’s never expressed feeling bad for any woman he’s dumped before. “Seriously?”
“She’s still cute.”
But JD doesn’t sound as enthusiastic as he used to be about Amy. In fact, he seems sullen right now.
“How long will it last this time?” I ask, anticipating I’ll get questioned by Bridget later.
JD shrugs, then slumps on the sofa while stretching his legs out. “Not as long as last time.”
“Do me a favor and own it when you break it off with her this time?”
“Yeah, sure.”
JD doesn’t blow smoke up my ass, but I’m not convinced.
The women come back. JD smokes a joint, then invites Amy over to his place, which Amy gleefully accepts. Finally, I think to myself. Tonight’s my last night with Bridget before I head off to China. I would have had her come up to my place sooner, but I knew she wouldn’t leave Amy alone.
As soon as Bridget and I are in the elevator, I have her against the wall. But she slips away.
“I want to continue our earlier discussion,” she says.
I sigh. “Why? You think I control what these women do?”
“You don’t exactly have a strong reaction. It gives the impression that, well, you’re okay with it.”
“Why do I need a strong reaction? It’s not a big deal.”
“So you like it when they’re all over you.”
I trap her between my arms. “I didn’t say that.”
“It’s a logical assumption if you’re not objecting to their behavior.”
She tries to duck beneath my arm, but I shove my hips into her, pinning her against the elevator wall. “What are you looking for me to do? File a charge with the police department? Tie them to the St. Andrew’s cross and whip their ass?”
That’s something I’d like to do to you.
“I guess if it clearly doesn’t bother you…” she huffs while squirming to separate herself a little.
Why is she making such a big deal out of this?
The elevator reaches the top floor, and the doors open, but I don’t budge.
“We’re here,” she tells me.
“I know,” I breathe down on her.
This is when the kissing is supposed to get hot and heavy between us. Is she really that upset about Tatiana?
“I can play this game, too,” Bridget says, lifting her chin. “We’re not having sex until you tell me what JD’s up to.”
I stare at her, not sure if I’m amused or annoyed. “Cute attempt to top from the bottom, but I’m not going for it.”
She remains defiant. “Just because I let you take charge in the bedroom doesn’t mean you get to call the shots all the time.”
I could if I wanted to, I almost retort. But that’s not what Ms. Woke wants to hear.
I cup her jaw. “You think you can withhold sex from me?”
“Until you tell me about JD.”
There’s no way she’s not putting out. Part of me wants to show her just that. Take what’s mine. She might resist. At first. But her body will give in. Like it always does.
“You sure about that, Bridge?”
Still holding her jaw, I slip my other hand between her thighs.
“What are you doing?” she hisses, trying to pull my hand away. “I said we’re not—”
My fingers are in her panties and find her clit. I should just impose my will on her. Show her who’s really in charge of her body.
But even if she does surrender, she might resent it, no matter how good her orgasm might be. She’ll blame the weakness of her desires on me.
While caressing her clit, I ask, “What is it you want to know about JD?”
“His intentions toward Amy.”
“Right now it’s probably to fuck her.”
“That’s not—is he serious about her?”
I sigh. “We’ve been through this before.”
“But you know your cousin. You said once that you guys were like brothers. You know his modus operandi.”
“I’m not in charge of JD. I can’t and won’t make any guarantees.”
Her wetness starts to lubricate my fingers.
“I know that, but what’s the likelihood that he’s serious about Amy? Or is he just playing her? Before he moves on to the next cute girl?”
She grunts when I curl my fingers into her snatch.
I turn it back on her. “What do you think?”
“I think he’s a player. Am I right?”
“You better give it up good after this.”
She holds my gaze. “Don’t I always?”
Fuck me. We’re going to have to do it in the elevator because I won’t be able to wait.
“You want me to throw my cousin under the bus?”
“I just want your honest opinion. I’m not going to tell anyone. Just tell me if you think I’m right, that Amy’s going to have her heart broken a second time?”
I take a deep breath and concede, “That’s what I would bet on.”
Grabbing the back of her thighs, I lift her up and slam her against the wall. She wraps her arms about me as I smother her mouth with mine. I dictate the pace and pressure of the kiss, and she tries her best to keep up. I grind my pelvis into hers, rubbing my erection against her.
I drop her so that I can undo my belt and pants. Flipping her around, I pull down her panties and run my cock along a butt cheek. Her ass is so nice and smooth. Lowering myself, I spear into her wet heat. Her hands are up against the wall to keep herself from being flattened against it when I start thrusting. Wanting a deeper angle, I pull her from the wall by her hips so that she can bend down. I show her what she would have missed out on if she had tried to withhold herself.
