Gluttony, page 18
I grab her hand as we follow Karl around the lot. He finds a sleek black GLE SUV and opens the door. It’s lower to the ground than my Escalade. A smaller car and more girly. She’s got her poker face on, but her glimmering eyes don’t lie.
Z likes presents whether she’ll admit it or not.
She especially likes gifts from the heart.
Everything I do for her is not just from my motherfucking heart, but my soul.
I slide into the passenger seat and watch her as she fiddles with buttons. “You like this one?”
“It’s comfortable. And really nice,” she murmurs. “And safe?”
Karl pops his head between us from the backseat. “One of the safest ratings on the lot.”
Zemira and I exchange an amused smile.
“Okay, Karl. Let’s see what she can do,” Z says, determination in her voice as she holds out her hand for the keys.
I’m edgy as I sit in the parking lot waiting for Rhett. Our lives have been crazy with The Elite shit, but we’re both doing pretty fucking okay all things considered. Good women will do that to you. We’re both happy. Better than happy. Fucking ecstatic. Love will make you crazy like that.
A car pulls up in the next parking spot over, and a few seconds later, my best friend pops into the seat beside me.
“Escalade, huh?” he asks, frowning. “Where’s my baby boy?”
“Your baby boy has a new daddy now.”
He gapes in horror. “You gave up Sergio?”
“Sergio had to go.”
His brows furl together. “You just inherited like the entire fucking earth and you’re still driving this thing?”
“It makes Z feel safe.”
“Z sure does have a lot of say in your life.”
I tense at his tone. “She’s my girl. I bet your girl has some things to say about your life too.”
He lets out a heavy sigh. “She does.” His fingers run through his hair, like he’s not comfortable talking about this with me. It’s weird, I’ll admit. For so long, it was us banging chicks and not giving a fuck about anything other than getting wasted. Now, so much more is at stake. His phone rings, and speak of the devil, it’s his girl. I note his entire demeanor changes as he talks to her. All smiles. These women are good for us. Good for the motherfucking soul.
While he chats, my mind drifts to the book I found at Dad’s. My girl had pointed out what I already knew. The Elite shit was crazy and fucking spooky. Ever since I came face to face with Zemira, she’s made me take a hard look at my soul and helped me turn into someone better.
“I think you should burn it,” Zemira tells Rush primly.
His eyes twinkle with amusement. “Sure thing, Z.”
Satisfied, she kisses my cheek and walks inside a bookstore. I lean up against the brick wall and lift a brow at Rush.
“You going to burn it?”
He laughs. “Nope.”
“What are you going to do with it?”
“Read it. Just like I said.”
I roll my eyes. “Enjoy your bedtime story.”
He pulls a joint from above his ear and offers it to me. I wave it away and don’t even lust after the high when he lights it up to take a hit. The only high I need is Z. “The part I’ll enjoy is the end.”
I don’t tell him my stuff was also in the book. I tore out the picture of us and destroyed it. He’ll find out soon enough.
“Whatever, man. Have fun with that,” I say, shaking my head. I pull out a flash drive and push it into his hand.
“What’s this?”
“I found something else of particular interest in my dad’s safe,” I tell him. “You need to see it to believe it.”
His brow quirks in question.
It’s shit he needs to see. What all my brothers need to see.
“Let’s just say, it’s time to finally visit our lost brother…” I tell him.
Before I leave him be, he grips my shoulder and leans in to whisper to me. “One day, I might need your help.”
I turn and regard my friend. “You’ve always been around when I needed you. You know I’ll be there. And if I can’t be, my wallet can.”
We nod in mutual understanding, then we part ways.
That favor came around sooner than I thought it would. I can still feel the heat of the flames on my face…
“Dude,” Rhett groans, swatting me. “Pay attention to me.”
He’s such a damn girl sometimes.
“Can we talk about how fucking creepy it is to see you wearing that?” he says, pointing to my left hand.
A wicked grin tugs at my lips as I say in my prettiest, girliest southern drawl, “This ol’ thang?”
“Loser,” he grunts. “It’s just so weird to see.”
After Dad died and we were read the will, I took my girl down to the courthouse and made her my wife. Zemira argued I was crazy the entire way there. Are you serious, God? This is over the top. Completely insane. I’d simply chuckled and told her I needed to have her always. To my absolute pleasure, she agreed. And on a cold, sunny day, I married Z.
“And with no pre-nup…fucking idiot.”
An idiot in love. I married Z without a pre-nup. So fucking what.
I shrug, but my smile widens. “Love will make you crazy like that.”
“Your dad is rolling over in his grave right now,” he grumbles.
“Yeah, yeah,” I say as I start the Escalade and back out of the parking spot. “He’ll get over it.”
“Where are we going?”
I flash him a wide smile. “I’m going to buy my wife a house.”
