Winifred

Prologue

“I know that ain’t who I think it is,” a vaguely familiar smooth baritone husked into my ear as a firm hand settled at my waist.

I whirled around instantly, ready to throw hands with whoever thought they had the right to get this familiar with me.

“You must have lost your mothaf—” I started, then paused when realization hit that this wasn’t a complete stranger at all.

“My bad, beautiful,” he said, giving me that damn slow, sexy smile I’d been fighting mightily to resist since he’d first popped onto the scene at my job. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

Elijah Woolford’s young ass had no right to be as fine as he was. But considering he was closer in age to my child than he was to me, there was no way in hell I could ever let him know he had a profound effect on me. I fought to regulate my breathing and donned the faux-annoyed look I always gave him whenever he came on too strong.

“Lil boy, you better watch what you’re doing with those hands,” I chastised, my voice sounding a little too breathless to be taken seriously.

All he did was chuckle in response before settling onto the stool next to me, legs spread, damn near encasing my body between them as he leaned in and said, “I done told you about that lil boy shit. Anytime you’re ready, , I’m more than willing to show you just how much of a grown man I am.”

Heat spread through my body at the gruffness of his tone and I hoped like hell the blush I felt traveling through me didn’t show on my skin’s surface. The Watering Hole was always dimly lit and I prayed their penchant for wanting to look like more of a dive bar than they actually were worked in my favor.

“Surprised to see you here,” he continued, still leaning in close. “This doesn’t seem like your type of place.”

I rolled my eyes, shaking my head. “Boy I’ve been coming here since before you were born, prolly,” I snarked.

“Anyway,” he drawled before clapping once and rubbing his hands together. “What we drinkin’?”

“I don’t know what you’re drinking, but I’m on my way out actually,” I replied, making a gametime decision because I’d had a little more than my usual cocktail and a half which would make any flirtatious attempts Elijah threw my way a little harder to deflect.

Today had been a motherfucker and I’d come down to The Watering Hole to drown my sorrows because to me it felt better to get shitfaced in a place surrounded by folks instead of doing it at home pathetically alone. My girlfriends Ron and Ken normally would have been here with me, but both were on trips that wouldn’t bring them back any time soon, so I’d settled at the bar, making friendly conversation with the bartender as I attempted to get my “Cranes in the Sky” on and drink the bullshit of my day away.

I worked as a gate agent for a Black-owned airline and today every person who traveled on the flights I was responsible for handling was on some bullshit. Between the folks who couldn’t control their screaming, roaming toddlers to the ones who didn’t understand what it meant to have a standby ticket, I’d been talked to crazy, threatened to be reported to corporate, and also, in the strangest turn of events, vomited on. By the time my shift was done, I was halfway ready to quit my job and take off to a remote island somewhere in the Pacific, never to be heard from again. I quickly crashed back to reality as I remembered I had way too many bills and a child in college that would preclude my fantasies from ever becoming a reality. So off to The Watering Hole to be served by their bartenders with generous pouring wrists it was.

Elijah speaking up again brought me back to the present. “Damn, you won’t have just one drink with me? What is it? My breath stank? My hairline uneven? C’mon, you can keep it real with me.”

I tried not to react to his silly ass, but the giggle that bubbled up from my belly was unable to be contained.

“I don’t think that’s appropriate,” was what I finally settled on when I answered him.

“And why is that?”

I cut my eyes at him with my lips pursed.

“What? I mean, sure, we work together, but neither of us are in the same chain of command, so that’s not an excuse. Your little age deflection tactic is cute, but I’m not trippin’ off that at all. All I’m asking is for one itty bitty drink and some conversation, beautiful. That’s all. Scout’s honor.” He finished up his little impassioned speech with a Boy Scout salute I recognized from my kid’s time with a troop and all I could do was shake my head and smile.

“Oh you were a Boy Scout? Hmm, you and my son were probably in the same troop.”

“Yooooo, chill on me,” Elijah replied, laughing before sobering and asking, “How old is your boy since you keep bringing him up in reference to me? I need to know just how offended I should be. Because if you’re talking about a real ass kid…”

“Jaeden will be twenty-two on his next birthday,” I replied and was rewarded with a wide-eyed look of shock from Elijah.

