Sincere SNIPPET
This teaser is unedited.
LUNA —Flighty
The scent of his cologne suppressed my desire to return the compliment. It sexually harassed me, intensifying the heat between my thighs and diminishing the brain cells inside my head. His ass didn’t need any further ego inflation. Bereft of speech, I remained silent.
The descent of his eyes was detected as he stepped closer.
“Sin,” I recovered my voice, issuing a warning that felt more like a plea.
“Cere,” he floated the remainder of his name dangerously close to the mine of my body.
“You’re the furthest thing from that,” I half-whispered, feeling a breakdance begin in my chest.
“It’s been a long ass time,” he breezed, inches from my frame. “You don’t have an inkling what I am these days. Let me feed you and buy you a drink. I’d love to catch up with you,” he floated, running his tongue the width of his bottom lip.
“Catch up?”
“You ain’t tired of running?” He asked, hiking one of his perfectly thick brows and eyeing me down. I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t stand his delectably fine ass. I couldn’t stand that I still wanted him after all these years.
“Get out of my way.” Ignoring his question, I issued the command, hoping he’d make the already difficult interaction between us simple.
His hands planted on either side of the wall where I stood, fencing me in place.
“I ain’t tired of chasing,” his voice dipped, causing a zoo to stampede in my chest.
“Sincere…”
“I’d chase you to the ends of the earth. Back up the stratosphere, mesosphere, exosphere…”
The heat of his breath tickled my skin. The minty freshness, a scent so deliciously tempting.
“Move,” I chuckled. Swallowing the pool of saliva forming unsolicited in my mouth, I tried not to let the way he affected my body show. Tried not to let the quickening in my chest reveal itself, or the desire between my legs to weep seep too deep. Or my mouth to say that I needed him to touch me. I tried.
[REMOVED CONTENT]
***
Sincere pulled me close, grabbing handfuls of my ass as his tongue located my mouth. He kissed me deeply, silencing my mewls and purrs. In and out, round and round, he sucked my tongue. His tongue danced in my mouth in an ethereal tempo before he brushed alongside my neck, sucking and biting. He nipped my earlobe, again stimulating the whimpering of my vocals. He peppered my face with kisses, stealing my makeup. Tugged my lips into his mouth again, salvaging my breath.
His hands found the zipper to my jumpsuit at the base of my neck and dragged the enclosing apparatus downward. They gently slid and tugged the fabric covering my bare skin away from my limbs. Entirely naked and vulnerable, I heaved. I wasn’t the same twenty-four-year-old from years past. Nor was I the same as I was a few years ago. My body was thicker and richer, with more cushion and stretch marks than before. Sincere’s eyes raked over me with light from the hall casting shadows over my frame.
“Damn, Lu. You all grown woman now,” he smirked, licking his lips with his gaze full of lust. “Gorgeous.”
His mouth was on me again, scouring my depths, eating my cries. His head dipped toward my chest, flicking his tongue over a single breast. He stuffed a nipple into his mouth and bit down, flicked his tongue, and sucked before alternating to the opposite one to give it equal attention.
His teeth dug into those chocolate lips while he unbuckled his jeans, conveying his need. Intently, I watched, eager to be reacquainted with the tool that caused my body to submit to him foolishly years ago. The hammer I once couldn’t get enough of was freed and massaged. Chocolate, lengthy, and veiny, it dripped with precum that belonged on my tongue. Hungrily, my mouth watered to taste it between my lips and feel it between my fingertips.
“Turn around, Lulu.”
[REMOVED CONTENT]
***
Flighty in heart. A man wouldn’t break me before I could break him.
For me, love was met with absence and an inability to compromise after a certain amount of time had elapsed. I was selfish and insistent on meeting my own needs. My love, too, had an expiration date. Toxicity at paramount. Some of my past relationships were indeed people I needed to leave, while in others, I’d been the destructive fire, greedily devouring and destroying everything in my path. I thought that by studying my trauma, by becoming a psychologist, I would fix the broken in me. It’s much easier to pick apart everyone else’s disease. The eye cannot see itself.
And then Sincere came. Twin to my flame. A reflection. Triggers and glimmers.
Everything changed with him. He welcomed me to lay my bags down and allowed me to take up space. My luggage filled the rooms. My pain coated the walls. Did I love Sincere Miller? Of course. Irrevocably and indisputably, I loved that fool of a man. I peeled away that angry, rigid layer I wore like a shield and let him see me. The real me. The soft me. The free me. I told him of my past romantic hurts. I shared my fears. My dreams. And then that nigga came and said I was crowding his space.
SINCERE —Janitorial Soul
“Brother.”
“Tori.”
I shifted the phone, placing it on speaker as I sat back in the recording studio. With an unhealthy obsession for harmonious sound, I loved to sit in on sessions with new artists as they laid their tracks down. It was late. The witching hour late. Get caught slipping late. Nothing open, but legs late. I hadn’t been expecting Tori’s call, not since our falling out a few months back. I certainly hadn’t expected it at just shy of four A.M.
[REMOVED CONTENT]
The world is capable of shrinking. At least, my world. I’ve experienced it on more than one occasion. The first was when [REMOVED] was murdered. The second was today. The blunt I toked as if my lungs required it to breathe slipped from my fingertips, igniting my hands to rush to my lap and slap the offending fiery cigar to the floor. The embers dug into the carpet, inciting the stampede of my foot as I sought to kill a fire before it began. In that instance, I felt myself sinking. Sinking and shrinking. The kind a man does right before tapping into blind rage and fury. Like a hot kettle, I was seething. Much like the destroyed blunt, I couldn’t go there, though.
I had not seen [REMOVED] in four months, and some change. I distinctly remembered [REMOVED] that night in the back of the rideshare. My thoughts taunted me. Even with those facts, the math equation Victoria offered failed to compute. I recalibrated myself in my seat, discarded ash from my lap, and calculated the timing again. Yeah. It was four months ago that I’d been [REMOVED]. A little over six months since I’d reentered her world at the fashion show and lost my mind in an eclipse. Defeated by that darkness, only three months ago had I discarded my pursuit of her heart. If [REMOVED] were trying to take advantage of a man’s intelligence, she’d have to cast her net wider. He wasn’t me.
“You got the wrong nigga, Tori.”
[REMOVED CONTENT]
I stood, looking for a broom to sweep the mess of wasted marijuana from the floor.
“No, the hell I don’t,” she fought. [REMOVED CONTENT]
There was silence as I swept the mess into a standing dustpan.
I swept.
And swept.
And swept at nothing
unaware I’d swept all
my thoughts and feelings
into that pile.
I made myself
appear squeaky clean
but beneath the surface
there was still a mess.