I closed my eyes and clawed at the carpet. “Oh, shit, Ryan…”
“Baby…damn, you feel good,” he whispered in my ear as he bit down on my earlobe.
It hurt, but I kind of liked it, although not nearly as much as I liked feeling him stretch me to capacity. He slid his arm under my leg, holding it up while clamping his mouth to my neck and sucking on my flesh, burying himself inside of me over and over again. I slapped the floor as he thrusted deeper and deeper, bit my bottom lip as the expected orgasm caused my stomach to quiver. Once he released, he grabbed me and held me tight, planting gentle kisses on my bare back.
18
I didn’t have a chance to process what he said until the next morning.
I don’t believe in relationships.
I don’t know why that bothered me since I was supposed to be avoiding relationships myself, but it did. And as I sat in my bedroom the next morning, I actually felt kind of stupid. My ridiculous sister was right. In my mind, I had turned what Ryan and I were doing into a relationship when he’d made no indication that was what it was. I just couldn’t help myself! Something was seriously wrong with me. I mean, the man was only in town for four more months. Who tries to build a relationship on those terms? My dumb ass, that’s who.
I shook my head as I reached down and laid my hand on my sore yoni. It was a good soreness. Shit, it was a great soreness. A superb soreness. But it was also a reminder of just how slow my ass was. Therefore, when Harrison called me later that day, I answered for the first time in weeks. And when he invited me out to dinner, I accepted. It was time to go back to my original plan, so when Ryan texted me, Hey, baby. Can’t wait to see u this evening, I didn’t reply.
I might not be shit, but I can admit when I’m wrong. When I said all pussy is the same? Well, I was wrong. Dead wrong. I had never felt anything as good as being inside Angela Strickland. EVER. She had me sitting at work, reminiscing and fantasizing. I was straight up feenin’ for her. I started to call her or go home to see her during my lunch break, get another taste of her, but knew once we got started, I wasn’t going to be able to leave her. After work, we could have a little dinner and spend the rest of the evening working on dessert.
When I made it to my place, I rushed inside and took a shower, got dressed, and headed over to Angela’s, because she was literally the only thing on my mind. She answered the door with a smile, wearing a short black dress and a pair of high heels that made her legs look good enough to lick from knee to toe and back.
“Hey,” she said. “I was just on my way out.”
“Oh, where you headed?” I asked, wishing I could get inside that apartment and tear that dress off her.
“On a date,” she said matter-of-factly, as she dug in her purse and pulled out a tube of lip gloss. I licked my lips as she glided the tube across hers.
I chuckled. “For real, you going somewhere with your sisters or something?”
“No, Ryan, I’m going on a date.”
“With a man?”
“Yes, with a man.”
My eyes widened. “After last night? You’re going on a date after last night?”
She shrugged. “Yeah, and I’m running late, couldn’t figure out what to wear. So if you’ll excuse me…”
I stood there in her doorway and stared at her. “How the hell you gonna go on a date after what we shared last night? That meant nothing to you?”
She sighed. “I didn’t say that, but you made it clear you don’t want a relationship, that this is not a relationship, and since this is not a relationship, that means I’m free to go on a date. Again, excuse me.”
“Fine, then. We’re in a relationship.” I couldn’t believe I said that shit.
“You don’t believe in relationships.”
“I do now.”
“And we’re in a relationship? Since when?”
“Since right-damn-now, Angela!”
She placed a hand on her hip. “So, we’re in a relationship because you say so?”
“We’re in a relationship because that’s what you want. Isn’t that what you want? A relationship?”
“I didn’t say that, Ryan.”
“Shit, Angela, then what do you want? What do you want me to say? You’re driving me fucking crazy!”
She threw up her hands. “I’m sorry. I’m not trying to make you crazy. I’m just not understanding you. First you say you don’t want to be in a relationship, and now you do?”
“What I want is you! I wanna be with you, and I’ll do or say whatever you want me to, to make that happen.”
