Page 50 of Soul Food

He sighed, staring ahead. “I don’t expect you to understand.”

I covered my mouth with my hand as I said, “What? That you’re extremely gloomy while being scary in the process?”

“Gloomy?” His frown dug deeper into his features as he looked at me, then he scoffed. “If you say so.” His gaze flicked over me. “Stop smiling.” That only made my lips grow wider, reaching my ears. “You’ve been busy?” He looked ahead as he spoke.

“Oh, yeah,” I started. Did he want to ask about why I hadn’t called him lately? Was this his way of doing that? This big gloomy guy suddenly seemed very cute to me. “I’ve been helping my mom out the last couple of days.”

He said nothing else until we reached the hotdog stand, and I asked him how he wanted his. We both ended up getting two, Coney Island-style and sat down on a bench nearby. I kept the distance between us. He noticed because when I didn’t sit right beside him, his gaze flickered over me disapprovingly, but he said nothing about it.

He looked up at the sky. “It’s going to rain.”

I did the same and frowned. “It’s been raining a lot lately.” When I looked back down, he was staring at me. “What?” He didn’t say anything as he leaned over and placed his thumb against the side of my mouth and ran it across my skin.

“You’re extremely messy,” he finally said.

“Oh.” I wiped the same spot again after he removed his thumb and resumed eating. He took me by surprise there, like he’d been doing since we left together. I didn’t even think to pull away when he touched me. Fear raced through me as I watched him without blinking until I was sure the demon wasn’t going to swoop in and steal him from me.

“What is it?” He took a drink of his water.

I leaned back and shook my head to break the spell of staring at him. “Nothing. I just don’t really like people touching me.” I swear it was like he was peering through me sometimes when he watched me through those gray eyes. So unnerving and thrilling all at once.

“I don’t have any intention of touching you,” he stated with a high-level of gloom in his voice.

“You just did.”

He looked irritated that I pointed it out or maybe he hadn’t realized himself. A drop of rain fell on his cheek and directed his anger to the sky. “Come on.” He took my hand when he had just said he had no intention of touching me.

I jerked away, and we rushed into the first building we came to. We didn’t get wet. The rain let us get inside before she poured. “You touched me again,” I whispered.

“I won’t again.” He stood a breath apart from me. Too close. I backed away, but his gaze still felt way too close. It was suffocating. I took a deep breath as we stood by the window and watched the rain fall instead of focusing on the feelings spiraling out of my chest for the man in front of me.

“Call tonight.” It was him that initiated it.

But it was me that answered. “I will.”

Chapter Fourteen

RUTH

A couple of nights later, I was no closer to understanding Amit than I was when his driver took me home the other day. He called me around ten the last two nights and each time, he’d call me through FaceTime. He didn’t talk much, and he didn’t participate. He’d watch until I made myself come then we’d hang up.

I liked him watching me, but his not participating was slowly getting to me. Each night, I asked him to touch himself, and he merely scoffed and watched me. I was okay with it until I wasn’t. His erection had been huge that one night I had convinced him to let me see it. For someone as big as Amit, I had figured as much. The thought of him gripping it in his hand and getting himself off for me had heat bursting through my skin all day long. It was torture. Instead of feeling sated come the third night, I was even more sexually frustrated after I came for him.

Slowly, I realized what a terrible idea this was. Amit was as cold as the Artic, and my body was like lava. He stood aloof while I spiraled into a depressed state of unfulfilled desire. He wouldn’t even give himself over to me through a screen, and the demon kept me from seducing him in person.

The third night after coming alone, I left my fingers against the sticky slit between my thighs as I panted and squirmed. The cell phone shook in my hand. I could get off again and again and knew it wouldn’t be enough anymore. “Amit,” I whispered and lifted the phone so that he could see my face. “This isn’t enough. I need you to participate with me. Seeing you get off is all I’m asking.”

“The answer is always going to be the same,” came his smooth reply.

I bit my lip. “Yeah, I know.” Before I let the rejection sink in even further, I ended the video with, “Good night, Amit.”

I don’t understand you, Amit.And I hated that I wanted to.

______

“Ruth Thomas, how could you not tell me you’ve been having video sex with Amit Kingston.” I expected this kind of reaction from Jayne the following day when I finally told her about Amit.

“Shh.” I looked around to make sure no one was close by. We were at the gym again. There were some guys toward the back, but I don’t think they were close enough to hear us.

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