wait for nobody to give you nothing. Even your education you have to take. If the one they offer you isn’t enough, make your own.’”
“Is that how you’re so well-read? Or at least seem to be.” I raise my brows at him. “Or maybe that’s just how you pick up the smart girls?”
“Are you a smart girl, Bristol?” His voice fondles my name.
“You can’t turn off the flirt, can you?” I ask to distract myself from the fact that it’s working.
“Was I flirting?” He lifts one brow. “I wasn’t trying to. I wasn’t gonna bother because I assumed you weren’t into the brothers.”
A puff of air gets trapped in my throat as I try to draw a deep breath. I cough, aware of his eyes on me the whole time.
“That isn’t how I decide who I’m ‘into’, as you call it,” I say once I’ve cleared my airway.
“You telling me you’ve dated a Black guy before?” Surprise colors the look he gives me. Surprise and something else. Something warmer.
I wish I could surprise him, but I can’t.
“No, I’ve never dated a Black guy.” An imp prompts my next comment. “What am I missing?”
The warmth overtakes the surprise in his eyes, spiking to a simmer that heats the gold in his brown eyes molten.
“Oh, you don’t want to know.” Grip’s voice goes a shade darker. “It might spoil you for all the others.”
“You think so?” A sensual tension sifts into the air between us. “They say once you go Black.” He stretches out his smile. “You won’t go back.”
A laugh pops out of my mouth before I can check it. “And that’s your experience? Have you been disappointed by the rest of the female rainbow?”
My pulse slows while I wait for him to respond, like if my heart hammers I might miss an inflection in his voice. He puts me on high alert.
“Oh, no. By no means.” Grip leans back, considering me from under heavy eyelids. “I don’t care what color a girl is. I like the color of smart, the shade of funny, and sexy is my favorite hue.”
“If that isn’t a line, then I don’t know what it is,” I scoff, but his words tie a band around my chest that makes it harder to breathe.
“I’m not wasting my lines on you. You’re the kind of girl who wouldn’t respond to bullshit anyway.”
He assesses me shrewdly, and for a moment, I feel like he’s pushed up under my shell, insinuated himself under my skin to see the very bones no one has ever been privy to.
“So what color am I then?” I ask before thinking better of it. He’ll probably just say I’m white, obviously.
“What color are you?” he repeats, his eyes never leaving my face. “You, Bristol, are a freaking prism.”
6
GRIP
I NEED TO put the brakes on this.
It’s one thing to be secretly attracted to Rhyson’s sister. It’s another thing altogether to encourage her attraction to me.
And Bristol is attracted to me.
I know when a girl wants a taste. Some girls I look at and immediately know they’re slurpers. They’ll eat the soup and tip the bowl up, slurping greedily till the last drop. Bristol … she would eat you slowly, savor you in delicate bites until there’s nothing left of you but an empty plate. And then she would lick her fingers. She’s very sensual. It’s subtle, but I notice these things. The way she lifted her hair off her neck at lunch today to feel the ocean breeze. The way she explored the ridges of the empanada with her tongue before taking a bite, groaning when the flavors flooded her mouth. Her body seeks sensation, presses in to discover what the world offers to stimulate her. I don’t think she knows it about herself, and it’s a shame some man hasn’t taught her, but I can’t be that guy.
Though, I’d make an excellent instructor.
For the second time today, I find myself watching her sleep. I don’t watch chicks sleep, not even after I fuck them. It’s usually more of a … dilemma. More like … well, this is awkward. I really don’t want her to stay, but she fell asleep. My dick put her into a semi-coma, so I should at least let her sleep it off. That kind of thing. Certainly not noticing how her eyelashes make half-moon shadows on her cheeks. Or the satiny texture of her skin. Or the constellation of almost indiscernible freckles splattered across her nose because she was out in