In Love with Ezra (Love Unaccounted Book 2) (2 page)

In the car, I logged into my account and saw I had hardly touched the balance. In fact, the only charges there were those made in the past two days, which was less than a handful.
What the hell?
I tapped a few times and learned a payment was made just three days ago.

Ezra.

Days after my outburst.

I’d forgotten that he’d had access to some of my accounts from paying off all of my debt before we married. It was his way of coaxing me into doing it. Another example of being knowingly manipulated. I would’ve married that crazy ass man without that gesture.

My heart swelled with an emotion unfamiliar. I drove home—yes, home—purposefully.

I parked directly in front of the house instead of the garage. As I fumbled through the door, I saw Ezra coming up the corridor, heading toward the steps. My breath caught in my chest and mouth went dry at the sight of his big sweaty frame strolling in my direction with just the right amount of swaying from his chest to reveal his athleticism and the push of his broad shoulders covered in dew, announcing his undeniable masculinity.

Ezra’s thick brows bunched unkempt. His hair was cut with precision, low, dark, and patterned waves. His beard was its usual fullness, trimmed to not cover those cushioned lips that he adorned well, even beneath the mask of the full mustache. He wore a tank top, basketball shorts and socks; he must’ve left his sneakers outside on the deck before coming in. Such a damn OCD freak—but a freak no less, whose bones I wanted to jump so damn bad.

Speaking of bone
…

My eyes, unwilled, traveled down his tapered waist to his narrowed pelvis exposing a curve that was not like any area of the human thigh. It was
that
tool that had been haunting me since my blackout down in his ‘sandbox.’ The one that had me losing my pride, day by day.

Since when have I become a sex fiend?

Since that damn Ezra introduced me to a form of intimacy that had me unleashing an expression I never knew existed, and craving sensations that revealed themselves anew each time he touched me. And when I saw him in this state of sweaty and buffed, I couldn’t help but stumble.

“Alexis,” he greeted, that baritone rasp that always sent shooting sensations down to my groin poured.

“
Ez
—” I swallowed, hard. “Ezra,” I returned like a damn adolescent running into her model-like roommate. I snapped my mouth shut as my eyes diverted shamefully.

“Do you need help?” he asked and I met his eyes again, catching his gesture of the bags held haphazardly in my loose arms.

“No. I’m good.” I glanced down, anchoring the bags.

“Okay.” He nodded, and I wanted to comb my fingers through that thick beard and yank it against the urgent rolls of my groin.

Fuck!

“Dinner will be ready in a couple of hours,” I mumbled as I whisked past him like that adolescent he reduced me to.

~Ezra~

“Oh, and before you go, Pastor,” Precious yelped, “the ad is on the church’s bulletin and
JobsinHarlem.com
.”

I glanced down at my cell and read her text again:
Dinner is ready. Ummm… Now.

I palmed my beard, content with her waiting.

“We must do better than that. We have to cast the net wider,” I urged as I sat up in my chair in the office of my home. “This is a professional role, and while all the ones we’ve been filling have been professional as well, this one is managerial, so our search must be extensive and strategic.”

“Okay. I’ll get right on it, but one last thought, Pastor?”

“Sure.”

“I can fill the role if it takes a while finding a qualified candidate.”

“Precious, this has been my biggest point of contention with the business side of this organization: it’s being run as a social club. If we want to be a viable service provider to our community, fulfilling ministry in that capacity, we must conduct ourselves as a legitimate entity.  

“
I
-I,” she stammered, chastened. “I understand. I’ll let you know when those accounts are set up and the job is posted.”

“Very well. Have a good evening, Precious.”

“You, too.”

The moment I dropped the phone in the cradle, it rang again. A small ripple of anxiousness coursed my chest. I was being awaited.

“Hello…”

“Oh, dear, you answered. I was wondering, how did the recipe come out?” my mother asked, clearly anxious herself.

“Recipe?” That drew my attention to my environment.

I sniffed the aromatic air.
Dinner
.

“Yes, honey. The lamb chops Lex is making. I was wondering if she was able to pull it off like I knew she would.”

Alexis called my mother for a recipe? What was going on here?

I could tell her resolve had begun to soften just two days after her explosive display down in the sandbox. It was easy to discern her remorse, but I wasn’t prepared to skirt around the issue. That was patently unacceptable behavior. She’d reacted as though I was a harmful criminal. I understood she was still new yet in her training, but that eruption was wholly inappropriate.

“I wouldn’t know, mother,” I answered. “I was actually leaving the office for dinner now. Alexis is waiting on me.”

“Okay,” she replied, chipper. “Either way it goes, compliment her. I got the impression that it was hard for her to reach out. My heart bled. I remember those days as a new bride, wanting the approval of my husband.”

So, Alexis is vying for my validation…

“I’ll let you know if she does you any justice,” I murmured into the phone, prepared to go.

My mother giggled. “Oh, dear! She’ll be fine. I’m heading over to dinner in Brooklyn with Elise, but my mobile is with me.”

“Enjoy dinner, mother.”

“Bye, honey.”

I stood from the desk ready to be in the presence of a confounding Alexis.

She had the table nicely set and my plate covered as she waited for me. I took my seat across from her.

“Smells delicious,” I mumbled.

