Page 48 of Call Me Mrs. Taylor

Her street is almost completely dark. More street lights are out than working, and the ones that are on have cloudy bulbs, creating a hazy glow that looks more like a halo than beams.

I creep up against the curb in front of 1286. This shit is a little less raggedy than the other houses on the block, but not by much.

I breathe deep and check my phone to see if she changed her mind, or explained, or even noticed me pulling up.

No messages.

She ain’t making this easy on me.

My eyes dart around me as I slowly open my door. Hot air hugs my face. I swat bugs away and stick one foot out, then the other. I feel like a little bitch being all cautious like this. Nobody’s out here. Nothing but quiet. Eerie quiet.

I close my door as quietly as I can and creep up the cracked driveway, looking to my left and my right. I look back a few times, too, but there’s nobody there. Not even my own shadow.

The house is mostly dark, and deadly silent. The only sound is the distant echo of a siren somewhere in the city and my own heartbeat pounding in my ears.

There it is.

A window.

I walk up on it and stand there, confused and bewildered. Am I supposed to knock? Throw a pebble? Hoist a big ass radio up on my shoulders and blast a Jodeci joint at her window?

I rub my hands on my jeans to dry the sweat off my palms.

The blinds are closed, but there’s a small section at the bottom that looks like it got chewed up by an animal. Just big enough for a desperate man to look through.

Faint light glows behind it, drawing my curious eye. I hesitate for all of two seconds before I inch closer and duck my head, putting my eyes level with the break in the blinds. I know I shouldn’t be doing this, but I don’t know what else to do but exactly what she said.

I look inside.

What the fuck?

It takes me a few seconds to understand what I’m looking at. It’s black silk, and I only know that by the way the candlelight hits it.

Raya is about ten feet away, standing in front of a mirror with her back to me, winding her hair around and clipping it up at the top of her head. She looks cute with that bun, or whatever. The back of her neck is…sexy.

I swallow hard and shift my weight back and forth from one foot to the other.

This shit is weird, but I wait for her to come to the window and let me in. There must be a good reason I can’t come through the front door. She’ll tell me.

The belt drops to the floor.

I frown at this development. The robe goes slack, then falls slowly down her shoulders. Her bare shoulders. She’s naked underneath, looks like. I lick my lips and step closer.

The robe falls to the floor and now I can see her entire naked body from behind. She’s so fuckingfine. Goddamn. My mouth falls open.

I exhale sharply through my nose, pressing my palm against the brick wall. The second she bends over, my vision blurs.

This woman is the devil.

You’d think I’d never seen her naked before. That I’d never been inside her. I almost close my eyes and let a flashback claim my attention, but I don’t wanna miss anything.

I swallow hard and squint through the hole in the blinds. I don’t even realize I’m gripping my jeans, my fingers pressed against the throbbing ache between my legs.

I guess this is what she wanted. Got my ass out here playing peeping Tom in the dead of night.

This shit is so wrong.

And I don’t care.

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