Page 33 of Honey Sugar
“You don’t think I understand that? I know I’ve been spaced out lately but I’m still processing losing my mother. Doesn’t mean I’m not here for you too, Ivy.” He tossed the bottle down and wrapped me in a hug. He smelled like soap. He smelled like safety.
“I’m scared, Titan. I’ve never lost someone so close to me before. I know I don’t have the right to say that to you since Auntie Sarah was your mother but…” He pressed his long finger to my lips and silenced me.
“I’m scared too, baby girl.”
We stayed connected by that hug for a long time. I didn’t ever want him to let me go. I felt safe in his arms. I felt like the world wouldn’t crush me beneath its thumb when he held me like that.
I only broke the embrace because my entire body started to tingle the longer we stayed there. Titan looked down at me and brushed the golden spiral curls out of my face before kissing my forehead. I wished my stomach wouldn’t clench like that whenever he placed such an innocent kiss on my face.
“We’re all hurting, Ivy.”
“I know. I guess I lost sight of it because I feel like I don’t have a place to grieve when you and Mama have lost so much.”
“You can grieve right alongside me.” He brought my knuckles up to his lips and kissed them while he looked straight into my soul. The moment was almost too much. I craved love and Titan was giving it to me in spades.
“Okay…” I nodded. My fingers slid along his tattooed forearms up to his muscled bicep, touching every piece of ink on his deep brown skin. I ventured to his neck, skating over his Adam’s apple while my core buzzed like crazy.
“Go get in the shower, Ivy.” Titan’s voice left no room for disobedience. It sounded like he was trying to protect me from something even he couldn’t hold back. He was my superhero though, so the only thing he couldn’t protect me from would be…him.
I got in the shower with trembling hands and a mind far too curious for my own good. I wanted Titan to hold me. I wanted to know that no matter what happened in our family that he’d be there. I didn’t want him to leave.
The thought had been bouncing around in my mind for four days.
Would he leave once Aunt Sarah was buried?
It terrified me to consider such a thing.
When I got out of the shower, I wrapped a towel around my wet body and walked into the bedroom. Titan was shirtless on my bed, looking at his phone. I stole away a twisted moment to look at how fine he was. How beautiful his skin was. How strong his hands were.
My mind indulged in admiration that sank deeper into blackness than I was prepared to go. Titan was so strong and so beautifully wounded. He was like me in so many ways. He was the only person I fully related to.
I found myself aching to lie beside him in bed for more than comfort.
He looked up when he noticed me there. He was always so disciplined when he saw me in only a towel. Not right then. Right then, he looked at me with ragged hunger in his pupils. It was too intense for me to ignore. I stood there stunned by something so loud yet so non-verbal.
“Put on some clothes, Ivy,” he told me without taking his stare off me. I looked at Titan’s crisp white t-shirt draped over the footboard of my bed and held it in my hands before pulling it over my damp skin. It clung to me. It hugged my breasts and stuck to my nipples. It hung off my shoulder and swept the tops of my thighs.
The hunger in his eyes grew.
“Why are you wearing my shirt?” He asked. His voice was rough and the way it scraped against my dark thoughts was delicious.
Wrong.
You know you’re wrong, Ivy.
He’s your cousin.
I shrugged my shoulders and went to my drawer to find a pair of panties. Titan looked at his phone after pushing out a staggered breath. I was still clinging to the edge of his peripheral vision though. He couldn’t hide the way he glanced at me through his thick lashes when I pulled my panties over my thighs and ass.
He shifted to the side and bunched up the comforter in front of himself.
Why did something so mundane scorch me where I stood?
I cut the light off, plunging us into darkness in so many ways. I swallowed back the lump in my throat and climbed into bed beside Titan. He was silent but the tension between us was loud.
I pulled the comforter over my body and turned away from him. I fully expected for him to turn away from me too and leave me languishing in my black pool of a mind. But he didn’t. He faced my back and put his arm around my waist.
He pressed me against him on purpose.
