Deuce reached over and shoved aside the platter of sushi—still way more than one person could eat—and tugged gently on the hem of Zora’s cropped sweater. It stopped just above the waistband of her leggings, so he could see a tantalizing strip of incandescent, dark-brown skin. When he tugged, she scooted closer, still sitting cross-legged, but now directly facing him.
Reaching for one of the napkins, Deuce wiped her fingers clean of the sticky rice and soy sauce. Then, without thinking about it, without planning it, he put those fingers to his lips, kissed the tips of each one. The forefinger he pulled into his mouth and lightly sucked on the tip. It was salty from the soy sauce. When he saw Zora’s deep swallow and her eyes darken, he leaned in and pressed his mouth against the side of her neck.
“I love how we talk,” he said. “How we … play ... how you … make me think about shit I never thought about before. But I miss touching you, Zee. I miss … us, how we are … when we’re together …”
“I miss us too,” she said. She sounded like she was having trouble catching her breath.
“Then …”
“Sex is powerful. It can make you see things that aren’t there. Or not see things that are …”
“That’s what I’m talkin’ ‘bout,” Deuce said, his lips moved from her neck to her shoulder as he shoved the neckline of sweater further aside. “The things you say … You need to … quiet your mind sometimes.”
“I just want to know that you see me. And that I see you. As we really are.”
Hearing something in her voice that demanded focus, Deuce sat up. Zora’s lips were slightly parted, the lower one moist. She would taste like sushi, but he didn’t care.
“I see you,” he said, with all the earnestness he could muster.
Zora studied him for a few moments then narrowed her eyes. “Are you acting right now?”
He grinned. “No. But I feel like I need to be really convincing so we can get past this and … you know.”
Zora spluttered into laughter then reached behind her and grabbed one of his pillows, hitting him over the head with it. Snatching it from her, he tossed it aside and with it, the remainder of Zora’s sushi slid over the edge of the bed, and onto the floor.
“Oh crap! Look what you …”
Deuce grabbed her by the waist and pulled her toward him, shifting their positions so she was on her back and he was poised above her.
“I don’t care. We’ll clean it up later.”
“Tell me about the girls in Europe,” Zora said, when he was just about to kiss her. “What were they like?”
He froze. “What makes you think I knew any girls in Europe?”
Zora gave him a look and he laughed. Still on top of her, he balanced the weight of his upper body on his elbows.
“Okay,” he said. “Gimme a country …”
“England.”
“There was a girl named Pippa.”
“Pippa,” Zora repeated.
“Yeah, right? Who can take someone seriously whose name is Pippa?”
“Did you take any of them seriously?”
Her voice had changed. She was like other girls in this one way—they asked questions they knew the answer to, but they wanted to hear him say it, just so they could get themselves worked up.
“No. But that’s not what’s happening right here, with you and me.” He nudged her knees further open and settled himself between them. He was already hard, and had to fight the impulse to move against her, to create friction.
“No?”
“No.”
Her acquiescence was in the relaxation of her thighs, and in her eyes and in the way her lips parted slightly. But Deuce’s first kiss was tentative. She tasted salty, and a little spicy. He made the kiss deeper and Zora’s arms snaked around his neck.
This time, when he felt the urge to move, he did, creating pressure between them until he wasn’t the only one moving. Zora’s hips undulated beneath his and he eased up a little, just so he could concentrate on her movement and how good that felt. Her hair was out today, so he grasped it in his fists. It didn’t matter how much of it he held in his hands, he could not contain it.
Pulling her head back to expose more of her neck, he kissed her there, moving lower and then helping her remove her sweater. Beneath it, she was wearing only a delicate white bra. It was translucent and smooth. He looked at it and smiled, running his fingertips around the circle of her areolae until her nipples hardened. It unhooked in the front, so he undid it, and her breasts spilled out of the garment and apart.
“You’re beautiful,” he said, lowering his head to kiss one and then the other. He wanted to go slow this time, for her, and because it had been a long time. Relatively speaking.
“Wait,” Zora said.
Deuce groaned and let his head fall back. “Zee…”
“No, silly. I just … I want to try something.”
“Something freaky?”
She laughed. “No. Not freaky. Just new. New for me, anyway.” She shoved at his chest until he pulled back and was resting on his haunches, and then reached for the button-fly of his jeans.
“Wait a second,” he said, putting his hand over hers. “You mean …”
Zora nodded and licked her lower lip.
“So you never …”
“Never.”
“Like never?”
“Yes, Deuce, I mean never-never. You’re making me feel like … self-conscious about it now.” She covered her face with her hands, and he pulled them away.
“Nah. Don’t,” he said, trying not to smile. Fuck Rashad Dixon. “Why me?” he asked.
“Because you’re the guy who, when you thought I might be pregnant and ruin your entire life, you still wanted to make sure I wasn’t scared.”
“It wouldn’t have ruined my life, Zora,” he said shaking his head.
“But you would’ve been stuck with me—one way or another—for a very, very long time,” she pointed out.
