“You don’t have to,” he says. “I wasn’t gonna leave you hanging like that. Plus, I just wanted to kiss you.”
He has always loved kissing for the sake of kissing. My heart constricts. This is how he won me all those years ago, and this is what still holds me. On the surface, he’s often hard edges and curt cynicism, but with me, those layers dissolve and I’m left with a romantic. A man who pulls me into the shadows to kiss me and wants nothing in return. It means so much that he shares those parts of himself with me, and something withers inside at the thought of him divulging these vulnerabilities to anyone else.
“Si, do you…” I falter, not wanting to squash the tenderness that has sprung up between us, but needing to know. “Are you…seeing anyone else?”
The granite line of his body stiffens.
“Are you asking if I’m seeing anyone else, or if I’m sleeping with anyone else?”
I let my head fall back to rest on the wall, considering him with clear eyes and rapidly cooling passion.
“Both.” I hold his stare. “I mean, if you are…well, we said no strings. And if we find someone else, then it’s fine. That it’s quits so—”
“Haveyoufound someone else?” His expression darkens, brows dipping into a deeper vee.
“No. I’m messing this up.” I let out a sigh of frustration. “Hen and Sol saw some of our texts. They found out about us, but they won’t tell anyone.”
“Okay.” He shrugs. “It’s fine.”
“Well, they…they asked if we’re exclusive, and I—”
“Do you want to be?”
I force myself to look at him, jaw tensed, teeth clenched. It’s a risk, confessing even this secret of my heart when I’m holding so much else in reserve, but if this is my second chance, if it canbecomeour second chance, then I’lltakea chance.
“Yes,” I breathe the word out, braced for whatever he says in response.
“I do too.” He lifts my chin, holds my gaze. “I don’t want anyone else, Yas.”
This thing between us is a living organism that keeps twisting, evolving, remaking itself. It has since the day we met. There was no iteration I ever envisioned where he was not in my life, and I was not in his, but I thought that had, admittedly by my own hand, been damaged irreparably. But it surprises me again, regenerating, starting as something that has no strings, but sprouting strings and wrapping them around my heart.
And his?
I’m not brave enough yet to ask, but I pray he’s as tangled in this as I am.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Josiah
Inever thought I would have this again, waking up with one arm flung across Yasmen’s hip, our naked bodies spooned together in bed. Early morning sun glares through the blinds we forgot to close in our haste to have each other. The worst part is that I could get used to this…again. Not just the sex, thoughdamn. It’s gotta be said. The sex is better than it’s ever been, and that’s saying something because it used to be fantastic. Is it the illicit nature of this that makes it feel so incredible?
Or is it just that good?
That addictivethingthat used to draw us together is back with a vengeance and making up for lost time. There’s a hook in every kiss and I’ve stopped trying to get loose.
But last night was the best so far. Kassim is camping with Jamal’s family. Deja slept over at Lupe’s. On that stealth tip, I parked in the garage and spent the night. We weren’t rushed and could take our time, not just with the buck-wild sex. We made a meal together. Broke open a bottle of wine. Talked over dinner lit by candles. It felt like adate, and that is treacherous behavior I need to check.
I watched her nightly routine, something I used to love doing. Watching as she wrapped her blowout and tied a brightly patterned scarf around her hair. Washing her face and all the stuff that goes into her skin care routine. All these rituals performed while she wore a lacy see-through gown revealing her breasts, the dark nipples poking through a bodice barely equipped to handle all that Yasmen. The plump-peach ass. Glimpses of her long legs through hip-high slits. All of it laid a brick between my legs by the time she climbed into bed beside me.
Between the memory of last night and this morning wood, I’m hard again, and let her know, pressing into her from behind.
“Wow,” she mumbles in a scratchy-sexy voice colored with humor. “Well, good morning to you too.”
“I wanna fuck you,” I mutter into the satiny skin of her neck, sliding my hand from her hip up to cup her naked breast. When I pluck the nipple with my thumb, her breath stutters and she rolls her hips into me.
“Well, come get it.”
Say less.