If the circumstances were different. If he wasn’t nine years older than me. If my brother wasn’t married to the lead singer of his band, or if the man in question hadn’t screwed his way through half the world’s female population, Dan would be a big maybe instead of a definite no.
“I can’t stand you. You realize that, right?”
“Lies.” She drawls back, balling up a napkin to throw it at my head. “I know no such thing.”
“Of course you don’t,” I mumble around my drink.
“I’m just saying, Jess, not every guy has to be the guy. Maybe Dan is the stepping stone you need to get to that guy?”
“Can you imagine what Momma would say if I brought Daniel to family dinner?” A peal of laughter cascades out of my mouth and Dom joins in because we can both imagine the shocked and appalled disapproval twisting my mother’s beautiful features.
Lord, that woman has had my future mapped out since the day I was conceived. She expects nothing less than for me to marry an IBM (ideal black man). One who looks like the actor Michael B. Jordan, with the education of Princeton professor Cornel West, belonging to my father’s fraternity, the brother fraternity to my sorority, of course. Having enough social, political, and socioeconomic capital to propel my family into society’s upper echelon untainted by the stigma of sinful, dirty money.
Annnnd Daniel Xu doesn’t quite fit the bill. Not even close.
“She would have a coronary,” I sputter. Half choking, half laughing as I try to swallow down another sip.
“She’s not the only one,” Dominque drawls.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means,” she emphasizes, “that I have my fingers poised to dial 911 because your man just walked through the door.”
“Are you serious?” I swivel toward the front of the restaurant and damn near fall off my chair from the effort.
“Real subtle, Jess.” Her voice is sweet-gooey-candy-coated-in-tart sarcasm. That tone is supposed to snap me back to reality, or maybe pull my composure from under the influence of tequila. It might have worked too, if Daniel hadn’t seen me, but the minute our eyes meet, he holds my gaze, or maybe I hold his. I don’t know, but neither of us looks away. He runs his tongue along the delicate lines of his bottom lip. That looks says ‘I still taste you’ and things low in my belly clench.
Jesus, he’s a walking wet dream. His long hair gathered into a high ponytail, showcasing the masculine beauty of ridiculously high cheekbones and a well-defined jaw. Those lips, full and provocative, part in a smile, and lustrous brown eyes gleam at me in the lambent pendant lights that hang above the bar.
I swear, one look, just one, and I want to abandon years of etiquette and manners in favor of walking across the restaurant to where he’s standing and without preamble or explanation invite him back to my place.
Demand that he take it. No, not it, me.
I want him to take me like he did the other night, hard and demanding, with no reprieve and no regrets. I want those lips on mine and those hands owning my body. It’s hard to believe that something so common, so completely inane as lips, could make me feel so much.
Daniel tilts his head to the side, allowing his eyes to run the gamut of my body. I feel their movement like a phantom touch lingering on my lips, and at my breasts, dipping down to the V at the juncture of my thighs. Eventually his gaze travels back up and our eyes lock again. Dark brown clashes with hazel and I try, albeit unsuccessfully, to understand all the emotions flitting across his face.
“Girl, if I were you, I might be looking for a back exit. Instead of staring at him like a dripping ice cream cone I want to lick.”
“Like a what?” I turn, questioning Dominique.
“There she is.” She winks cheekily. “Listen, we don’t have much time because he’s almost over here.” I start to turn in my chair, but she grabs the armrest to keep me facing her direction.
In a hushed whisper through clenched teeth, Dom says, “Do not turn around and look at him again. That man has fine written all over his body and we already know you done sampled the goods. So what are you looking for?”
“I…” have absolutely no idea. I don’t even know if someone like him would be interested in a second time with someone like me, but the way he just looked at me…
Whew, that was hot, a potent cocktail of frustration and determination. A look that says, ‘I know what you look like under your clothes and if you give me another chance, I know exactly what to do with your body when you’re bare.’ Memories of that night—our night—start to tumble one over the other through my mind and I feel the answering flush moving up my face as the moisture gathers between my legs.