“Ryan—”
“Tell me what to do. I’ll do it. Anything you ask. Anything.”
“Ryan, I—”
I cupped her face in my hands. “Tell me what to say, and I’ll say it and I’ll fucking mean it. I’ll mean it from my soul.”
She looked up at me. “Ryan…”
“Tell me, baby. Just tell me.”
“Ryan, I…you don’t—”
“I just wanna be with you. That’s all I want, baby. It’s all I think about. It’s all I’ve thought about since the day I first laid eyes on you. Don’t go on that date. Please, don’t go. Stay with me. Baby, please…just stay here with me. I’m fucking begging you not to go. I’ll do anything, anything you ask. Just stay…”
I lowered my head and kissed her, heard her keys and purse drop to the floor as she wrapped her arms around me. I backed her into the apartment, kicking the door closed behind us, fell to my knees, and lifted her dress.
“Ryan, wait a—”
It was too late, I already had her panties down around her ankles. I stood in front of her and pulled my basketball shorts down. “Kick those panties off, baby. Leave the shoes on.”
She was done protesting, I guess, because she did what I said. And when I lifted her from the floor, she wrapped her legs around me, heels still on. I entered her, wincing when she grabbed my upper arms and dug her nails into them.
She shouted my name, and I smiled at her before devouring her sweet mouth again. I gripped her firm ass and thrusted hard and deep, letting her warmth fuel my passion. She felt good, better than good, and with each stroke, made me want that much more of her.
“Baby, baby…” I said against her mouth.
She whined and whimpered as she clutched me. This was what I had thought about all day at work, being inside of her, holding her, feeling her.
I moved to the sofa, still inside of her as I sat down. As if on cue, she pushed against my chest, threw her head back, and started grinding in my lap.
I tugged at her dress and she raised her arms as I pulled it over her head, pushed her bra up, and covered her breasts with my hands, rolling her nipples between my fingers. “You’re so beautiful, Angela.”
“Ryan, Ryan…” she groaned.
I reached between us, slid my finger over her clit, and felt her jerk. “Ryannnnnnn,” she wailed.
“Baby…” I answered.
She grinded until she hit her peak, jerked so hard she damn near fell off my lap, but I held her to me as tightly as I could without hurting her, and when it was my time to explode, I clamped my mouth to her neck and sucked so hard she screamed.
*****
“You made me stand Harrison up,” she said, as we lay on her sofa. Me, in nothing but a t-shirt. Her, in nothing but those shoes.
“Who is Harrison?”
“My date. The one you saw me with at Coda that night.”
“Oh, Urkel? He’ll be all right.”
“You did not just call him Urkel!”
I shrugged. “He seems like an Urkel to me.”
“He’s actually really sweet. It’s not his fault you swooped in and snatched me away from him.”
“Baby, if he ever had you, I wouldn’t have been able to take you from him.”
“I guess…”
I chuckled. “You know I’m right.”
“Maybe you are.”
“Hey, can we get something clear, right her
e and right now?”
She lifted her head from my chest. “Yeah, what?”
“We’re together now, you and me. We’re in a relationship. No more dates unless I’m the one taking you out.”
“Okay. Then the same goes for you. No dates, booty calls, nothing.”
“You think I’ve been having booty calls?”
“I know you’re handsome, fine, and women would be more than willing to have a booty call with you.”
“Yeah, well, you don’t have to worry about that. You got my head all twisted up. You’re the only woman I see. The only one I want.”
“Hmm, good, but what are we going to do when your job is done and you have to leave?” Her voice was soft, light.
The thought had occurred to me, but like most things that were hard for me to face, I just pushed it to the back of my mind. “I don’t know, baby. What I do know is I wanna be with you, and not just temporarily. When my job ends here, I’ll figure something out. For now, let’s just enjoy each other.”
“Okay.”
We were silent as I held her in my arms. Then she said, “I need to call Harrison and try to explain why I stood him up. He’s been nice to me. I owe him a phone call at the very least.”
