Grip Trilogy Box Set - Kennedy Ryan Page 0,254

much,” I say, looking him in his eyes, letting him see the ache I’ve carried around while we were apart. I withhold nothing from him. Not my body—he can have it any way he wants it. Not my heart—flung open like a door for him to walk through. Not my soul—twisting around his every time he hammers up into me, possessing me from the inside out.

“God, Bris,” he says at my neck, scorching the skin with his breath. “I was going crazy. We can’t be apart like that. We just . . . we just can’t.”

Words of love and devotion tumble between us, swirling around us, cocooning us in the greenhouse. We are hothouse flowers, growing in plain sight, blossoming under tinted glass. Beyond the roof, stars burn light-years away, bright and already dying, but here, between us, brews a solar storm, a stellar explosion behind my eyes, a constellation of love and lust, dots connecting inside as I clench and squeeze through my orgasm. He stiffens beneath me, his fingers clutching tightly enough to bruise. I’ll bear marks in the shape of his hands, bites on my nipples, stubble burns inside my thighs, sensual mementos I’ll carry with me. I’ll wear his touch tomorrow under my clothes. The marks he’ll leave on my body will fade, but the way he’s marked me as his, the way he’s carved himself into my heart, that’s forever.

Chapter 12

Grip

“MMMMM.” The sweet taste of plantain explodes on my taste buds, and I squeeze my eyes shut in culinary rapture. “This food . . . damn.”

“What’d I tell ya?” Iz sips his rum before diving back into the plate of oxtails in front of him. “I love Miss Lilly’s.”

The Jamaican diner is packed, and the asymmetrical patterns and bright, clashing colors animate the space.

“And not too far from campus,” I mumble around a forkful of saltfish. “I need to bring Bris here. She would love this.”

“And I need to find a way to get paid every time you say that girl’s name.” Good-natured teasing gleams from behind his glasses.

I could tell him that she says the same thing about him. Over the last month, Bristol has settled in at our new place, and she teases me about how much I talk about Iz. We’ve become friends, but there’s still a level of awe I hold for him previously reserved for the likes of the MJs—Michael Jackson and Michael Jordan. It’s his ideas, his perspective that impresses me, though, not his prowess on a court or in the studio.

“It’s good,” Iz continues when I don’t answer. “You obviously love her.”

“Very much.” I gulp pink Ting, the cool liquid chasing the Caribbean flavors of my meal. “That’s my girl.”

“She’s ride or die, huh?”

I pause mid-chew as the memory of Bristol in the holding room, desperate, willing to bow to Parker’s sick demands to get me out of jail, jabs my brain.

“You could say that, yeah.”

I consider him across the table. We haven’t really talked much about our personal lives. He knows I have a girlfriend I’m serious about and that she moved to New York with me. He knows, obviously, that I’m a musician, but most of our discussions have centered on mass incarceration, police brutality, and fatherlessness in the black community—issues we’re both passionate about. We’ve run the gamut of ills, and I admire his intelligence and insight more than anyone’s, but I can’t say I know much about him. He’s not what I imagined he would be. He’s a cool cat with his vintage kicks and elbow patch sports coats. Though I hold him in the highest esteem, he’s only a few years older than I am, I’m guessing in his late thirties. There has to be quite a story behind a guy as relatively young as he is accomplishing so much.

“What about you?” I probe. “Wife? Kids?”

He drinks his rum, his face unreadable before he replies. “Divorced. One daughter.”

“How old’s your little girl?”

“She’s six,” he says. “She and her mom are still back in Philly. I see her all the time when I’m there, not as much while I’m teaching here this semester.”

“You got pictures?”

I ask because I know I’ll be obnoxious with my shit, showing everyone pictures of our kids once Bristol and I have them. I’ll be one of those dads. I never had one to be proud of me, but mine will, and if it’s a girl? I’ll probably buy my first shotgun the day she’s born.

A tiny smile cracks the