Wanna Bet?: An Interracial Romance

by Talia Hibbert

  He left the library woefully early. When he came back the next day, she was in his fucking seat.

  On Tuesday, he sat beside her like a fool, imagining a taut string stretched between them. A thread of glittering tension that connected his furtive gaze and his pounding heart and her raw beauty. He knew he was the only one who felt it.

  On Wednesday, he finally got some work done. Not as much as he’d like, but more than he’d managed over the last few days. He must be getting used to her. Growing immune to her magnetic pull. He’d just started on the second part of his assignment when the rain began.

  “Ah, fuck,” she said. “I didn’t bring a jacket.”

  She was still staring out of the window, but she didn’t sound as if she was talking to herself. So Rahul looked out of the window with her, at the insistent drizzle, and said, “You can have mine.”

  She looked at him, finally, a little smile teasing her lips. “You’d give me your coat?”

  Rahul shrugged. He couldn’t speak. Turned out, he wasn’t used to her at all.

  “What a gentleman,” she murmured, her smile growing into a full-blown grin. Her cheeks plumped up and little lines fanned from her almond-shaped eyes. She had an adorable smile. That was unexpected.

  Rahul smiled back. “I don’t mind a bit of rain.”

  “That’s good to know, but I can’t take your coat.” She said it with authority, in a tone that brooked no argument.

  Still, Rahul hesitated to give in. His father had raised him to be a gentleman, whatever the hell that meant. So he said, “Look, I really don’t mind—”

  “But I can win it.”

  He blinked at the interruption. “Win it?”

  “Yes.” She turned back to the window and said, “Choose a raindrop.”

  “A raindrop?”

  He watched as Jasmine leant forward. She put her finger over a fat drop dribbling on the outside of the glass. As it moved, her finger followed it. She had a dark, raised scar on the inside of her forearm, long and narrow. “Go on,” she said. “Choose.”

  Feeling self-conscious, Rahul ignored the stares from the people around them. He got up to stand beside her and chose a drop at random.

  She clucked her tongue. “That’s higher than mine. Choose one about the same.”

  “For what purpose?”

  She smiled up at him. “I like the way you talk. You should talk more.”

  He didn’t point out that he’d had no reason or opportunity to talk to her before now. He didn’t point out that they didn’t know each other, so for all she knew, he might be the most talkative person in the world.

  Instead he repeated, “For what purpose?”

  “Your raindrop is your horse. The windowsill is the finish line. I bet your coat on my raindrop.”

  Gambling. Dad would smack him upside the head for even considering it. But it wasn’t really gambling, because he intended to give her his coat no matter what. It was a game, a game that brought a smile to a pretty girl’s face. He wanted that smile to stay. He wanted a reason to stand beside her. He chose a raindrop.

  “So we start like this?” He asked, frowning slightly.

  “Yes,” she said. “This is how we begin.”

  Rahul’s raindrop won, and she refused to take a rematch. Refused to accept his coat, either. So he put it over the back of her chair, packed up his things, and left her laughing protests behind. She’d have to take the coat now.

  He remembered belatedly that his iPod was in the inside pocket, and prayed she wouldn’t be stubborn enough to leave the coat behind.

  She didn’t. The next day, she was there, coat and all. She’d found his iPod and listened to every song. She had very strong opinions on Songs About Jane.

  As she spoke, animated and carefree, he realised that she was the most compelling person he’d ever met. He was so sure of that fact, it almost disturbed him. Rahul didn’t count himself certain of many things. There was his life plan, which could be summed up as study and succeed; his beloved family; his numbers, which would never deceive him. And now, apparently, he was also certain of Jasmine Allen’s brilliance.

  His attraction to her was unsettling—but not unsettling enough to make him stay away. It didn’t stop him talking to her for hours, far too loud and enthusiastic for the library. It didn’t stop him taking her to lunch in the cafe downstairs and buying her a small mountain of sweets, even though he disapproved of refined sugar. It didn’t stop him saying her name as often as he could, loving the way it rushed from his lips like a waterfall, loving the way it tasted like connection.

