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  Ayannah stepped forward.

  Love rose to her feet long enough to wave at one of the empty club chairs before her desk.

  “There’s just some last-minute decisions with it being less than two weeks before the party,” Ayannah said.

  He doesn’t want to see me. He didn’t even want to lay eyes on me.

  That stung and she blinked her eyes rapidly to keep a tear from even welling up in her eyes. It didn’t work.

  “Oh, Love.” Ayannah sighed, standing up to come around the desk and wrap her arm around Love’s shoulders. “Girl, we need to talk.”

  And the dam broke with Love burying her head against Ayannah’s shoulder as her own shook with her sobs.

  Chapter 11

  “Happy Summertime”—R. Kelly

  Two Weeks Later

  The End of Summer

  “Love, I have it.”

  She looked up from her clipboard as Faryn gently tugged it from her hands.

  “I have it,” she said again with a reassuring smile. “But are you sure you want to miss this?”

  Love nodded as she looked out at her handiwork transforming the Fifth Avenue rooftop garden of a trendy nightclub into a summer oasis that was both elegant and entertaining. The event decor was in place. Flowers picked for their scent and color were in huge arranged formations throughout. The candles were lit. A slight bit of the summer breeze blew the bright red satinlike streamers against the New York skyline of bright lights. There was an area for dancing. An area for conversations via smaller ottomans grouped together. A huge ice sculpture in the shape of Maleek’s MT logo. A fully stocked bar. A DJ. The works.

  The only other thing needing supervision was making sure plenty of heavy appetizers and drinks were doled out by the uniformed staff—things she knew Faryn could handle. The red carpet was all set up downstairs. Plenty of press should be on the way. That was on Brad’s end, and although Love had found the little man strange, she had heard great things about him.

  Love knew that everything was set. She knew that Maleek would like it, but she would miss that moment that she enjoyed so much as a planner. The reveal of the room to her clients was important to her. The truth of their opinion was always in their eyes that instant after they first saw the event site.

  She would miss that moment with Maleek.

  At the thought of him, Love allowed herself a few precious seconds to reflect on the last couple of months they had shared. The summer they shared. He had taught her to take some time for herself. To not give her all to her business. To be happy. To be a little less serious.

  Love smiled a bit softly at a memory of him doing the running man naked around her bedroom. She had laughed so hard until she thought she was going to have an asthma attack.

  Maleek.

  Forcing herself back to the present, Love grabbed her Coach duffel bag. “Of course, if an emergency arises, do not hesitate to—”

  “I know,” Faryn said, squeezing her hand reassuringly. “But we both know nothing will go wrong.”

  “You know, Faryn, I learned that nothing in life is guaranteed,” Love said, sliding her hands into the pockets of her fitted denims as she did a complete turn. “Whether by fate or the design of others, nothing ever goes smoothly. But if you’re prepared and ready, you can at least recover from it. Right?” she asked, smiling at her young assistant.

  With one last look over her shoulder, Love hurried from the rooftop and onto the elevator headed straight to the lower level. The elevator doors slid open. Love pushed off the wall. She just wanted to get the hell out of Dodge before she had any chance of running into anyone.

  Maleek nodded his head in approval as he walked the entire length of the rooftop, his unlit cigar between his even white teeth. There was no denying that Love was a true professional. Everything was better than he imagined, and to know that it all was from Love’s vision made it all the more impressive. He could see why celebrities called on her to make their events memorable.

  Coming to a stop between two of the small canopies, Maleek slid his hands into the pockets of his tailored tuxedo pants, hitching his broad shoulders a bit as he looked out at the Manhattan skyline and took a deep breath of the smell of summer and flowers in the air.

  “Is everything to your liking?”

  Maleek tensed a bit as he turned to look down at Faryn through his dark aviator shades worn completely for style since the sun had said good-bye. He nodded, pulling one hand from his pocket to remove his cigar. “Yes, it’s excellent. I might have to make this an annual affair,” he said, his eyes squinting as he watched her.

