My stomach plummeted. This is why it is necessary to keep them separate.
I reached over and put my hand on his arm. “The one last night is in the past—”
“I’m not asking you to explain who they are,” he interrupted as he followed the GPS directions. “I’m more interested in knowing what you’re doing and what you want.”
“What I’m doing?” I repeated nervously.
“Yeah. I know I jokingly said you were juggling men, but now I’m just trying to figure out what’s up.”
I cleared my throat. “Well… I’m single so I’ve been dating and just enjoying getting to know people. I haven’t been juggling men. But I’ve been dating. Nothing serious.”
“And what do you want?”
“I like getting to know people and getting content for my work. But don’t get me wrong, at the end of all this, I’d want to find the real deal. Ultimately, I want connection,” I admitted.
“You want a connection without the relationship?”
“Relationships come with responsibilities, commitments, and obligations. Relationships come with compromises that I’m not willing…” My sentence faltered as my heart thumped in my chest. Taking a shaky breath, I pushed through it. “It’s not that I don’t want a relationship. It’s just that I don’t want to change my life.”
“Oh okay,” he replied, making a left turn.
I couldn’t read his expression. But I could tell he was mulling over what I’d said.
“My schedule is all over the place,” I explained further. “My time is mostly dedicated to my work. I’m sure you get that. You work all the time.”
As he pulled into my neighborhood, I bit my lip. A whole minute had gone by without him saying anything. When he parked in an available space, he looked over at me. “I do work a lot. I don’t see things the same as you, though. But I hear what you’re saying.”
The knot in my stomach got bigger. “How do you see it?”
He nodded. “I hear what you’re saying. But for me, if I feel a real connection with a woman, I’d accommodate for her in my life. For the right woman, sacrifices to my current situation won’t feel like sacrifices.”
Ripping my eyes from his, I gathered my stuff in my arms. I needed to shift the weight of the conversation from me. “Is that how you felt about your ex?”
“Not exactly.”
We were both quiet for a moment. With his engine off and the music powered down, the silence was a little too loud.
“Does that mean you didn’t have a connection with her?” I wondered.
“No, I wouldn’t have been with her for so long if I didn’t. But I don’t have time for drama and confusion, and she was both.”
“Is that why you two broke up?”
“Ultimately, we wanted different things. So now I only deal with women who are real about who they are and what they want. With my schedule it doesn’t make sense to pursue something with someone who doesn’t want the same thing I want.”
I swallowed hard. “Would you like to come in?” I asked. “We could continue talking inside.”
“I want to.” Taking my hand in his, he brought it to his lips. “But I shouldn’t.”
My stomach sank with disappointment. “You shouldn’t?”
His eyes darkened with the intensity of words he didn’t say. “No, I shouldn’t.”
I felt the burn of tears in my throat, so I cleared it and opened my door. “Okay. Well, thank you for a good time this weekend.”
“Wait, I’ll walk you in.”
“No, it’s okay.”
He hopped out of his car and caught up with me before I’d even made it to the sidewalk.
“I know you said this was an artsy place, but does this happen every Sunday?”
I stared at my nosey neighbors as they were watching us approach.
“Does what happen?” I asked distractedly.
He gestured around with extra emphasis several lofts down. “Ol’ boy over there has a whole outside studio set up.”
“He’s blessing the neighborhood with trash ass beats and a struggle freestyle on this Sunday morning.”
“He’s out here doing the Lord’s work.”
The wetness behind my eyes turned into tears of laughter as I burst out laughing. I could barely climb the steps to my front door as I cackled. The fact that Darius and Ciara were on their porch watching only added to the ridiculousness of my neighborhood.
When I caught my breath, I wiped the tears from the corners of my eyes and let myself in. “I really did have a good time with you this weekend,” I told him again, turning to face him. “Thank you for a really nice time.”
“Thank you for…everything.” He glanced over in the direction of my neighbors and then stepped forward, backing me into my loft. “I should go.”
“Don’t go.”
“I knew you were dangerous.” Grabbing my face, he crashed his lips into mine.
I inhaled sharply as his kiss took me by surprise. Dropping my dress and my bag, I wrapped my arms around him and lost myself in the kiss. The way his mouth moved over mine made my entire body hum to the beat my heart made. And when he pulled away, I trembled from what he brought out of me.
I didn’t just want him. I yearned for him.
“I should go,” he breathed, pulling me flush against his body.
I melted against him. “You should stay,” I purred. My eyes dipped to his lips and then back up to his eyes again. “I want you to stay.”
“I want to stay.” His hands moved from my face down my neck until he was gripping my shoulders. “So. Fucking. Bad.” Pushing me against the wall, he kissed me hard.
“Then why can’t you?” I realized I was whining, but I didn’t even care anymore.
His mouth hovered above mine. “Because even though I knew who you were and what you wanted from the beginning, I felt drawn to you. All I wanted was to know more about you. But the more time I spend with you, the more I realize that it's never going to be enough,” he uttered before kissing me again. “I can’t get enough of you.”
“I can’t get enough of you,” I admitted, fisting his t-shirt in my hands. “I don’t want you to leave. I don’t want the weekend to end. There’s something here—we have a connection.”
One of his hands ran down my chest until his fingers grazed my hardened nipple. I moaned against his mouth.
“I know we have a connection,” Saint uttered in a painfully soft voice causing my breath to hitch. His hand slid underneath my shirt and tugged my heavy breast out of the cup of my bra. “I felt it in our first conversation, Zola.”
I opened my mouth as his thumb and forefinger pinched my nipple. My moan turned into a heated, “That feels so good.”
He closed his eyes tightly and exhaled roughly. “See, when you moan like that, I can’t resist you.” His hand coasted down my belly and untied the oversized sweatpants. As soon as he slipped into my pants, he wedged his thick fingers between my thighs.
I sucked in a sharp breath and the desire that coiled inside me tightened deliciously. “So why are you leaving?”