TWENTY
LOVIE
“Lay back,”Rich whispers.
I ease back, resting my elbows on the cold granite while he keeps his heavy hand around my throat.
He pulls at the little strings of thread hanging from the bottom of my skirt while his straight brows wrinkle. “Open your legs.”
I spread them as wide as I can, ignoring the urge I have to thrust my middle toward him.
It turns out that my first design of sophomore year is the best piece of clothing to get head in for the first time. The skirt doesn’t give him any trouble as he slides it over my belly button with his free hand, leaving my soiled panties exposed.
I’mreallyhigh now—higher than I ever was in Barnes-Blank Park with Terrica and Meechie. My arms feel like they weigh hundreds of pounds, and Rich looks like a more perfect version of himself, if that’s even possible. The purplish-red bruises wrap around his eyes like pretty adornments and solidify the silly back and forth I keep having in my head.
God, heismy type—and he just casually said he’d kill AJ…and I think I might be okay with it.
“Rich?” I gasp, reaching for his scarred chin.
He pulls back just as my fingers brush his skin. “Yeah?”
“I think I’m too high.”
He leans over me, letting out a quiet chuckle as that cold, dainty paw print glides across my bare midriff. “I told you I’d teach you how to fly. You scared?”
I nod.
“What you scared for?”
“What if I fall?”
He blubbers out a loud laugh. “Have I ever let you fall?”
“No. You grab me and hold me like I’m a baby,” I whisper.
“‘Cause you are—always will be. Them folks over on Chantilly never hold you and tell you that?”
“No,” I squeak.
He shakes his head, staring between my legs with his eyebrows furrowed, then hooks his finger through the crotch of my panties, pulling them to the side. The cold air tickles my bare middle while he studies my landing strip that had grown out since I left New York.
“You wet, baby?” he utters.
I whine back an incoherent response.
“How long you been walking around me like this?” he asks, unwrapping his fingers from my neck.
“Ever since you taught me how to breathe.”
He lets out the quietest groan. “Turn around.”
“Huh?”
“Turn around and get on your knees.”
I don’t comprehend what he’s asking at first because AJ never asked me to do anything like that. We never even had spontaneous sex on the kitchen island in our apartment.Everything with him had turned mechanical and sterile—even our kisses.
Rich tilts his head. “You heard me?”
