“I’ll burn the world down for you,” he said. “But I need to know you won’t run from the flames.”
I looked down at this man on the floor in front of me with firelight on his face and blood on his knuckles that I was just now noticing and I didn’t flinch and I didn’t look away.
“I’ve been walking through fire my whole life, Quest. Yours ain’t gonna be the one that scares me off.”
He held my eyes for a long second, searching for something. Whatever he found must have been enough because he exhaled and some of the tension left his shoulders.
“How much do you trust your brother?” he asked.
“Completely. Why?”
“Mega’s gone. We hit his house tonight. Empty. Somebody tipped him off and Mekhi thinks it was Bryce.”
“Bryce wouldn’t do that. He gave you that address because he wants out. He’s got Samaya and a baby coming and he’s not trying to go back to Mega. If Mega ran, it’s because Mega is paranoid and strung out, not because my brother tipped him.”
Quest nodded slow. Not fully convinced but willing to take my word for now. I could see the war behind his eyes, Mekhi’s voice in one ear telling him Bryce was full of shit and mine in the other telling him Bryce was solid. He was choosing which one to trust and the fact that he was sitting on my floor instead of Mekhi’s told me he’d already made his decision even if he wasn’t ready to admit it.
“Have you talked to Serenity?” I asked.
His face changed. Not a lot, just enough for me to catch it. A flicker of something that looked like guilt crossing his features before he shut it down.
“Nah. I haven’t.”
“She was with Mega for months, Quest. She knows his habits, his routines, the places he goes when things get hot. If anybody can tell you where he’d run, it’s her.”
“You’re right.” He rubbed his hand over his face. “Damn. I been so focused on Janelle and Mega and Mekhi that I forgot about my own sister. She’s been out of rehab for days and I haven’t even called her.”
“Call her tomorrow.”
“Yeah.” He leaned his head back against my knees and stared at the ceiling. “I put her in rehab and then just… moved on to the next crisis. Like she was handled. Like checking a box.”
“You can’t carry everything, Quest.”
“I’ve been carrying everything since I was eighteen. That’s all I know how to do.”
I slid off the couch and onto the floor next to him. The rug was thick and warm from the fire and I pressed my body against his side and put my hand on his chest. His heartbeat wassteady underneath my palm. Whatever had happened tonight, whatever fight he’d been in, whatever he’d lost, his body had already recovered. It was his mind that was still catching up.
“You’re not carrying everything alone anymore,” I said. “You got me now. So put some of that shit down.”
He turned his head and looked at me and something shifted in his eyes. The grief burned off and something darker moved in behind it, something hungry and desperate that I’d seen before but never this raw. He kissed me hard, no buildup, no warming up, just his mouth on mine with a force that pushed my head back and his hand gripping the back of my neck holding me in place.
I kissed him back with the same urgency because I could taste what he needed and it wasn’t tenderness. He needed to feel something other than loss. He needed to be inside something that wasn’t falling apart. And I needed him to know that I wasn’t going anywhere, and sometimes words don’t land the way your body does.
He pulled my shirt over my head and I pulled his off and then his hands were on my waist, rough and impatient, pulling me onto his lap. I straddled him on the floor in front of the fireplace and felt him hard underneath me through his jeans and I rolled my hips against him and watched his jaw clench and his eyes close and his hands grip my hips hard enough to leave marks.
“Take these off,” I said, pulling at his belt.
He lifted his hips and I yanked his jeans and boxers down and his dick was right there, thick and hard and straining toward me, and I wrapped my hand around him and stroked slow and watched his head fall back against the couch. The firelight caught the muscles in his stomach, the V of his hips, and I thought about how many women would kill to be in this position and how none of them ever would be because this man was mine.
“Mehar.” His voice was low and strained. “Stop playing.”
“I’m not playing. I’m taking my time.”
“I don’t have time tonight. I need you. Now.”
I pulled my sweatpants off and settled over him. No underwear because I’d stopped wearing them to bed three days ago, partly because it was easier and partly because Quest had started ripping them off so frequently it was becoming expensive. I hovered over him with his dick pressed against my pussy, hot and slick, and I made him wait. Just a few seconds. Just long enough for him to look up at me with those dark eyes and understand that right now, in this moment, I was the one in control.
“You trust me?” I asked.
