|◁ II ▷|

snoh aalegra — i want you around.

THE LEAF BROWN SEDUCTRESS awoke to a late, anonymous call that was in the business of making hard-to-resist demands. The woman had been left ditched by the lothario, sipping on glasses of champagne to make up for his absence.

The loud ringer from the telephone was insistent just like the man with the feral growl. She cursed in a tight breath as though he was present. It often did surprise her that her bravery shone in his absence and shrunk under his presence.

It continued to ring and she sought after her pillows to bury herself in her sheets with hopes that he would... maybe go away. But, she had known him to be a man that was incredibly determined, which was to her own detriment because she could never say no.

Tonight, though, sparked a new horizon, a new season, as though God had resurrected the woman and given her courage like never before.

She chose to ignore his invite but knew him well enough to know that he was summoning her attendance into his bed and not merely extending an invite for her to accept or refuse.

The phone rattled against the old-fashioned receiver, he hadn't yet given her a pause. She puffed another expletive curse at the inanimate object before rolling over to reach for the phone and grant him the displeasure of hearing her sleepy grumbles.

"Hi, Hugo" she yawned, her lithe body was battling for sleep but her libido was alive and awake.

"A car has been sent to your address, miss"

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Her light moans roused Ebén out of his deep slumber, their impassioned night of sin was cruel on their bodies, with her clasping onto him as if fate would pull them apart if she let go.

Her swollen core and her smudged red lipstick was evidence of last night's carnage, her world had been completely rocked. Last night had noticeably burned her and her libiido but Ebén in the mood for more. It was so like Ebén to wake up, feeling unsatisfied — he had an unappeasable palate that continued to growl for more.

Trails of inflamed love bites were embellished on her ghostly white skin, running from behind her pear-shaped ears right down to her pierced navel.

The landscape of Ebén's almond-brown skin was clear of any marks of her impassion which was no doubt intentional. He wasn't and would never be tied down to any woman but made sure female mounds were bound to him in unholy matrimony.

Her dyed leaf-brown hair plunged gracefully over her shoulders, as her silvery-white eyes finally opened, batting at him for more despite everything in her screaming sore. Her core had been pushed to its limit and her eyes had balked with confused tears.

Her morning breath was stale, the lingering taste of alcohol had stained her lips. She lost her decorum back at the Verragamo mixer seven years ago, casing the man that held the room to complete silence.

Ebén rarely ever acquainted anyone with his torrid personal history.

That wasn't what his bed was for, it was for meaningless sex with women he would abandon as soon as the morning light broke in.

Her claw-like fingers were stitched to his sculpted abdomen, as she ran ripples along his Herculean bod. His silk sheets, bound tight, to her naked body hid the damage he had committed as the 9am sun peered through his high rise glass panels; offering him shades of complete privacy.

Ebén had tore through her and blasted her up on an amatory high to make up for bailing on her last night.

He did that often.

The stinging of her core was evidence that last night's sinful romp had bound even more invisible ties to the heartless yet sexually dominant lothario.

The images of the sexual mesh of their sweaty bodies were seared into her skull and badgered her like a never ending dream. His supple lips had landed on her pink nipple flesh and had bit, licked and suckled all in one action. His piece had also claimed her as his property, constraining her to take his entire length both in her core and in her mouth.

Ebén knew how to shut her up, just with his tongue, saying everything she wanted to hear but never meant.

Her fingers softly tugged on his bristly beard as her morning breath ambled its way to lips she could never get enough of.

"Morning, baby"

"Morning" Ebén chewed, trying to control the dials in his temper from coming to the fore. He wanted nothing more than for her to leave, but would give her room, a few minutes at best, to take heed to his silent warning.

She plucked the clumps of mascara that environed her eyelash as she grumbled, "You disappeared last night. Where did you go?"

This.

This was what Ebén hated with many of the woman that he rammed into submission feeling as though he owed them some sort of explanation as to his whereabouts. He chose to block out her grumbling that he could sense was coming as he grated his teeth together.

"Ebén?" she huffed, throwing everything to garner his attention. "Are you deaf?!"

She now had awoke the heartless beast.

"Bitch," he growled, his low husk bouncing down then up the Richter scale. "I heard you"

His moniker didn't deter the woman from pressing on, she had gotten used to Ebén and his expletive name calling — nothing ended up stinging.

"Don't ignore me, then?" she pouted, forcing her forearm to break free from his grasp but he was too strong even with the early dawn rubbing against his tired eyes.

But there was something about an irate Ebén that riled her fantasies, that made him sexy. Maybe, it was the implausible thought that he could... change?

He extended a morose smirk to her, goading her with a growl, "And what if I do?"

Her words didn't come so freely anymore.

Ebén nodded smugly, as she sat in a pit of her own thoughts — still naked but feeling awfully bruised.

"Don't patronise me, Ebén. Where were you?" she shot at him, her eyes drawn to him as she dug her knees into his mattress.

Her hunt for answers was only going to leave the heiress turned social media influencer with emotional scars that couldn't be cured with late night hook ups.

He laughed at her, "I was busy... doing something" His play on words didn't satisfy her curious mind.

If anything, it made her more nosy.