I didn’t like it, but I knew she was right. It was the decent thing to do. “Yeah, I know. Go ahead.”
She lifted her body from mine, still naked, still beautiful as she stood and grabbed her purse from the floor, dug inside, and pulled out her phone. I sat up on the sofa and she sat beside me, resting her hand on my knee as she held the phone up to her ear.
“Hi, Harrison? Hey, no…I’m fine. No, I didn’t forget. Look, something came up. It was…unavoidable. Yeah…I’m so sorry. I wish I could’ve let you know earlier…”
I continued listening to her side of the conversation as I slid my hand between her thighs and found her treasure, still sticky from our earlier sex. Her eyes widened as she looked at me and stuttered, “Um-uh-H-Harrison, I need to hang up. O…okay? No, I don’t think I caaaaaaan…”
I took the phone from her hand and ended the call, pulling her onto my lap and guiding myself inside of her. As she closed her eyes and began to slide up and down me, she murmured, “You’re wrong for doing that while I was on the phone.”
I smiled, and said, “I know.”
19
“Hello?” KC answered.
“Hey, man. What’s going on?”
“Nothing. Shit, Ryan? This you?”
“You know it’s me, nigga. Stop playing.”
“I wasn’t sure. Your ass barely calls anymore.”
“That’s because you usually beat me to it.”
“What’s going on, man? You calling about the landlord again?”
I smiled, but held the phone for a second.
“Oh, shit! What happened?”
“Man, so I took your advice and talked to her, told her I was feeling her, and we started going out, been seeing each other since the day after I talked to you.”
“Wait, that was like a month ago. Ryan Boyé has been seeing the same woman for a month?!”
“Yeah. You act like that’s impossible.”
“Shit, I thought it was! So y’all are exclusive? You’re not seeing anyone else?”
“I don’t want to see anyone else. She’s all I want. We’re officially in a relationship now.”
“What?!”
“I even met her mom.”
I thought I heard the phone drop, and the next voice I heard was his wife’s. “Ryan, why is my husband on the floor pretending he just passed out?” Sarita asked.
“Because he’s an asshole. Tell him to get his ass up and back on this phone.”
She laughed, and then KC’s stupid ass was back on the phone saying to her, “Baby, write this down: on this day in history, Ryan Boyé entered a monogamous relationship with a woman!”
“Man, would you stop?”
“Ry, this is truly some unbelievable shit. Where’s she at? I wanna talk to her.”
“She’s at her place next door working. She makes natural hair videos for YouTube.”
“Word? I watch some of that stuff with Sarita from time to time. What’s her name?”
“Your ass watches natural hair videos? Nigga, you’re bald.”
“I said I watch them with my woman. Now that you’re in a relationship, you’ll see. They have you doing all kinds of shit you thought you wouldn’t do.”
“She already is. You see I’m in a relationship. Anyway, her name is Angela. I think she’s 4C Angie on YouTube.”
“4C Angie…hold on, man. Hey, Sarita! Do we watch 4C Angie?!”
I heard his wife yell back, “Yeah! We watched her wash and go tutorial last night!”
“Oh, yeah!” he yelled back at her. Then he lowered his voice. “Shit, man. I see why you were so messed up over her, because, damn!”
“I tried to tell you. Fine ain’t even the word.”
“She got nice hair, too. And she makes quality videos. Good editing.”
“Wow.”
“Whatever. Wait till I tell Sarita. She loves watching her videos. You should check them out if you haven’t already.”
“I plan to. Let me go, man. I need to head on over to her place now.”
“All right. Hey, congrats, Ry. I’m happy for you.”
“Thanks, KC.”
When I got to her place, she was all made up with her hair in a big, curly afro, looking good enough to eat in a silky red blouse. I raised my eyebrows at the jogging pants she wore with it.
She followed my eyes, and said, “You can’t see the bottom half of my body on camera, so I just make sure I’m cute from the waist up.”
I leaned in and kissed her. “Oh, I was about to say…”
“Screw you, Ryan.”
