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Please continue reading if you’ve read the story starter – a very long Chapter 1 – and you’re ready to dive into the story with me.

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About the story: (short description. Click here for longer)

“Let Me Love You” is a tale of love and sacrifice and a poignant story of self-discovery, celebrating the human capacity to find love in the most unlikely of circumstances.

Please enjoy the current WIP of Iris and El. This will be published freely up to a point, like in the old days, and then the entire book will be posted for full download. I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments. And don’t forget to check out the companion stories. (Wicked Chances, Dreams of Reality, The Convenient Wife, The Other Side of Love, She Works Hard for the Money & Ravenous)

Enjoy, Your Author, Sylvia Hubbard

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Read more: Let Me Love You – Chapter 48✍🏾📚❤️ #SylLit #WIP #livestory 📖💓 #marriedwife #demandedconsensual #darkromance

Author’s Note: You’ll meet Essence Folsom from Essence’s Divinity. As I said, her story is now preordered on Amazon. For those who bought the story in parts, part 4 will be posted on Black Friday, so get ready.

Also, she will mention Renna, who you met in She Works Hard for the Money.

I think that’s all the catching up I need to do.

I’ve been doing a lot today. I’m actually in Chapter 50, and it’s getting really good. I haven’t flowed this fast since Sin’s Iniquity. Perhaps stress brings out this in me. I don’t know, but all I think about is writing.

Happy Reading

Your author, Sylvia Hubbard

Just as she was straightening up her wild sex hair, Iris heard the booming knock on the hotel’s door. 

“This is the police, Mr. Olorun, open up!” it was the detective. 

Calmly, Iris opened the door but gasped as she looked at the drawn weapon and then was pushed aside as other police entered to search the entire place while Salacious Heart entered with his gun still drawn, holding up a search warrant.

“He’s not here,” she stated.

“Someone looks thoroughly fucked.” The crude detective sniffed the air long and hard. “I’m shocked you can walk straight from what I heard about Olorun through my cousin. She liked to boast when she gets good dick, whether he wants it or not. I thought Olorun was gay myself, the way he shunned women. I was also sure he was not a man that mixed business with pleasure.” He glanced into the bedroom and then looked at her with many accusations in his dead black eyes. “But there’s been a lot of sex going on here.” 

Iris forced herself not to blush or give in to responding to him. 

Salacious looked her up and down with those sable eyes and around the front room while he holstered his gun. “Where is he since he’s not here?”

“I don’t know.” This wasn’t a lie. Iris had yet to learn how El was getting to Chicago, and he could be anywhere right now. “You just missed him.” That addition could have been more truthful. El had a fifteen-minute head start. “And you don’t need weapons.”

An officer who had gone into El’s bedroom without taking off his shoes came out with a gun bag for a massive and long gun. 

“It’s locked, sir.”

Salacious snickered. “We’ll take it with us since the miss states there aren’t any weapons here, and she couldn’t possibly be lying.”

Iris explained, “Okay, I don’t even know how to use that, and I’m positive he had that in a secure position. He also has a gun license to say he has a right to that weapon. You said this was a search warrant. For what kind of weapon? Not a gun.”

“We couldn’t clip the lock off the gun safe he has in the bedroom closet,” the officer explained.

Irritated, she said, “See, El will not be too pleased by this invasion of his private space. You know how he is about dirt and smells.” She snatched the warrant from the officer. As she quickly perused the document, she asked, “What does taking his guns have anything to do with finding him?”

Narrowing those dark eyes as if he’d been found out, Salacious walked his big body and hoovered over her intimidatingly with a growl, “Where the fuck is he?”

“I don’t know!” she repeated. “And you better put those guns back because that’s not in the warrant.”

He snatched his warrant from HR and ordered the other officers, “Finish searching this place while I take her in the hallway for questioning.”

When Salacious started to grab her arm, Iris stepped away.

