6. Current
Current
W ork didn’t wait for a woman stuck on a man’s voice or his dick.
Whitaker Electric, Daddy’s business and my paycheck, had the bid for this new boutique hotel on Penn—where a laundromat and three row houses used to sit.
East Liberty, scrubbed and flipped. Money for the ones moving in, eviction for the ones moved out.
I smelled it in the sawdust and drywall, in the sweat and steel beams—progress dressed in loss.
I strapped my vest tight, climbed the third-floor stairs, gloves snug, cutters in hand.
Jerome hummed through his teeth like always, Big Mike cursed at a spool that wouldn’t behave, apprentices lugged conduit up like mules.
We moved like gears in Daddy’s machine—each splice and pull carrying his name.
Clean work meant the next contract. Sloppy meant Whitaker got dragged.
Normally, that rhythm steadied me. Strip. Twist. Cap. Pull. Same cadence Daddy drilled into me in the basement when I was twelve, telling me a steady hand meant a steady mind.
But my hands were steady today. My head wasn’t.
Every pull, every twist, all I saw was Quentin’s mouth between my legs, tongue dragging me into a scream. His voice in my ear, saying look at me . My pussy clenched just remembering how he drove into me after, greedy for every inch.
“Focus, Rae,” I muttered, jerking the wire harder than I meant to.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. I climbed down the ladder, flashlight tucked under my arm. Darren.
“Hey, Daddy Jr.,” I teased.
“Don’t call me that,” he groaned. “I’m not him.”
“You sound like him sometimes.”
“That’s age. Comes for us all.” His sigh rasped over the line. “Thinking about switching shifts. Nights are killing me. Barely see Keisha or the boys before bed.”
“You should. They need you.”
“Yeah,” he said. “But you know what else? They need me whole. Loneliness’ll eat a man alive if you let it.”
That line sat heavy. Kids of divorce knew it better than most. Splitting holidays, trading weekends, watching Mama and Daddy go from love to silence. Darren and me—we learned to keep it light. No long-term. No promises. Until he broke from the pack and fell in love with Keisha.
His voice softened. “You sound different today, Rae. Lighter. Like somebody’s got you smiling.”
My grip on the wire went stiff. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Means I know you,” he said, gentle but steady.
“We ducked commitment for years ‘cause we thought it would break us like it broke them. But sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes it works. And when I hear you today? I hear possibility. So if somebody’s got you smiling, don’t run from it.
And if he fucks it up…” His voice dropped into a warning I’d heard since childhood. “He’ll have to see me.”
That flicker of comfort—and annoyance—hit at once.
Typical Darren. Protective to the bone, like I hadn’t been grown long enough to collect my own scars.
But a flash of Vontrell still cut through—him lying slick and easy, promising me things he handed out to someone else behind my back.
Darren had been right there, fists balled, ready to make him pay until I begged him not to.
So yeah, I knew he meant it. If Quentin so much as breathed wrong in my direction, Darren would have no problem reminding him I had people who loved me.
But my mind shifted to Darren’s words… possibility . That was Quentin all over. Steady in a way that scared me more than his filthy mouth or how good his dick felt. His steadiness kissed like forever was already carved into his bones.
“Work’s been good. That’s all,” I lied, throat thick .
“Mhmm.” He didn’t press. “Just remember—it’s not weakness to want somebody. It’s survival.”
I let out a shaky laugh. “Look at you being wise.”
“Older brother privilege,” he said. “Love you, sis.”
“Love you too.”
We hung up, but his words stayed. Survival. Want somebody.
I stared at the stripped wire in my hand, gloves sweaty, pulse kicking. My body still sore, clit still aching in that good way, and my mouth still ruined from Quentin’s kisses. He’d kissed like forever, and my brother had the nerve to call it survival.
The lie I’d been running—reckless, just sex, just heat—felt flimsy as drywall dust. And when Quentin called later, inviting me to a real event, a real date, every excuse I had cracked like brittle wire.
By the time I finished the last outlet, the sun had dipped. I packed up, said goodnight to the guys, dust streaking my jeans, arms sore but satisfied. Daddy would be proud of this work. Clean, tight, solid.