“That doesn’t sound so bad.” He kissed the side of her neck. “And anyway, you wouldn’t have wanted to, you know, get rid of …”
“No,” she said, before he was even finished. “I think every woman has to make their own choice, but that’s not a choice I could ever make.”
Like the layers of an onion, they were peeling each other back, bit by bit. But even funnier was the fact that even what they were talking about right now didn’t dampen the urge. Hell, he would wear two condoms if it made her feel better, but he was getting some tonight if it killed him.
“Get rid of those tights,” Deuce said.
Zora peeled them off, and with it her underwear. She was completely naked now, and he was still fully-dressed.
“I could look at you all night,” he said.
“I don’t want you to look at me all night. I want you to touch me. And I want to touch you.” She reached for the hem of his shirt and helped him pull it off. Then they removed the jeans and his boxer-briefs. When he was as naked as she was, she stared at him. Just her staring brought him back to full arousal. And then she took a deep breath and slowly lowered her head.
“Hey.” He touched her shoulder. “You don’t have to …”
“Quiet,” she said, like someone who was concentrating on a particularly confounding problem and been interrupted.
And when her lips finally closed over him, Deuce wasn’t sure which was better—the sight of them, plush and plum-hued, or the velvety smooth sensation of being in her mouth. Sighing, he closed his eyes.
“No.” Zora pulled back for a moment. “I want you to watch me,” she said.
Deuce stepped into sushi when he got off the bed. The slimy fish and soft rice squished between his toes and he cursed quietly, trying not to wake Zora who was still lying facedown in the covers, hugging the pillow with both arms.
Using paper from his printer, he scooped the remains of her dinner off the floor and dumped it all into his trashcan, then tied it off to take with him to the bathroom down the hall. Be
cause who wanted to wake up to the smell of day-old uncooked fish?
Dragging on his briefs, he shoved open the door and stumbled out into the hallway. He needed to go. And bad. He needed to go badly an hour ago, but Zora was asleep on top of him and he didn’t want to risk waking her. Now that she had rolled off him all on her own, he was free, finally, to go relieve his bladder.
On the way down the hall, he encountered a drunk couple, and a few guys sitting on the floor outside a room they were apparently locked out of. Slurring their words and passing a bottle in a paper sack between them, they were loudly debating whether the word “genius” was a fair assessment of David Bowie, or whether the label was only now being applied because he was dead.
“He was a genius,” Deuce opined, as he walked by, carrying his plastic bag of ruined sushi.
“Thank you!” one of the guys yelled throwing both arms up in the air like someone indicating a touchdown.
He took a leak and washed his hands, looking at his reflection in the mirror. Right about now, on a Friday night, he would normally be at a party, scanning the room, wondering whether there was anyone interesting enough to talk to, to make a move on, to take home. But instead, here he was.
“Here I am,” he said aloud to his reflection. Thinking about what awaited him, back in his room, he gave his reflection a wide, smug grin.
He was halfway back down the hall when he realized what he was looking at: Zora at the door to his dorm room, with the sheet wrapped around her; and standing at the threshold, Caroline Farber.
Fuck.
Forcing himself not to break into a run, Deuce nevertheless picked up the pace. But by the time he got there, Caroline was turning to go, and only spared him the briefest of glances before she hurried down the hall, her platinum-blonde ponytail bouncing and swinging behind her. She looked back just once. Her face was bright-red and she was biting into her lower lip. Zora stood in the doorway and offered him one hard and lethal look, then turned on her heel and went back inside.
He shut the door and studied her face as she sat on the edge of his bed.
“Sorry I opened your door,” she said, her voice flat. “When I heard the knocking, and saw you weren’t next to me, I thought maybe you went to the bathroom and locked yourself out.”
“You don’t have to apologize for that, Zee. You’re my girl, so …”
“And that girl? Who … when was …”
“Before you. A while before.”
Zora considered this for a moment, and Deuce watched her consider it. Finally, she seemed to decide to believe him, and lay on her side, her back facing him. She pulled the sheet up over her shoulders. He reached out, but was reluctant to touch her, because he could see the tension in her shoulders.
“What did you say to her?” he asked when the room was dark again.
“I told her …” Zora began speaking and her voice was still tight with anger. “That you’re not interested in her anymore, that you’re with me now. And that if she has any sense of pride whatsoever she won’t ever come back here.”
In the dark, Deuce grinned.
“I didn’t like doing that. And I shouldn’t have to,” Zora said. “Make sure it never happens again.”
Chapter 14
Zora tried to focus.
Next to her, Rashad had just finished with his rallying cry and when the cheering reached a crescendo, lifted his arms above his head in the ‘Hands Up’ gesture that had become symbolic of their movement. Their audience followed suit, and after a few moments of silence for lives lost, the rally was over.
The rally was over.
And Deuce hadn’t come.
“Our numbers are low,” Rashad said leaning over and speaking into her ear. “The room wasn’t even full.”
“Because we’re not asking them to do anything,” Amira chimed in.
Amira, who had been one of the most active members of the chapter since it began, was a beautiful sister with long, auburn locs. Lately, Zora noticed, she had begun to materialize more often than before, at Rashad’s side. Especially when, as now, he initiated a private conversation with Zora.
