by Kennedy Ryan
“No, he knows me sexually. I draw a line between those two things, and no one has ever crossed it.”
I lift a little higher to kiss his jaw.
“But you could,” I whisper. “I think you could cross that line, Kenan, and it has scared me since the moment I met you.”
I draw back a few inches to peer into his face. “That, what I just told you, is intimacy. It’s truth that I’m trusting you with. Chase never had that.”
He nods and slides his fingers into my hair, angling my head closer and taking my bottom lip between his. His hand slides down my back, drawing me even closer until our chests touch, and I’m on fire from the brush of our bodies together. As much as I told him he had no right, his possessiveness turns me on, and I’m deepening the kiss, desperate for as much of him as I can have.
“I missed you,” he confesses into the kiss.
The words fist my heart, squeeze. I nod my agreement, needing to be close. Wanting more intimacy. Craving more trust between us. I hop up onto the table beside him. Curiosity is clear in his eyes. It turns to lust when I slowly work the silk dress up my thighs.
“Chantilly lace,” I say, tracing the intricate pattern of the tattoos ringing the tops of my thighs. “There were these stockings in a little shop in Paris. At the top was the most exquisite lace I’d ever seen. No way I could afford it, so I took a picture and had it inked here.”
I study the scrolls mimicking the lace pattern. The bands aren’t very wide. “I kept them really high in case I ended up hating them so no one would be able to see.”
“They’re beautiful.” He traces the intricate pattern with one finger. His knuckle brushes against my panties, and I lose my breath. He glances up at me sharply. “I’m sorry.” He clears his throat. “I should probably go.”
I grab his finger, staring at the contrast of the ink against my skin. “Do you want to see?” I ask, my voice raspy, husky, low.
“See what?” he asks, a perplexed frown pinching between his brows.
Am I really taking this step? Stepping off a building and believing I can fly? Do I have faith in the man I’m getting to know and care about? Can I trust him? Can I trust what’s happening between us?
Real faith requires bravery.
Provoked by my own words, I step off.
“Do you want to see me come?”
23
Kenan
The brazen question falls from her lips with the impact of a landslide, pelting me with a hundred responses and questions at once. She licks her bottom lip, flicking a glance at me through long, thick lashes.
“I thought you weren’t ready for—”
“I’m not, but last I checked you can come without having sex.” Her laugh is hollow. “I do it all the time.”
A deep breath expands my chest. Even the thought of seeing Lotus touch herself—of seeing her unravel that way under my hands . . . I’m seized by lust, in its grip. And I don’t need anything from her. I want her to take and take and take, and not even think about what would make me feel good. I’ve never wanted someone’s pleasure this way. To see it. To taste it. To make it.
“Are you sure, Lotus?”
“I’m sure I’d like to try,” she says softly. “The bleakness I’ve felt the last few times I had sex, the emptiness and meaninglessness, I don’t ever want to associate that with you.” She frames my face between her hands. She presses her lips to mine in a barely-there caress. “Touch me, Kenan.”
We open our mouths to each other at the same time, inviting each other in, prompted by an invisible harmony of need. I’m drawn into the heat and sweetness of her mouth—how she gasps and moans for me. She pulls back, holds my gaze, and tugs the top of her strapless dress down.
I swallow deeply at my first sight of her. The photo is gorgeous, but it can’t compare to this closeness—to the potential of touching and watching her body respond. Her warm, naked flesh stuns me, distended nipples begging for my touch and my kisses. Watching her face, making sure she’s fine, I brush my thumbs over her nipples. The breath whooshes from her, sharp and startled.
I flatten my palms against her breasts, rotating in circles that slowly build, faster until her nipples furl tight and round. Her head drops back, her hair a spill of platinum curls around copper shoulders. I caress her back, my hands meeting, overlapping at her spine. She feels so fragile. Not just the delicate bones, but the dark eyes aglow with trust as she waits for me to do what I’m longing to do. I take the pierced nipple into my mouth tenderly. God, reverently.
