Page 17 of Love You Like That

I nodded. “Please.”

“You need to say it, baby.”

“I want you. All of you.”

He slid into me slowly, stretching me until my eyes rolled back. “Nah, look at me,” he growled. “Keep your eyes on me.” I did.

And the way he moved with deep and powerful strokes made me feel everything. He didn’t rush. He stayed right there, stroking slowly, his forehead pressed to mine, his hands gripping my hips like he was anchoring himself to me.

“You feel so good,” he whispered. “So damn good. This pussy was made for a nigga.”

“Ezra…” My voice cracked on his name, another orgasm building too fast.

“Let go, baby,” he said, kissing me hard, hitting my spot just right. “Don’t hold back.”

I came again, my cry muffled by his mouth, my nails digging into his back as he groaned and picked up pace, chasing his own edge.

“I’m 'bout to nut,” he gritted, sweat dripping from his temple.

“Yesssss,” I breathed.

With a final thrust, he stilled, his mouth dropping open, his breath catching in his throat as he came deep inside me, pulsing with a rawness that made me feel every inch of him. Every piece he never gave to anyone else. He collapsed on top of me, chest to chest, his face buried in my neck.

We didn’t speak for a long time. Just breathed. And I held him like he was mine. Because lately he was and I was his.

T w om o n t h sf l e wby. That’s how long it had been since I first caught up to Yaya outside the lounge. Since then, time moved funny. My mornings started with her voice, and my nights ended with her body on mine. Every little thing she did stuck with me. Every word, every laugh, and every touch. I carried that shit.

I wasn’t a nigga who fell easy. But when I fell for Yavanni? I fell hard. No fear. No brakes. Just freefall. She was at the center of everything now.

We did hella shit together. Dates with no real plans that ended in bookstores, hole-in-the-wall spots where we drank and ate while I tried to help her study for her nursing exam but only ended up getting lost in all that medical shit, and street art tours we made up ourselves. Dinners we half-cooked together just to end up ordering bullshit takeout anyway. Her body in my lap while I read my new piece out loud, her fingers tracing my chest like cursive.

Some nights I stayed at her place, waking up to the whistle of her kettle, her face covered in a silky green mask and locs wrapped in a scarf, still the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. Other nights she crashed at mine, complaining about the clutter only to end up helping me clean it anyway before we sprawled across my bed with her limbs everywhere while I looked at her thinking about forever before I could stop myself.

And the sex?

Still insane but the shit was different now. There was something in it. She looked me in the eye when she rode my dick and whispered shit I didn’t even think I was ready to hear like “I trust you” and “I see you.” Shit hit deeper than any poem I’d ever written.

And now here I was, standing in my bathroom, staring at my reflection. I had on a grey short sleeve button-down with black jeans. Locs needed a retwist but I’d hit the barbershop earlier for a line up. It was a Friday and I was about to hit up the lounge for another open mic night. Word had been floating that a talent scout from New York would be in the building looking for talent to sign or mentor.

I ain’t really care about all that stardom shit. I liked being local. The city fucked with me. But Yaya? She started pushing me gently. Whispering belief into me like the shit was holy. Like she knew what I carried when I stepped to that mic wasn’t just mine and it was meant to go further.

“You belong on bigger stages,” she’d said last week, her legs tangled with mine as we lay on my couch, bare under a blanket, my poem still echoing off the walls.

“You sound like Mekai,” I told her.

“Good,” she said. “He’s been right about you from day one.”

So I was dressed, brushing lint off my jeans when my phone lit up on the counter. My baby was calling. I smiled before I even answered. “What up, baby?”

Her voice came through soft, a little rushed. “Hey, babe.”

But something in her tone felt off. “You good?”

She exhaled. “I’m okay, just… I wanted to call before you headed out.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I can’t make it tonight.”

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