Power of the Pen (8 page)

What the fuck
?

I did not cook breakfast for a woman, ever! Shit, I needed to put a stop to this.

“Thanks Zach, you are the bessss.” She dragged.

Her eyes were closed; her breathing was even, rendering her sleep. If I had any balls left, I would have used that moment to get the fuck out of there. Apparently, I had none because I curled into her back, pulling her closer to me. I did not question it, I just did it. She felt like mine, so right then after hot ass sex that is what she would be.

Mine
.

Lauren

In my dream, I was cooking bacon and brewing coffee. The smell was so strong it caused my stomach to growl because I was so hungry and the food was not done. When everything was cooked, I attempted to get the bacon on my plate, but there were no utensils to get the bacon out of the oven and onto my plate. That was a trick my grandmother taught me when I was young. Instead of frying the bacon on the stove top, put it in the over to decrease the chance of getting popped by scorching grease and to ensure the slices were cooked evenly through.

The smell overwhelmed me to the point where I started to choke and wake up. I then realized that bacon was actually being cooked and coffee actually being brewed in my house.

Oh my God.

He was still here, in my kitchen, cooking breakfast. I hopped out of bed, ran to the bathroom to relieve myself and take a quick shower. Last night was absolutely incredible, but I knew after those escapades, I needed to freshen up a bit. Not quite sure how to face him, I stayed a little longer in my closet as I selected what I wanted to wear. Nothing that said I was trying, but enough to be relaxed in my space. My yoga pants and fitted shirt would work, since I had no appointments and my ass was also a little sore from my spanking.

As I entered the kitchen, I saw Zach standing over the stove with a spatula in hand attempting to turn the pancakes. He was dressed in black Calvin Klein briefs, a black fitted t-shirt and black socks. Not only was the man gorgeous, but he was in my kitchen, looking like he belonged in it. My heart fluttered at the thought. He turned towards me, but did not smile. No, he smirked and raised an eyebrow at me.

“Good morning,” I said with a deep voice.

“Sexy,” his smirked deepened.

“You know you want to smile.” I laughed out loud.

“Come here.”

Slowly walked towards him, he switched the spatula from his left to the right hand so he could wrap his arm around the back of my neck. Looking down at me, he ran his nose against mine in a soothing way, then gave me a soft kiss.

“How are you feeling this morning?”

“Great,” I beamed at him. “How about you?”

Snaking my arms around his waist, Zach looked at the pancakes on the stove, then swiveled his neck to look around the kitchen. As if he was trying to figure out how he got here. His hold around my neck tightened, when he asked, “What the fuck are you doing to me?”

“Nothing yet,” I ran my hands up his back. “When is the food going to ready? I dreamt of bacon and coffee.”

He blinked at me, and then laughed out loud.

Wow!

This was the first time I saw him laugh. He was always so serious, even intense, all of the time. But his laugh was sexy and doing things to me. I made a mental note to get him to laugh more often. As he calmed down, he kissed my nose, gave me a squeeze and said, “It’ll be ready in five.”

He patted my ass as a signal to get along.

“Do you need me to do anything?” I asked him.

“No.”

“Okay, I’m going to check emails.” I sang out as I left the kitchen.

Five minutes later, Zach came out of the kitchen with two plates. He sat them in front of me, next to my keyboard, and then he returned back to the kitchen. When he re-emerged, he had two mugs of coffee.

“How do you take your coffee?” he asked.

“Sweet and light,” she replied.

He extended a mug in my direction, which I took from him. He grabbed a plate along with his coffee and moved to sit on the love seat. I joined him, bringing my food along as well. He packed three pancakes on my plate, along with an omelet and bacon. He had the same, but with five pancakes.

“This is a lot of food.” I said to him.

“So.”

“So, I can’t eat all of this.”

“Okay, eat it later.” He said as he started to dig into his food.

After eating a few bites of the omelet, which was fluffy, well-seasoned, and somewhat spicy, I mumbled, “This is good. Where did you learn how to cook?”

Zach looked a little taken aback by the question. He took a sip of coffee and said, “Always knew, but learned more in the army.”

“Oh my gosh! You were in the army?” I asked.

A nod in the affirmative was all he gave me.

“Wow, that’s cool. Why did you leave?” I asked.

“Who said that I did?”

“Well, you said you were a writer, so I’m assuming you weren’t in the army still.” I explained my thoughts.

“I’m on contract for various things, but I’m still active.” He did not seem to want to talk about it anymore, so I decided to drop it for now.

“Well, one day, you’ll have to tell me about your time there,” I said.

He stopped eating and looked up to me. Nothing was verbalized, but something passed in that moment that I was even uncomfortable with, so I broke eye contact with him and sipped my coffee.

The pancakes were fluffy, just like the eggs and the bacon was crispy. Just the way I liked. Our conversation was minimal, as we were eating, but our legs were touching and occasionally, he would squeeze my thigh before he reached for his coffee.

“This was delicious Zach.” I was thoroughly surprised.

He grunted.

His plate was empty, as he devoured his large helping, while my plate still held one pancake and half of the omelet. I planned to eat that for lunch. I moved back to my emails, as he put everything away, and once again denied my help. Before Zach brought the food out, I was in the middle of reading a post from real_zhays. Apparently, that was the real one and he wrote an excerpt to me on his personal website. The only reason that I knew was because I signed up for alerts that included my name or my blog. Mr. Hays blasted me, badly! I finished reading and started to log onto my blog to give him another piece of my mind, including the mama insult.

Something touched my shoulder, so I turned to see Zach staring at my screen, but his face was pale. On the screen was a window displaying real_zhays post and the other half was a window with my blog.

“What?” I asked him.

“Uh,” he seemed to be shocked.