“Yes.” Lotus’s hands at my head urge me forward. “Please, Kenan.”
I don’t need any more encouragement. I suck, softly at first, but the taste of her, the feel of her budding and tightening in my mouth, overwhelms my good intentions. I pull her breast deeper in. I want her closer. I pull her up until she’s off the table, and I’m holding her suspended in my hands while I feed, running my tongue along the bar piercing her nipple. The texture of her in my mouth—the cool metal of the bar, the warm, turgid nipple, the silky surrounding skin—it’s almost too much. I take the other in my mouth and groan. It’s just as sweet. Just as round and responsive between my lips. Her cries grow more urgent—her hands at my head, tighter.
I set her back on the table and caress her thigh, my hand venturing up to the inked lace. She takes my hand and twines our fingers. I look up, and her eyes burn bright. Never looking away, she pushes our linked hands into her panties.
“Fuck,” I mutter. She’s warm, wet silk under my fingers. Under our fingers. The two of us together explore and stroke until her hips jerk and she bites her lip, her eyes drifting closed. She takes her hand from her panties and reaches up, running her fingers over my mouth. I lap at the wetness she’s gifted me, and groan at her flavor, addicted from one taste. I drop my head until our temples touch, my fingers still working her, and her hips still rocking a desperate, reaching rhythm.
“Let me taste,” I groan into her ear. “Can I taste you?”
Her nod is quick. She’s quiet except for little muffled cries she swallows every time they threaten to escape.
I drop to my knees and press her legs wide. I pull the black silk down and over her legs and then open my mouth over her, wanting it all at once, greedy. She goes still for a second and lets out a sharp cry before she rocks harder into me. I drag her to the edge of the table and slip my finger inside, still sucking the mound of nerves. She’s so tight and my finger is so large, she contracts around me.
“Another,” she groans. “Add a finger, Kenan.”
I don’t want to hurt her, but I want her even tighter around me, so I slip another finger in and pump slower, building to match the rolling cadence of her hips.
“Shit. Yes. Oh, my God, yes, Kenan. That’s it. I’m . . . oh.”
She palms her breasts, squeezing and pinching them roughly, her face twisting as she bucks against me, her leg lifting and landing against my back. Her heel digs into my shoulder.
“I’m coming,” she breathes. “Watch. If you want to see, watch.”
And I do. While steadily caressing and touching and licking and laving her pussy, I pin my gaze to her face. Her head is angled slightly to the side, and her lip is caught between her teeth. Her brows are knitted, and long lashes kiss the tops of her cheeks. Her mouth drops open and she unburdens herself, a wail of pleasure coming as she does.I’m obsessed with her wet heat, working my fingers between her legs. I stand, never losing touch, but I need to see.
Her head tips back. Tears roll over her cheeks and down her chin. I dip to lick them. I drink them like a queen’s cupbearer, taking the first taste. I rain kisses over her face and down her throat, over her breasts. She curls into me, riding the final waves, her hand fisted in my shirt, her eyes opening wide, showing me the desire, the desperation, and finally, the satisfaction in her gaze.
I did that. We did that together, her showing me how she likes it and me giving her exactly what she wanted. An exchange of passion and patience and
longing and trust. She’s the one trembling, whimpering, but my knees are weak. She says she’s never known true intimacy. If this is what it’s like between us—this undiscovered passion like nothing I thought possible—then I have to admit it at least to myself.
Neither have I.
As her body quiets and stills, I shift to sit on the table and pull her onto my lap.
“This table cannot hold us both, Kenan,” she says, her words lispy and lazy. She buries her head in my shoulder and curls into a ball like a little cat in my lap.
“What you’re really saying is it can’t hold me.” Her punishment is a squeeze and a kiss in her hair.
“Hey, you said it.” She chuckles and slides her hand under my shirt, running her palm over my abs. My muscles jerk at the contact. “This doesn’t even feel real.”
“What doesn’t feel real?”
She lays her head back on my shoulder and catches my eyes. “Can I look?”
