Page 52 of Justice

My man is a monster in an eight-thousand-dollar suit. My man ended my illustrious career. My man is the reason I answer to a name that isn’t mine.

My man was standing in your casino Friday night.

I swallowed all of it back down and gave him the shape of the truth with the face filed off.

“He left me,” I said. “For my sister.”

Justice’s head came around so fast I almost laughed.

“He did what?”

“Mm hm.”

”Your sister?”

“My sister.”

“Nah, where he at? For real. Say the word, I’ll go whoop his ass tonight. We can go over there right now,” he said as he sat up as if he were ready to go to war.

“Justice.”

“I ain’t playing with you.”

“I know you’re not.” That was exactly what scared me. “Please don’t. It’s water under the bridge.”

“Fuckin’ around with me he’ll end up under a bridge with cement on his ankles. Skye, that’s foul,” he muttered. “That’s just fucked up.”

“It was.”

“Your own sister.” He shook his head, then sat back, and after a minute the corner of his mouth pulled up. “I mean. I guess if he ain’t leave you for your sister, you wouldn’t be here right now. Sitting in my house. Drinking my wine.”

My chest turned over.

“So really,” he said, “I owe that man a thank-you card.”

I laughed. It came out of me before I could stop it.

He wasn’t laughing.

He was looking at my mouth.

Whatever was in my face must have said yes, because he reached over and slid his hand along my jaw into my hair, and he leaned in slow enough for me to stop it a hundred times.

I didn’t stop it.

He kissed me. And every wall I’d spent five years building came down in about four seconds.

He kissed me like a man who’d been thinking about it for weeks, patient at first, then not patient at all. I heard a sound come out of me I didn’t recognize. His hand slid down my throat, over my collarbone, splayed wide across my ribs, and he pulled me up out of that seat and into his lap like I weighed nothing.

“Tell me to stop,” he said against my mouth.

“Don’t stop.”

“Say it plain.”

“Don’t you dare stop.”

His hands were everywhere—rough, insistent, like he’d been waiting for this moment just as long as I had. The kiss deepened, his tongue sliding against mine, and I melted into him, my fingers tangling in the soft curls at the nape of his neck. I could feel the hardness of his dick against my thigh, and the heat between my legs pulsed in response.