“So what, you were a teen mom?” he blurted out and that made me cackle. “What? I mean, at most you’re like what thirty-five, thirty-six? No judgment at all here.”

“I thought you’d done your homework on me, kid. I’ll be forty-one on my next birthday,” I replied, shaking my head. “Way too old for you to be trying to pursue. I could be your mom.”

Now he was the one shaking his head. “Nah, my OG got you by a smooth twenty years, beautiful.”

“Oh so you were a change of life baby?” I retorted and his mouth dropped. “See, the whole making assumptions thing doesn’t feel so good when you’re on the receiving end, eh?”

“You want another, Freddie?” Wade the bartender asked, intervening at the right moment.

“Actually I’m gonna close out my ta—” I started before Elijah interrupted.

“She’ll have one more of whatever she’s drinking, Wade. And I’ll have…” He trailed off, eyes scanning the bar’s offerings before continuing. “Three fingers of Angel’s Envy, neat. You can put ’em both on my tab.” He dug into his back pocket for his wallet then handed over a card.

“You wanna close it out, Eli?” Wade asked and Elijah shook his head.

“Leave it open. I’m tryna convince to hang out with me a little longer.”

Wade gave him an “okay playa I see you” type look and I rolled my eyes.

“The only person who called me was my mother,” I responded dryly. “I prefer Freddie.”

“Noted, but I don’t like to follow what everyone else does,” Elijah quipped, making me roll my eyes again.

“Not listening to my clearly stated preference will earn you a check in the con column, youngin.”

“Again, noted. However, in my defense, I much prefer the fullness of your entire name on my tongue, .”

His voice dropped, just slightly, infused with a bit of rasp as he said my name this time and honestly? The way it spurred a fiery sensation in my core made me rethink my preference when it came to my name on his lips. I shook my head slightly, trying like hell to remove myself from the sensual haze he’d cast around us with that simple sentence. In the interim, Wade had shuffled back over and placed our drinks in front of us.

“What brings you to the old folks’ spot?” I said before taking a sip of my vodka lemonade, trying like hell to regain the upper hand. “Some place like Imbibe seems like it would be more your speed.”

Elijah looked around briefly, studying the other patrons in this establishment who had both of us outpaced by decades. That was part of the biggest appeal for me coming here. I didn’t have to worry about the uncles who gathered in here trying to do too much in the way of flirting with or hell even addressing me. Most often, I came in here and got completely ignored by the male patrons, just the way I liked it.

“Imbibe is cool, but The Watering Hole is home. I grew up on this side of town and honestly bided my time until I was finally old enough to be welcomed in this mug. I used to be jealous as hell of all the old heads in the barbershop talking about going down to The Hole after they finished up with their cuts.”

“So, what? You’ve been coming here for the past six months or somethin’?”

The Watering Hole had a minimum age of twenty-five for admission. Reggie, the door guy, took his job of enforcing that very seriously. Since it was a well-known fact for anyone who was local, he usually didn’t get too much flak from anyone underage trying to enter. But every now and again entitled kids who weren’t from around here tried to push the envelope. From the few interactions I’d seen where that was in play, Reggie took pleasure in enforcing that rule.

“Ay, didn’t I tell you to chill on me,” Elijah replied with a chuckle. “I’ve been able to come in here for four years, thank you very much.”

This time it was me raising the brows. Twenty-nine was still way too young, but I’d definitely pegged him closer to Jae’s age.

“Mmmmhmmm, I can see you doing the math,” Elijah teased after taking a long sip of his whiskey. “So let me know, is it working in my favor yet or nah?”

“Let me ask you something, if our genders were reversed and you were a forty-one year old man trying to pick up a twenty-nine year old woman. How would that look?”

“Like two adults who were well beyond the age of consent feeling a mutual attraction and acting on it instead of trying to deny or delay the inevitable,” he contested smoothly, as though he’d seen the question coming from a mile away. “Besides, I’ve always been told that I have an old soul.”

He followed that quip with a dimpled grin that made me groan soundlessly. And the swipe of his pink tongue across his two-toned lips after that grin had me turning away from him to take a long sip of my drink. This little motherfucker was entirely too handsome for my own good. I had to flip this on him before I felt myself succumbing to his charm.

“So you’re calling me old?”

