Determining Possession (Connecticut Kings Book 3)

by Christina C Jones

  “What are you doing?!” she shrieked.

  “Taking you back to your room – I saw your hands, and I can’t have my bestie out here pruning up in the water.”

  She laughed. “Will you stop saying the word “bestie”, please?”

  “Why?” I asked, as I headed down the hall to the bedroom with her in my arms. “Because you’re a hater, and trying to deny my status?”

  “Am not,” she giggled. “It’s just not a very manly word.”

  “I’ve got enough dick not to be worried about that,” I said, and she blushed about that too. “So what’s the next excuse?”

  In her room, I let her down onto her feet beside the bed, thinking she would sit or lay down. Instead, she stayed close to me, gripping the hem of the tee shirt I’d taken from my gym bag to wear on the breakfast run.

  “I don’t have any more. I’m wet and naked in front of you right now, so I guess I have to just accept it.”

  “Wet and naked and comfortable as hell, aren’t you? Don’t front,” I said, grinning at her until a new smile spread over her face too. “See?” I grabbed her waist, forcing myself to keep my hands there instead of allowing them to slip lower. “This should be all the proof you need that this is just… an organic transition.”

  “What is an organic transition?” she asked, lifting her arms to drape over my shoulders.

  I shrugged. “Whatever we say it is. You felt like putting your arms around me, so you did. I feel like grabbing your ass, so in a few seconds, I probably will. Just doing what feels… I don’t know. Natural.”

  “So like this?” she asked, and then leaned in, pressing those pretty, soft ass lips to mine. I lowered my palms, grabbing handfuls of her to urge her closer as her tongue slipped into my mouth.

  “Yeah,” I told her, when we finally pulled back. “Just like that.”

  “What are the banana stickers for?”

  Wil had been contentedly unloading boxes of clothes to hang in the closet of her new townhouse, not paying me any mind as I unpacked the boxes for the “office” section of her bedroom. But, as soon as that question left my lips, she came flying out of the closet and into the main area of the bedroom, snatching the thick, heavily decorated planner I’d been looking at from my hands.

  “This is private!” she snapped, tucking it protectively under her arm, and I raised my hands.

  “My bad, I didn’t mean any harm. I’ve seen you post your “spreads” online before, so I didn’t think it was anything you’d be mad about.”

  She huffed. “I post those before I put anything personal on them. And I’m not mad, I’m just… it’s private.”

  “I’ve got it now,” I told her, nodding. “And I didn’t even read anything you wrote down. I was just skimming, and reading the quotes on your stickers. I saw the bananas were in there regularly, so I thought I’d ask what they meant. What do they mean?”

  “I told you it was personal!”

  I frowned. “Seriously? A damn banana sticker?”

  “Yes,” she insisted. “I don’t want to talk about it, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  And I really was prepared to let the shit go, but then I saw her face as she walked back to the closet, taking the planner with her, and it rubbed me the wrong way. After a few minutes… it started to bother the hell out of me, actually.

  For the last two weeks, Wil and I had been… good. Very good. Since that first night of unexpected intimacy, we’d managed to get past the awkwardness and fall back into our same groove as friends… almost.

  The sleepovers were a new addition to the dynamic.

  But we were working with it, and we were good. This was the first time we’d had any friction, and I’d be damned if I was going see her glossy-eyed and upset over a goddamn sticker and just let the shit go.

  “Yo,” I said, as I headed to the closet to talk to her. I walked up just in time to regret announcing that I was approaching – she snapped that planner shut like it held state secrets, then shoved it onto the shelf behind her.

  “What’s up?” she asked, and I shook my head as I leaned against the door frame.

  “I feel like that’s what I should be asking you. You really just spazzed on me about a sticker, and I’m trying to understand where you’re coming from.”

  She sucked her teeth, and crossed her arms. “It’s not about the stickers, it’s about the invasion of my privacy.”