He rolls his eyes and settles in his seat. “Here we go. Why do you need my help?”
“Someone has to help me pick out shit at the home improvement store,” I explain. “I don’t know what the hell that stuff means. You’re going to help me.”
His eyes are wide as he stares at me like I’ve lost my mind. “You’re buying a fixer-upper?”
“Don’t look so horrified, man. If buying her a little creepy shack in the woods by the swamp makes my wife happy, then by God, I’m going to buy her that creepy goddamn shack.”
He shakes his head. “And here I thought she was going to be some gold digger. Turns out, she’s just as crazy as you.”
“Crazy in love,” I say with an obnoxious grin.
“Oh, God.”
“I get that a lot.”
Zemira
Four months later…
The best part about our house is the man who lives in it with me. God may have literally crashed into my world and nearly destroyed it, but it was him who patiently picked it all back up and put it together again. And he didn’t just make it right, he made it better.
I put my car in park, then climb out, leaving my backpack in the front seat. Now that my headaches are a thing of the past, school is a breeze. I’m focusing my studies on business so I can help God with this mountain of responsibility that’s landed on his shoulders since his father’s passing. Sometimes, I wish he’d go back to school and work on getting his business degree. But then, I come home, see him working so hard on our house, and realize how happy he is. Working with his hands and making a home.
Like now…God, is God ever hot.
He’s standing on a ladder with no shirt on as he scoops muck out of the gutters. I take a moment to admire his recently tanned back. God is no longer pale and sickly. He’s strong and healthy. I like that he’s put normal weight back on and isn’t so lean. All that puking had to have been bad on his system. Now, his muscles are thick and hardened from physical labor on our home, not crazy-obsessive hours at his gym. In fact, he doesn’t even have a gym anymore.
God is an extremist. He’s over the top about everything. And when he wanted to embrace a simpler lifestyle, he embraced it fully. Sold all his cars and his buildings. His mom is in the process of selling their family home to move into the city. He’s hired qualified help and advisors for his father’s businesses. All he cares about is making our “little shack,” as he calls it, our home.
My mind flits back to our simple wedding.
It was just us, his brothers, and their girls. All of whom I’ve grown close to.
The wedding took place in a judge’s office. God wore a T-shirt and jeans. I wore a blue dress. It probably looked silly to an outsider, but to us, it was everything. Me, the girl with nothing, gave the man with everything something worth having: love.
“Hey, handsome,” I call out to him.
He turns and flashes me one of his billion-dollar bad boy smiles. The kind of smile that makes me weak in the knees and hungry for a taste of him. His ball cap is flipped backwards and he’s wearing sunglasses hiding his expressive eyes from me.
“Having fun up there?”
He drops a handful of gunky leaves and grime into a bucket on the ground at the bottom of the ladder. “Having more fun now. Awfully pretty scenery I must say.”
“I thought I’d grill chicken tonight. Sound good to you?”
He nods as he climbs down the ladder. His abs and pecs gleam with a sheen of sweat I wouldn’t be opposed to licking right off him. “I could eat,” he says with a devious smirk.
When he’s close enough to touch, I stand on my toes and kiss his lips. He tastes salty and delicious. “I missed you.”
He chuckles. “You were gone three hours and probably geeking out on how to calculate the time value of money or some shit. I doubt you missed me.”
“Professor Brown’s class is very educational,” I admit, “but I never stop missing you.”
“Why don’t you throw the chicken in some marinade, then join me in the shower so I can show you just how much I missed you, Z?”
I love showers with God now that I don’t have that stupid cast on anymore.
“It’s a date,” I tell him, grinning.
“You’re a cheap date.”
Shrugging, I shoo him off. “Get naked, dirty boy.”
The bathroom is steamy by the time I undress and join my husband under the hot spray. Our shower in this “shack” is small and God said he’s going to remodel it next. We’ll have to shower at his mom’s until we get it fixed, but I can admit I miss the shower from his loft and am looking forward to this particular upgrade on our house.
“Look at you,” he growls, water running down his now-clean face.
I scrunch up my nose and pat my stomach. “He’s going to be big like you.”
His large palms spread out over my protruding belly in a reverent way that always sends my heart pattering right out of my chest. “He’s a Goddard. We don’t do anything small.” With those words and a wicked grin, he grips my wrist and draws my hand to his hard cock. Very large, hard cock.
“Six will be at least double that,” he assures me with that smug tone of his that used to bug me but now I adore.
“You are not estimating the size of your son’s penis. You’re such a weirdo,” I tease, but don’t let go of his dick.
“Maybe we should talk about something else instead. Like how fucking hot you are carrying my kid.”
He slides his hands to my rounded ass and he lifts me. I clutch onto his shoulders and groan when he leans me against the cold fiberglass wall. His dick slides between the lips of my pussy in a teasing way until I’m clawing at him.