“I wish you would.”
She rolled her eyes. “Anyway, I’m still working, so you can hang out here in the living room if you want.”
“Working this late? It’s almost dinner time.”
“I know, but I’m almost finished. Be right back.”
“Can I watch you?”
She gave me a peculiar look. “You wanna watch me make a video review of a temporary hair dye?”
“Yeah.”
She shrugged. “Grab a chair from the kitchen and come on.”
I did, and followed her to the room, looked around at the camera on the tripod and the bright lights facing her, a huge banner with a repeating 4C Angie logo—a cartoon version of her smiling brightly with “4C Angie” written in her hair as curls—hanging on the white wall behind her. There was a small table next to her holding tubes of what I guessed was the temporary hair dye. I decided to sit behind the lights and watch her, but before I could sit down, she said, “Nuh-uh. You’ve got to sit over there, in that corner off-camera behind me. You’re gonna distract me if you sit right in front of me.”
“Distract you? How?”
“I can’t concentrate with you sitting there looking like you look. It’d be my luck to mess around and say something nasty and forget to edit it out and there goes my career.”
I chuckled as I stood and moved the chair. “Damn, I just make you say nasty stuff for no reason?”
“Oh, there’s a reason.”
I grinned and sat down in my new spot and watched as she turned the camera on and started talking about how the dye dried her hair out. She sounded and looked so good, I wasn’t sure if we were going to make it to the restaurant I’d planned on taking her to.
She stopped the camera, turning toward me. “I can’t do this. The fact that you’re even in this room is killing my concentration. You might as well be sitting right next to me.”
I picked up the chair again and placed it next to her. “You need me to help you get through this? I can hold the tubes for you, kiss your neck, have sex with you…”
She gave me a smirk. “This ain’t that type of YouTube channel. And I didn’t mean for you to literally come sit next to me. If you sit the
re, your ass will be in the video.”
“You don’t want me next to you? I’m not good enough to be on your funky little channel?”
“It ain’t no funky little channel.”
“I know. Okay, if you’re ashamed of me, I’ll move.”
“Ryan, quit. You know I’m not ashamed of you.”
I raised my eyes to her hair. “Did you use that dye on your hair? Looks the same to me.”
“That’s what I need to say in this video. It dried my hair out and the color isn’t even apparent. I’m supposed to have streaks of honey blond in my hair.”
“Wow, for real?”
She smiled at me. “Yeah. Ryan, you really wanna be in this video?”
“You want me to? You know I’ll do anything you want me to do.”
“I get over a hundred thousand views per video…”
I whistled. “Damn! My woman is a star!”
She giggled. “And what if one of those women you messed over sees you in this video and starts leaving crazy comments? I don’t read my comments, because I’m not about to deal with any trolls, but could that effect your job?”
“First of all, I never said I messed over any women; you assumed so.”
“Am I wrong?”
“I’ve already addressed that.”
Her eyes widened. “No, you haven’t! And you’re not going to, are you?”
“Nope. Second, I’m not fucked up about what anyone has to say about me, so let’s do this, 4C Angie.”
“Okay, but no messing around. Your hands better not come near my lap.”
“Damn, baby, I know how to behave myself. I have plenty of self-control.”
“You sure about that?”
“No.”
She shook her head. “And you’re supposed to be a corporate man.”
I smiled and leaned in to kiss her cheek.
She turned her head and kissed me on the lips. “And no cursing. My channel is a family channel.”
“For real? Shit, I’ma just keep my mouth shut, then.”
She restarted the camera, showing me myself on the LCD screen. We looked good together, me sitting taller than her, her darker skin complementing mine. She introduced me to her audience as her boyfriend and I waved, turned and looked at her when she spoke, held up the tubes of dye when she asked me to, played with her hair while she talked about some upcoming online event. Leaned in and kissed her neck, making her giggle when she encouraged her viewers to like her video and subscribe to her channel.
Stay with Me (Strickland Sisters Book 1) Page 10