“Except you,” I blurt, reaching back for him.
He dodges my heavy hand until it falls against the island. “Even me too. I ain’t no good either.”
“I don’t care.I’ll never hate you.”
He pulls his fingers out of me, and I whimper in response.
“Turn around and look at me.”
I try to twist my body, but he grabs me by the waist, turning me over himself.
He wrinkles his brows. “What did you just say to me?”
“I said ‘I’ll never hate you.’”
I don’t tell him the “why” because I don’t know how. I don’t know how to explain this one emotion that floated around in the clusterfuck in my belly. It was both light and dark, and it tried to break free any time I laid eyes on him.
His Adam’s apple bounces as he gulps and I reach out to touch it too, but he swats my hand away.
There’s more questions dancing in his head and tickling the seam of his lips. I see them every time his eyes flutter up and catch mine.
“Ask,” I whisper. “I want to hear whatever you have to ask me.”
I want every single question this time, no matter how blunt.
“Ask me.”
He swipes his tongue across his wet lips, folding them under his teeth.
“Are you my friend?” he asks in a slow cadence. “Or Terrica’s?”
“Yours…” I breathe, waiting for him to nod in satisfaction.
He doesn’t, though.
He keeps his eyes on mine then lets out a low hum that makes me shuffle closer to him with my legs splayed open.
He glances down and smirks.
My first design of sophomore year sits underneath my breasts in a wrinkled ball, my torn panties and bra dangle off the edge of the island, and our dinner is cold now but it doesn’t matter because me and Rich Lovelace are friends—best friends.
“And Kenny?”
“What…what about him?” I ask.
“Will he protect you…or me?”
In some silly, trifling way, I get it.
That initial wistfulness I thought I heard in his voice when he first talked about Uncle Kenny to me was a farce because I think he felt that “biological thing” between me and Uncle Kenny as soon as he laid eyes on me. He just won’t say it.
“You. You’ll protect me.” I reach forward to grip his face, but he curls his fingers around my throat, pushing me back and nodding.
“Lay down…” He squeezes my throat in a way that makes me relax against his fingers and lie back while he pushes his face back between my legs.
NowI can finally see the way he devours me.
He pulls his hand from my throat, dragging it down my stomach and spreading my lips. He studies my engorged clit while I let out spastic breaths. I clamber to reach for him again, but he nudges my hand away.
