He smirked. “It’s Scottish.”
I leaned back and gave him a side-eye. He busted into laughter. The richness of it was better than the cocoa I just drank.
“My mother’s family immigrated from Scotland generations ago. Chael was originally a nickname for the longer moniker, Michael.”
“And your father?”
He cut his gaze away from mine, and he tightened his hand around my knee. “He was indigenous. Apache.”
That explained it. Chael was obviously Native American.
“And you?”
I popped my head in surprise. “Me?” I held out my arms. “I’m Black,” I said as if it should be obvious.
“Your parents?”
I swallowed and looked away. “My nana raised me. My mother’s mother. I never knew my father. Do you have any brothers or sisters?”
“Two brothers. Younger.”
“You?”
“Just me.”
“You’re more than enough.” He nodded, and it felt like he understood. Silence fell between us, but it wasn’t weird or uncomfortable. Chael moved his hand toward my face, and when I thought he was about to cup it, he lifted one of the faux locs that’d fallen over my shoulder instead.
He twisted the loc between his fingers and studied it as if memorizing it for a pop quiz that he wanted damn sure to ace.
“Your hair is intriguing.”
I blew out a breath and waved a dismissive hand in the air. “This style is old. I need to redo it.”
“You did it yourself?”
I shrugged. “Yeah. I change my hairstyles often, and it costs a lot less if I do it myself. My Nana taught me to do hair. That was her day job.”
“You loved her a lot.” His eyes fell to my lips. “You get a longing look in your eyes and a wistful smile on your lips…” He paused and ran his thumb along my bottom lip, “Whenever you talk about her.”
“Hmhm,” I hummed.
He did it again with his thumb, his eyes still pinned to my mouth. On instinct, I licked his thumb that was still on my lip.
Chael’s entire body filled with a palpable tension so thick it threatened to smother both of us. It filled the space between our bodies, somehow drawing us closer to one another.
“You shouldn’t have done that.”
I’m so—” One moment, I was apologizing, and in the next breath, I was moaning into his mouth. Nothing had ever felt this right so soon. This was wrong, so wrong. I didn’t know this man from Adam, but dammit if it didn’t feel like the most right thing in the world.
The thinking part of my brain became scrambled, and all I wanted to do was to surrender to his kiss. At the first touch of his tongue to mine, a gush of liquid soaked my panties. I felt Chael’s hand move from my knee, up my thigh, closer to my apex.
I should stop him. Logic flooded my consciousness, but hell, this felt too damn good to stop. Logic be damned. Sure, I’d regret it all in the morning, but I felt too safe and too drawn in at the moment to stop.
The reality was I would probably wake up the following day and realize this was all a dream. I sighed into Chael’s mouth when he scraped his teeth along my bottom lip. I wanted him to bite it and came close to begging him to do so, but he pulled back.
His chest rose and fell in rapid succession, the movement mirroring the flaring of his nostrils.
“You should go to bed.”