“Never that. Just letting you know that I’m wise beyond my years. Have seen things that men twice my age probably haven’t even processed and that’s informed my worldview. I’m not some kid looking for a Ms. Trinidad moment with you, . I’m a grown ass man who has made it clear on several occasions that I find you attractive as fuck. Now either you can accept that and just go with the flow with me here or you can keep trying to son me.”

“If I keep sonning you, will that deter you from what you claim is inevitable?”

Elijah shook his head and chuckled. “Now we both know that isn’t what you want, . I see you, all of you. Your eyes tell everything that you’re thinking at any given time. And right now you’re conflicted because as much as you claim to be bothered by the lil gap in our ages, you still find yourself drawn to me in some way. I haven’t missed the looks when you think I don’t see you. Or the way you’ve been shifting on that bar stool since I sat down. And can I tell you something else?”

“What’s that?” I replied, my voice sounding breathless as hell to my own ears.

“I think you’re overdue for someone to take care of you. In the time that we’ve been acquainted, I’ve witnessed you go out of your way to be everything for everyone that you come into contact with. Whether that be your friends, your kid, or the customers we have to deal with on the daily. You’re consistently giving everything you’ve got to them, but who is giving all they’ve got to you? Who refills your well when it’s close to running dry? Who is your soft place to land?”

“I…” I started, then stopped because he was making points. Salient ones at that. I was a fiercely independent person, made that way by the twists and turns life had thrown my way. I wasn’t one to sit and languish in despair about things not being done, instead I was solutions forward. Making a way when there was no way, extending—and truthfully overextending—myself to everyone in the world around me simply because it felt like if I didn’t do it, it’d never get done. And I knew that was a one-way road to burn out, so I tried as best as I could to balance that. But in the quiet times, deep in the stillness of night I often asked myself those same questions Elijah had just posed only to turn around and lie to myself about having someone there to do all of those things not being a necessity.

After my silence dragged longer than expected because I was at sixes and sevens with regard to a reply, Elijah spoke up again.

“I apologize if I overstepped,” he murmured directly in my ear, leaning in.

Blinking suddenly dampened eyes, I shook my head before clearing my throat to speak.

“No… you’re good. I just… no one has ever just read me so intently like that. I’m… processing,” I replied honestly, for some reason feeling safe enough to be wholly truthful with him.

Elijah raised a hand to my chin, tilting my face so we were making direct eye contact before he spoke again.

“I know I’ve overstepped even if you’re too polite to call me on it, but I meant what I said, . I would love to take care of you, however you need it, whenever you need it, whatever you need.”

The huskiness of his tone once again shot directly to my throbbing center, making me shift uncomfortably. The sincerity in his eyes pierced me to the core, making me consider completely giving into whatever he was offering. The sensual innuendo in his words was clear, but there was something else underlying, a genuine earnestness that piqued my interest.

“Are we good over here?” Wade’s voice broke through, interrupting the exchange happening between me and Elijah. I turned so I was facing the bar again and downed the rest of my drink.

“You already closed me out, right?” I asked Wade and he shook his head.

“Not yet, but I can do that now if you’re ready.”

I nodded once then spoke. “Him too, we’re done here for the night.”

“Roger that,” Wade replied before turning on a heel and going to close both of our tabs.

“, I…” Elijah started and I placed a finger to his lips, silencing whatever was about to come next. Instead of overthinking things to the point of no return, I decided to just go with the flow and let this night play out however it would.

“I didn’t drive since I live so close. Can you make sure I get home all right?” I asked.

Elijah’s eyes widened briefly before he schooled his features into a neutral expression and picked up his drink to drain it.

“Yeah, I can do that.”

I swallowed hard. “All right. Sounds like a plan.”

We settled our individual tabs wordlessly before he placed a careful hand at my waist, helping me from the bar stool and keeping it there as he led me to where he was parked. The Watering Hole had a tiny, attached parking lot but it filled pretty quickly so street parking was the most prominent option for folks hanging out there. Along the way to his car, we passed folks hanging out on stoops. Elijah greeted them all, some with more familiarity than others. I didn’t know any of these folks so I just nodded and smiled, returning the greetings tossed my way by way of being accompanied by Elijah.

“Mr. Popularity, huh?” I teased as he opened the door for me to get into his car.