“You can only ask people to come out to express their outrage so many times before they lose interest,” Amira continued. “We need to think of something that’s going to have impact. So they feel the empowerment.”
Rashad shrugged and looked at Zora. “She’s right.”
“Yeah, she is.” Zora nodded. Then, realizing that she was talking about Amira as though she wasn’t even there, she faced her and nodded again. “You’re right. We’re losing steam.”
“Let’s go grab some coffee and talk about it,” Rashad suggested. “You got time?”
Glancing once again out into the dwindling crowd, she made a sound of assent, and followed Rashad and Amira out of the hall.
They chose a place just off campus where the coffee was terrible, but the apple pie a la mode was some of the best in the state. The portion sizes were monstrous, and had scored them a spot on Diners Drive Ins and Dives on the Food Network. Since then, a place that used to be a little-known local haunt had become a genuine local attraction. But Penn State students, recognized by the proprietor never had to wait for a booth and tonight was no different. As soon as they walked in, Zora, Rashad and Amira were shown to their table.
Waving away menus, they all ordered from memory. Moments after they sat, Amira excused herself to go to the ladies’ room. Zora and Rashad stared at each other for a few moments until she cleared her throat.
“You and Amira then, huh?”
He lifted his brows. “What makes you say …?”
“I can read your body language like a book, Shad. And the way she just slid in right next to you just now, staking out her claim …” Her voice sounded bitter.
“I like her.” Rashad shrugged. “She’s on point with …”
“She the kind of woman you see as your … destiny?” Zora asked.
Shaking his head, he gave a brief laugh. “C’mon, Zora. You get to move on but I don’t?”
“Of course you do,” she said fidgeting with her paper napkin. “It’s just that every time I speak more than two words to you lately, she’s there, like a … guard dog. Or a puppy.”
Rashad gave her a look.
“Okay, fine. That was uncalled for. But it’s annoying the way she just buzzes around and tries to take over.”
“She admires you,” Rashad said matter-of-factly. “Looks up to you. It would be a real shame if you couldn’t return that admiration with something like … common decency.”
Zora looked down at her lap, feeling a tiny twinge of shame. Shad had always been able to appeal to her better angels.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen with me and her.” He shrugged. “Probably not much. I’m leaving for Stanford in the fall, so I’m not tryin’ to start nothin’ serious right now, anyway. Not that it should matter to you anymore.”
“You’re always going to matter to me.”
“Zora. What’s really going on? Because I know this ain’t about me.”
She looked away. He was right. She didn’t care about who Shad was grooming to be his new “destiny.” It was about Deuce not being at the rally. And about him not being there for Black Caucus meetings, or showing anything akin to genuine interest when she talked about her work. It was about the fact that despite his lack of interest, she still wanted him like she had never wanted anyone before.
And if it was just … wanting, then it might have been easier to stomach. But it was much more than that. Lately, their sex had tapered off a little. But in the best way. For a while once it resumed, there was something almost grasping and desperate about their sex life; the way they had to have each other, as often as four times a week.
Now, they had settled in a rhythm that felt more secure and Zora noticed the subtleties, the kinds of things that made relationships last, maybe even for a long, long, time. His mellow energy balanced her frenetic nature. His humor helped her not take
herself so seriously. His unexpectedly sweet and romantic nature made her less of a cynic. And she was just plain ol’ happier when he was around. They even had their own epic-ass conversations. Not the same as those she’d had with Rashad, but that didn’t matter because Deuce was not Shad, nor would she want him to be.
But still, Deuce’s interest in her work was that of a bystander. Whatever epiphanies he had when they met were once again trumped by hanging out with Kal, and that large group of knuckleheaded athletes whose only interest seemed to be ‘scoring’ as many women as they could before graduation.
“No, I’m just … distracted,” Zora lied. “Stressed about declaring a major … trying to figure out my life.”
Rashad put a hand on the table and slid it across toward hers until their fingertips touched. “You can call me, y’know? Always.”
“I know I can. But should I?” Zora put her hand over his. “I’m pretty sure that wouldn’t be healthy for either of our relationships.”
Just as Shad was about to respond, Amira was back. Seeing their hands joined on the table, she paused for a nanosecond before sitting and forcing a smile.
“So,” she said brightly, as Rashad and Zora pulled apart. “Should we talk strategy?”
It was after midnight when the pounding on her door awakened Zora from what wasn’t a very deep slumber to begin with. Opening it, she stepped aside for Deuce who came in, bringing a boozy cloud with him. When she shut the door, he pressed her against it and kissed her, his mouth tasting like rum, mixed with something bittersweet. Zora submitted to the kiss for a few moments then shoved him away.
“What have you been …?”
“Baby, you’re never going to believe …”
“Where the hell were you?” she snapped.
He looked confused for a minute then grimaced. “Shit. The rally. How’d that go?”
“It went,” she said tightly. Folding her arms, she went to sit on the edge of her bed.
“So you want to hear about my night, or no?” he asked.
Deuce shrugged his sweatshirt over his head, leaving only a plain white t-shirt. When she didn’t answer, he shrugged and kept talking.
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