  Faryn nodded. “Of course, you know, I hope you go with Lovely Events again,” she said with a smile. “Is there anything I can get for you before I check on some last-minute details?”

  Maleek stuck his cigar back between his teeth and shook his head.

  “Don’t forget we need to go back down in a bit for your ‘official’ arrival,” Faryn reminded him with a very polite but efficient clap that reminded him of Love.

  As he shifted his eyes back to the view, he remembered a look on Love’s face once as he made love to her. It had been like it was the first—or last—time he made love to a woman.

  He smiled around his cigar. After Love he never wanted to make love to another woman again.

  “Hey, Maleek, is Love here?”

  He turned his head again. This time to find Tashi standing there. “No, her . . . uh . . . her assistant said she wasn’t here,” he said, reaching into the inner pocket for his monogrammed lighter. He lit his cigar, eyeing her over the rising smoke. “You’re a little early, but I’m glad you could make it.”

  Tashi patted the back of her head, smoothing her updo. “Me too,” she said with a polite smile.

  “I’ll have to save you a dance,” he said with a smile.

  “I was hoping for that,” she said softly, giving him a coy look with a hint of a smile at her lips.

  Maleek squinted as he eyed her. “Really?”

  She took a step closer to him, wrapping her arms around his and pressing her breasts against him. “Yes, Love has been keeping you all to herself, but . . . I haven’t forgotten you since we met at her house that day,” she said, seductively biting her bottom lip as she reached up and gently pried the cigar from his mouth before sucking half the length of it into her own mouth.

  Maleek’s brows raised in surprise. “Wooow, you just gon’ do it like that, huh?” he asked.

  “Oh that’s nothing,” Tashi said.

  “And what about Love?” he asked.

  Tashi took a small puff from the cigar and released a smoke ring that she flickered with her tongue, dissolving it. “What about her?” she asked simply. “She won’t be here tonight. I asked her. We could leave a little early and, uhm, get to know each other better.”

  Maleek reached in his pocket for his cigar holder, removing a new one to light. “I enjoyed your e-mails,” he said, before tilting his head back to blow smoke rings upward.

  “You . . . huh . . . what?” she said.

  Maleek cut his eyes over at her before he smiled. “I liked how you went after what you wanted,” he said, watching her closely.

  Tashi’s eyes squinted. “Listen, I’m not sure what e-mails you’re talking about.”

  Maleek laughed. “I had the e-mail account investigated and it led straight back to you.”

  Tashi’s body stiffened with alarm.

  Maleek bit down on the cigar with his teeth as he shoved his hands back into the pockets of his pants and turned to face her. “It’s cool. I’ve had plenty of women pull all kinds of stunts to get my attention. You wanted it. Now you have it. So what’s up, Tashi?” he asked in suggestion.

  She looked hesitant before she spoke. “What about you and Love?”

  “What about her?” he asked, giving her back her own words.

  “Yes, Tashi. What about me?”

  Tashi froze and then turned to find Love and Ayannah stepping out of the nearby cab
ana. Tashi smiled nervously. “Love, you . . . you . . . you’re . . . you . . . you are here.”

  Love nodded as she walked up to them looking beautiful and elegant and sexy in a fitted one-shoulder sheath in a vibrant red that enhanced the bronzed tone of her skin. “You know, when Ayannah suggested that someone close to me was sending the e-mails, we thought it out and thought it was Faryn. Wow. You know, I thought it was my little assistant having an All About Eve moment, you know?”

  “Humph,” Ayannah said, giving a frightened-looking Tashi a once-over like the woman had tried to step to her man.

  “The more we went over all those e-mails and compared some things I told you or Faryn, it all just started to make sense,” Love said, coming to stand before Tashi.

  “We knew if we gave one of you half the chance to get near Maleek that the guilty party would take the bait,” Ayannah added.

  Love’s eyes saddened. “Or prove to me that I’m not such a bad judge of character,” she added with a smile tinged with an odd mix of sadness and bitterness.