  When she’d asked his name, he wondered if she’d pronounce it right, or if she’d ignore the h and lengthen the u, and he’d have to teach her, have to press his lips against her skin as he sounded it out.

  She’d pronounced it perfectly, of course.

  Their library meetings became something of a habit. He’d study; she’d stare out of the window. She’d interrupt to make him laugh, or to draw him into some ridiculous bet. He’d bore her with his thoughts on the accrual principle, and laugh when she said she was allergic to spreadsheets, and then a library assistant would come over to shush them and they’d both apologise and laugh harder.

  And whenever they parted, she’d hug him.

  The first time, she did it so easily. So casually. She slid her arms around his neck and pressed her body against his, and her hair brushed his cheek, and at every single point of contact he felt a surge of skin-prickling heat, like the air before a summer storm. And then he felt her breath catch in her chest, and she pulled back and looked up at him with wide eyes, and he thought…

  He didn’t know what he thought. In an instant, her face cleared, and she smiled, and she left.

  But after that, every hug seemed fraught with tension, heavy with a delicious sort of pressure. Every accidental touch of their hands felt like a secret held close to the chest. Sometimes, when they laughed, he’d catch her eye, or she’d catch his, and shared humour would turn into something slower and thicker and sweeter, like dripping honey. Something he wanted to taste.

  He wasn’t surprised that Jasmine made the first move. Wasn’t surprised when, two weeks after they met, she invited him back to her flat.

  Jasmine shut her front door behind them. He looked around at the real wood floor and the art on her hallway wall, and remembered that Luke Schnaigl had said her family was loaded.

  Then she caught him by the shoulders. He expected her to kiss him. He wanted her to kiss him. But she didn’t. Instead, she pushed him down, down, down, until he sat on the cool wood. He wondered what she was doing, then decided he didn’t care. Wondered if he should mention the fact that he’d never done this before. She looked at him with every inch of her champagne sparkle, and he thought that this must be drunkenness.

  Then she reached beneath her skirt and pulled down her knickers, and everything came into sharp focus. When she began to touch herself under the skirt, he almost died. It was a bad idea, but still he gritted out, “Let me see.”’

  Her confident smile softened into something breathless and wide-eyed. Slowly, she raised her skirt, and showed him.

  She was one of those women who seemed petite above the waist, but below it, things got deliciously heavy. He had seen and salivated over her muscular calves before, but now he saw her heavy thighs, her wide hips, the softness of her belly and the dark curls between her legs. She slid a finger through those curls, parted her pussy lips for him. He saw the stiff nub of her clit and the deep pink of her inner flesh, stark against her brown skin.

  He knew in that instant that he would not last.

  Rahul undid his jeans with frantic hands, as if she’d change her mind if he was too slow. Hell, she just might. Still, it took him longer than it should’ve because he couldn’t take his eyes off her. When he finally freed his cock, he gripped the base of his shaft so tight his knuckles hurt.

  “Come here,” he ordered.

  She smiled slightly as she knelt. “Yo
u’re bossy.”

  Apparently, yes. “Touch yourself.” Because there was no way he could make her orgasm. He’d never touched a woman in his life. But he wanted her to come—and fast, because there was so much fluid leaking from the swollen head of his cock, he wondered if he wasn’t coming already, slow and stealthy.

  She rubbed her clit in tight little circles, and his mouth went dry. With her free hand, she pushed her purse over to him, a little thing she carried everywhere. He opened it, glad to have something to focus on that wasn’t her, because she was driving him out of his fucking mind. In the purse he found her student ID, countless hair slides, money, and a condom. Huh.

  He hoped he could get the condom on without coming, or fucking it up. He gritted his teeth, thought of statement analysis, and rolled on the latex without disaster. One hurdle dealt with.

