I hold in a groan.
It was another one ofthosequestions that soothed a part of my brain I didn’t know had been neglected until I gaited up to him in his backyard.
“Well?” he asks, blinking at my tender side.
Now instead of worrying about exposing myself to a man I hardly know, I’m dying to remember if I put on my Wolford bra I wore on my trek back to Houston or the ratty Target one I found in my dresser.
I swallow a lump in my throat.
Why am I even agonizing over something as silly as a bra?
“You should just show me,” he whispers as if he’s living in my head.
Yeah… I probably should.
“I ain’t gon’ tell nobody what I see—not even them people you say matter—you know the ones that don’t know your secret.”
Yeah… I know, Rich.
Instead of answering him out loud, I grip the zipper on my dress.
He doesn’t even do the gentlemanly thing and offer to look away while I pull it with my trembling hand because I don’t think he’s a gentleman in a traditional sense. He’s the type of man who’ll block people’s views of my exposed body by angling himself in front of me, but he won’t look away from my breasts when they pop out of my dress.
As soon as the zipper gets to the end of its track, an embarrassing tear rolls down my cheek while I expose the evidence of my quiet secret to him. I swipe at my wet face with my forearm as our eyes travel toit.
It’s uglier than I remember it being this morning. It’s blacker, angrier, and more pronounced.
I sniffle, scoffing and dropping my hand to cover it, but he falls to his knees and knocks my hand away, pushing his face close to it. His warm breath caresses the hot skin.
“Rich,” I hiss. “People might see?—”
“See what?” He tilts his head, blinking at the black and purple bruise that stretches along my rib cage.
“My breasts—duh.”
“You got a bra on.”
I glance at the baby-blue Target bra. “Oh, yeah…I do.”
I roll my eyes.
“Ain’t nobody stupid enough to walk in here while I got you like this,” he mumbles more to himself than me.
His eyes twirl across the nasty mark as he studies it without pressing a finger to it. He won’t even press his moist lips against it even though they keep dancing dangerously close.
I huff, reaching for my dangling zipper. “Well, you’ve seen more than what you should’ve. That’s enoug?—”
He nudges my fingers away from the zipper and presses his hot hand to the bruise, and I think I see AJ’s Bottega sneaker barreling toward my side again before my vision goes black.
“What the fuck—” I recoil, shoving my hand against his head.
“You good,” he murmurs, letting me scrape my fingers through his hair.
“No, I’m no?—”
He presses the bruise harder as more tears well in my eyes from the scorching heat that shoots through my body.
“Stop!” I howl. “Move!”