  “I don’t have to stand here and be accused like a child,” Tashi said. “Or set up like a criminal.”

  Love’s face stiffened. “You’re lucky I have too much class, otherwise your ass would be laid out with a busted lip,” she said in a hard little voice.

  “In what life?” Tashi snapped.

  Maleek stepped in between them. “Alright, baby, you got your proof—”

  Tashi’s eyes nearly popped out of her head. “Ba-by?” she snapped, her eyes shifting from Maleek to Love. “But you said y’all were through . . .”

  Love reached up to stroke the side of Maleek’s face with soft eyes. “I lied,” she said. “Didn’t I, baby?”

  “Not to me,” he added, reaching down to pull her body close to his.

  “No, never to you.”

  Maleek never felt more alive in his life as he picked Love up against the length of his body and kissed her as she wrapped her arms around his neck. Just like their first moments together, it was hard to ignore or deny passion was there. And they were lost in it. Enjoying it. Realizing that they never wanted to lose it. Absence had made their hearts grow fonder.

  “Close your mouth, dear,” Ayannah said, gently guiding Tashi by the elbow as she signaled with her free hand for Yuri. “I’m sure you know by now your invite has been revoked. And if you are still as completely clueless as you look, Maleek and Love got back together last week. The disgusting things you did to destroy them eventually made them stronger.”

  Tashi looked back over her shoulder at Maleek and Love still embraced and kissing under the summer moonlight just before Yuri escorted her off the rooftop and out of their lives.

  “I’m sorry, Maleek,” Love whispered into the heated air between their parted lips as they lay naked in the middle of the bed. “I was so stupid not to trust you—”

  “Ssssh.” He dipped his head a dozen times to kiss every bit of her mouth.

  Maleek used his hands to spread Love’s legs wide as he used his hips to guide his thick dick in and out of her core. He bit his bottom lip as his eyes shifted from watching the sweet contortions of her face to dipping down to watch his slick and hard inches surrounded by her lips as he pumped away like a well-oiled piston.

  “Wait, baby, wait. Too deep,” she moaned, reaching out blindly to place a hand on his rigid stomach.

  Maleek gave her a salacious grin that was almost wolfish as he panted deeply. “I can’t get enough,” he breathed heavily, bending down to suck her mouth into his.

  “You love this pussy, don’t you?” she breathed into his open mouth hotly before she sucked his mouth in return. She brought her legs down and pressed her feet into the bed to raise her hips and circle her wet and rigid core around his hardness.

  “Oh shit,” Maleek gasped, his face filling with surprise and pleasure as her walls massaged the length of him.

  He loved how she was a mix of sophistication and sex. Innocence and boldness. Lady and freak.

  Love closed her eyes as she purred like a kitten at the feel of his hardness, the heat, the steady and palpable pulsing of that thick vein that she loved to lick. “Maleek. Uhmmmmm. Maleek,” she gasped.

  His face became fierce as he watched the emotions flooding over her face and felt her core wet him more. “Don’t stop, baby. Get that nut. Get it,” he whispered against her face. “I’m gon’ come with you.”

  She looked up at him, her face filled with rapture as she grasped his hard and sweaty buttocks tightly. “Here we go,” she told him with a sassy smile.

  Maleek licked her chin before he bit it lightly. “Here we go?” he asked.

  Love nodded and gasped with a little cry as she continued to work her hips like she was hula-hooping. She was relentless. Spasms filled her core, and wave after wave of pleasure shimmied over her body from the feel of Maleek circling her body with his arms and holding her tightly as he buried his face in her neck, releasing a guttural cry against her flesh as his dick throbbed with his explosive release.

  “I love you. I love you so much,” he whispered against her throat, between feverish kisses.

  She leaned back from him and caressed the side of his handsome mocha face. “And I love you,” she countered huskily.

  “We have to make this work,” Maleek whispered down to her as he stroked her scalp.

  Love nodded. “By any means necessary,” she promised him.

