Paige nodded. “I’m pretty sure my parents started planning my future while I was in the womb, and they started talking to me about how important a career was when I was old enough to form sentences. They expected success of me with everything I did.” Her mouth formed a thin, tight line before she said, “Still do.”
Of course they did. Anyone could see the intelligence in those dark eyes. “Did you ever think about not going to college? Even for just a second?”
She slid me a look like I had an overdue library book. Man, she had mastered that expression. “No.”
Because college was predictable, no doubt. Safe. So where did this wild side to Paige live? The one whose nails scraped my scalp so she could fuck my face and who snuck into my room in the middle of the night for a drunken BJ? She was dirty underneath her perfect exterior, maybe as dirty as me. And wouldn’t it be fun to see just how dirty and wild she could get?
“Did you ever think about not going to college?” she asked.
“All the time.”
“No offense, but you don’t look like a political science student.”
“Does it count that I’m related to a political science graduate?”
“You don’t look much like Riley, either.” She rested her cheek against the seat back, her tired gaze aimed at me.
“What do I look like, then?”
“Young, maybe a little bit like a lost soul.” She swallowed. “Dangerous.”
I stared hard at the road, a strange kind of disappointment sinking into my gut. She had no idea how dangerous I was with all my extra-curricular activities. We lived on two sides of the law. If I allowed myself to be with her, to explore this thing we had going, one of us would get burned. And fuck all if I would let it be her. But here I was inhaling Paige’s smell like the powdered drugs I sold while driving to a literacy center to read to children. Jesus, she had me by the balls.
Paige lifted her head to look out the passenger window, so I took full advantage of the view. Her ponytail had flipped over her shoulder to trace along her slender, golden neck and fell between her tits. She was too gorgeous, too good for me. I should probably keep my distance. Being with her was a constant push and pull of my craving for her and the necessity to keep her safe. From me. From Riley. From everyone.
But my body practically vibrated with the need to lick and bite and kiss and even smooth the adorable way some of the hair stuck out from her ponytail where she’d rested her head.
“This is it,” she said. She pointed to a small brick building on the right with weathered window shutters and a faded rainbow arching over the front door.
I flipped on my turn signal and pulled into the nearly empty parking lot. “I can hear the money rolling in already from the large crowd here. Lucky I found a parking space.”
“It’s still early, but they’ll be here,” she said and shot me a grin. “Stop trying to get out of coming.”
“I’m not trying to get out of anything.” Actually, I was trying to get in to something, and not just her pants, either. I wished I knew what was going on inside that pretty head of hers. But right then, if I had to guess, I’d say she was itching to get inside from the dreamy smile on her face. “You love this place, huh?”
“Just...” She shook her head with a look of what had to be wonder in her eyes as she gazed at the crumbling building. “Wait until you see it.”
The excitement radiating from her lit up the whole car, but it faded some when her gaze flicked to my mouth. Accidentally? Didn’t matter. Because a flush crept up her neck, and her chest heaved against her thin T-shirt.
I could guess at what she was thinking because I was thinking the very same thing. She ran a quick tongue over her upper lip. I followed the movement in slow motion while replays of her mouth on my dick fisted my hands at my sides. An almost audible hum buzzed the air between us, even when she broke my gaze and looked down at the folded hands in her lap.
She had to know it was wrong to want me, but to ignore this—whatever this was—between us was probably just as hard for her. Because she had to feel it, too, that everything was...right. And even though I knew I shouldn’t have her, even though I’d proved I couldn’t control myself around her, I would walk into any building on the planet and see whatever she wanted me to see.
Hear that? It’s the sound of a pussy-whip.
“Well,” I said, my voice strained from the effort to keep from touching her. “What are we waiting for?”
She got out of the car, and I let loose a growly kind of groan while I watched her curves move against her clothes. I slammed my car door a little too hard in my rush to see more of that in person.
