Page 15 of His Obsession Her Cure
“Now you got everybody lookin’ at us crazy. Chill out. I’m not asking you to do anything bad. We don’t hurt family, we protect it.” She said, repeating what my mother told me as a child.
I shook my head slightly, unable to finish my food. “I’m not doing this with you Nyx. We can’t keep them no matter how much I want to. It won’t end well for them or us,” I said.
“Bitch, please. I live for this. You see the way he’s sitting back, letting everyone else talk but keeping his eyes on us? That’s a man already hooked and we ain’t said more than two words to him. That man right there is for us. You better reel him in before some other girl gets bold.”
I pressed my lips together, forcing myself to focus on my plate and tried not to look like a total psycho.
“Alright, eat up, everybody. Once we clear this table, we got a whole house to clean. And don’t think I’m doing it all while y’all sit around like the kings and queens of Pine Valley,” she chuckled.
Everyone groaned playfully, laughter spilling out again. But I barely heard them. At the moment my mind was split between Nyx’s insistent voice and the way Gunner hadn’t looked away once. Did he know what it would cost us both if I fixated on him the way Nyx was encouraging me to. For both our sakes I hope he would never find out. The thought was intriguing though.
“This is it, Pep. These people? They’re ours now. Don’t you dare let fear make us walk away.” Nyx said, low and sharp like a vowel.
I swallowed hard, staring down at my plate, but deep down I knew Nyx was right, our fixation for this family, this man was already blooming, and Gunner’s eyes were pouring water on the roots with every intense stare.
Cambridge Chronicle
November 14, 2017
Body Found Linked to Fatal 2016 Crash
The remains ofDerrick Lawson, 42, the man charged in connection with the 2006 crash that killed Steven and Carla McKinney, were discovered in a wooded area near Rhodesdale this week.
Lawson, who had been awaiting trial, was reported missing nearly a year ago. His death has been ruled suspicious, though police have not released details regarding the cause.
Residents in the community recall the tragic circumstances, noting that the McKinneys’ teenage daughter, Pepper, was left orphaned after her parents’ deaths.
Chapter 5
Gunner
Pepper looked good as fuck in the casual little outfit she wore over to help clean. I was kind of pissed that she had all that ass on display for everybody to see. If she kept dressing like that, I was going to bend her sexy ass over a table. I watched her as she ate quietly picking at her food like her mind was somewhere else. She was reserved, only speaking when someone spoke to her. I was going to have to break her out of that shell and tear down a few of the walls she had guarding her from people in general. Once breakfast was finished, we tag teamed the dishes and wiped down the kitchen. After that we split into groups to work on different projects at the same time.
Ma must have known I wanted to get to know Pepper a little more, because she paired us up to tackle the upstairs guest room and the attic. After splitting into pairs, we grabbed our supplies and headed up the stairs. I grabbed Sage and a couple of her toys since Pepper had taken a liking to her earlier. I watched her ass bounce as she walked in front of me to the attic. I suggested we start there and work our way down so we would have some privacy. Luckily for us the attic was finished with central air so we wouldn’t roast up here trying to dust and move extra boxes up there for storage.
The large open space spanned the entirety of the house, smelling like cedar and dust. Sunlight cut through the dusty windows. Old trunks and chests lined the walls, probably full of his father’s forgotten things. I placed Sage down with her toys and went to work trying to think of the perfect time to speak to Pepper. She wasn’t the type to spark-up a conversation on her own so I would need to approach her in a way that got her talking. As I thought about ways to engage in conversation my eyes continued their journey over the curves of her body as she placed her earbud in one ear and went right to work without a word.
For a while, it was just the sound of boxes shifting, hard wood creaking and the empty silence between us. Ten minutes into cleaning I said fuck it and broke the silence.
“You don’t talk much do you, lil baby?”
“Huh?" She said, looking at me with those pretty ass eyes that seemed to chip away at the block of ice around my heart.
Each time she pinned me with her gaze, she looked like a fucking doll. For some reason I just wanted to protect her from the world. Hearing that her last nigga mistreated her only made me want to go hard to show her what it was like to be treated correctly.
“I noticed you don’t talk much.”
“Unnecessary talking wastes time and energy,” she said.
As I stared down at her I watched her eye twitch like she wanted to say something else.
“Most women would have tried to fill the silence by now. But I can see that you ain’t like most women. But you seem to bask in the quiet like you don’t mind it.”
“Being quiet is easier than pretending.” She said but then grimaced like she didn’t mean to say that.
“What are you pretending, lil baby?” I asked moving closer to her.
“Normalcy. People pretend they’re normal all the time. They pretend and they lie using small talk and funny banter.” She said flat and to the point.