  Epilogue

  One Year Later

  Love smiled a little as she walked the entire length of the rooftop, her hand dragging along the edge as she looked out on Harlem. Her haven. Once upon a time. When she was wounded and thought only its embrace could heal her.

  But then she found love. Real love.

  “If my lover could be the summer sun, I would lay naked beneath him, exposed and waiting for him to reach out to kiss and caress my skin as his heat would fill my body and his light would elevate my moods.” Love smiled lazily as a summer breeze caressed her upturned cheek. “If only my lover could be the summer sun, I would have no regrets and our love would last a lifetime. I would even share his brilliance with millions as long as he stayed available for me upon request.”

  She sighed just a little sadly because she would miss her brownstone and her life there in Harlem, but the sadness was replaced by a pure happiness. She took a chance on love and it was working. They were working. And so she was taking another chance by moving to Denver with Maleek.

  “Can you believe all the press downstairs?” Maleek asked, walking up beside her.

  “They’ll get bored and leave,” she said, looking down the street at the church whose gospel choir’s voices would fill the streets on Sundays.

  “Who knew it would be you to advise me on the press?” Maleek joked, his voice seeming to rumble in his chest as he wrapped his arms around her and pressed her body back against his.

  Love just smiled as she dropped her head to her chest. It was then that she saw the diamond ring he held in his hand. The summer sun glinted off it, and Love was blinded to the sight of it for a second. Her heart pounded wildly as she turned to face him. “Maleek . . .”

  He smiled at her even though his eyes were filled with a serious intent that made her shiver as he spoke. “We spent a good majority of last summer in this brownstone. We fell in love in this brownstone . . . and I was trying to figure out the perfect place to ask you to spend the rest of your life with me.”

  Love forced herself to breathe slowly as emotions flooded her and she trembled like a leaf in the wind.

  Maleek nodded as he bent his tall and muscular frame down on one knee and took her left hand in his. “Thank you for loving me. Thank you for supporting me. Thank you for understanding that when I lose a game I am grouchy as hell. Thank you for making me understand that life is about more than the game. Thank you for working hard with me to make all the miles between us feel like nothing. And then thank you for moving to Denver with me.”

  Love stroked the side
of his clean-shaven face as she looked down into his slanted eyes.

  “And I want to be able to thank you fifty years from now for making my life complete,” Maleek said, almost looking nervous. “Say you’ll marry me, Love. Tell me that you will be my wife.”

  Love nodded. “Yes, Maleek, I will marry you in a heartbeat,” she whispered to him as he slid the heavy ring onto her finger and rose to pull her body against his.

  Their kiss was all things. It was love and tenderness. Moments of passion and fire. It was filled with their joy and their expectations. It was made of their love and devotion. It was fueled by their desire and commitment.

  “We’re really doing this, huh?” Love asked him, leaning back in his embrace to smile up at him as she wiped her lip gloss from his mouth with her thumb.

  Maleek nodded and rocked her side to side, her feet swaying in the wind. “I wonder who will plan it?”

  “Lovely Events of Denver, of course,” she said. “But we are getting married in New York, right?”

  “Definitely,” Maleek said, kissing her brow.

  Love played with her ring, holding her hand out in front of her. She loved that it was a simple three-carat ring in an antique setting that was more about his show of love for her than the garish ten-carat ring her ex bought—a showpiece for him. Maleek understood what was important to her. He paid attention. He knew her. He loved her.

  Maleek pulled her over to the edge of the rooftop. The lights of the press and paparazzi immediately began to flash.

  “She said yes,” he hollered down, holding her left hand high into the air.

  Love just smiled down at them all and wiggled her fingers playfully.

  Too Hot to Handle

  Zuri Day

  Chapter 1

  Hot. Sticky. Both the muggy New York night and her dark caramel skin. Choice McKinley hurried up the subway station steps and navigated through the Times Square crowd on the way to her destination, the Empire State Building or, more specifically, its air-conditioned interior.