I should fuck her with abandon just to warn her from trying something like that again in the future. But I like seeing, hearing, and feeling her orgasm too much. So I focus on her pleasure, milking every groan as I push her toward her climax.
The flexing of her cunt around my cock sends currents through my whole body. I fist my hand into her hair and buck my hips harder. Grunting, she braces herself against the wall as I drive myself balls deep into her. I fill her, releasing wave after wave of my cum, marking her as mine.
* * *
As Bridget nestlesin the crook of my arm in bed, I think of how nice it would be if I could take her to Hong Kong with me. But it’s not practical because she has to study for finals. And I’m not ready for the triad to know about Bridget. My intent is to keep the two parts of my life separate.
“I’m sorry I gave you a hard time about the women,” Bridget says as she runs a finger along my pec. “I just know if a guy tried to do that to me, I’d want to press charges. But maybe it’s different for guys.”
“That’s sexist.”
“You’re right. That is.”
“And if a guy tried to assault you—”
He’d be dead.
Instead, I finish with “—I’d bust his balls.”
“Ooh, can I do that with Kimberly?” Bridget jokes.
I picture the two of them mud wrestling. Naked. I’d pay bucks to see that.
“Honestly, I thought I wasn’t the jealous type,” Bridget says. “But JD’s a player, and you guys are so close, I sometimes wonder…if you’re that way, too.”
I have to watch what I say with Bridget. Which I don’t often do with other women I’ve been with.
“I’ve had my moments,” I reply.
“Am I a moment?”
I look up at the ceiling as I idly stroke her hair. I recall the thought that went through my head as we had sex in plain old missionary position. We had done the BDSM stuff prior. I had used a spreader bar with wrist cuffs in the middle on her. I fucked her on her back with her legs and arms in the air, then I fucked her while she was on all fours. Kind of. Still locked in the spreader bar, she knelt with her arms pulled straight between her thighs, the side of her face flattened against the bed. The penetration while on her back was amazing. I had used the wand to pull two orgasms from her before switching to the modified doggy position. I had thought about taking her ass, and she was in the perfect position for it, but tonight, that wasn’t where I wanted to be. So I took off the spreader bar, and we finished in missionary.
As I was rolling my hips into her, feeling her legs entwined with mine and seeing her gaze on me, glassy and molten, I felt an animalistic urge not only to seek my climax, but to mate. I wanted to fill her with my seed and have it come to something. The ultimate mark that she belonged to me.
“No, you’re not a moment,” I say.
She comes up on her elbows and looks at me. “You hesitated for a while there.”
“I was busy thinking of something.”
“What?”
I stare at her stone-faced. “About you having my baby.”
Stunned, she has no response except for “Uhh…”
I smirk. “I’m not serious. In fact, aren’t you due for another shot of the birth control?”
Her eyes widen. “You’re right!”
She reaches over and grabs her phone. “Actually, it feels like it should have happened last week.”
I frown. Despite what I had said, and that fleeting desire to impregnate Bridget, I do not want to start a family. That would be fucked-up crazy shit right now. I think.
After scrolling through her calendar app, she sighs in relief. “The appointment’s next week.”
I feel relieved, too.
Putting down her phone, she returns to snuggling against me. “Will you get to do some sightseeing while you’re in China?”
“I’ve done that before. This trip is strictly business.”
“What kind of business opportunity did you say it was?”
I hadn’t specified anything in particular. “Just something my father had a hand in.”
“What was it?”
“Stuff you’d find boring.”
“You don’t know that.”
I need a distraction. I roll her onto her back and start kissing her collar and neck.
“Seriously, what did you father do?” she asks.
“Different things.”
I nibble the area beneath her earlobe.
She inhales sharply but persists. “Like what? Why won’t you just tell me?”
“Investing,” I answer. Most people aren’t that interested in anything financial. But I should have known better with Bridget.
“Like with stocks? Real estate?”
I explore the area behind her ear more. She gasps. I tongue the spot. She squirms a little.
“Hello?” she manages.
“I’m busy,” I murmur, as I grope a breast and press my hips and semi-hard cock into her.
As I kiss and fondle her, she gives in. We replace the conversation with sex, but I know I can’t evade her questions forever. I’ll have to come up with a plausible story to tell her the next time she asks. And I’d better do it sooner rather than later.
