Chapter 16
sixteen
. . .
Day Seven
Cassidy
On our last day on the island, I woke up to the sweet feeling of Hendrix’s face buried in between my thighs.
“Hendrix, stop it! What are you doing?” I giggled, knowing I wanted to pee and at least brush my teeth before we started up again. He’d been wearing my ass out over the past few days, and as tired as I was, I wasn’t going to turn down the D.
“Check out ain’t til’ noon, so I’m finna lick, suck, and fuck you til they throw us out this mothafucka,” he preached.
“Can I at least go to the bathroom first?”
He smirked. “Go ahead, but you already know what time it is when you get back.”
“Yeah, okay,” I said before prancing my naked body across the floor and closing the bathroom door behind me.
After flushing, I stood in front of the sink lathering my hands with soap and running them underneath the warm water.
While staring back at my reflection in the mirror, I started to think about the hell of a week I’d shared with Hendrix.
If anyone had asked me what I thought would happen on the island, finding solace in Hendrix Croft wouldn’t have been one of them.
Yet, I’d never felt more fulfilled—physically and emotionally.
Before I could reach out to turn off the faucet, Hendrix tapped on the door.
“Yeah?” I asked, shaking my hands dry.
“You good?”
I opened the door and lifted my eyes to his. One look at me, and I became transparent, baring more to him than a hairless pussy and a set of hard nipples. His eyes were filled with compassion coated in desire.
I cleared my throat. “Y—yeah.”
“Where’d you go just now?” he asked, swiping a few tousled braids behind my ear.
“Nowhere, I’m here. I’m good.”
“You sure?”
I forced a bright smile in his direction before making my way back over to the bed. “Yeah, I’m good. I promise.”
Even a blind man could see I was lying. Something had a hold on me, and he was six-foot-four and still had my love juices glistening across his face.
“So what happens now?” he asked, cuddling up beside me on the bed.
“I thought I was supposed to be gettin’ fucked and sucked until they threw us out of here,” I joked, mocking him.
He chuckled. “Nah, I mean between you and me when we leave here.”
My brows sloped as I sat up on my elbows. “What do you mean?”
“Contrary to what you think, you’re not just another notch in my belt, Cassidy. Fate brought us here. That shit brought us back together after all this time, tell me you don’t feel it too.”
I huffed. Hendrix did more than fulfill my body sexually, he fed my soul. He was a goddamn hazard to my health. I was prepared for our secret to stay between the sheets in St. Martin, but he was on some other shit.
“I just don’t get where all this is coming from. Like, why me? Why now?”
“I’ve had my eye on you since we were fuckin’ kids, Cass.
But you were the only female who never gave me the time of day.
You didn’t give a fuck about my money, what my father did, or nothin’.
Everybody around me was lookin’ to ride my coattails for a come up, and only a handful of niggas stayed down, family included.
You’re the realest girl I’ve ever met, and I’m not letting you get away again. ”
He sighed after letting those words fly out of his mouth and into the universe. His confession had left my thoughts in limbo. Let me get away again? When had I ever been his? Clearly, he wasn’t thinking straight.
“Hendrix, you were in Vegas and now you’re going thousands of miles away to play in Kansas City. I’m in San Jose. I’m sorry, but we both know it—it would never work.”
“That’s why we have access to airplanes, Cassidy. And then there’s the off season. Next,” he said, shooting down my best excuse.
Fuck, this nigga’s not taking no for an answer, I thought to myself.
He’s not serious. He can’t be serious. There’s no way he’s serious, right?
My anxieties and insecurities swarmed around my mind like a hive of angry bees.
We were far from the shallow end and seconds away from falling all the way in love.
“Tell me what you scared of.”
The genuine tone of his voice set fire to my core.
One thing I’d never been afraid of was love.
I was a lover of love, so much that it had been easy for me to become love drunk over a nigga, especially in my younger days.
I just couldn’t stand anymore embarrassment.
If I gave into Hendrix and he played me out, I didn’t think I could live it down.
“I just don’t want this to be a rebound thing for me or an only when you’re lonely thing for you,” I admitted.
“A rebound is irrelevant if I was here first, and I ain’t never had a problem being lonely, Cass.”
I kissed my teeth. “You know what I mean, Hendrix. I came here to get over a man, not find a whole new one!”
“That nigga wasn’t a man, and we both know it. I would never do no sucka shit like that to you. That’s not in my blood and you know it.”
“Hendrix, can we please just—”
“Listen, we can take this shit as slow or as fast as you want. I’ll give you time to heal, and when you’re ready just know I’m next up. I don’t have a problem sitting in the passenger seat if you’re the one driving, Cass.”
His words melted the cold, steel wall around my heart one syllable at a time. “This is crazy! This is absolute madness, Hendrix! We can’t be doing this, can we?” I asked, before burying my head in the palms of my hands.
Millions of thoughts raced through my computerized mind.
Half the time I wasn’t sure what I wanted, so when I did make a commitment that meant I was serious about it, and I didn’t know if I could say the same for him.
This was no longer just sex. Hendrix was talking about learning each other with hundreds if not thousands of miles between us.
I enjoyed quality time and just because he checked off many of my boxes, I didn’t know if I could handle the distance.
Of all the things I was unsure about, he wasn’t one of them.
Truth be told, I just wasn’t ready to let go.
Before responding, he cradled me in between his muscular arms and kissed the top of my head. “As far as I’m concerned, you’ve always been mine,” he whispered.
The End