She threw me a stink-eye over her shoulder. “Did anyone ever tell you you’re excessively loud sometimes?”
Ohhh. Was this what sexual frustration looked like on Paige? All fiery and hot?
I gave her a slow smile as I sauntered up behind her then blew a soft breath up her neck. Even in the thick humidity, she shivered. Her irritated spark vanished with a gasp. The urge to kiss the trail of goose bumps I’d left behind tripled my pulse, but when I leaned in, my arm bumped hers, and a series of explosions went off at the skin-to-skin contact.
As I reached for the doorknob, I murmured, “Did anyone ever tell you that your nipples are showing through your T-shirt.”
She spun around to face me. With my hand on the knob behind her, our bodies stood inches apart. Too many inches.
“No, they’re not.” She swallowed, but didn’t look for herself since her gaze scanned mine for the truth. “Are they?”
If she insisted on me looking, again, then I sure as hell wouldn’t argue. I wandered down her body, taking my time.
“No. Just wishful thinking,” I said without lifting my eyes. Then I pushed open the door behind her, just so I could move against her, feel what covered those nipples rub against my chest, and wrapped an arm around her to lift her inside.
As soon as I set her down, she punched me in the gut with the force of a gnat.
“I don’t need you carrying me into buildings. I’m perfectly capable of going through doors myself,” she whispered.
I gave a slow nod, as if I didn’t buy it, just to boil that temper of hers even more. “I thought I was being a gentleman by opening the door for you.”
“While staring at my boobs?”
“A gentleman with a boob fetish. What can I say?” I slid my gaze down her body once more to torture myself and rolled my lips together at the memory of her sweet taste.
When Paige crossed her arms over her chest, I chuckled, and she shot me a fierce look. It was so damn fun to see how hard I could crank the dial to turn her on.
Before I followed her into the building, I glanced down toward the end of the street and froze. The sign for Best Dressed Donuts, the place the ladyman Alex had raved about, blinked on and off like a warning. We had taken a different route to get here. I had been distracted by Paige, but this literacy center was a little too close to my other, hidden life as Hill’s drug whore at the corner of 131st and Chestnut. I quickly closed the door behind me to shut it out.
A black woman with multi-colored ribbons wound through thick braids appeared from around a corner. When she saw Paige, the woman threw her arms around her. “I thought I heard voices.”
“It’s so good to see you, Belle,” Paige said, all innocence and smiles. “You haven’t changed a bit.”
While they played catch-up, I wandered around the small lobby, eying the various dragon and stick figure drawings colored in crayon taped to the walls. The building smelled like old paper, which kind of reminded me of school, which made me even more uncomfortable than I already was.
I paused next to a side window and peered out, as if I expected a squad of police cars to be parked across the street. But I always wore my hooded sweatshirt when I was selling to cover my face. No one would recognize me. Still, being here, especially with Paige, shifted my breakfast to an abnormally high level up into my stomach.
“Keisha!” Belle barked. “Not inside. What did I tell you?”
Turned out the driver likely wasn’t a drunk, but a little black girl of about six with just a few teeth left and lots of spunk in her eyes behind all her beaded braids. She climbed off the bike and stared at the ground.
No, not a bike. A red tricycle. I had seen this girl before. She about ran me over on the corner that one night, too.
A swallow stuck in my throat. I clenched my stomach to keep from coughing, puking, anything that would draw attention to myself.
“Sorry, Momma,” the girl said.
“No, you’re not.” Belle pinched the bridge of her nose. “I swear, child.”
The girl stared up at me and screwed up her face as if she smelled something disgusting. Every muscle in my body stiffened.
What if she recognized me somehow, even without the hood. I wore the same jacket, had on the same shoes. It had been night, sure, but I’d stood underneath a streetlamp. Maybe it was another little girl on a tricycle, or maybe she’d been sleepwalking—sleepriding?—or maybe I was just some guy staring down at her like a perv.
I willed myself to relax. “Are you old enough to drive that thing?”