  “Which I apologized for, because that wasn’t my intention, but then… you snapped on me about the sticker. But you say it’s not about the sticker. But if it’s not, why are you tripping about telling me what it means? What, you have smoothies on those days or something?”

  “I don’t… have smoothies on those days,” she snapped, then let out a heavy sigh. “Look, Ramsey, I… it is about the stickers, okay? And I can’t tell you what that means because it’s fucking embarrassing.”

  I frowned. “Embarrassing? What the hell is embarrassing about a sticker?”

  “It’s not the sticker, it’s what it represents!”

  My eyebrows went up. “Wil… I don’t get it. But you know what? I don’t have to get it. You said you didn’t want to talk about it, so we’ll just—”

  “Oral sex, okay?!” she blurted, then immediately dropped her gaze to her feet. “The bananas… they’re for blow jobs.”

  “…What?”

  Wil didn’t say anything, she just lifted her head and stared, like she was waiting for me to catch up. And after a few moments, I did, piecing together the regular placement of those particular stickers throughout her week, but then that raised a question that I honestly didn’t mean to speak out loud, but couldn’t seem to stop.

  “Why are you scheduling head though?”

  She let out a sigh that made me regret the question more than I already did. “Look, I know how ridiculous it is, okay? And I don’t anymore, obviously. But… Darius and I were so busy that it got really easy to go too much time without being intimate. So, in my effort to keep the spark alive, I would… put it in my planner. Like, today, no matter what, I’m going to take this moment to make sure my man is taken care of, and nothing is going to come in the way of that. Didn’t really work for keeping him faithful though, so… maybe it wasn’t that great of an idea.”

  “I… I mean, I don’t think anybody wants to feel like their intimate moments are just a to-do list item…”

  Her head snapped up. “So you think it contributed to him seeking out somebody else?”

  “No!” I held my hands up. “No, I’m not saying that. I’m not blaming you, or… banana stickers… for the decisions of a grown ass man. I’m just saying… I feel like if you have to schedule it, instead of doing it impromptu, maybe something else is going on, you know? I get it for people with kids and shit, but otherwise…”

  “I know that. Which is why it’s embarrassing. It should have been a red flag, you know? But instead of looking deeper, I just… put banana stickers in my planner for three days a week. And it didn’t make things any better. I failed,” she said, with a crack of emotion in her voice that made me feel like shit for opening the planner period, let alone asking about it. This was the type of thing that she and I didn’t discuss – the kind of thing she maybe talked about with female friends.

  The kind of thing that made me want to punch that clown-ass “fiancé” in his fucking face all over again.

  “Hey,” I told her, closing the space between us in the closet to wrap my arms around her. “You don’t have anything to be embarrassed about. You tried to do something to fix your relationship. You tried. He didn’t. And that’s his bad, not yours, okay?”

  When she didn’t respond, I pulled back enough to grab her chin, tipping her face up to mine. With my thumbs, I brushed away the stray tears that had welled in her eyes. “You’re really about to make me go roll up on this nigga on principle, Champ,” I told her, and she laughed, shaking her head.

  “That’s not necessary. No need for my silliness to ta
ke this any further.”

  “It wasn’t silly,” I said. “It was… sweet, that you wanted to make sure you were doing your part.”

  She tilted her head. “So… are you saying that whenever I start using my planner again… maybe banana stickers should be part of my schedule?”

  “Hell no,” I answered, with more force than intended. I immediately grabbed her shoulders, pulling her close to mitigate any damage from my response. “I’m saying… if you decide you want to do that… that should be the only reason. Because you want to, not on some “I have to do this” shit, okay? No goddamn banana stickers, please.”

  “You sure?”

  “I am positive,” I chuckled. “There will never be a need for such a thing.”

  Her eyebrow lifted. “Never?”

  “Never,” I responded, but something in the way she asked gave me pause. “Wait though – don’t mistake that for me saying I never want… banana sticker privileges.”

  “So you do want me to use banana stickers for you?”

