Everlasting desire, p.1
Everlasting Desire, page 1
Everlasting Desire
Unparalleled Love Series
Stephanie Nicole Norris
Contents
Preface
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Epilogue
About the Author
Note from the Publisher: This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead or references to locations, persons, events or locations is purely coincidental. The characters, circumstances and events are imaginative and not intended to reflect real events.
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Everlasting Desire
Unparalleled Love Series
Copyright 2019 Stephanie Nicole Norris
Love is a Drug, Ink.
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All Rights Reserved and Proprietary.
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No part of this book may be reproduced, in any form or format without written permission from Author. Send all requests via email to
stephanie@stephanienicolenorris.com.
To my reading family. I hope you enjoy my contribution to the Unparalleled Love Series. It was written with you in mind.
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To my collaborators Sharon C. Cooper and Delaney Diamond, you ladies absolutely rock! Thank you so much for joining me in this series; you knocked it out of the park!
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Preface
The foundation of the Unparalleled Love Series is set with three women, best friends and college buddies, Jada Wilson, Soul Carrington, and Janice Livingston, who because of life’s happenings decided to become roommates until it is time to go their separate ways.
All three of them are in for a whirlwind romance when bachelor’s Solomon McBride, Micah Olsen, and Nathan Crenshaw step into the picture. In order for you to find out how that goes, continue reading and make sure to pick up the other books in the series!
My contribution is Everlasting Desire, and you may be familiar with Jada Wilson as she is Eden Alexandria Rose’s lead interior designer. You met her in Her Naughty Suitor and also got a glimpse of the couple in Promising Forever.
Award-winning MasterChef Solomon McBride is her best friend, and he’s at his wit’s end with watching Jada go through heartbreak after heartbreak. Solomon wants to show Jada what real love is if she is willing.
Enjoy.
Chapter One
He slipped his hand around her neck, practically banging her head into the wall as he shoved his dick inside his latest conquest. Like all the others, the woman went along with whatever he desired, neither of them considering her pleasure or pain as he plunged in and out of her.
Bile rose in Jada’s throat. This was the third time she’d caught him cheating, only those other instances had been text messages uncovered, and phone calls interrupted. This time, she’d caught him red-handed, thanks to the video recorder she’d set up in his apartment a week before and connected to her cell phone. It was a gnawing gut instinct that she could no longer put on the shelf.
Once upon a time, Jada had loved Marcus Bradshaw more than life itself. She’d do anything for him, and for a long while, his actions had shown the same for her.
But after five years in a relationship, Jada began to notice things. It started with the lock on his phone, his unwillingness to give her the code. He claimed, “Everyone locks their iPhone. It’s expensive as hell, and no one’s stealing my shit and walking around using it like they worked hard for it.”
Jada accepted that excuse for a while, but her intuition got the better of her whenever she would notice the phone flipped on its face, or him easing the device back into his pocket when she would approach. Her playfulness when asking, “Whatcha doing, tryin’ to hide a wife from me or something?” would turn into arguments that would end with him grabbing his keys and jacket, and leaving.
Many of those times, Jada wouldn’t see Marcus again until the next day. Sometimes, late in the afternoon, and he’d always come back mild-mannered and relaxed as if he’d just smoked the best marijuana or had the type of sex that would put one into a coma.
That was eight months ago when she should’ve taken her intuition and left. But Jada had no proof, so instead of booking it, she stuck around. Now, with appalled eyes on her cell phone, Jada watched him fuck the same girl he’d introduced her to as his cousin—in the bedroom Jada shared with him on many occasions. Regurgitation of the toasted cream cheese croissant she’d had for breakfast spill from her throat.
Jada dropped to a squat, one hand on the concrete to hold her steady as she bent over outside of Lou’s Pastry Bistro, emptying the contents of her stomach. Her body trembled as she continued, her hair, swept up into a ponytail that hung down the length of her neck, waved against her shoulder.
Her vision blurred as her eyes became moist from the intense jerking she endured. Just when she thought it would stop, her blurry gaze traveled back to her smartphone where she witnessed more of their rabbit sex.
Jada shut her eyes tight and threw the phone so hard it splintered against the ground. But it was no use, the images were there now, sealed in her mind, constantly playing in a repeated reel.
A doorbell chimed and a man leaned out the entrance but didn’t exit to approach her. “Ma’am, are you okay?”
The smell of freshly baked bread slipped across Jada’s nose. She nodded while spitting out the remnants of bile on her lips.
“Are you sure? I can call an ambulance, and they should get here fast since Piedmont Hospital is a block and a half away.”
Reining in her breath, Jada shook her head. “I’m fine.” She didn’t look back at the man, knowing it was the same Asian guy who had taken her order.