“Damn, girl. If it was that good, why’d you walk away?”
“My question exactly,” a deep, familiar male voice says in my ear. I jerk my head to the side and Daniel is so close that our noses brush.
“Lucy, you’ve got some ’splaining to do,” a nebulous voice says close to my ear, mimicking the thick Cuban accent of Ricky Ricardo from the 1950s sitcom I Love Lucy.
Chapter 21
Daniel
“Lucy…you've got some 'splaining to do.” Jessica Johnson looks up at me with startled hazel eyes and parted lips.
There’s nothing she can say that’ll take the sting out of flying home alone, with her scent still clinging to my skin and the feel of her body responsive and heated underneath mine. She had me feeling pussy-fied and needy, neither of which are familiar or within my realm of experience, and I must admit I’m not particularly fond of either feeling.
Since the day I got my first taste of pussy, me and the women in my bed have had an understanding.
No strings. No feelings.
Just mutual gratification and good times…sexy times…and in the case of Jessie? Fuck-you-all-night-long-until-my-back-is-tight-and-my-balls-are-empty-and-I-can’t-move-another-muscle-because-I-spent-everything-I-have-inside-of-you times.
For the last twenty-four days—yes, I’ve been counting days—I’ve tried to figure out what I did to send this girl running, and how I was going to get her to talk to me again.
She had me messed up for real.
I went so far as to come up with a half-assed plan to steal Sin’s phone to get her number. I didn’t do it, but I for sure had the thought more than once. The only thing that stopped me was Miles’s stupid voice in my head and the list of possible repercussions that he so perfectly outlined on multiple occasions.
Good thing I slowed my roll, right? Because here we are. Friday night in fucking Sin City—Las Vegas, not my band—my little runaway is out on the town, all buttoned up and composed. Those sexy-ass curves hidden under a sensible sleeveless white blouse, which she’s tucked perfectly into white-and-black pinstriped slacks.
The only thing remotely familiar about the woman in front of me is that face. An arresting blend of delicately structured bones punctuated with flawless features. Oh, and those eyes. A kaleidoscope of greens and golds, fringed with dark lashes that are so expressive that even in all her professional, polite glory, I easily read the apprehension and attraction, because I’m not imagining the mydriasis of her pupils or the labored breaths making her chest rise and fall in a shallow pattern.
I step well into her personal space. Close enough to feel the heat of the blush that turned her russet skin a peachy red and to let the fine hairs not captured in that ugly-ass bun she’s sporting tickle my lips.
Little miss uptight and pulled together with her tight bun and high heels has been trickling into more and more of my thoughts. Which I haven’t been able to do anything about because she up and disappeared on me. A little surprising after the night we got down. It was so fucking dirty my balls tighten at the memory. If her stilted breaths and wide eyes are any indication, she’s picturing me the exact same way.
So yeah, she has some se
rious explaining to do.
“Yo, D?” My brother’s voice invades my perfect little lust bubble, dropping me back to reality. “You going to introduce me to your friend?”
I hear the question, but damn if I can force myself to drop her stare, or piece together a thought other than how to get this woman out of this bar and someplace private or maybe semiprivate where I can reacquaint her with my hopeful cock, which at this very moment is poking at the flap behind my zipper, ready to come out and play.
“Dominique,” Jessie’s friend says, extending her hand to my brother.
“Chris,” my brother responds. His shoulder forcibly checking me hard as he reaches forward to clasp her hand.
What the hell? I whip my head in his direction to find him not so subtly raising his eyebrows and tilting his head toward the girl sitting next to Jessica.
“And this…” my brother says pointedly. “Is my brother, Daniel.”
“Xu,” Dominique finishes, humming around pursed lips. “Mmm, I know your brother. No need for the introduction.”
“We met?” I ask, distracted. Forcing myself to look closer at her face, mentally sifting for a time and place when we may have crossed paths.
“We most definitely have not, but my girl…” She winks at Jessie. “Has nothing but the highest praise.”
