“I think so too. The drums are a great representation of the principles of Kwanzaa. Amari is creative, hardworking, and has strong self-determination that’s astonishing for his age.”
“He sounds like an amazing young man.”
“He is.”
“I don’t remember my school plays ever being that elaborate.”
“To hear him boast you think he was performing at the Apollo.”
Kate chuckled. Her gaze turned to his mother’s piano. When his parents had died in a boating accident two years ago, the piano was one of the few pieces he’d kept.
It was on the tip of his tongue to offer one of his guest tickets to watch Amari play the drums. The kid had dared him to bring a date, a notion he hadn’t considered until this minute. Instead, he asked, “Do you play?” He stood beside her, following her fingers as they danced along the keys, creating more noise than music.
“Does a bad rendition of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star count?” Her dimples flashed.
“It does,” he lied.
“Uh-huh.” She tapped the keys again.
The slight tilt of her head drew his eyes to the broad bridge of her nose, and his fingers itched to trace a path to the round tip. “I cut my teeth on that nursery rhyme.”
As she continued toying with the piano, he slipped his hands into his pockets and waited. Waited for a sign of his physical distress at her nearness or from her being in his home—he didn’t let people into his safe space often. But none of the expected reactions came.
Kate made him anxious, yet not in a debilitating or suffocating way. The layers of his skin tingled, as his ears strained for the simple sound of her indrawn breath. Only, there was nothing simple about the catch of air whistling past her teeth when she’d gasped earlier as her fingers brushed his stomach in the washroom. No, he was beginning to believe nothing was simple about Kate. In a fraction of minutes, she’d turned his steadfast emotions upside down.
“Why didn’t you continue your lessons?”
She shrugged; her bubbly persona cracked a fraction before she sealed the imperfection. Too late. He’d seen it. The computer programmer in him dove towards the opening as if it were surrounded by neon lights.
He took a step backward before he realized his feet had moved. “None of my business. You don’t have to answer that.”
“It’s been a long time since someone outside my family asked me anything about myself, that’s all. You caught me off guard.”
“I understand people not expressing genuine interest in wanting to know the real you.” He had the opposite problem. People intruded in his personal life whether or not he wanted them to. Some were interested in the makeup of the blood running through his veins, even more when they found out his parents were an interracial couple and had left him money. A successful Black man with money always rattled his share of cages.He didn’t fit whatever stereotype they thought he should be boxed into.
“My grandparents moved to Maryland from Venezuela—to America, really—on a dream of opening a chain of restaurants. It worked out for them—they own two, one in downtown Silver Spring and one on the Baltimore harbor. When Dad was born, their dreams were back on the table, you know what I mean?”
“I think so.”
“Dad gave up his dreams to run the restaurants. And like my abuelos, my dad tried to pass his unaccomplished dreams to me and mis hermanos, my brothers.” She tapped the piano. “To say I rebelled is an understatement.”
“Is that why you moved to Bourbon, to rebel?”
“Maybe.” She shrugged. “But part of me wanted to stand on my own, you know?”
On impulse, he touched her thick raven waves, tucking a few strands behind her ear. Her hair was almost as soft as her smooth olive skin that was a shade lighter than his. He wanted to hold her, protect her, tell her she could be whatever she wanted as long as her smile touched her ears and her dimples were deep. As long as she was happy.
When had he moved closer? Close enough to inhale the strawberry shampoo in her thick strands.
He was bewitched.
At the first sight of her dimples, Spencer had known he was screwed. But when she’d taken the hand cleanser from her purse, and washed her hands…he’d wanted to drag her from the sink—because he didn’t fuck in public or semi-public washrooms—and claim her on his friend’s desk like an uncivilized beast.Hand sanitizer of all things. Who the hell got hard from seeing a woman squirt sanitizer?
“Ay, papi,” she said, sucking in a sharp breath as if she hadn’t meant to utter the phrase. She pushed her hair roughly from her face. “I’m here to helpyou.”
His dick immediately jerked at her endearment. Those two words,ay papi, rolled off her tongue like a whip to grip his balls in a vise. God, he wanted her to say them again. Needed those words to purr from her parted lips as she climaxed.
What the fuck?