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I knew that she would be sore in the morning. I didn’t care. She needed to know not to fuck around with my heart again.

SIX MONTHS LATER

I welcomed change,but I was trying to breathe through so much of it at once. Salem had been so good to me. After our initial reunion, I spent that night with him. I woke up the next morning to breakfast in bed, and then we went back to my place so that I could shower and dress.

Afterward, he took me with him to meet up with a realtor friend of his. We checked out a large space that was a combination store and warehouse. When I asked him what it would be used for, he informed me that it was mine.

Salem had invested in a place for me to sell my sculptures and paintings and space for me to teach sculpting and pottery. Icouldn’t believe how invested he was in our relationship, and we had barely been together for any length of time.

When I asked him about it, he told me that he knew I was his, and he would do anything to make me feel safe, provided for, and loved. It made me think about my attitude toward our relationship, and I knew that I needed to do better. I couldn’t be half out and half in. I had to be fully committed to him the way that he was to me.

That was what pushed the change that was happening today. I had finally decided that I would show him how all in I was. I had made an appointment with his same realtor. There was a house that I had been eyeing for a while, which was halfway between his apartment and mine.

I hadn’t told Salem anything about it when I first went to see it. I broached the subject later that night about moving. He offered to move me into his place or for us to find a place together.

I called the realtor the next day and put an offer in on the home and arranged for us to tour the house after hours. I took him out to dinner that night, and after we left, I drove us to the house and showed it to him. Salem made love to me in the empty house that night. He loved the house.

The realtor contacted me the next day with the counteroffer, and I accepted. It was within my price range. Within a week, we were at the table closing on our first home together.

At my brother-in-law, Kalvin’s, urging, I had hired him for a dollar to represent me in a lawsuit against the college for the allegations and trouble I had in the past, along with the current case. We sued for harassment and won.

“Can you please move that closer to the window?” I instructed the movers who were setting up an oversized armchair and ottoman in my reading room.

“Baby, relax. You’re gonna be stressed out about this move if you don’t.” Salem wrapped his arms around my waist and pressed his lips against my neck.

I sighed. “I’m sorry. I’m just so excited.”

“Me too, baby, but you’ve had them move that same chair three times already. I promise you that if you don’t like it where it is, I can move it later. You can sit over there with something to drink, and I’ll remove my shirt, get all hot and sweaty for you, and move it to wherever you want me to put it. After you decide where you want it, I’ma fuck you real hard in that chair,” Salem whispered in my ear.

Although his words turned me on, I laughed so hard. I knew that I was blushing, and I looked up in time to see the movers staring at me. My nipples had grown hard from Salem’s words.

“Uhm, I’m going to let you handle them. I’ll just go set up my art room. How about that?”

“You need a muse?” he asked with his hands on his waist. He winked at me, and I fell out laughing.

Salem’s best friend, Nate Diggs, owned a moving company. We had hired him and his team to move us today, but that hadn’t stopped Salem from getting in on the action too.

“Girl, if you don’t let that man work.” Chelsea giggled as she munched on a bag of chips. She rested her hip against the island as she stood beside me, looking over into the living room.

We had an open concept home, and it was easy to see from the living space through the kitchen and the backyard living area beyond.

“I’m letting him work.”

“Hmph. If the way your nipples are hard under that T-shirt and the way you’re all red in the face is any indication, you’re either about to drop to your knees and suck him off or have him bend you over that chair and drill your ass.”

I laughed and nudged her with my elbow. “Okay, maybe I’m like point seven seconds away, but I’ll wait for y’all to leave.”

“Mm-hmm. But you still have one more room of furniture for them to unload,” she replied, referencing the guest bedroom. “I’m thinking about staying overnight to check out that new bed you purchased.”

“Uhm, hell no.”

She tittered with laughter. “Why can’t I check it out? I just want to make sure that it’s exactly what you purchased and the quality you want.”

“No thanks, ma’am. Salem and I are going to break that bed in tonight as soon as y’all leave. I’ll be able to tell if that bed is the quality I’m looking for or not. If it can hold up under the way that man drills my ass, then it’s damn good quality,” I confessed with a giggle.

My best friend scrunched her nose and side-eyed me. “TMI.”

I shrugged. “I just want to make sure it’s excellent quality before my friend gets in it.”