“Is that right?” I ask. My gaze once again laser-focused on Jessica.
“No. I—I mean yes… We talked about you, but not like that. It wasn’t bad,” she stammers, shifting uncomfortably in her seat. Jessie shifts eyes to Chris. “Is this the brother you were talking to at the wedding?”
I nod. “One and the same. Our youngest brother, Ben, couldn’t get off tonight.”
“The offer is still on the table, girl. If you don’t want…” Dominique smiles.
“Here,” Jessie says raising her voice to cut her friend off. “Why don’t you have another drink?”
Embarrassment deepens the blush on her cheeks, and she gives me an abashed smile.
I don’t recognize the timid woman in front of me. What happened to the wildcat that left scratches on my back and demanded ‘harder, Daniel,’ ‘right there, Daniel,’ and ‘more, more, more, Daniel’? Where does she go when the proper young miss takes over?
“Do you ladies mind if we join you?” Chris asks, already pulling out the chair next to Dominique.
“Not at all. Cop a squat.” My brother and Dominique fall into easy conversation, quickly punctuated with smiles and friendly banter.
Jessie is quiet. Her eyes making rounds to the bar and the wall and the tables and everything else in this restaurant that isn’t me.
“Why so quiet, poppet?” I finally ask after we’ve ordered another round and the bartender has set some delicious tapas down in front of us.
“I don’t know.” She shrugs. One hand comes up to nervously toy with the soft hair at the nape of her neck but drops away when her fingers can’t get past the gel and whatever else she’s put in there to maintain the sleek style.
Do you hate that hairstyle as much as I do?
“Isn’t it kind of weird?” she whispers, sounding slightly tipsy, but more relaxed than she was fifteen minutes ago.
“What?” I whisper back.
“You know…” She uses a finger to draw an invisible line in the air between us. “You and me, here at the same time. After we…you know…”
“Fucked?” I ask because I hate subtle, and this woman needs a gentle nudge to drop the facade, and because the sooner we get to the bottom of ‘you know’ the sooner we can get out of here, and you know.
Jessie gives me doe eyes, rounded and open so wide that the white is entirely visible around her iris. She opens her mouth to speak only to close it again, but apparently all she needs to continue is a fortifying sip.
“I’ve never had a one-night stand. Aren’t we supposed to go our separate ways and forget that it happened?”
“Is that why you ghosted? You want to forget I happened?” I ask, studying the elegant lines of her face in profile.
“No…” she answers immediately.
“Bullshit.” Yep, still a little bit salty over here. “The question I have is, why?”
At my response, Jessie’s gaze finds mine and after a couple of seconds, a resigned mumble comes from her lips. I can’t quite make out the word, but it sounds a whole lot like, “Maybe.”
That maybe is a loaded answer and a half-ass explanation wrapped up in a self-conscious, slightly insecure bow.
“Well, I haven’t forgotten you. Not the way you smell.” I lean forward, dragging my nose up the sensitive curve of her neck, taking in her scent. Stopping just underneath her earlobe. I smile at the goose bumps that rise to the surface dotting the smooth skin.
“Or the way your voice takes on this raspy tone when you get turned on,” I whisper in her ear. Leaning even closer, my face mere inches from hers, voice low and intimate and only for her, “Or the perfect fit when I was inside you, and had you bent down on all fours in front of me.”
A shudder shakes her narrow shoulders, and eyes molten with desire yet shadowed with trepidation bore into mine. I move my face toward hers in increments.
Slow and steady, D. You already know what this girl likes. She just needs the right circumstances to release it.
I move just a smidge closer and her lids lower, her mouth parting just enough for her tongue to peek out and swipe her bottom lip. I slide a hand around the back of her neck, pulling her toward the edge of her seat, and her breath whooshes out, warm and sweetened from the fruity drink. I’m just about to go in for the kill when my brother loudly interrupts.
