“You said I could trust you,” I pant between kisses. “I don’t cheat, Ezra.”
He stills, opens his eyes, rests his forehead against mine, his harshly drawn breaths fanning over my lips both wet and burning. “Neither do I.”
He rolls away onto his back and runs a hand through his hair. The motion flexes his bicep, and I allow my eyes to wander over him, so big and fit and finely made. The wide chest beneath his T-shirt heaves like he’s been running. I am, too. Running from this, from him, from the traitorous desires that threaten to flatten my convictions to nothing. Just below the taut line of his stomach, his pants are tented with an erection.
Shit.
“I need to go.” I sit up, but he takes my wrist gently and pulls me back down. His scent, the heat emanating from his body intoxicate me, and I draw deep breaths of him. Fill my lungs with stunted possibilities and forbidden desires.
“Don’t go yet,” he says. “Let me explain.”
I feel his eyes on my face, but refuse to turn my head, to get caught in the violet-hued trap of his eyes. “You’ll explain why you say you don’t cheat, but then you kissed me?”
We both know I kissed him back.
He’s the one to sit up this time, drawing his knees to his chest and looping muscle-corded arms around his long legs. The T-shirt strains across the width of his back.
“Aiko and I have been having trouble for a long time.”
“Oh, Ezra, don’t be that cliché. What else? She just doesn’t understand you? Do you also have some etchings inside you’d like to show me?”
“She actually understands me very well,” he replies, his voice unamused but not annoyed. “It was one of the things that first drew me to her—how we got each other. I hadn’t really had that with another girl since you.” His laugh comes short and self-deprecating. “I mean, that and the fact that she was gorgeous. That didn’t hurt either.”
Jealousy I have no right to burns a hole in my belly.
“I don’t know if . . .” He grips the back of his neck. “I’ve never said this out loud, but I don’t know that we would have lasted very long if she hadn’t gotten pregnant. Had it not been for Noah.”
He glances over his shoulder, and his eyes are sad. “We tried, Kimba. I’ve tried. We’ve been in counseling the last couple of years. It hasn’t gotten much better. She even wanted to try an open relationship, which I shot down.”
“Oh, wow.” I’ve never been a possessive chick, but I know I couldn’t share Ezra. “You’re still with her, though, right? It’s still cheating for us to…it’s still not right.”
“She’s in Tanzania sleeping with someone else as we speak, with my blessing.”
“I d
on’t…” I frown and press my palm to my forehead. “I don’t understand.”
“We broke up before she left, but didn’t want to ruin Noah’s birthday, especially with her leaving so soon. We both need to be here to help him process it once we tell him.”
I want to look away, to break the contact between our eyes, but this moment is quicksand, holding me immobile and pulling me under. “What do you want?”
“You know what I want.”
My body comes to life at his words, under the intensity of his stare and the promise of satisfaction for us both. He doesn’t say any more for a moment and then clears his throat, goes on. “Mona’s trying to hook you up with Barry.”
“And?” I ask, watching to see if his impassive expression tells me more than he has.
“Don’t.”
Just one word. Downright polite, but when he lifts his lashes, his eyes are black-blue, midnight swimming in the deepest ocean.
“I overheard you tell Mona you like to fuck,” he says, trapping the fullness of his bottom lip between his teeth. “So do I. If you’re in the market for someone, I’d like it to be me.”
The seductive offer, the dark rasp of his voice caressing the word "fuck" snatches my breath. I’m not sure which is more dangerous. Ezra taken or Ezra for the taking. Rarely have any of my sexual relationships been complicated. It was a release, a transaction of pleasure between two consenting adults who were free to transact with whomever they pleased.
I already know Ezra would be a different story.
“Ez—”