Page 14 of Love You Like That

There was something about Yavanni that cracked my chest open in a way I hadn’t let happen in years. She asked about my eye and didn’t flinch. She heard my story and didn’t pity me. She pulled me onto a dance floor like I wasn’t stiff as hell, andshe kissed me like she was claiming something she didn’t need permission to want. And I gave it all to her. I was still lost in it when her eyes fluttered open.

Her lashes twitched and then she slowly blinked once and smiled. “Mmm. You’re staring.”

“You beautiful as fuck.”

She gave this lazy little grin and turned onto her back, stretching like a cat. The sheet dipped low on her chest, but she didn’t pull it up. Just let me look.

“I feel like I got hit by a freight train,” she murmured, voice raspy with sleep.

I smirked. “A good train or a bad one?”

“The kind you don’t mind crashing into if it means the ride is that good.”

I leaned in and kissed her shoulder. “Then I’ll take it.”

She rolled onto her side to face me again, hand sliding across my chest. “What time is it?”

“Too early to leave this bed.”

She chuckled. “So, you're poetic even in the morning?”

“Nah. I usually leave before the sun comes up.”

That made her pause. I didn’t take it back. Just let it sit there. “But you’re still here,” she said quietly.

“I ain't wanna leave you.”

She stared at me for a long second, reading between the lines of what I didn’t say like she already knew I was wired to retreat. That staying here, in her bed, wrapped in the scent of what we did and who we were when we weren’t overthinking itmeant something. And it did.

“I’m glad you didn’t,” she whispered.

I reached for her hand and held it against my chest. “Yavanni.” She looked up at me. “I ain’t tryna run game on ya and I’m not the kind of nigga that falls easy. But last night? That shit wasn’t just sex. I need you to know that.”

Her lashes fluttered. “I know.” She leaned forward then and kissed me softly, full of heat and quiet understanding like she was giving me space to feel all of it, not just speak on it. We stayed like that for a while. Kissing. Breathing. Eventually, she pulled away and sighed. “I should eat.”

“Same.”

“I got oat milk and guilt-free turkey bacon in the fridge,” she said, already sliding out the bed.

“What the fuck?” I groaned. “You tryna run me off now?”

She laughed, tossing a pillow at me. “Shut up. It’s organic, not poison.”

I watched her wrap a silk robe around her body and pad toward the kitchen, her legs long and her vibe still magnetic even with sleep in her eyes. I knew it then that this wasn’t just a moment. This was the start of something.

I lay there for a few seconds after she walked out, staring at the ceiling, trying to figure out what the hell just happened to me. Whatever it was, it was permanent. Because it wasn’t just her body although, God… the way she gave herself to me last night? That shit was branded on me now. But it was more than that.

It was the way she let me see her. The way she didn’t shrink from my pain or flinch at my past full of drug dealing and bloodshed. The way her laugh filled a room and the way her eyes lingered when she thought I wasn’t looking. Yavanni moved like someone who’d been carrying a lot quietly and I saw that shit because I was the same.

I sat up and pulled on my boxers and jeans, still barefoot and shirtless, trying to decide if I should go to her or give herspace. I didn’t want to be too much too soon but I couldn't help the shit. I stepped out into her living room, and there she was, in the kitchen, back to me, robe hugging her waist, ass poking as she opened a cabinet, and started squinting at a box of tea like it personally offended her. I leaned on the doorway, just watching.

“Why you lookin’ at that box like it said somethin’ slick?”

She jumped a little and laughed. “Because it did.”

I walked toward her, slid behind her, and wrapped my arms around her waist, pressing my face into her neck. “You smell like last night,” I murmured.

She melted against me. “You do too.”

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