Page 116 of Roulette: The Madam

I wasn’t ready to let her go just yet. Neither was I ready to roll over to an empty bed. The two nights I’d spent with her were beyond my wildest dreams. She was angelic. She was celestial. She was vulnerable. She was wild. She was open. Shewas curious. And, she was completely in her element. Liberated.Free.

An hourlater and we were tucked inside of the Panamera that was fresh off the showroom floor. The paper mats crumbled under our feet. I adjusted the mirror to suit my needs.

Roulette toyed with the navigation, typing in the address I knew all too well now. Not because she’d given it to me, but because I’d searched nonstop until I discovered it. I wanted to know where she laid her head in the event that I wanted my head on her pillow, too.

“I’m not taking you home, Princess.”

“No?”

“No,” I explained. “I have an emergency. I am taking you with me. I don’t have time to stop, and even if I did, I wouldn’t. I think it’s about time you met a girl that means the entire world to me.”

“A girl?”

Her invisible antennas had been activated. She slid her back across the seat, angling her body in my direction.

“Like, a sister?”

“I have a brother, Princess. He doesn’t live in the States. I don’t see him often enough to introduce you. No sister.”

“Like your mother?”

“Like my daughter, Princess.”

Silence captured my attention. I peered back at her, taking my eyes off the road for a brief second. The disappointment on her face stabbed me in the center of my heart.

“Like a daughter?” She scoffed. “A daughter?”

“Malaya Kingston. I have full custody of her. She’s fifteen and a very bright girl. She’s going through some real shit right now that has her feeling like the world is crumbling around her. I have to pick her up from school. A group of kids keep fucking with my baby, although she means no harm at all. Luckily, I don’t fight kids ’cause I swear I want to beat some ass bout her.”

“A daughter?” Her eyebrows scrunched as she tried processing the information I was sharing. “A child?”

“A teenager.”

“Israe–”

“She’s a good kid, Princess.”

“And a kid, nonetheless. When did you plan to tell me she existed?”

“Now.”

She nodded, taking in the bits and pieces as she formed new versions and visions of me in her head.

“Tell me something, Israel.”

“Yeah?”

“At what point do you start considering me? My boundaries? The things I want. The things I don’t. Hm? When will that happen? Because, since I got involved with you, it’s been fuck everything Roulette wa–”

“When these feelings for you subside. Shit, when I can go a full day without you on my dome. When that little voice in my head stops telling me to show you the life and love you deserve. When your sister’s voice stops ringing in my ear telling me to have patience and give you all the things you don’t know you want or need in this lifetime because you’re just a girl at the end of the fucking day.”

“Rome?” She sucked the skin of her teeth. “Of course.”

“She said very few words to me until you became the topic. She sees something for you. I do, too. I won’t ask for forgiveness because I am trying to get you on the same page.”

She exhaled with a shake of her head. The silence returned. She massaged her temple as she digested all that I’d given her. She deserved the moment she was taking. There hadn’t been a drop off request, so I was certain she was rethinking her distaste for men with children.

We arrived at Malaya’s school minutes later. I didn’t bother finding a parking spot. I parked the car in the roundabout that made it clear parking was not allowed.

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