  “No. I’m saying, I want what the banana stickers represent.”

  “So…” her eyes narrowed. “…you want me to suck your dick, Ramsey? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “No! I mean… yea—goddamn it, why are you doing this?” I asked, suddenly feeling hot as fuck in the confined space of the closet.

  “Doing what?” she countered, a little too innocently as her hands pressed against my stomach. “I’m just trying to get some clarity here.” Her fingers drifted lower, under my tee shirt, to the waistband of the basketball shorts I’d thrown on that morning. “Do you…” I groaned a little as her fingertips brushed my stomach. “Want me…” She slipped past my boxers, cupping me with both hands as I grew harder. “To suck your dick… or not?”

  She finished that question with her lips right against mine. Her eyes were full of mischief as she watched me through lowered lids, waiting for me to respond. But she knew my response – my answer was hard enough to shatter glass, and right there in her hands.

  “Feels like a trick question,” I told her, grabbing her wrists.

  She grinned, and then squeezed a little as she gave me a slow pump that made me care a little less that the closet door was wide open, and so was the door to her bedroom, and five or six friends and family members were all over her new downstairs right now, unpacking boxes.

  “It’s really simple… do you want my mouth on you, Ram?”

  She pumped again.

  “My tongue?”

  And again.

  “Maybe a teensy bit of teeth?”

  And again.

  “Do you want to know what the inside of my throat feels like around your dick?”

  Goddamn, again.

  I released my hold on her wrists – since I wasn’t remotely interested in stopping what she was doing anyway – and cupped her face and neck instead. “You’re a little naughty ass, aren’t you? Where the fuck did this come from?”

  She grinned, then drug her lip between her teeth. “Well, you’ve been encouraging me to do what comes naturally, to go with what I feel…” She let go of my dick long enough to yank down my shorts and boxers, then dropped to her knees. “And what I feel like doing is making a point.”

  I was still upright, looking down at her as she wrapped her hands around my dick again, while maintaining eye contact with me. Her eyes were hooded with lust, and no trace of those tears from before. Wil was dressed in leggings and a faded tee shirt, face scrubbed clear of any makeup, hair in what she referred to as a “pineapple”. Completely dressed down, and so damned pretty.

  “What point is that?” I managed to ask before she cupped my balls and squeezed, momentarily taking away my ability to speak.

  “That “banana stickers” wouldn’t only be for your pleasure around here.”

  I didn’t get a chance to respond to that, because her mouth was on me. Hot, and wet, and so fucking tight it was like she was trying to suck a triple-thick milkshake through a straw.

  Perfection.

  And from the eye contact she was maintaining with me, she knew it. Knew exactly what it would do when she swirled her tongue around my head, or trailed it along those veins, or hummed her own pleasure with the act while I was still in her mouth. Knew how differently – in a good way – I would see her when she jacked me off with one hand while my balls were in her mouth. Knew how damned good it would be when she gagged a little trying to swallow all of me, how damned sexy she would look with her eyes watering from the effort. I buried my hands in her hair, ruining her style, and neither of us seemed to care about that, or about the fact that the voices of her friends and family were background music to what we were doing.

  She’d just pulled back for air, after having me down her throat, when I felt that little tingle starting up. But I didn’t want it like that – now that she’d pulled this out on me, I wanted to be inside of her, so I pulled her up from the floor, turned her around, snatched those leggings and panties down, and did that.

  I clapped a hand over her mouth so she wouldn’t scream as I drove into her. She whimpered and moaned against my palm as I stroked her as deep as I could get before I put my mouth to her ear.

  “Birth control?” I asked, and she shook her head. I made a mental note to make sure to pull out, and then stopped holding back. The hand that wasn’t on her mouth went to her clit, stimulating her there while I stroked until her legs went weak as she came hard, arching her back and damn near breaking my skin as she bit down on my hand.

  I wasn’t far behind her – she felt too good with nothing between us. As much as I didn’t want to, I pulled out just before I came, leaving the evidence on the back of her shirt instead of inside of her.