"Did you fuck someone else?" she snapped back, the arch in her eyebrow collapsing.

"She sucked my dick, then I fucked her" he corrected her, a gravelly-low yawn leapt out of his athletic body, cementing the fact that he was unbothered about her obvious hurt.

She inhaled sharply with her eyes shut tight, "Did anyone see you?"

He squinted, trying to stir his mind into memory and found himself smirking at the thought of the restive woman who had objected to such morbid, public displays of affection, "Probably but I don't give a fuck if they did, Ezra."

She bit her lip, as fury was the only thing dripping from her lips. "Ebén!" she exhaled, her voice shaky, "I could lose my brand deals and my sponsorships?"

His face, chiselled and stoic, stayed neutral as his lips inched millimetres close to her face. He didn't care. She lent back smothered by his duvet, unsuccessfully, in an attempt to evade him.

He took her deference personal as he spoke against on her gaping lips, "That's your problem, not mine"

Her silence should've signalled to him that he had caused offence, but Ebén was hardly introspective. Neither did he care that he had rubbed salt in her open wounds. He was tired of placating her and her emotions because she was a woman.

She wore ire like an accessory on her face, "Fuck you"

Her insults hardly stung, mainly because, she wasn't at all convincing. He clicked his tongue, heckling her, "Bitch, don' make me wash your mouth out — "

Sheets had smothered her entire body under, she didn't connect with his face as nicely as she wanted — missing him completely. "Ebén, I have a name?" she contended, her eyes frothing with rage. He cackled grimly at her, only amping up her fury.

Her silvery white eyes wandered away from his gaze that had the power to crumble her self worth. She threw pillow after pillow in the air, in an attempt to rein him in.

She mumbled, tints of rose adorned her white cheeks.

He side-eyed her with his chest puffed out, "Speak up?" Her pride already took a beating the more she admitted, "I really don't know why I waste my time on you,"

But the reality was that she knew why.

He cocked his eyebrow, as he neared her pursed lips that wanted nothing other than to wrap wet kisses with his. He growled at her, almost territorial.

"Cus you belong to me"

He didn't waste any time, sifting through the soft, white sheets that had created a distance between the two and finally met her lips, which he bit, hard.

She welcomed the advance, her flailing hands enrapturing him into a ten second long smooch.

Humility had escaped him, in exchange for absurd arrogance. But blame lay at the women who blew up his ego and rewarded a foul-mouthed misogynist with sex. If there was anything Ebén needed, it was for a woman to shake his damn table.

But that woman who would succeed in tying down the lothario wouldn't be an easy woman like Ezra was. She was just his temporary rest stop.

Beátriz Almeira, his small and meek housekeeper, waddled in with her stubby feet and disrupted the moment. "¡Mira! ¿Que estás haciendo?" she directed his eyes towards the tickers of the analog clock. She usually wasn't one to manage Ebén's engagements but the swift exit of his eighth personal assistant in over a year meant that she was stuck doing the jobs of two people but she was damn good at it.

The athlete lounged on his back and was using the duvet as a makeshift cover, "¿Que?" shrugging her off, "I don't have anything on today?"

She took a forward step — and paused, thinking that he would remember that today marked the inaugural Armani shoot but instead, he looked at her blankly like he had forgotten. She gestured at him exasperatedly, "You do. The Armani Shoot?"

"Oh! Shit..."

Beátriz reluctantly shared in his glum smile, "Oh shit indeed. Get up. Since dawn, all anyone has heard is the poor girl scream. If I didn't know any better, I would think you were hurting her — "

Ebén's tone was very matter of factly, "She's incapable of keeping that loud mouth of hers shut"

The woman tried her best to hide from Beátriz's gaunt face but Beátriz couldn't hide her mocking. Beátriz had seen more women sat in that exact spot, looking dishevelled with a hint of shame.

But she had come to recognise this particular woman as Ebén wasn't yet ready to get off her stop.

"Vale," he said, his body still sunk in his mattress. "I'll leave in ten. Where's my car?"

Beátriz answered simply, "Where you left it"

The collision of Ebén and this woman's path would only end in one way with Ebén smashing her heart into smithereens, again.

"Ezra," chuckled Beátriz as she ambled out of his bedroom, "Always a pleasure"

She didn't even turn to acknowledge Beátriz before she left as she riposted, trying to ready herself even though she had unintentionally given him a head start.

"Are you including me in your plans?"

"Did I say that I was?" he mocked, as he rapelled his sports bag over his shoulder, wanting to be rid of this physical anchor that would only make him sink.

She huffed as she tried to maintain her composure, "I don't have any clothes here — "

"Ezra," he groused, his tone only putting her on edge, "I didn't call you. You called me."

She felt an urge to scream, "You did call me?"

"Actually, Stanley did. I didn't"

There was no romantic gesture, or him jumping through hoops. If she needed another reason to hate him, she wasn't so blind anymore.

Ezra had found herself alone in his bedroom, naked and obsessed with a man who was incapable of loving her or anyone. She could only take so much rejection, but her heart still wanted him.

Maybe she was mad.

Madly in love.

But time was something she had, even if it would take another six years.

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A/N: Am I the only one whose heart breaks for Ezra?

Sis deserves way better, even if the sex is that bomb.