“I can walk on my own.” Coolly, she grabbed her bag, put on her shoes, and then put on her coat, ensuring she took her sweet time to irritate the detective more. She also used this as an excuse to give El time to get wherever he would get out of town. 

Once they were in the hallway, Iris waited for him to talk to several officers standing around before coming to her. 

“You think you’re helping him, don’t you?”

“I’m answering your questions.”

“What if I told you your boss was a stone-cold killer, and he just needs one moment to lose control, and he’ll end up hurting more people, and that could include you and your nephew.”

Iris stiffened, not liking that this detective had a scoop on her background. Sticking to her guns, she responded, “I answered you what you asked for. And I think you’re just trying to scare me because if he were like you said, you’d have him in jail already if there was any real proof. Take your emotions out of this incident and see he didn’t put Damien in the hospital.”

“How would you know?”

“I was there. Did you see all the footage, or do you only believe whoever you received the information from?”

Again, he hovered over her. “I’ve questioned the security, and I watch the footage. You’re a liar, Ms. Folsom. The video only has Damien entering the room and only El coming in. You are not in the footage.”

“I don’t know why not. I was in that room, you imbecile!” she raged. “Now, are you arresting me or not?”

“You’re not under arrest, Ms. Folsom, but you should get as far away from Olorun as fast as possible because if he doesn’t kill you, his lover, Blaque Heart, will because no one touches her property.”

Iris bit back her retort because she knew Salacious only said this to get her riled up. 

“What do you want us to do with this?” an officer asked, holding the enormous gun. We can’t open it here, and the warrant doesn’t include this.

She tried to reach for it, but Salacious yanked it to himself. 

“I’ll keep it safe,” he said. When Olorun resurfaces, he can come to collect his belongings.” 

“We still can’t open up the private safe in the bedroom – even with the jaws of life. That thing is made up of titanium or something,” the officer informed him grudgingly.

“Leave it.” Salacious tossed his card at her and walked away with all the other officers. 

Iris didn’t stop watching them until they were all on the elevator and leaving. Quickly, she gathered the rest of her items and put the do not disturb sign on the door so no one would enter the room until she, or hopefully, El, could return.

Not sure if her phone was being tapped or traced, she decided not to call him directly but scheduled an email to go out in a couple of hours to update him on what was happening. This way, her message wouldn’t ping his phone and alert them to El’s current location.

She took the elevator to the valet, observing her surroundings and who was looking at her. The ticket to El’s car was on his keys, so no one questioned why she was taking the vehicle. 

Her cell phone chirped, and she smiled, seeing two numbers downloaded to her phone: El’s partner, Guy Xavier, and a phone number and address to the St. Royal in Chicago, a sister hotel to the St. Royal in Detroit. She briefly wondered whether that room was just as complex.

El must have shot the information from his email to her phone, and she smiled, glad he was such an intelligent man. Being around Dwayne for so long had dampened her to men in general when it came to intelligence.

Aunt Rose used to be a nurse at the hospital where they had admitted Damien, and Iris was sure she could find someone around the rear employee entrance who would know who she was and help her. Aunt Rose’s pin was still working in the employee parking area, and it was close to the hospital entrance where Iris needed to go through. 

Going through the hospital’s main entrance, she felt it would be too public. If Dwayne, her father, or even this Blaque Heart had her on their radar, she was sure they could pick her up, find her, and possibly kidnap her.

This wouldn’t be conducive to helping El or herself. 

Looking through El’s armrest, she found a small EDC folding knife, which she placed in her coat pocket. Closing her eyes momentarily, it was easy to fall into the memory of waking up next to El’s body. Iris wanted to return there and feel him, but she knew reality would always come between anything she felt happy with. 

Happiness to her was an elusive entity in her life that never stayed for long, and she knew it would never last in her life because she never felt worthy of having something good – except Clem. Clem had been her only constant source of happiness, and she held on to him.

