Page 63 of Judgments of Fire and Desire

“Open your eyes, Genesis.”

When I slowly opened them, I noticed he had something in his hand. I frowned slightly until he opened it. The tears sprang from my eyes once again as I stared at the platinum beauty. I brought my hands to my mouth as audible cries left my lips. Somehow, Kyrie kept making love to me, touching my G-spot in ways it had never been touched. My orgasm was rising to the surface once again as he asked, “Will you agree to be my forever, baby?”

My orgasm grabbed ahold of me and refused to turn me loose. “Yeeeeesss!” I practically screamed out.

Kyrie set the ring on the bed and wrapped his arms around my waist and plummeted my goodness until he released in my depths. I lay on his chest, feeling our hearts beat in sync while trying to get my breathing under control. The tears wouldn’t stop falling, but they were happy tears. I was beyond happy to have him in my life.

“Kyrie, I love you so much. I will gladly be your wife. You showed me love in ways I didn’t think you were capable of. I’d be a fool to want to live the rest of my life without you.”

He continued to hold me and kissed my forehead. “Even in all the turmoil, I’m the happiest I’ve ever been. Tomorrow isn’t promised to anyone, and I refused to go another day without taking a step toward making us official.”

“Your timing is perfect. I can’t wait to be Missus Kyrie Jameel Patrick.”

I grabbedGenesis’s hand as we arrived at the entrance of the courthouse. When I got off work, we’d gone out for dinner then made our way back here. I kissed her hand then glanced at the ring I’d slid on her finger last night. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I wanted her to be my wife a month or so ago. My mama was gonna be pissed that I didn’t tell her that was what I was preparing. However, I knew if I told her of my plans, she would have found a way to screw them up.

She would have been way too excited and would have wanted to be there for when I asked the question. It wouldn’t have beennearlyas passionate as it was. She wouldn’t have left the house in time, and Genesis would have known something was up. I didn’t want Gen to know it was coming. I wanted to catch her completely off guard. If I would have been taking too long, Mama would have probably popped the question for me.

I opened the door for my wife-to-be, and we were both stunned when we saw Samuel being escorted in handcuffs. “Samuel!” Genesis yelled.

He didn’t look at her. He kept his head lowered in embarrassment. I wasn’t sure how they’d found him, but obviously, they had. I put my arm around her and pulled her closer to me. Stephanie appeared next to us and said, “I’m sorry you had to see him that way before I could inform you that we found him at a hotel in Nederland.”

Nederland was only about twenty minutes from here. If he was gonna go somewhere, I couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t go further. This whole thing was weird to me. He could have at least gone to Houston. I slowly shook my head as Stephanie patted my back. She walked away, and I looked around to see if Tyson was here yet. When I didn’t see him, Genesis and I proceeded into the auditorium where the meeting would be held.

Surprisingly, there were only about twenty people here so far, and we were only ten minutes ahead of schedule. Apparently, feeling the discomfort I felt, Genesis frowned. “I wonder why no one else is here yet.”

“I know. I don’t like this. It feels weird, like others know something we weren’t privy to.”

Genesis held my hand tightly as we sat, looking around at everyone here. So far, there were only a few police officers, one of which responded to the house fire at my house, a judge, and a few office personnel, along with roads and drainage workers. Stephanie joined us inside and kind of glanced around as we had done. She sat next to me and said, “I guess everyone is running late.”

“Mm hmm,” I responded, offering no other words.

Suddenly, what Tyson said in that note yesterday came back to me. Just as I was about to stand from my seat, Stephaniepulled her weapon and aimed it at me. She slowly shook her head and chuckled as Genesis wrapped her arms around me from behind.

“You just couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you?” she asked.

I couldn’t respond, because it seemed my tongue was on hiatus. The one person I chose to trust was dirty. The feeling I had in my gut was definitely misinterpreted concerning her. As she held us at gunpoint, I looked around the room to see other people watching but doing nothing. We got invited to a damn team meeting. “You can’t expect to get away with this in the courthouse.”

“Oh, but we do,” she said as Samuel was pushed inside. “You see, Samuel was disgruntled about being found and arrested and somehow stole a gun from officers and opened fire on the entire room.”

When he stood next to her, she handed him the gun. He was trembling. I could tell he was being forced to do this. He didn’t want to kill anybody. I also had to assume they were altering the camera systems as well. It seemed all of this would be picked up on if they hadn’t.

“Samuel! What are you doing?” Genesis yelled as she stepped to the side of me.

I stepped in front of her again and swallowed hard. I didn’t know how I would escape death this time, but I was praying in my spirit that He spared us once again.

“Genesis, I didn’t want to do this. I knew if I turned myself in, they would get to me. That was why I didn’t want to do that. They found me anyway. I never wanted anyone to get hurt, especially not Darlene. She always looked out for me.”

I frowned. “Darlene killed herself,” I said. “She couldn’t bear the guilt of the crimes she’d committed.”

He slowly shook his head and lifted the gun to where it was aimed at my head. Tears fell down his cheeks as AJ entered the room. He gave us a wicked smile and said, “I thought y’all would have handled this by now. What’s the hold up?”

“Do it, Farris!” Stephanie yelled.

“Please, Sam. Don’t do this. I love you so much. You’re willing to kill me? Your big sister who taught you to tie your shoes? The one who read books to you at night and taught you to play baseball? You can’t, Sammy. Pleeeeaaaassse. I don’t want to die, but I will die for Kyrie, and I know he will do the same for me. You know how I know?”

She held her hand up to show him her ring. The gun lowered some as he stared at it. “He asked to marry me last night. I won’t allow him to die unless you kill me too. I refuse to live without him. I know it’s the same for him.”

“Good, because we didn’t intend for either of you to make it out of here alive! Shoot them!” Stephanie yelled then pushed Samuel.

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