“Look at what?”
In answer, she runs her hand over my stomach again and lifts both brows. A surprised laugh rolls out of me. “Baby, of course. It’s just abs. You’ve seen them before.”
She slides off my lap, a wicked grin painted on her pretty lips. When she lifts my shirt, her mouth drops open.
“Just like I remembered them.” She pushes the shirt up a few more inches, and her eyes widen. “You have the most beautiful chest. God, these nipples.”
While I’m searching my memory for any time someone’s complimented my nipples, and coming up empty, she dips and takes one into her mouth.
She’s completely absorbed, eyes squeezed shut and her cheeks hollowing out. She takes one nipple between her teeth, flicks her eyes up at me, and bites. Hard.
“Shit.” My hand slams the table. “Lotus, fuck.”
Her tongue darts out to soothe the sting, and just as I’m sure I’m going to come in my pants, she bites the other one and grins up at me.
I laugh, turned on in spite of the pain, or possibly because of it. “You little witch.”
“Won’t be the first time someone’s called me that,” she says dryly and runs a palm over the muscles in my stomach, laughing when they clench involuntarily. “Someone’s sensitive.”
“Or horny.” I laugh. Her smile falls away and she palms my dick.
“I’m so selfish,” she says, distress written on her face. “I didn’t even—”
“No. That was for you. I wanted it to be just you.”
She opens her mouth, I’m sure about to argue, but my phone rings. I can’t resist kissing her still-open mouth, smiling against her lips, and answering my phone.
“Hey, Ken,” I say, not looking away from Lotus, and she doesn’t look away from me.
“We still on for tonight?” Kenya asks.
“Lemme check.” I hold the phone away and ask Lotus. “You still down to meet my sister for dinner?”
“Sure.” She winks. “I can ask for all the embarrassing stories of your childhood and awkward puberty.”
“I was never awkward,” I tell her. “Yeah, Ken, we’re good. Gimme the details.”
I pantomime writing, and Lotus dashes over to a table in the corner and grabs a pen and some kind of sewing pattern that has a dress on it. I scribble the details for dinner and the concert afterward. My handwriting is even less legible than usual, but I can make out most of the letters when I read it after we hang up.
“So dinner at six.” I look up from my chicken scratch. “And then the concert.”
“Who’s the artist?” She wrinkles her nose. “I don’t want to sit through somebody I don’t like for two hours.”
“Yeah. That would be whack. This is actually a surprise concert in Central Park,” I say, faking a frown. “I’m not sure you’ve even heard of this guy.”
“Who is it?” she asks, suspicion and skepticism mingling in one glance.
“Grip?” I ask innocently.
By the way her mouth drops open and her eyes stretch like saucers, I’m guessing she has.
24
Lotus
I’m still freaking out that I get to see Grip in concert. When he came to New York last year, the tickets sold out in hours and I missed it.
I almost cried.
He’s one of the most woke hip-hop artists out there right now. His lyrics are conscious and thought-provoking. His flow, ridiculous. I can’t wait for tonight, but first, I have something to take care of.
When I enter the Gilded Bean, it doesn’t take long to spot myself on the wall. I stare dumbly at the life-size—no, bigger than life-size, since it’s about a foot taller than I am—photo. I know I’ve never seen this shot, much less signed a release for it.
I dip my head so my hair falls forward to cover my face. I stand right in the middle of the group, and no one connects the abandoned girl on the wall with the one huddling into her hair.
“I wondered when you’d come,” Chase says from right beside me. “Beautiful, isn’t she?”
“I need to speak to you alone,” I say, not looking away from my likeness on the wall.
“I’m pretty busy, obviously,” he drawls. “This being the first week of my exhibit.”
I turn to face him, every muscle in my body drawn tight. The struggle is so real right now. I want to pounce on him and pull that man bun through his ass.
“Fine,” I clip out loud enough for those around us to hear. “We can talk right now, right here, about how I’ll sue your ass for using this photo without my permission. How my lawyers will be—”
He cuts me off by grabbing my arm and dragging me out of the showroom and into a small office.
