He swallows hard and waits a minute before opening his mouth again. “He was in prison at the time, and Mama bailed years before. Our uncle was meant to watch over us. Him and one of his sidepieces, a club whore named Lippy, were playing house while his own family lived a few houses away. We were good until we weren’t.”
Playing house?
Lippy?
“Lippy?” I scoff.
A broad grin stretches across his handsome face, and he shrugs. “She was good with her lips.”
I rear back slightly.
“Not as good as yours, baby.” I try to fight the smile on my face at the smooth and affectionate way he calls me baby.
“What about you?” He peers down at me with intrigue. “Your mom and dad bring you up?”
A searing pain catches in my throat, and I shake my head. The stabbing of knives into my stomach feels as raw as the day I discovered my mom had passed away. “My dad wasn’t around. My mom said he wasn’t a good man, so she brought me up as a single parent.”
“Was your childhood a good one?” he asks, with hope in his eyes, and I want to tell him the truth, but I opt for a half one.
“Very. But she passed away when I was a teenager, and things changed then.”
He grinds his jaw from side to side, and his hold on me tightens. I feel a change in the atmosphere; his demeanor has gone from playful to dangerous, and I long to lighten the morbid tension.
My finger continues trailing over his ink; the skulls, the flames burning up his arm and down the path of the roses on his shoulder.
“Who was he?” Silence stretches between us; a coldness sweeps over me as I flick through scenarios to tell him. “The guy at the diner,” he tacks on, as if I didn’t know who he was referring to.
My finger stops moving, and I tense; his arm becomes like a coiled viper, as if he’s scared I’m going to dart, and I’m sure it’s a response to my reaction.
“He’s nobody.”
“He a pig?” He lifts an eyebrow, and it takes me a moment to realize he means a police officer.
“No.”
“You fuck him?”
My mouth drops open, and I shake my head venomously.
His body relaxes, and so does his arm.
“He’s just a friend.”
He eyes me skeptically. “Does he know your brother?”
My body locks up, and I move to climb off him, but he holds me firm, determined to keep me in place. I push at his chest, and he laughs, then grabs my arms and pins them behind my back, forcing my tits to push out and his cock to jerk.
He stares at where we’re connected, and I grind down on him before he darts his gaze up to mine.
“You gonna ride me, Little Demon. Use your anger to please your man?”
“Are you?” I mumble, almost brokenly.
“What?”
“My man?” I hate the vulnerability in my tone and the way his nostrils flare at the question.
With his free hand, he grasps my chin, and his fingers dig into my cheeks, holding my head in place. He rises up and brings his lips next to mine. “I’m your man until I say otherwise. Now fuck me like you hate me.” Leaning forward, he bites at my tit, and the stinging sensation shoots to my core.