  Jasmine crawled towards him, her skirt falling, which was both good and terrible. She pushed him back until he laid on the floor, his erection jutting up from his body, almost painfully hard. She straddled his thighs, and he must enjoy torture because when she grasped his cock, he gathered up her skirt with one hand so that he could see.

  Rahul watched as her pussy swallowed his length. Felt power surge at the base of his spine, felt an insistent ache in his balls and pure desperation zipping through his nerve endings. Saw her stretch around his cock and felt her velvet heat choke him, burning and wet even through the condom. She moaned as she settled against him, and he swore not to disgrace himself completely. He would last minutes rather than seconds.

  She started to ride him, slow and easy and impossibly perfect. Rahul reached forward and circled the pad of his thumb around her clit, the way he’d seen her do it.

  “God, yes,” she whispered. “Touch me like that.”

  Had he ever heard anything so arousing in his life? Would he ever? No. He was ruined. Absolutely ruined, from this moment on.

  He reached up and tugged down the neckline of her T-shirt, exposed her sweet little tits, no bra. Barely any flesh for a bra to hold. Her nipples were dark and thick and hard because she wanted him. He could feel her wetness slicking his thighs because she wanted him. She arched against him, rode him hard, because she wanted him. She wanted him.

  He shouldn’t have thought about that. Now he was going to come.

  But he would have every inch of her while he could. Rahul rubbed her clit a little faster, and almost shouted when he felt her tighten around him. God, it was so good. So fucking good. How could anything on earth feel like this? How could people do anything other than fuck?

  She put her hand to his face, caught his jaw, forced him to look her in the eyes. Her voice was low and shaking as she whispered, “Say my name.”

  “Jasmine.” The word was harsh, strangled as release tore through him. His vision blurred. She threw her head back, and her lips parted, and she let out a choked, keening cry—and then her pussy was clenching his cock impossibly, beautifully, and it was just too fucking perfect.

  He might’ve passed out for a second. He wasn’t sure. One minute, she was milking the come from him and he was dying happily beneath her, and the next she was sprawled against his chest, her hair in his face.

  Oh; that was something he’d forgotten to have. He hadn’t touched her hair.

  And she hadn’t kissed him. He was greedy, because even after all that, he wished she would kiss him.

  She pushed herself up all at once, with a little huff. She was smiling, of course. That smile would haunt his dreams, even when he was in his fucking grave. She patted him on the shoulder in a friendly sort of manner, as if they’d just finished a football match.

  “Christ,” she panted. “Aren’t you a surprise?”

  He decided to ignore that. As she clambered off of him, her heat releasing his softening cock, Rahul fumbled in his jeans pocket and produced a handkerchief.

  “Do you—?”

  “Don’t worry,” she smirked. “I’m good. Is that a hankie?”

  He ignored that too. He sat up, panting, and looked around her hallway. Fuck. He’d barely even gotten in the door. He wondered what the etiquette was now. “What are you doing tonight?”

  She shrugged, but her smile turned sharp. “Not much. I’m open to a repeat.”

  He dealt with the condom—for now—and scrambled to his feet, her words shooting through his veins. She was already standing, straightening her clothes.

  “Come out with me tonight,” he blurted, before he lost his courage.

  Her smile faded. She didn’t speak.

  That was bad; that was very, very bad.

  “I…” For a moment, the confidence she wore like a second skin seemed to fade. But then, all at once, it returned. “I don’t really do that,” she said, looking away, fiddling briskly with her skirt’s waistband. “The dating thing, I mean.”

  His heart leapt from his ribcage and landed on the floor with a splat. Of course she didn’t.

  Look but don’t touch.

  Well, he’d touched. And now she was looking at him with something like pity, and he couldn’t bear that.

  Fix it.

  “I didn’t mean it that way,” he said quickly.

  She paused. Her expression cleared slightly. “You didn’t?”

  Keep going.

  “No. I meant like... like before. Like friends.”

  Her look was assessing. After a long, painful pause she said, “Thing is, I don’t shag my friends.”