Alexis gazed at me with hard mistrusting eyes before going for a glass of wine.

I extended my hands to her. “Let us pray.”

Slowly she extended her arms until her hands reached mine. Electrical bolts coursed through me at the touch of her soft skin. I could hear her suck in a breath, but chose to ignore it. I recited grace and then went about eating.

Silence covered the room as we ate. I pleasantly evaluated Alexis’ lamb chops. They were delicious in their own rite: no need to try and mimic my mother’s. My wife’s culinary skillset was turning out to be an incidental finding. I devoured the food as my mind drifted. I always relished arcadian settings, and especially preferred the quiet of my environment as of late to bridge the chasm in my mind as it concerned the woman across from me. The only time I functioned well in clangor was in the middle of a highly charged service conducive for the Spirit to appear and operate. That’s when my gift thrived and I could rest assured I was functioning appropriately.

Tonight, in fact, I was developing a message for a church I’d be visiting in a few days. As I inhaled the roasted carrots, repetitive visuals ran through my mind, surprising revelations concerning members I didn’t know. They began as visions and then were accompanied by messages. And they were never made clear right away, but when I focused intently on the visuals and compared them with keywords of the message, I could start—

“Snoopie found my mother lying on the floor in a pool of blood and called 911.”

My eyes shot up and over to an apparently pensive Alexis. Her plate was untouched, food still neatly assembled. But her wine glass was empty.

“Snoopie?”

“The guy whose homecoming we were celebrating. He found my mother drowning in her blood after she slit her throat. She’d turned on the gas on the stove with the windows closed.” I found myself blinking successively. This was totally unexpected. “He saved her by finding her just in time, calling for help, and hauling her crazy ass out of there.” Alexis snorted. “She was almost two hundred pounds and he was probably sixty pounds lighter, but Snoopie carried her down the stairs and waited for the ambulance and fire trucks. I was sleep in my bedroom and could have died. Screaming woke me. I ran out of the house and found out what was going on when he was holding her in his arms. I saw the fear and…horror in his eyes as he shouted for her to hold on. He was only fifteen.” She sat up and took a deep breath. After shrugging Alexis informed, “She died two days later from a stroke. Weird for her young age, but that took her out of here.”

She reached for the bottle and poured more.   

“I am sorry to hear that, Alexis.”

There was a pause.

“Oh?” she mocked. “No
kitten
?”

I found myself angling my head, trying to gauge where she was going.

“I’m not perfect, Ezra,” she enunciated perfectly, coquette engirding each syllable. “I make mistakes. I don’t fit into your world, but you knew this when you asked for me.” She raised her left hand in the air, wiggling her fingers, including the one holding her diamond wedding rings.

The radiant cut in the engagement solitaire sparkled with blinding brilliance. Each time I observed them I was reminded of Alexis’ humility. The three point five karat diamond solitaire didn’t faze her in the least; neither did the additional two-karat emerald cut wedding band. She’d never asked about the number of karats or the expense. She simply accepted and wore them with compliance. 

I caught the slant of intoxication in her eyes. My beloved had applied liquid courage to confront me tonight.

“Come again?” I urged, watching her gulp down a hefty amount of her fresh wine.

That long sculpted neck teased me, provoked the beast.

“You’re not perfect either, Carmichael. Since we’ve returned to your ‘compound’”—she used air quotes—“you don’t talk much. You prefer time alone. I wake up in the bed of the sexiest man I’ve ever encountered and all that’s left is your scent and a dent on your side of the bed. You’re controlling as hell and that makes me feel unwelcome here. Your hospitality sucks, Pastor.” She licked her lips, inadvertently drawing my attention to them.

No matter how loose her nerves were in the moment, Alexis was crying out, expressing her true feelings. This was not good. She
had
to feel at home here. This was
her
home. Having her feel otherwise was counterproductive. 

Talk more?
About what?

I’d never been loquacious. I measured my outpouring to others to preserve my mental and emotional energy each day. What could we possibly have to talk about that hadn’t been addressed already?

And waking up to me in bed?

I worked out in my gym and worked all day, although home. I got up early to work out and meditated; she knew this from Kamigu. It would be unnatural for me to lie around in bed until she awakened. Eight...nine o’clock would be extremely late and disrupt my internal balance. I’d implemented extensive adjustments and arrangements to make room for her in my life.

What more can I do?

I scooted my seat back from the table, wiped down my beard, and widened my shoulders to open myself to compromise. “How can we address your grievances, Alexis?”

Her shoulders tensed visibly and lids fluttered. She hadn’t been expecting my willingness to compromise.

In seconds, she recovered. Her eyes went to the base of the wine glass where her electric blue painted fingertips circled. “I’ll leave you to sort out your hospitality issues. In the meantime, we have a bigger problem that needs tending to.”

My head rocked back. “Oh?”

I thought what had been uncovered already was enough for me to chew on. There was more?

Alexis nodded her head and inclined in her seat, her elbows on the table. That’s when I caught the opening of her shirt. The more I observed, I realized it was oversized—

Christ…

She was wearing my shirt. The buttons were undone and with that single move, the shirt shifted and it revealed her chest, from her neck down to her navel. My eyes raked up to meet hers and those long thick lashes fanned her cheeks, telling her real nature: the novel seductress.