“What do you know this guy?” I asked. “Ooooh, yeah. You did say you were a writer, so you know him, don’t you?” I accused.

“Know?” he started. “I, uh, know of him.”

He shook his head, “Wait, so you blog on The Jay Blog?”

“How do you know about The Jay Blog?” I became suspicious.

“Who doesn’t know? That blog has received national recognition.” He countered.

“Yeah, okay, but do you know this author?” I pointed to the screen. “He’s such an asshole. He portrays his writings as one thing but sends women’s literature back thousands of years with his submissive, BDSM, servitude bullshit.” I shook my head. “Then he has the fucking nerve to call me out like I’m the one that has the problem. In his books, some of the men characters drag women around with collars on their neck, then treat them like dogs, having them lap up their food, like fucking ANIMALS. He’s probably 5’2 with a short man complex,” I kept ranting.

I was already upset about the post, but the fact that Zach may know him was getting me antsy.

“Do you know him?” I asked, at this point standing and looking at him with my hands on my hips.

“I’ve heard of him and read his work.” He stared at me with something in his eyes.

“You’ve read his work?!” I exclaimed.

“Why are you so upset?” he asked.

“If you read his work and you don’t know why I’m so upset, then I’m not sure what else there is to say.”

“He is a writer, he has another point of view, and so as a blogger, shouldn’t you keep an open mind?” he asked me.

“WHAT?!” I yelled. “Are you serious, right now?”

“Have you read all of his shit?” I asked. “It’s fucking degrading. You have a mother right? How would you feel if your mother was doing this shit? Do you have sisters?”

He shook his head, but I was on level ten and it did not matter what answer he provided.

“The man’s a sadist, and he promotes that crazy shit, sending woman back millions of years. He acts like it is empowering, but it’s not.” I started and then realized that he was looking at me funny.

“I’ve got to go,” he said.

I looked away from him and said, “Yeah, I think that’ll be best.”

His eyebrow went up my comment. Then he nodded and went to the bedroom, allowing me to return to my task so I could blast real_zhays’ ass. A few minutes later, Zach emerged from the room.

“Well, this was fun,” I said.

“Yeah, see ya.” He did not even look at me and left.

“Really,” I whispered under my breath.

Yeah, see ya
?

Well, damn. I mention zhays and he gets all weird, and then leaves. After everything last night? Trying my best not to feel dumb for giving him my address, I knew with certainty that he would not be back. That was my only concern. It was one night and some breakfast, but it would be alright.

Fuck him
.

There were more guys at
The Em
that could make breakfast that made my mouth water, stroke me until I came all over his cock, and spank me until I was dripping wet. Zach was my first that did all of that, but I’m sure there would be more. There had to be since I was craving his touch now. He exposed me to something new and erotic, so if he was not giving it to me, then someone else had to.

Bastard
.

******

Two weeks had passed, and I had heard from Gab every single day. I had not heard from Sheree, and I had not heard from Zach. I also had not reached out to anyone of them, and after the first two days, I blocked Gab’s phone number, so she got hip and called me from a blocked number. Someone rang my doorbell a few times, but I never opened or even acknowledged that I was home. My brother, Whit, called a few times and I had to explain that I was not depressed. He informed me that I better not be because he would send Kendell and mom after me if I were. This is what I got for telling mom that Gab and I were no longer speaking and about the incident at Sal’s.  Mom was astonished, and the first thing she wanted to know was who saw it, so she could do damage control. Whit was happy that all the training we did worked out and Kendell was a little upset that I let her get to me. He was all about self-control. I told him that I was in full control, but he was not buying it.

Gab left messages on my answering machine every day with varied versions of the same message. “Lauren, give me a call…this shouldn’t end like this…we’ve been friends for years now…please let me know that you are okay.”

The house returned to disarray, as I was blogging and responding to comments and posting most of the time. I had not responded to real_zhays the day Zach was here, nor after that. The fact that he might have known him or agreed with his work gave me pause. After being secluded in the house, I decided to go
The Em
for a book event that was during the day. I figured none of the people I did not want to run into would be there at that time.

Local Authoress C. Lynette had just released her debut novel, so she was doing a reading and signing at 2:00 PM. Upon arriving, I saw that there were a lot of cars as usual, but someone must have just left because there was a spot right up front. Charlie was the first person to greet me as if I were the queen of Egypt.

“Lauren, my Lauren, I haven’t seen ya lately.” He chimed.

“Yeah, work has been busy Charlie.” I smiled at the older man, who couldn’t quite be my father, but a big brother sort.

“Ahh, yeah.” He smiled back at me.

“Just water for now,” I nodded.

“Sure thing.”

After Ms. Lynette had read from her erotic romance book,
Ebony Articles
, I was suddenly in the mood. For the past two weeks, I was nowhere near that mood, but I was horny as hell at The Em, and it was only 4:00 PM. When the reading and signing was over, I sidled up at the bar and talked to Charlie, who proceeded to give me my regular Cosmo. Thirty minutes later, another Cosmo was delivered and Charlie pointed to a guy across the bar, near the bathrooms. I held up the drink and nodded. The tall black man took that invitation to come closer, which got me even hornier since he physically resembled Idris Elba.

Whew, hot damn
!

He had to be around 6’3 with dark brown skin, no blemishes and a fresh fade. He had on black pin-striped tailored pants, a dress shirt, and his matching jacket was wrapped around his finger and slung over his shoulder. He sauntered towards me and led with, “You are here too early.”

“Excuse me,” I responded.

“You’re here too early.” He nodded as if he were right. “All the pretty women come later, after they have dolled up, put all that paint on their face, wear skin tight clothes and accept drinks, but not numbers.”

I busted out laughing. This man was too much.

“Isn’t it too early to be so cynical?” My laughter died down.

“You may have a point, but you are still early.”