Page 68 of Soul Food

I had to be imagining it. I was wrong.

Hot lips pressed upon my neck, then gray orbs were burning a hole through my much darker ones. Again, I darted away. His arms went underneath my thighs, and gently, he hiked them up, pressing my back entirely against the cool marble. My elbows slid through papers on his desk, but that was forgotten as I dropped them and observed Amit above me. The way he watched and savored every little thing he did to me. My skin tingled as he saw and drank in every draw of my breath, every rise and fall of my breasts, and the way his hand traveled over me. He shuddered above me, completely enraptured.It can’t be.But every tease, every look said something even if I would go on to say we were only fucking.

Palming the nape of my neck, he tried to get me to glance at his face, but I wouldn’t. Instead, I turned my head away so he let me be for now, kissing my neck as his other hand slid up my thighs and tugged at my panties. Instead of separating us to get them down my legs, I heard the tear of the fabric and then he bunched them up and discarded them somewhere on the floor. My arms automatically wrapped around his neck, and when I realized we weren’t supposed to have this closeness—especially when it came to my heart and how it loved when he was so close, I let them smack against the desk. He didn’t want that though. Reaching out for my wrists, he pulled them back up to where he wanted them—draped over his neck as he cushioned our bodies together. Why did it feel so perfect, so right—so warm and fulfilling to have him over me this way?

Then the sound of his zipper caught my ear, quickening my pulse. I could feel his eyes on me as he held me down with the sheer width of him. I hid in the crook of his shoulders, hugging his neck. Desire clung to my skin, coating it with desperation. I wanted him so much. My insides were already clenching together. “Legs around me,” he instructed, voice soft yet gruff. I did as he said, anticipation coiling in my stomach as one of his hands bunched up my skirt, then pulled my ass upward until it was aligned with the head of his cock.

“Ruth, look at me.” I hugged him tighter, unable to give him what he wanted. “Soul food.” But he took my heart anyway when he nudged my cheek with his shoulder and grasped my chin with his thumb. Our eyes met as he buried himself inside my welcoming heat. He leaned his forehead against mine as he created chaos throughout my heart, body, and soul. I was teetering at the edge. This man was bound and determined to ruin me completely. I closed my eyes but some force I couldn’t recognize prevented me from keeping them closed. Our eyes met again, and it was that connection between us that sent me spiraling into pleasure and had my entire body quaking. But the true exquisiteness of that moment was how we quaked and trembled together. Even music could never feel this beautiful and all-consuming. It was all in the way we looked at each other.

We weren’t fucking. Not at all. And that terrified me most of all.

Still inside me, he raked his fingers through my hair. “I shouldn’t have brought up what you said about our relationship only being physically. I’m sorry,” he whispered.

Why did it crack my soul? Oh, God, it hurt so fucking bad. To have something so amazing crushed above me, and yet it could never be mine. His weight was solid and warm over me. I wished so bad for things to be different. That I could claim him for my own, but it wasn’t. His gentle words were only breaking me in two. I couldn’t stomach his apology, not when I was leaving this world and someone else would get to keep him, and feel the goodness and the gentleness he rarely showed.

“It hurt you when I said that. I should have asked what do you want to know about me.”

He was telling me what he thought he should’ve said instead.Stop being this way.It was harder when he was sweet. Things were easier when he rarely showed me anything of himself. My vision blurred. “Stop,” I mumbled.

“I don’t have parents, not really. I raised myself,” he went on randomly.

“Don’t speak,” I told him.

“I don’t have any siblings. Or at least none that I know of.”

I shoved him away and out of my body. I hopped off the desk and grabbed my shirt on the floor. I put it on hastily and rushed to the door.

“Ruth.”

The way he said my name tugged at my heartstrings. I didn’t ask for this. “I need some space.” I rushed out of his office still buttoning my shirt. I didn’t care that Diane’s mouth hung open as I hurried by her desk. The sticky trail running down my inner thighs was a reminder of what I fled from.

By the time I made it back to the recording room, my face was hot and hurting. I refused to let the tears out, and I was paying for it. I swallowed past the tightness threatening to close my throat and opened the door. The band took one look at me before they stopped playing.

“I need a drink,” I whispered. “Or two.”

_______

AMIT

I should have followed her. Everything screamed at me to but that was exactly why I didn’t.

Control was life for me. Control was survival. Control was painful and hard and strange.

A trickster. It often led you to believe you were in charge. That nothing would ever knock you off your feet. It would often disguise thoughts and feelings with something else. And it did it for ten years.

No, this wasn’t control. Control was simply a behavior that could go awry once someone else influenced your behavior patterns.

This was all me.

I kept giving too much. And why? What for? Who chased a soul this long? Who stood by and waited for the soul to reach fulfillment before they ate? No other soul reaper I knew. My thought process was above most of my kind. I knew how to survive but surviving meant nothing, really. Not when I was falling prey to all the things that never crossed my mind before.

I refused to go after her. I refused to think about her for hours on end. I refused to keep giving her what she wanted when it wasn’t working. My soul food was still miserable and for some awful reason, it made me miserable too.

She asked for space but that wasn’t why I didn’t go after her. I was done giving her what she wanted. DONE. Soon, the only thing I’d do was take.

When I materialized back at the house where Lars waited, he took one look at me and sighed. “What is it now?”

“None of your concern.” And I refused to give him anything. Lars liked to act like he knew things, but I knew just what kind of disgusting shit gremlins did too. I wasn’t open to taking his advice. Ever. That didn’t stop him from trying to give me his input though.

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