  After a few moments to catch our breath, I carefully pulled the shirt off of her, making sure to watch her hair.

  “I figured since we were already in your closet, you could just grab a new one,” I said, and she grinned.

  “How thoughtful of you.”

  “I try.”

  Any further banter was interrupted by a loud burst of laughter from somewhere in the townhouse, reminding us that we weren’t the only ones there. We quickly moved to cover up enough to get to her en-suite bathroom where we cleaned up. Afterwards, Wil went back to the closet with new pep in her step, and I went back to the boxes I’d been unpacking before.

  Several minutes later, Wil poked her head out.

  “Hey,” she called, and I looked up.

  “What’s up?”

  “We are still friends too, right?” she asked, then glanced at the bedroom door, like she was making sure no one was listening. “We’ve been doing a lot of adult things. Which I don’t necessarily mind, obviously, I just… I still want to do other things with you too.”

  I put down the stack of books in my hands, and crossed my arms. “Wil…you’re hungry, aren’t you?”

  “I… what?” she replied, frowning. “How did you know that’s what I was getting at?”

  “Because I know you,” I said, pushing my hands into my pockets as I stepped forward. “Because…friends. All we do is kick it and eat, Champ. I knew it had to be one or the other, and considering the fact that I worked up a little appetite too…”

  She rolled her eyes, but couldn’t keep the smile from spreading across her face. “Okay, so maybe you got this one. But… seriously. I deeply enjoy being intimate with you,” she said, as I closed the last of the distance between us. “But I don’t want that to be all we do. I get it, you know? We’re exploring this whole new dynamic, learning about each other in this totally different way, but I don’t want to end up missing… my friend.”

  “You say that as if the words “Do you want me to suck your dick?” didn’t come out of your mouth,” I said, and she fake-gasped.

  “Are you saying today is my fault?”

  I nodded. “Hell yeah it’s your fault,” I laughed. “But also… I get what you’re saying. And I agree. We’ll make sure to keep it balanced, okay?�
��

  “Okay,” she said, with a little smile.

  I started to – wanted to – kiss her then, but her father’s bellowing voice carried up the stairs. “I hit up the BBQ spot! Who wants hot links?” he asked, and I cocked an eyebrow at Wil.

  “I know you want hot links,” I teased her, earning myself a swat to the arm as she eased past me.

  “Just for that, I’m about to put on a show.”

  Coming up behind her, I smacked her ass, making her yelp before she even thought to stifle it.

  “Looking forward to it… friend.”

  “Next time I see you,” Soriyah declared through the speaker of my cell phone, in her melodic Bahamian accent, “I swear to God, I am going right upside your head if you do not stop it.”

  I sucked my teeth, and continued surveying myself in the mirror. “Right. Like you’re actually coming to Connecticut.”

  “You say that as if I did not spend five hours in an aluminum can in the sky just two months ago, for a wedding that did not happen – Thank you Jesus, by the way – and then had to get right back on another airplane to come back. You know how I feel about airplanes Wilhelmina.”

  “Really? My full name?”

  “I need you to understand how serious I am.”

  “You mean how seriously empty your threat is?”

  “You and I will have a boxing match, and I will leave you in a state that your father is too embarrassed to call you his child. I will be his new child, if I hear you call yourself “fat” again. For one, “fat” is not the end of the world – that is something you Americans are obsessed with. Secondly, you aren’t fat anyway.”

  “I sure as hell ain’t skinny anymore,” I mused, poking at the layer of stomach fat I couldn’t seem to get rid of. Standing in my underwear, looking at myself in the mirror, it wasn’t as if I hated what I saw, or anything like that, but… damn. Everything used to be tight and right. I had guns, and buns of steel, and abs. I hadn’t seen serious abs in a long time – not in years, since my official retirement from the track. One little funky ass knee injury had ruined my chances of competing again, and since then, my relationship with fitness had been… sporadic.