Tyson whistled low. “That’s a hard one, man. Sanaa always moved like she knew what the room owed her.”
“She still does.”
“I remember when Ma first met her. I thought she was gonna cry when y’all split.”
I huffed. “Ma’s dramatic.” I remember my father rolling his eyes and shaking his head, but still staring at Sanaa like she was an apparition.
“True. But she liked her. Said she was elegant. Smart as hell. Thoughtful. Called hergracious—you know she don’t use that word for just anybody.”
She was all of that. But she wasn’tonlythat.
Not when I had her shaking under me, breath caught in her throat, saying my name like she knew it meant more than sound. Not when her mouth wrapped around me with that slow hunger—soft, then devastating. Not when she’d ride me slow with her fingers locked behind my neck, whispering shit only I got to hear.
A growl built in my chest—raw, hungry. I swallowed it whole.
“You good?” Tyson asked.
“Yeah.”
“You know what I’m gonna say, right?”
“I do.”
“You fucked that up.”
“I know.”
“You still got feelings?”
I stood and brushed my palms off on my pants. “I gotta get back to work.”
“Yeah, alright,” he sighed. “Just don’t pretend you don’t miss her. And don’t come to the house acting mad when Tyrell brings her up again.”
He hung up before I could respond.
I stared at the phone for a moment, jaw tight, then slid it back into my pocket. The fire didn’t answer to noise. It answered to presence.
I closed my eyes. Felt the air again. The pressure. The pattern.
And then I saw it—no scorch above a certain line on the wall. Shelf height. There’d been something there. Blocking. Resisting. Or pulled downafter.
I took a step forward, let my fingers trace the ghost print left behind. Something had been removed from this room. Not everything burned.
7
The Duquesne Art Collective’s annual winter auction was packed—oil money, old money, and curated Black excellence in one restored warehouse off Penn Avenue. Champagne flutes. Soft jazz bleeding through ceiling speakers. Sculptures lit like sacred things.
I was in a deep emerald silk dress—backless, cut low at the sides, the fabric skimming my hips like it knew what lived beneath it. Gold cuffs at my wrists. Hair sleek and freshly sculpted. Heels high enough to shift my posture into something deliberate.
I felt him before I saw him. That quiet pressure in my spine. I turned and took in the finest man my eyes had ever seen. Off duty. No uniform. No soot.
Dark charcoal slacks tailored just right. Black sweater fitted across his chest and shoulders like it had been made for him alone. The sleeves pushed slightly up, revealing thick forearms and the faint sheen of his brown skin under the gallery lights.
His hair was low and even. Clean. The sharp line of his beard framed a mouth that had once ruined me. And his eyes. Those soulful and sexy eyes of his.
Dark brown. But tonight they were darker. Focused entirely on me. My pulse betrayed me immediately.
He moved toward me slowly, like he had all the time in the world.