  It took him a minute to grasp the implications of that statement. Rahul was smart, but around her, everything had to sink through a layer of mindless desire to reach his brain.

  So that was his choice? Friendship or fucking?

  The first thing that struck him was the thought they might do this again. He should take that option. It would be glorious.

  But then what? She’d get bored, probably. Move on to someone else. Which would be fine—it would, he told himself firmly—only he’d probably never see her again. He’d just be some notch in her bedpost. How… undignified.

  He wanted to see her again. Always. He tried not to think about why.

  “Okay,” he said, steeling his spine. Making his choice. “I get that.”

  She arched a brow. “Still want to be friends?”

  “Yes.” It wasn’t a lie. He did want to be friends. He also wanted to knock her up and tattoo her name on his forehead, but she hadn’t asked about that. And it was just a twisted, juvenile urge, the sort of infatuation that would fade soon enough.

  “Alright,” she said finally, carefully. “Friends.” And then she smiled.

  Rahul smiled back.

  He liked her. He really liked her. Friendship would be… fine.

  Wouldn’t it?

  3

  Now

  Rahul pulled up in front of Jasmine’s building eleven minutes after receiving her call. He focused on that extra minute, and on berating himself for it, because it was easier than wondering what the fuck was going on.

  She was waiting outside, a lonely figure on the narrow pavement, that monstrosity of a building she lived in looming behind her. He hated the fact that she lived there, in the roughest part of the city—the sort of place her dad had worked hard to leave behind. In fact, her dad, Eugene, had said the same thing. She’d told both of them to piss off and mind their own.

  But her usual spark seemed absent now. He rolled down the window, and she sauntered towards him with a smirk on her face, only it was counterfeit. He knew every inch of her, every quirk. He knew when she was happy and he knew when she was not.

  She dumped a huge bag on the pavement, then leant down and rested her arms against his window.

  “Evening, sugar,” she murmured. In concession to the summer heat, she was wearing some floaty vest thing that barely covered her chest. With a strength born of many years practice, Rahul absolutely did not look down.

  “Hey,” he said. “Everything okay?”

  “Peachy.” She patted his cheek. That, he knew, was he
r way of saying Thank you. Then she straightened up and heaved the bag into her arms. He didn’t bother offering to help. They didn’t need a ten minute argument in the middle of the street right now, especially not an argument he’d lose.

  Instead, he waited as she came round to the passenger side and got in. He watched as she shoved the massive holdall between their two chairs and onto the backseat. It was covered in patches: red fists and anarchy signs.

  “What the hell is that?” He asked, when she finished the manoeuvre.

  “It’s Tilly’s.”

  “Tilly’s an anarchist?”

  “Publicly, yes. Let’s go.”

  “Right.” He started the engine, checked his mirrors. “Seatbelt.”

  “Yes, Daddy.”

  Rahul gritted his teeth and had a mental word with his libido. No, she didn’t mean it like that. Trust me, mate. Go back to sleep.

  It didn’t do much good. So he focused on filtering into the side street’s slow traffic and said, “Where are we going?”

  Somehow, she managed to slouch gracefully in a bucket seat. “Yours.”

  That gave him pause. “Okay. And we’re doing that because…?”

  She burst into tears.

  Shit. Rahul’s worry blossomed into full-blown concern. He cut across a lane, receiving at least one middle finger for his trouble, and pulled over. They were barely twenty metres from her bloody flat. But he ignored that, ignored the rightfully angry drivers, undid his seatbelt and reached for her.

  She leant over the centre console and into his arms. Her hands went to his hair, like always, then found it carefully styled for work—which she hated—and moved to his shoulders instead. When she didn’t even make a snarky comment about the product taming his thick curls, he knew she was really upset.

  She clutched at him and pressed her face against his chest, just for a moment. This wouldn’t last long; he knew that. So he held her tight and felt the soft cloud of her hair against his cheek, and waited for her to calm down.