Page 12 of Made to Love Ya

Izael walked back into the kitchen and stood slightly behind and beside me at the same time.

“We just grew apart.” His voice grew distant and low, as if he felt regret.

“There’s got to be more to it than that. You spent four years with Cee-Cee. People don’t just grow apart.”

“Or they do,” he replied and snatched the wooden spoon out of my hand.

“Hey! Give that back to me!” I cried out and reached for my spoon.

“What’s this?” he asked and smirked at me.

“It’s my gumbo.”

He closed his eyes and moaned as he sampled it. I swear I felt my thighs squeezing together to keep my uterus and vagina intact. He had every organ in my body ready to tap dance on this kitchen floor.

“Damn, Chè! You trying to sneak your way into a nigga’s heart,” Izael teased.

I grabbed his arm, trying to get my spoon back, but those words stopped me in my tracks. I still held his arm, but I forgot the purpose of doing so. I stared into those dark brown eyes, and when he licked his lips, I found my heart racing. The apartment became silent, and all I could hear were our breaths filling the kitchen like a pot of soup bubbling and boiling over.

“It’s good,” he muttered, staring back at me.

“Hmm?” I couldn’t speak if I wanted to. His gaze hypnotized me, and I couldn’t break the spell he had me under.

“Your gumbo. It’s good,” Izael stated and twisted his wrist in my grip.

I slowly let go, and he reached out and tugged on my chin.

“Open up.”

I obeyed him. Not because I wanted to sample the food, but partly because I didn’t want him to stop touching me, and I didn’t know what else to do. He slid the spoon into my mouth, and the thought of it being in his mouth before had me trembling inside.

“Good, huh?” he asked and stared at my lips.

“Mmhmm,” I muttered as he slid the spoon free from my mouth.

Izael reached a thumb out and wiped my bottom lip.

“You had something on there.” His voice was low and husky, and it stirred the always-present yearning inside of me.

A moan fell from my lips, and I wasn’t sure if it was the taste of the food he was feeding me or the man who fed me that created the sound. Izael was the first one to take a step back. I stood in the middle of my kitchen trying to gather my senses when he walked to the sink and cleaned the spoon.

“I’m gonna go take a shower while you finish that gumbo, baby girl.”

I accepted the spoon back from his hand and watched him walk away from me. The tattoos on his back and arms seemed to be in motion, moving independently from his body as he moved. When he was no longer in my line of sight, I sat down at the breakfast nook and dropped my forehead into the palms of my hands.

“Talia, get your shit together. That’s your brother’s best friend, and you know how Tahj feels about that. Besides, it’s not like Zae even thinks about you like that anyway,” I whispered to myself.

* * *

IZAEL

A cold shower was definitely in order. I turned the heat down after I had been underneath the spray for a few minutes. I needed to hurry up and find a new place because the way a nigga was feeling…I was about to fuck some shit up. If I didn’t get out of here soon I’d be digging all up in baby girl’s guts, and my nigga Tahj would be bent like a muthafucka.

Talia had been cool as a little kid when I first moved next door to them when I was eleven, and she was five. She was still cool when she was twelve, and we were eighteen. She ignored Tahj’s taunts whenever he called her four-eyes to get rid of her. Talia let shit roll off her back like water off a duck.

She always had a lot on her little brain, a sassy mouth, and she was nosy as hell, but she was still cool and fucked with a nigga. She was one of the few people who listened to me back then.

But when twenty-year-old Talia, whom I hadn’t seen since she left for culinary school at eighteen because of our schedules, returned home, she was all grown up and no longer wearing glasses but contacts. Her baby fat had turned into shapely curves, and I was no longer looking at her like a little kid.

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