“God…”
“Is that a prayer?”
“It’s a command. Fuck your wife already.”
His eyes darken as he pushes his thickness inside me. My stomach is growing, but we still manage ways to make love. Mostly, God just manhandles me into a position that works. I’m just along for the ride.
“I like you wrapped around my dick, Z. It’s where you belong.”
His lips fuse to mine in a possessive kiss. All I can do is hold on as he thrusts wildly into me. Six flutters around inside, nudging and poking, as though he thinks we’re playing a game. He’s already a mess like his daddy.
“God,” I cry out, my legs trembling as my orgasm nears.
God, my impatient husband, reaches between us and hurries along my pleasure until I’m screaming his name over and over like some fervent prayer. He bites on my bottom lip and tugs. Then, he growls as his heat fills me.
“Z,” he rasps, his breath hot against mine.
I relax in his arms. I never have to fear he’ll drop me. He’s the strongest man I know.
“Yeah, babe?”
“I love you,” he murmurs. “I loved you from the moment I saw you.”
That day was terrifying. I was dancing on death’s doorstep, but I had an angel. A dark, screwed up angel watching over me. An angel named God.
I used to think I hated him. That he was a horrible person for hurting me. But the truth is, when I saw him as my life hung in the balance, I clung to him. From that very first second our eyes locked, I reached for him. Begged for him. Prayed for him.
They say Fate is a cruel bitch.
I think she just wanted to play God.
She learned pretty quick God’s life wasn’t much fun. Fate, that fickle bitch, left me to play with him instead. Luckily, God and I learned right from the start that we win when we’re on the same team.
“We need to get cleaned up and eat. I promised Luther I’d go see him later,” God says as he pulls me from his softening cock.
“You sure are chummy with Luther,” I tease.
“You know he likes it when I make an appearance every day,” he says, groaning. But I see the happy glint in his eyes. God bought the orphanage and works with Luther to make it better. While I go to school and God’s not working on our house, he spends many hours talking to caretakers, children, and contractors. St. Augustine Orphanage is getting an entire makeover. From the rickety furnaces and peeling linoleum floors, all the way to the funding for education. He’s even started the Goddard Foundation that will oversee making sure the orphans who age out are set to go out into the world to make something of themselves. Housing, education, jobs. It’s like everything he wanted to do to help me, he’s now projecting that obsession on others.
I couldn’t be more freaking proud.
“What?” he asks, frowning. “You look like you’re going to cry again.”
Pregnancy hormones make you do that a lot I’ve learned.
“I’m just so proud of you,” I tell him, my voice wobbling with emotion. “So proud of the man I married.”
His lips quirk up on one side, and his brown eyes twinkle with pride. “You’re proud of me? I don’t think anyone has ever been proud of me before.”
“Well, I am proud, and you can’t change my mind.”
He laughs. So carefree and boyish. I live for his laughs. “Nah, I wouldn’t dare change your mind. I love it when you worship me.”
I roll my eyes and swat at him. “I do not worship you, asshole.”
“I bet I could get you on your knees and prove otherwise,” he murmurs huskily, his cock growing hard again.
“Just when I think you’ve grown soft on me…”
He grips his cock and strokes it. “Oh, I never go soft around you, baby. Never.”
When he challenges me with his deviant stare, I can never back down. Instead, I get on my knees before the man I love, which is no easy task pregnant, and stare up at him. His evil smirk is gone and his intense brown eyes sear into me.
“What? No tough guy words now?” I taunt as I lick the tip of his dick that still tastes like me.
He lovingly caresses the side of my head. “I love you.”
“I love you too,” I purr. “Now, get ready to worship your goddess, because I’m about to bring you to your knees with me.”
“Holy fuck, Z,” is the last thing I hear before I take his cock deep in my throat. “You’re fucking divine, woman.”
I love knowing my God worships me too.
God
Several months earlier…
Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop!
The windows explode in rapid succession, making me startle with each one.
Someone curses from beside me.
“Holy shit,” Rhett hisses from my other side.
Holy shit is right.
But there is nothing holy about this act. Nothing holy at all. No, we’re sinners. Every single one of us.
Something crashes, and a burst of heat billows our way, burning my face.
I take a staggering step back, bumping up against Pride, who steadies me. Everything in me begs to look away, but I can’t. Just like the rest of them, I watch with a mixture of awe and horror. Others look on with unmasked glee…
It’s the screams, though. The screams are going to haunt me until the day I die. Tortured. Pained. Begging. I couldn’t do anything even if I wanted. And I certainly don’t want to.
Sirens can be heard in the far distance.
Our time here is limited…
But the message is clear:
No. One. Fucks. With. My. Brothers.
The End…for now…
Sloth by Giana Darling
Coming soon!
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