“Are you crazy?” he demands immediately. “Saying shit like that? You could ruin my exhibit.”
“I can still ruin your exhibit.” I shake my head, furious. “When did you take that photo? You know I never saw it, Chase.”
He watches me for a few seconds in silence, probably weighing if he can get away with some lie, or if he’ll have to tell me the truth. Finally, he blows out an exasperated sigh and swipes a hand over his handsome face.
“You fell asleep at one of the shoots.” His laugh is short and his eyes almost affectionate. “You had a project for school, I think. I went to get a piece of equipment, and when I came back . . .”
He gestures behind him, in the direction of the showroom on the other side of the office door.
“When I came back you were like that,” he says, crossing the room to stand in front of me. “I had to, Lo. You see how beautiful that shot is? How beautiful you are? How could I not take it?”
“You violated my privacy,” I reply. Quiet. Vehement. “Not only did you have no right to take it, but to show it? Without a release from me?”
“But I—”
“Stop.” I hold up a hand. “I didn’t come to hear your side of it, or how you’ve rationalized this to be okay. It’s not. I could ruin not just your show, but your career. You know that, right?”
“Wow.” He shakes his head, and a malicious smile contorts his lips. “You have a very high opinion of yourself, huh? To think you have that much power. That anyone would pay attention to a glorified fashion flunky.”
“I could remind you that this ‘fashion flunky’ is, for all intents and purposes, the right hand of one of the most powerful voices in fashion,” I say, barely controlling my anger. “Or I could remind you of, you know, the law, and how a lawsuit at this stage in your career would be devastating.”
I step so close our bodies almost touch. His breath comes heavy, and he swallows. I tip up on my toes to whisper.
“We both know what this is really about, Chase,” I say, making sure my lips graze his ear. He groans. “Pussy. Mine. And you being a spoiled little boy because you can’t have it anymore.”
I glance down to see his fingers twitching at his sides.
“You can barely breathe and are trembling to touch me,” I tell him. “You tell me who has the power here.”
“Lo, I can’t stop thinking
about you,” he says hoarsely. “Maybe it started casual, convenient, but at some point it became more.”
“Not for me.” I step back. “I’m not trying to be cruel or heartless, but you crossed a line. Was this supposed to get my attention?”
“You wouldn’t take me seriously,” he says, sulky, petulant. “I want you, Lo.”
“Where do men like you get off thinking you can have anything you want? I want the photo down, or this becomes a legal issue. Also, I want any digital copies and the print hanging out there. I’ll leave delivery instructions.”
I’m done and ready for my night out. I head for the door, but Chase stops me, not turning me around, but grabbing both my arms so tightly I wince.
“That’s it?” he asks from behind me, grinding himself into my ass. “You think you can walk out and act like we never happened?”
He presses himself into me hard, flattening me against the door. My heart kicks me in the ribs. Sweat springs from my pores. A familiar but long-lost dread unfurls in my belly. I draw a deep breath.
“Let me go, Chase,” I say, calm, hoping he doesn’t smell my fear. “Or this gets worse for you.”
“Worse for me?” he asks with a heartless laugh. “You said you had things to figure out, but you’re giving it to him, aren’t you? You’re fucking that ballplayer.”
I force myself not to squirm, or try to free myself from his iron hold. Trying and failing to get free will only reiterate that I’m helpless. That he’s stronger. That I’m vulnerable . . . like before. Like that day. Dark spots appear before my eyes, and I blink in hopes of clearing them. Of refocusing.
“You’ve asked me before about the voodoo,” I rasp, hoping I’ve kept the panic from my voice.
He goes still behind me.
“Yeah, now I have your attention, you dickless bastard,” I spit. “Let me go, or I promise you pain. You think you can hurt me because you’re bigger and stronger?” I bark a humorless laugh. “That’s not power. I can make your life miserable for years to come in ways you cannot even imagine. One curse would do it.”