“I told you, this is my hood. Since I always had my ass outside getting into shit instead of being cooped up in the house playing video games or watching TV, I kinda got to know the majority of the neighborhood,” he replied with a sly grin.

“I’ve lived over this way for damn near ten years. How is it that I’d never seen you before you started working with me?” I asked, more to myself, but he gave me an answer anyway.

“I have no idea because I’d damn sure peeped your fine ass years ago. Finally got up the nerve to shoot my shot once it was guaranteed that we’d be seeing each other every day.”

He asked for my address to input into his GPS for the very short drive to my townhome once he was settled in his seat and started the car. When we arrived to my place, I got out of the car quickly, second guessing just what exactly I had been thinking when I’d asked him to get me home safely. Well, I knew exactly what I’d been thinking, but now that I was faced with it becoming a reality, my feet had gotten a little frosty.

He pulled into my driveway and I immediately unbuckled my seatbelt, damn near leaping from the car as I said, “Welp, this is me. Thank you for bringing me home.”

“Making sure you get home safely means walking you to your door and making sure you’re inside safely, ,” Elijah said, getting out of the car and trailing me along the sidewalk to my front door.

He stood on the bottom of the two steps in front of my door, making us almost eye level when I turned to face him after unlocking my door. The desire was clear in his gaze as his eyes danced over my face, eventually honing in on my lips. I drew the lower one between my teeth, feeling my chest heave as I breathed in deeply. Elijah reached out to pull my lip from being tortured by my teeth, his caress extending to cup my chin after he’d accomplished the task. He leaned in, pressing a soft, lingering kiss to my cheek before pulling back and reconnecting our gazes.

“Have a good night, beautiful,” he said, urging me to head inside.

Once I was on the other side of my door jamb, he turned, descending the stair and loping down the sidewalk. I called out to him before he was able to open his car door. Damn all of my reservations, I’d be a fool to not at least see if he could back up all his big talk of “taking care of me”.

“Elijah, would you like to come in for coffee?”

He turned back with that sly grin in place that never failed to leave me with soaked panties.

“I’m not too much for caffeine this late, beautiful,” he shot back, smirking at me.

So he wasn’t going to make this easy, fine, neither would I .

“Okay,” I called out. “Don’t say I never gave you a chance.”

He pivoted back to me, quickly closing the space between us, a hand under my chin, gripping my face as he stared down at me intently. “Just say what you mean, . No need for games or tricks. I told you that whatever you need I’m willing to be. You just have to tell me what that is.”

I let out a shuddering breath before responding. “When you said you would take care of me…”

He nodded for me to continue though I was certain the end of that sentence was clearly visible in my gaze.

“Tell me what you need, ,” he murmured, his face now dangerously close to mine.

Feeling emboldened, I snaked a hand between us, slowly roaming from his chest, down over his stomach, and landing at the slight protrusion at the front of his pants. As I gripped the increasingly hardening muscle shielded from my direct contact by layers of clothing, I murmured against his lips, “I need you and this to come inside and take care of me.”

His eyes closed as I caressed his dick and he let out an involuntary groan before responding, “Say less.”

In a flurry of movements, we were quickly transported from my front door to my bedroom, clothing strewn behind us like Hansel and Gretel’s breadcrumb path. As we tumbled onto my bed, our mouths entangled in a torrid lip lock, moving with a level of intensity belied by the way his slow hands roamed my body.

Elijah pulled back, breathing heavily as he rasped, “I need to see you.”

I stilled instantly, much preferring the light to remain off, not wanting him to see the lumps, bumps, dimples, and tiger stripes that littered my out of shape, middle aged body. He wasn’t trying to hear any protest, taking advantage of my open mouth to slide his tongue into it once again, kissing whatever words I was going to say not only off my lips, but completely off of my mind. His tongue was like that little brain zapper thingie from Men in Black because each caress of it against mine rendered my brain useless, completely incapable of thought beyond what was happening in the here and now between us.

He pulled away to turn on the light. My brain was so scrambled that the thought of using my comforter to cover up before he saw my body in the starkness of my bedroom lighting came too slowly.

“Goddamn,” he murmured lowly as he looked down at me with fire in his glare. “You’re even more gorgeous than I fantasized.”

