11.🔧 Exhaust Pipe 1.0

**JUSTICE**

*The place smells like Mr. Clean.*
I come home to a dimly lit apartment. Only the side table lamp is on. The kids often leave most of the lights blazing no matter how many times I’ve told them to turn them off before they go to bed.
It’s good to have another adult here if I can come home to a good meal, a clean smelling place, and minimal electricity usage.
And someone waiting up for me.
Well...not waiting up, but she had given it a go.
Keke, with her mouth slightly open, and a blanket covering her from her shoulders to her feet, is fast asleep on the couch.
I enjoy seeing her like this.
Open.
Vulnerable.
And so damn beautiful.
Her hair rests in two braids that extend to the top of the blanket. Her face, free from makeup, still has a nice glow. Her color is that of a fawn, creeping from the shadows of a wooded glen. The shade makes the slight pink in her lips stand out.
I can only look and imagine how soft her skin would be under my hand.
And I want to touch her. To take her. To be inside her.
All evening while I served drinks and afterwards cleaning up, I thought about Keke, letting my thoughts go from reality to fiction and everything in between. Not a good idea now that we’re living together and in each other’s company day in and day out.
Maybe I’m “borrowing trouble,” as Sarge used to say. I’m an adult, so it shouldn’t be a problem to keep my growing attraction to Keke to myself. After all, I’m good at that. Pippa didn’t have a clue how I felt about her.
And look how that turned out.
Pippa ending up with Xaver was for the best.
It’s all I can tell myself.
With Keke… I’m attracted to her, sure. I like her, sure, but there can’t be more as I’m fairly sure a one-off just won’t do. With her, there may be a chance at something.
*How can you know that so soon?*
*I don’t know how. I just know that I do.*
And it scares me.
But not enough to keep my eyes from drinking in her face… her form… her everything while my mind debates whether to keep watching her, peaceful in her slumber, or wake her to hear the voice that is both sweet and spicy.
With her sass, Keke has proven to be a woman who can stand up for herself. Someone who doesn’t need me to step in.
*The men at the bar will be in for a treat.*
I frown, not liking the scene of men ogling her.
I can’t explore why, as at that moment, she opens her eyes, blinking the sleep from them. I can tell she notices me when her face breaks out into a heart-stopping smile. She sits up straighter, stretching her long arms above her head with a yawn bordering on a sweet growl. The blanket around her shoulders falls, exposing the tight pink t-shirt she has on.
And I can’t help my eyes from zeroing in on her round, full breasts.
*And damn…*
If her nipples *don’t* poke succulent tents into her t-shirt.
“Hey, Justice,” she says, my name spilling off her tongue like honey and just as sweet. “How was the rest of your evening?”
“Fine.” I toss my keys from one hand to the other and stare. It’s all I can do. I’ve been too long without a woman and Keke is some woman. Neither too bold, or too shy, Keke is just right. She can be demur yet put me in my place.
A deadly combination.
“I tried to wait up.” She flutters a hand over the blanket and gives me a sheepish grin. “I guess I didn’t make it.” At my continued silence, she rushes on. “Uh, I wanted to tell you I didn’t push the kids into letting me stay here. They came up with the idea on their own.”
I shrug it off. “Yeah, I figured as much, considering how you’d choked on your water.”
She laughs, her dark eyes amused. “Are they always so determined?”
“The older two see reason...sometimes. Cameron, though... he’s another story.”
Keke pats the space next to her. “If you feel up to it, do you mind getting a few things straight? Since I’ll be in the same house for a while, maybe we can set up some sort of routine?”
I want to tell her nothing more would please me better, but pride gets in the way. I don’t like relying on strangers.
Sarge hated that about me. Said I was too ornery for my own good.
And I still am.
Instead of sitting beside her, or answering her question, I ask, “Did you clean?”
Keke blinks in surprise at my abrupt change of subject. “Um...yes, I did. Everything but vacuuming because it was already late.”
I move to put my keys in the bowl by the door, giving her my back. My voice comes out gruff with annoyance.
Not at her.
It’s because I feel guilty for not doing a better job with the house. “You didn’t have to do that, Keke. You’re a guest, not a paid employee.”
The anger in her voice has me facing her. In the second it took me to turn, she has stood from the couch and placed her hands on those hips I want wrapped around my head, squeezing me in pleasure as I tongue her.
“I soon will be,” she says with all confidence, “when I work for you at the bar.”
“That’s only if you want to. Don’t feel you have to. You’re in no obligation to do anything you don’t feel comfortable with.”
Including sleeping with me.
But I want you to. Just give me the sign…
Those are my thoughts on one hand. On the other, I almost wish she would reconsider working for me.
That way I’d be safe from the time we’d spend together… the late hours… the conversations. My attraction to her growing with each syllable she utters.
With her out of my proximity, I could go back to my one-night stands with no obligations… no feelings… no caring… no chance of getting in too deep.
I wouldn’t think about Keke and how she would taste on my tongue or how hard I could make her scream my name…
“Do you have something against me?” Her eyes flash in the semi-darkness, angry and hurt. “Do you not want me to help?”
At her sobering words, my thoughts of Keke in my bed deflate and float away like torn spider webs in a spring wind.
I don’t believe in letting others help me.
Only when Lilli died, did I put my feelings aside for the well-being of the kids. Now that the guys and I are back on our feet, I don’t want anyone to come in and tell me what I need to do and if I’m doing it wrong. I’ve been on my own since fifteen without a mother or father to depend on. She’s probably had it easy her whole life.
*Not so easy… at least not in Dubai.*
Anger flares in me at the thought of her being hurt by someone. More than likely *some man.*
*Dammit.*
I *hate* feeling like this.
Keke, in less than a day, is breaking down the aloof façade I have maintain to keep myself from getting hurt.
*That’s not how it’s going to go around here. I’ve been too long on my own to let someone in.*
So, I let resentment, stemming from an unwillingness to let people get close, to well within me. I let anger replace my budding feelings as I reflect on what I went through after I left Gary’s house.
My time spent as a teen on the streets taught me to be wary of do-gooders. Many of those who offered food or a place to stay just wanted my body. And after holding out for the first few months, I gave in when my stomach ached with hunger and my body froze with cold.
I let those women touch me. Use me.
Women with age spots and eyes with so many folds and wrinkles they could have easily held the change I found on the street.
I gave into them to keep from starving and by doing so, my views on sex will take the rest of my life to overcome.
I’m used to one-night stands who like my insatiable need to dominate.
The urgent need to please.
The women who bought my time taught me how to last for hours. How to give multiple orgasms in order to get their money’s worth.
They had the control back then. Now I do, and I don’t give it up for anyone.
That’s the biggest reason I didn’t get with Pippa. I would have broken her with my need to keep my power.
Keke, seems like another story.
She’s like me. A rule breaker.
A heart taker?
Nah. Not mine because I don’t have one.
Any semblance of love, that mythical part of the organ, fell from my chest when my mom, still on the floor cradling Gary’s bald head, didn’t say a damn word when I left.
Ever since then, I’ve been careful not to let most people affect me.
And Keke… well, she’s already affecting me.
And I don’t like it.
Sex is one thing.
A relationship… long-term commitment is another.
That’s not for me. Not with her, or any other woman. Not because I don’t want it. I just know it will never work.
That’s why I force coldness into my voice to make it caustic and cutting. “Help all you want, Keke. It doesn’t matter to me.” I move past her, heading to the kitchen to get some water.
She follows, her bare feet padding softly on the hardwood floor. The whisper of her spicy scent follows me , so soothing, I almost regret my actions.