I nod, pulling myself up and reaching for my heels, but he swats my hand away from them. “Don’t do that.”
I open my mouth to protest, but he shushes me by curling his hand around my chin. “If you gon’ wear shit like this for me, then wear it. I ain’t AJ. I’ll make you go run my errands in it, then have you come home and fuck me while you tell me how many men you had to turn down all because you like wearing heels to the grocery store. I like when you dress up for me.”
I hold in a ragged moan.
There are so many things I need to say to let him know he can’t have me so open like this, but all that comes out is a raspy, “Rich…”
“Get on your knees.”
I twist my body around, shuffling further onto the island with my skirt hiked up to my stomach. As soon as I get on my knees, my back dips and my ass rises easily.
He hooks his finger back into the side of my panties and pulls them until the fabric digs into my skin and lets out a shrill rip. He tosses the torn panties next to my head, and I let out a ragged sigh while another cold draft blows across my exposed lips.
I feel his eyes on placesI’venever even seen. They trace the puckered hole between my glutes while warmth crawls across my face, but I can’t harp on my embarrassment because nothing hurts anymore—not my side, my head, or my heart. He had numbed it all.
“Slim?” he bellows from behind me.
“Yes?”
“You see what happens when you don’t listen to me? We ain’t supposed to be doing this.”
“But I?—”
“I let you taste me to get me out your system. That was supposed to be it, you know that, right? Why you like chasing me? Huh?”
All the reasons dance around in my head. I sift through them one by one, searching for the right one that won’t scare him away because he’s a runner too. He just doesn’t know it.
His hard hand lands in the center of my ass, making me slide forward and bellow out a sloppy, “Oomph.” I swear I hear the sharp crack echoing through his quiet kitchen long after his hand made contact with my skin.
I bite down on my lip, widening my eyes as my nipples harden.
I shouldn’t have liked that.
And I shouldn’t want him to do it again.
“Rich…”
I shouldn’t even be panting his name like I am right now.
“Don’t do that shit,” he rasps in a strained voice.
“Do what?”
“Try to find some safe answer when I ask you something like that. Just answer me. Why you keep coming to me? Why you keep chasing after a man like me?”
“It’s ‘cause you see me,” I rush out. “And I see you. Remember?”
His rough fingers press into my lower back, gliding across it. They stop on my ass, digging into my skin.
“I’m not Rasheeda, Beatrice or…or that random girl who texted you outside. Iknowyou. I know what you like, what you are, I…I literally have your smell embedded in my memory,” I mutter out pathetically. “They didn’t even spend your birthday with you, but I did. And I got you exactly what you wanted.”
“And what was that?”
“Me. You wanted me. Not some stupid cake. You just wanted to see me again…an…and I wanted to see you too. I’m not too proud to admit it.”
He kneads my skin, then drops his hand on the other side of my ass, spreading both cheeks until I gasp.
“You know, I do some really stupid things to get to you. I don’t listen, I lie, I sneak away, but I always come. I always come when you want me,” I moan. “Even when you’re too scared to ask for me. I…I always com?—”