Jessie blinks up at me. The soft, pliant muscles of her neck turn stiff under my fingertips and she’s giving me owl eyes like she’s trying to clear her vision. Her head turns toward my brother and instead of kissing premoistened open lips, I get a totally unassuming cheek that’s slightly salty and a little dry from makeup.
“We got Don Julio and guava margaritas,” Chris says with a toothy grin, raising an unopened bottle of Don Julio tequila and a pitcher of a pinkish orange slushy that I admit looks delicious. Nowhere near as tempting as the woman in front of me, but since that opportunity just got shot to shit by my cockblocking baby bro, I might as well imbibe.
I give him a ‘what the fuck’ look because seriously, what the fuck?
When Chris shrugs and both he and Dominique chuckle, I know I’ve been played. Those assholes know exactly what they interrupted. I peel my lips back in frustration and bare teeth at them over Jessie’s head, which only succeeds in making them both laugh harder.
I can’t do much to Dominique, but when I get my brother alone in a dark alley or catch him slipping at the urinal in the men’s restroom, it’s on. It’s on like fucking Donkey Kong.
“I’m hungry and the bar only serves appetizers. So, we’re gonna move to a booth in the back. Y’all coming?” Dominique asks.
“Do we have a choice?” I ask pointedly.
“Nah…”
“Not at all.”
The blocker twins say simultaneously.
Jessica slides from the stool to her feet, wobbling a little on the pointy stilettos. My arm automatically comes around her waist for support, and just for a second she sags into my body, giving me her weight, her head lolling on my shoulder.
I’m not the cuddly type but I like the idea of this girl wrapped around me like a koala. Just as I was getting used to the feel of her weight she straightens up, her hands tucking invisible flyaways behind her ears as she follows Chris and Dominique to the table.
We crowd into a booth with tufted black leather seats and a small table that becomes even more crowded as the waitress sets down waters and later our entrees. The conversation flows around me, warm and congenial, my brother easily falling in well with Jessie and Dominique.
I
, on the other hand, have a laser focus on the woman sitting across from me giving me furtive glances that I can’t quite figure out.
Does one blink mean take me home and two blinks mean fuck me hard? Or did a piece of lint fall in her eye and I’m completely off base with the whole thing? Hell, maybe she’s just blinking because every mammal on the planet with eyelids closes them every so often for a plethora of reasons.
I examine her under the colored glass of a dim light. She’s leaning forward on her elbows, chin braced on the knuckles of one hand. Mentally I map the golden-brown skin of her throat to the subtle swell of breasts barely visible in the V of her shirt. I know they are soft and fit my hands perfectly.
In my mind, I peel her shirt off, exposing a lacy bra that does little to hide the imprint of dusky nipples pushing against the fabric and I suck her through the garment because I can’t help myself. I want her moans and her hands in my hair, and that cultured voice saying, ‘Please, D.’
The table erupts with laughter, drawing my attention back to the present. And I’ll be damned if I’m not sporting a semi at the mere thought of touching her again.
This version of Jessie, funny and animated and easy to laugh, is more familiar. A picture of her from three weeks ago commandeers my brain. On her knees between my widespread thighs, laughing up at me until my hands fisted in her hair, drawing that mouth wet and slick and wide open down…
Goddamn. She gave good head and that was still a far second to the best pussy I’ve had…like maybe ever. Be honest, D. It was absolutely t-h-e best. Tight and sweet like a piece of Spree candy. And hot. Did I mention hot? If I didn’t, let me rectify the record now. She was—keep it shallow, bro—hawt, and what was the cherry on our sex cake, you ask? The Kegels. Jessie literally massaged my penis while I was inside her.
It wasn’t circus sex. No one was swinging from a trapeze. It wasn’t a porn star ‘let me school you or show you my skills’ type demonstration. We were simply two people attracted by the physical and drawn in to the mental. Who knew that romance novels were more than just lady porn? Sin got me into alpha-holes and taboo priest novels a couple of years ago. Reading them I never thought the whole gut-level, this-woman-is-mine reaction was real.
Exquisitely Yours: A Sin City Tale Page 15