Rising to her feet, Jada pivoted and crossed the street blankly, paying no attention to the traffic on Peachtree Street.
“Ma’am, you left your phone! Ma’am, watch out!”
The driver of a sedan leaned into his horn, its wheels kicking up asphalt as the vehicle’s fender tapped Jada’s leg just slightly. Blinking as if in an alternate reality, Jada slowly turned toward the driver as he exited the car, cursing her out while simultaneously making sure she was okay. Seconds went by, and she was re-approached by the Asian man, both the driver and the bistro worker asking questions she couldn’t comprehend.
Pushing through them both without response, Jada continued across the road, walking for a few miles until she disappeared into a wine and spirits store.
“When was the last time you saw her?”
Solomon McBride worked hard to keep his temper at a minimum; not that it was easy to lose, but when he spoke with Marcus Bradshaw, it was more difficult than usual. After years of watching him disrespect the woman whose heart Solomon wanted for his own, sharing the same space as Marcus made Solomon’s brow twitch. It was the reason he kept his arms folded across his chest. Instead of standing in Marcus’s doorway, he remained planted on the porch so as not to be within arm’s reach of him.
The intoxicating odor of marijuana drifted from the open door as Marcus ran his red-rimmed eyes up and down the six feet four inches of Solomon’s tower, shrugging as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
“You should know more than me. You are her best friend.” He put best friend in quotations with his fingers as if to mock the realism of Solomon and Jada’s alliance.
“Why don’t you be upfront with me and just say you don’t give a shit,” Solomon barked.
Marcus twisted his mouth, his thin brows sinking as his calloused fingers dipped into the unkempt mop of dreads on his head.
“You act like she’s been missing for a week.” Marcus glanced back, checking the clock that ticked on the wall. “It’s only ten p.m. Jada’s a big girl. I’m sure she’s fine.”
“When was the last time you saw her?”
Marcus pushed out a deep breath. “Didn’t I just say she’s probably fine?”
Solomon took a step toward him, a threat in his approach as he asked again, “When was the last time you saw her?”
Marcus ran his tongue across his teeth, obviously reneging on the idea of ignoring Solomon’s question once more.
“Yesterday morning. She said she had a trip to take to Chicago. Something about her boss Eden having an emergency trip to Bali and needing her to stand in, blah, blah, blah.” He whipped his hand in the air at the same time Solomon’s heavy brow dipped, his mind whirling.
Solomon had also spoken to Jada yesterday morning—afternoon, and night as well. But she’d made no mention of going to Chicago, and it was unlike her to leave Solomon in the dark.
Without another word, Solomon pivoted and headed back to his Bentley Continental, where his masculine frame slipped inside, and he pulled away from the curb. His thoughts shuffled as pockets of light from street lamps revealed his cruise each time he passed.
“Where are you, Sunshine…” he murmured, his chest feeling heavy as worry filled his heart. He activated the car’s internal wireless system. “Dial Sunshine,” he spoke.
“Calling Sunshine,” the automated voice responded. Silen
Solomon ended the call. He’d been going straight to voicemail since noon after taking a break from preparing a new recipe that would add to his list of original dishes.
As an award-winning chef, Solomon McBride was constantly working up new spices that would bring a distinct burst of flavor to any tongue. It gave him an insurmountable joy to make dining an event of celebration for households across the country instead of something to be thrown together when one had time.
Solomon tapped his steering wheel and spoke again, “Call Soul,” hoping that Jada’s roommate and close friend would have better news than him.
“Solomon?”
“Yeah. Tell me you’ve heard from Jada.”
Soul sighed. “I was getting ready to ask you the same thing.”
Solomon’s mind raced as his eyes stayed steady on the road in front of him.
“She’s never done this before,” Soul said. “Not even when…” She hesitated.
“Not even when what?”
“Nothing, never mind.”
“Soul?”
“Nothing, I’m jumping to conclusions.”
“I’d like to hear these assumptions because for the life of me I can’t figure out why she would disappear on purpose unless it had something to do with Marcus.”
His voice cut low and steely on the other end of the phone. Soul bit down on her lip, knowing Jada’s relationship with Marcus was a rollercoaster ride. Jada might have shared things with both her roommates—Soul and Janice—that she hadn’t shared with Solomon, so instead of telling him he was more than likely right, Soul held her tongue.
However, the silence was the only confirmation Solomon needed. Without notice, his chest constricted as melancholy showered his heart.
“Call me if she returns, please.”
“I will. You do the same.”
“You got it.”
They disconnected the line as Solomon cut a left turn onto Park Avenue, headed for Grant Park where Jada would go to talk to her late grandfather James Wilson, also known as Grandpa Will.