“That ain’t no thang, mister.”
“Isn’t. Isn’t a thing, Keisha,” Belle corrected.
“That there is Susan,” Keisha said, pointing to her tricycle.
“Good name.”
“And I’m six,” Keisha continued. “I’m plenty old. You want my expiration date?”
What was she, a high-energy gallon of milk? “You’re right. Six is way old.”
“Oh, my aching back! That’s what Momma always says, and she’s old, too.”
“Thanks, Keisha,” Belle said with a sigh.
“You going to read Dr. Seuss with me or what, mister?”
“Uh...” I glanced back at Paige. She lifted her eyebrows expectantly, an amused smile on her lips. She didn’t seem to suspect anything was wrong, though why would she? Keisha didn’t recognize me, thank fucking Jesus. “Yeah, let’s go read some books.”
Keisha grabbed my hand with the strength of a pro-wrestler and dragged me deeper into the building. No joke. I had to jog to keep up with her while the beads in her hair clicked together in her excitement and she jabbered on about I didn’t even know what.
We sped past offices toward a large, brightly lit room at the end of a hallway. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lined the walls, each of them overflowing with books of all shapes and sizes. Tables and chairs sat in the center of a large worn rug with the letters of the alphabet repeating around the four sides. A bowl of punch and a large cake with blue icing that spelled Harcane Literacy Center sat on one of the center tables.
As soon as Paige and Belle walked in behind us, I turned just to see Paige’s expression. Her eyes closed, her body relaxed, and she inhaled the smell of books as ravenously as if she was reading them. She looked at peace. Like she’d just come home. Not like she sometimes acted around me, all tense and full of doubt. And almost at once, I became jealous of a place, a fucking room, because I wanted to be her home.
When she opened her eyes, her blissed-out smile sparkling inside them, she looked at me like I was part of the room. For a split second, I was part of this thing that made her happy. And it didn’t fade, either, the longer she gazed at me. Even though I was a college dropout and a goddamn drug dealer. She didn’t know all of that, but maybe she sensed me, the real me, the kind of man I wanted to be. The kind of man who deserved that smile.
“Hey, dude, what’s your favorite Dr. Seuss book?” Keisha called.
I winked at Paige then turned toward Keisha. Of all the things I thought I would be asked today, that question somehow didn’t make the list.
“What’s your favorite Dr. Seuss book?” I countered because I had no idea. Too many years had gone by, or at least it seemed like it, to remember the parts of childhood I didn’t care for.
She rattled off something about colored fish and cats while making a beeline to one of the bookshelves. I followed, slowly since I would never be able to match the speed of a six-year-old hyped up on books.
“Not much has changed on the inside since you last visited us,” Belle told Paige. “But outside, the old neighborhood has crumbled. People moved away, new folks moved in, and not the good kind, either. I wish I had the money to pack up everything and move somewhere safer, but at the same time, I don’t want to let the scum of the earth defeat this place.”
My ears burned at the conversation behind me. I tuned Keisha’s rambling out to listen.
“But it does so much good,” Paige said.
“Does it, though?” Belle asked. “I’ve noticed a definite decline in the number of kids who come to read and more scum wandering around outside.”
Keisha erupted into a bounce next to me with a, “Snap! Snap! Snap! I saw a drug deal with some guy who kept snapping the buttons on his jacket.”
I froze. My fingers, already wrapped around the dangling snaps from my jacket sleeves, gave a nervous twitch. They clicked together until I silenced them in tight fists. Sweat tracked down my sides when I glanced at Paige and Belle to see if they’d heard.
Paige looked at me with sharp eyes. Had she heard? Or had I made the sound before? I turned away in case she realized who I really was—the scum of the earth, just like Belle had said.
Belle swooped down to pick up something unseen from the alphabet rug. “You don’t know it was a drug deal, child.”