Plus, El would never want kids in his life. He didn’t desire the life of being a father, having babies, or even the rambunctiousness of high-energy children running around without control. 

Stop thinking about a future with El. That will never happen! She reprimanded herself, exiting the car and looking around for anyone familiar. No one looked at her suspiciously, and she rested her high state of awareness just for a moment. 

“Iris Folsom?!” a shocked, soft voice called out from a car away. She wore a hospital employee garment, indicating she was a nurse.

Since they were under a parking lot light, Iris could make out a black woman about her age with flawless skin, burnt umber doe eyes, extraordinarily long natural lashes, and shoulder-length deep brown curly hair, similar to herself, and being about her height. Why Iris noticed these familiar features so quickly was unnerving, but the smile on the woman’s face eased her into a calm that reminded her of Aunt Rose. 

“I’m Essence. I ordered from your website. I love what you’re doing and growing-“

“We’re cousins!” Iris shot out, not believing how fate had worked, and placed her relative before her.

The woman looked shocked momentarily as her eyes searched Iris’s face quickly, but then relaxed and smiled warmly. “You look like my mom when you stare at me like that. How did you know we were cousins?”

“My Aunt Rose. She said your side of the familiar is not to be trusted.” Iris covered her mouth and tried to look apologetic. “When I get excited, I blurt out things.”

“Well, that’s good to know, but I’m not insulted. My family isn’t nice.” There was a flicker of pain in her eyes before she looked around. “What are you doing here? Were you looking for me?”

“No,” Iris ansswered. “I’m helping my boss, who’s being accused of something by a patient admitted to the hospital, but I think it’s a setup and all lies.”

Telling her cousin El was her boss was better than telling Essence that man was becoming the love of her life.

“I’ll help,” Essence said.

“I don’t want you to lose your job,” Iris insisted. 

Essence snorted and rolled her eyes. “If you could only understand what your salves and balms have done for me and my patients, I owe you this favor, Iris, for all the good you put out in the world. Follow me, cousin, and I’ll help you on this business matter, and then we’ll make time to get some food and catch up.” Wrapping her arms around Iris to lead her inside, she said, “I am in love with your website and all you do. I love all the products you make, and I’ve been doing a lot of concoctions using your products as a base to help some of my patients.”

Iris couldn’t believe how easily Essence could walk past security and enter the hospital. They approached a computer, and Essence said, “What’s the patient’s name?”

“Damien Wexford.”

Essence typed the name into the computer and frowned hard. Iris followed her eyes to the screen to see Damien, who had been admitted to the hospital. He was in a coma, and the bruises he received were documented. Someone had beat the crap out of him – more than what El did with his fists.

“I need to see him, Essence,” Iris said with great urgency.

“Well, you’re lucky because this is my ward tonight. Let’s get up there.”

Essence took her to the employee’s elevator and waved her badge. 

“If my concoctions work, then I’m going to need a lot more product,” Essence worried. “Would you be able to supply it right away?”

Forcing herself to think about her cousin’s order, Iris answered, “I would need to grow some more product because it would be difficult to fill right away if that’s the demand.”

“I think I know someone who can help with that. Renna just started her growing business, and she’s local. I think she has a love for herbs, but her growth techniques produce excellent starters. I’ll make sure you get her information.” Essence giggled excitedly. “I feel like we’re getting a coven together. Back in the day, they would have called us witches.”

Iris smiled, wishing that when Violet was alive, she would have been this happy to be around her. “I feel powerful already, Essence.” 

They arrived on the floor, and instantly, Iris stopped, fear running through her veins. She saw a familiar face in the lobby. Essence followed who she was looking at and frowned, confused. 

“You know him?”

Iris had to turn away, seeing the overweight, short, stumpy body and low crew cut of Russell Wexford.

End of This Chapter | Post your thoughts in the comment | Let the author know what’s going on in your head

Let Me Love You (c) 2024 Sylvia Hubbard All Rights Reserved

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual person, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.
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