“You fantasized about me?” I panted, a little giddy at the heady realization that whatever he felt for me ran deeper than I’d initially thought. Until this moment I was sure he’d seen me as a checkpoint, “hit an old bitch” may have been on his bucket list or something. But the reverence with which he caressed my body, the wonder in his eyes as he slowly traced every inch of my frame had my mind swirling with possibility. He hadn’t even really touched me and I was already too far gone.

“Spent way too many nights beating my dick with your name on the tip of my tongue. My imagination needed some work though because you are more gorgeous than I could ever have imagined,” he husked before leaning down and burying his face into my neck. His tongue snaked out, drawing abstract designs and driving me absolutely crazy.

“Tell me what you want, . I’m here to fulfill all of your needs. You gotta let me know what you like, how you like it. Whatever pleases you will definitely please me,” he murmured into my skin, nibbling along my collarbone as I squirmed beneath him. “Tell me, baby,” he urged as he moved his mouth lower, nipping along the edge of my aureole.

“I… I want your mouth on me,” I whispered.

“Like this?” he queried, slowly circling my distended nipple with his tongue. “Or like this?” he asked before suckling the nipple into the cavernous depths of his mouth, causing my back to lurch from the mattress, surging forward to encourage what he was doing. As his mouth moved to my other breast, I had nothing but moans of encouragement to offer as he gave that one the same treatment. My nipples had always been exceptionally sensitive and his lapping, nibbling, and suckling back and forth between them had me on the edge of cumming.

“You taste even better than I imagined here,” he grunted into my skin as his mouth moved further south, pressing lingering, openmouthed kisses down the fleshiness of my belly. I jerked in surprise as he bit my belly, then quickly snaked his tongue out to soothe the sting. Every little thing he did with his mouth felt new and exciting, the only words leaving my lips were yeses in rapid succession, already too far gone off of him to say anything more substantial.

Elijah moved to part my thighs, draping each of my knees over his shoulders and opening me up wide. He was motionless for a few moments, which gave me time to come back into myself and look down to find him staring at my pussy like it was the eighth wonder of the world.

“You were really trying to keep this pretty pussy away from me, huh?” he said as he looked up at me before biting my left inner thigh, then suckling the spot he’d bitten. “Got some fuckin’ nerve trying to deny me the opportunity to worship you the way you deserve.”

“I…” I tried, but trailed off because I had no idea why I was even trying to make any excuse at this point. “Elijah, please.”

“Tell me what you need, beautiful. I wanna hear you say it.”

“I need you to tongue fuck me until I explode.”

“Are you sure? Because once I get started I’m not stopping until I fulfill your command,” he replied before spreading me wider and getting comfortable.

My stomach muscles tightened and I briefly wondered what I was getting myself into. But the part of me that hadn’t been touched in way too long and knew that the pleasure brought from Elijah’s mouth on me so far was only a prelude to what could be if I gave him full access to do whatever he desired with my body overruled all of my good sense as I rolled my hips and once again uttered, “Elijah, please.”

Those two words were more than enough to spur him into action. His face landed in my pussy nanoseconds after they left my mouth and he settled in with a hum of delight. The vibration of his utterances as he ate my pussy with gusto had me quivering. Never in all of my years of getting my pussy eaten had I ever experienced the sensations rocketing through my body almost immediately. I was overcome with pleasure, thrashing with reckless abandon from feeling entirely too good.

“Fuck!” I yelled out, grateful that I lived alone for the majority of the year and didn’t have to hold back a single thing when it came to expressing just how good Elijah was making me feel. My hips rolled of their own volition, catching the rhythm his mouth had settled into as he spoke life into my pussy, quite literally lavishing her and me with praise and expressing his exuberance for the experience. As I scaled the heights of ecstasy, I lost the ability to form coherent thought, my body just moving on autopilot, succumbing to the rapture of being wholly and completely capitulated by this man’s mouth and fingers.

“What you doing to me?” I cried, thighs quaking off the Richter scale as I fought to pull away from his masterful mouth.

Elijah was undeterred, tightening his grip on my thighs as he gritted out, “Giving you what you asked for, beautiful.”

As I crashed headfirst into euphoria, the only thought in my mind was that this youngin had definitely proven he was a grown man in all the ways that counted and he had yet to pull the dick out.

Freddie, girl you in danger.