I stripped off my dusty clothes when I got home, showered hot, and let the steam try—fail—to clear my head of Quentin Hale. The fog of lust clung harder than drywall dust ever did.
The phone buzzed as I wrapped in a towel.
“Girl, you alive?” Shawna asked, voice too loud through the speaker.
“Clearly.”
“You sound… happy. Suspiciously happy.”
“I had a good day.”
“Mmhmm. Or a good night. ”
“Shawna.”
She cackled, then went quiet, more pointed. “So? You shot pool with him, yeah, but… the date didn’t end there, did it?”
Heat rushed to my face. “Why you always fishing?”
“Because I know you, Rae,” she said, laughter threading with something else—envy, raw and honest. “I saw the way he looked at you. Like you were the whole damn game. Don’t tell me you just shook hands and went home.”
I smirked, even as my chest tightened. “Some things ain’t for public consumption.”
“Uh-huh.” Softer now. “Lucky you.”
That tugged something deep. I knew that sound.
Wanting. It mirrored the ache I’d carried before last night—before Quentin touched me, kissed me, split me until I couldn’t lie to myself anymore.
Shawna didn’t mean harm; her envy was never mean.
But I heard the ache in it, and it made me love her more.
“Don’t be jealous,” I said gently.
“Jealous?” she scoffed. “Maybe. But happy for you too. Just don’t disappear on me. I still need my partner-in-crime.”
“You could never get rid of me.”
“Good.” She exhaled. “See you Saturday. And Rae?”
“Yeah?”
“Whatever he’s doing, keep letting him. You deserve that glow.”
I smiled into the quiet after she hung up. Shawna had named it. Glow. And it scared the hell out of me. Because glow meant more than dick. Glow meant I was in trouble.
I sat there in just my towel, skin still warm from the shower, telling myself not to think about Quentin. Not to replay the way he kissed my forehead like I meant more than a night. Not to imagine his thick dick dragging in and out of me, my pussy gripping until I screamed.
My phone lit up.
Quentin: You up?
Me: Yeah. Why?
It took seconds for his reply.
Quentin: Been thinking about you. All day. Couldn’t stop. Had to stroke myself earlier just to breathe and to not beg to have you again. Still feel the way you threw me off count.
My thighs snapped together. The heat spreading low and fast at his honesty. It was intoxicating.
Me: You touching yourself to me?
Quentin: From now on it will always be you. The way you rode my dick. The way your pussy squeezed me. The way you screamed my name when you came all over me. I can’t get it out my head.
I pressed a hand to my stomach, breath shaky.
Me: You’re not right for telling me that when I’m already in bed.
Quentin: That’s exactly why I’m telling you. I want you messy before you sleep. Loud, even if I’m not there to hear it.
My nipples hardened under the towel, aching for his mouth.
Me: You’re terrible.
Quentin: No. I’m honest. And I can’t wait to have you again.
The towel slid off like my body had made the choice before my mind caught up. I dropped my phone, slid under the sheets, and let my hand go where he’d already lit me up.
I was soaked—slick spilling down my thighs before I even touched myself right. Two fingers spread it and I moaned, hips jerking, back arching against the mattress.
“Fuck, Quentin,” I whispered into the dark, circling my clit, my nipples hard points against the cool sheets.
My free hand gripped my breast, pinching until I gasped. My pussy clenched at nothing, desperate, so I pushed two fingers inside—fast, needy, obscene squelch filling the quiet.
“Harder,” I begged nobody but him, curling my fingers, rolling my hips like I was meeting his stroke.
In my head it was him—glasses gone, sweat dripping, pounding me until I broke. His voice rough in my ear: Don’t let go of me, Rayna.
“Quentin,” I cried, fucking my hand, cream coating my fingers as the heat coiled sharp and wild.
Then it snapped—orgasm ripping through me, pussy pulsing, body jerking as I squirted hard, soaking the sheets while his name tore out of my throat.
When it passed, I lay trembling, wrecked and wet, thighs twitching, sheets ruined, pussy still clenching around nothing.
A laugh slipped out, weak and breathless into the pillow. “Reckless.”
But the truth pulsed louder than the mess under me. Louder than my moans. Louder than the lies I tried to tell myself.
I wasn’t done.
I wanted Quentin Hale again. And soon.