Since his passing three years earlier, Jada had found peace in visiting the one place she and her grandfather frequently visited, taking walks around the park and eating from hot dog stands nearby during their monthly bonding sessions.
His car weaved through the dark streets on a slow cruise as he searched the area with his intense gaze like a beacon. Tapping the brakes, the vehicle eased to a stop, and Solomon shoved the gear into park. He then exited swiftly, the speed of his jog picking up momentum as he closed in on her still form.
She was slumped on the seat of a park bench, light from a lamp casting the only illumination over her head as she watched him approach. Her heart connected with his as she found instant comfort in his presence even while experiencing a numbing pain that had riddled her the entire day.
Solomon’s intrusive gaze stirred Jada. Even in her current haze, that weird inflexible chemistry they shared came sailing in with the power of his presence. It eased around her skin as he dropped his eye to the empty bottle of Cîroc that rested in her hand, clutched between her fingers. Kneeling before her, Solomon experienced the overwhelming misery in her eyes as if it was his own grief to carry. He could tell she’d numbed whatever ache that possessed her by the glaze cast over her soft brown pupils.
“What happened?” he asked, his stare unwavering as his attention was now entirely hers.
“You know,” Jada began, “I always thought your thick brows, deep-set dimples, and masculine nose would look great on my son.” She chuckled. “Future son, if such a thing wasn’t a figment of my imagination.”
Solomon’s brows knocked; his heart drummed by the tap of her insinuating words.
“So handsome.” She smiled, then burped. The strong whiff of liquor hit his nose, causing his brow to dip deeper.
“You’re drunk.”
Thunder clapped against the distant sky, and a procession of lightning crackled behind it.
“Come with me.”
Solomon wrapped Jada into the refuge of his arms and pulled her to her feet.
“I don’t want to go home. Please, just leave me here.”
“That’s not happening.”
She pushed him, just enough to let him know she meant business. The shove was expected to move him instead of her, but still, she stumbled backward, her head spinning without a care that she was falling to the ground.
“Jada!”
Solomon’s catch came with the strong uplifting of his arms as he snatched her from a painful descent, sealing her delicate form against the hard solidity of his.
The tension in his chest became the same correlating pain that lay within her—their bond the strongest it had been in years.
“You’re coming with me. No way am I leaving you here.”
Through her haze, Jada leaned into his chest, and Solomon held her, his lips slipping against the top of her head. He swept Jada into his arms and carried her to the car just as a downpour of torrential rain fell from the dark skies.
Chapter Two
Jada’s eyes stared into the distance as the passing scenery went by in a steady blur. Lounged in the passenger seat, she pulled her feet underneath her butt then licked her parched mouth with the tang of Cîroc moist on her tongue.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Jada closed her eyes, her pulse excited as if the drum of Solomon’s voice was a command that amplified her nerves.
“Do you have something to drink in this car?” she asked.
“I have—”
“Don’t you dare say water.”
Solomon’s mouth quirked. “Okay. Then no.”
A wisp of a sigh slipped from Jada.
“Where’s your phone?”
Her mind was rushed back to the scene of her phone’s untimely death, seeing it shatter as she tossed it in her fury.
“Dead.”
Solomon’s thick brow arched. “You don’t have your charger?”
“I don’t have a phone. It passed away. I murdered it. Are the police looking for me?”
Solomon’s brow dipped deeper as he pulled to the entrance of his contemporary modern-style four-bedroom home.
He punched in a code at the gate, then turned to Jada, observing her carefully as they waited for a clear entrance.
“Is this about Marcus?”
His brow twitched suddenly.
“Depends.” She turned her glare from the window to Solomon’s worried gaze. “Do you have something to drink in there?”
“What if I don’t?”
“Then I don’t want to go with you either.”
He took his eye off her long enough to pull in, park, and help her out of the car.
“I can walk,” she said, stopping him from lifting her again. The first time, she’d accepted it for what it was, her inability to see straight. But even in her stupor, Jada could recognize the flow of tempting heat that flurried around them. Could it be chemistry? She shook her head. Girl, you are drunk.
“What’s wrong?”
Solomon lifted her face with the tilt of her chin.
“Nothing,” she rushed, “I was just fumbling with my own thoughts.”
“And what are your thoughts?”
“We’ve been together for what, twenty minutes at most. How many questions are you going to ask me tonight?”
“As many as it takes to get down to the reason why my best friend killed her phone, and now we have to go on a high-speed chase to escape the authorities.”
A grin lifted Jada’s mouth, and her eyes rolled with a shake of her head. She winced from the mistake that movement was, suddenly feeling ill and weak all at once.
