and droplets of water clung to his chiseled body. The tattoo of an explosion of guns on his chest no doubt represented the Ferali Syndicate. There was only one other that I caught a glimpse of peeking over his right shoulder and hinting at a back tattoo.
Unable to tear my eyes away, I stared, pretending to be unbothered by his stalking gaze. He was showing it, so I had no shame looking. I hadn’t seen a man that fine since my ex one-time-lover, Warren. I had assumed Warren would be the Mandingo I was hunting for, until I found out he was clueless as to how to work the good thick inches he’d been blessed with. I had learned the hard way that night that big, did not equal good sex.
The man’s ego wouldn’t shut the fuck up long enough for me to give him pointers that could have helped him. I ended up leaving his ass at the cheap motel I had taken him to. The idea of egos getting in the way of me getting a good dicking was like ice water to the view I was enjoying of Arjen.
“You see something you like?” he asked.
“It’s okay,” I mouthed before turning and heading to the bathroom with my clothes tucked under my arm. If his plan was to seduce me into sleeping with him; he would find out I was a lot stronger than he assumed.
He was hot, I had to give him credit, but I’d had hot before. Some of those hot men had dropped their boxers or briefs, and turned into piles of cold ambers that had burned out with no chance in hell of being re-lit.
Was I going to have to eventually sleep with Arjen, so he would see for himself that we weren’t compatible?
9
Arjen
A week had passed, and I had hardly seen Mecca. She wasn’t coming home some nights, so admittedly I was curious to see what she did all day. She had enough to keep her busy because of the vast territory the Black Saints covered and the hundreds of people who worked for her. Therefore, I didn’t doubt she was busy. However busy my wife was, it didn’t stop me from wanting to spy on her.
I’d had guards following Mecca before we were engaged since she was initially set to marry Khane. The information the guards conveyed was usually a disjointed mess. The men were afraid to be on the detail that required guarding her because they were convinced that she flirted with danger, and often entered neighborhoods that banned the word safe.
We found out the hard way that the guards’ concerns were warranted after one had returned from being missing for three days. The guard notified me along with his request to quit, that he had spent three days trapped in a neighborhood he was convinced she led him into on purpose.
He had followed Mecca into the Highland Park neighborhood and had gotten trapped there and hunted. His military background was all that had saved him from becoming a statistical example of who shouldn’t enter certain areas. As a result, I’d had to hire African-American guards for her detail who weren’t afraid to enter neighborhoods that the devil himself had disowned.
Today, I had decided to ride along with Dean, a guard assigned to Mecca’s detail so that I could spy on her daily activities. What I was finding out had me impressed with her work ethic.
She had made stops at her three businesses: a car dealership with an impressive amount of high-end inventory, a reputable four-star hotel that could accommodate over a hundred guests, and a tire and rim shop connected to a large automotive service station.
She had met up with several of her workers to discuss business inside the lobby of her hotel, and a second meeting inside the dining area of one of her men’s restaurants. The men that worked for her were all dressed in suits and ties, so to any outside eyes, they were having a legit business meeting.
She and her men weren’t your average street dealers. I found that most were legit business owners using drug sales as the core source of extending their profit margins.
Mecca was fully aware that I had a guard following her and often appeared not to care as long as he stayed out of her way. She had even managed to cook up a batch of coke with one of her cooks and tested the strength to ensure they were putting