“I snuck out with my trike at night, and Momma grounded me for a week after that.” Keisha threw her arms in the air, still facing the bookshelf, a stack of books on the floor beside her. “Snap! Snap! Snap! Onomatopoeia!”
My gut churned. What would Paige do if she knew? Would she hear me out so I could explain? Or would she call the police? If she went with option two, the one thing I didn’t think I could stand would be the way she would probably look at me. Disgust. Hatred. Disappointment. All the things I felt about myself unless I was near her. But to have them mirrored back at me in her big, brown eyes... I wouldn’t be able to deal.
So, time for a new jacket. Or a dose of Hill’s finger-slicing to keep me from clicking my jacket’s buttons, because I didn’t want her to know.
“Sam! I found the one true Dr. Seuss book for you and me!” Keisha said, her voice pitching into a squeal.
“No way,” I said, a little surprised at my level tone. “Well, bring it here, then.”
Belle chuckled. “Sounds like Leroy has been reading her a little too much Tolkien. I’ll leave you three to it while I do some last minute preparations. Holler if she wants to dangle you from the ceiling while reading.”
“Wait.” Keisha kneeled and bowed her head at the book.
Paige laughed behind me, a sure sign she didn’t suspect me of anything. Yet. While the six-year-old who prayed to the book gods for affirmation and a hot, intelligent woman paced the room behind me, I took a readying breath.
Slowly, carefully, I slid my jacket from my shoulders with slick hands, hoping and praying to any god who would listen to help me remove it silently. To anyone who might be paying attention, it probably looked like I was moving in extra slow motion. But I didn’t trust my nervous fingers. Heart racing, I finally removed it completely, balled it into a wad, and lay it on one of the tables.
At the same time I sighed my relief, Keisha gave me a brilliant grin over the book she’d chosen.
“We ready?” I asked.
“Uh-huh.” She skipped across the room and sat in a plastic chair that was five sizes too big.
I settled into one next to her that wasn’t even big enough for my left ass cheek, but I decided not to complain. For now, no one knew what I was. I would sit on hot coal if it meant I could keep it that way.
“The
Cat in the Hat,” I read from the cover.
“An excellent choice,” Paige said from just behind us.
When she passed, the breeze she created cooled some of the sweat pouring from my body. I breathed in her sweet and spicy smell and let myself relax.
Paige sat in a small chair on the other side of Keisha, but instead of looking like she was about to fall out of it like I probably was, she owned it. She crossed her curvy legs and offered me a small smile.
I searched her face for a hint as to what she might be thinking, if she really did know about my nervous clicking fingers and was hiding it. But the longer I looked, the longer she held my gaze, giving me nothing. Soon, it wasn’t my nerves heating the room.
She had to feel that—that electrifying attraction charging the room and pulling us closer. It couldn’t just be me.
“Helllooooo? Stop your drooling, and let’s get to reading. I don’t have all day.” Keisha opened the book and slid it toward me. “You read a page, then I’ll read a page, okay?”
I tipped my chin toward Paige. “What about her?”
“I just want to listen. Don’t worry about me,” Paige said and crossed her arms over her chest when she realized where my eyes had slipped.
“Go, dude,” Keisha ordered.
Somehow I dragged my attention to the book in front of me. Paige shook her head in my periphery, and I grinned down at the first page. It was so much fun to wind her up.
It turned out that I had read The Cat in the Hat before. Not a bad book. Keisha must have thought so, too, because by the end, she’d crawled into my lap and was flipping through it backwards to show me her favorite parts. Again. No doubt the girl would grow up to be just like Paige. Now, if only Paige would climb into my lap after she finished a book...
“You’re coming back to read with me tomorrow, okay?” Keisha grinned up at me, and I knew I was in trouble. How could I resist that smile?
“And you’re coming the day after that because we have forty-six more Dr. Seuss books to read.” Keisha put her arms around my neck and planted a kiss on my cheek. “Five thirty-two in the morning. Got it, Sam?”
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