21. Sonnet Ellison
SONNET ELLISON
Knowing Vega had been having sex with a woman who looked like Elana should’ve ruined my night. But I couldn’t deny the way he dismissed Elana. He had pushed away a perfect woman in front of everybody and showed me and everyone else that how I felt mattered more than her pride.
So, I decided to ignore Elana staring daggers into our section all night and let the liquor warm me up. The liquor and watching the strippers give sexy lap dances had my hormones raging. I was both jealous and turned on when the dancers would climb onto Vega’s lap and dance on him.
Lux and Lowe got dances from damn near every dancer.
The women didn’t even wait to get summoned.
They beelined to them. It seemed as if they had slept with every stripper circling them, and if they hadn’t, they had definitely made those women believe they could.
What surprised me was how much they danced too, and they moved like they knew exactly what to do in a bedroom.
Vega placed a thick stack of money in my hand. “Throw it.”
I looked down at the cash. “All of this?”
“Yes, baby.”
He laughed at how I looked down at the bills that had to equal a thousand dollars. A dancer came into our section with long legs, glitter on her skin, and a smile. She turned in front of me, bent over until I could see the pink of her pussy and my eyes widened.
Vega laughed beside me. “Go ahead.”
“What am I supposed to do?”
“Throw the money, Glasses”
I tossed a few bills, awkwardly at first.
Lux groaned. “Girl, that was sad.”
“Leave me alone,” I said, laughing.
The dancer looked back at me. “You can slap it too, Pretty.”
My face went hot.
Vega’s eyes moved to mine. “You heard her.”
“I’m not doing that!” I squealed.
The dancer laughed and moved closer, giving me no choice but to participate. I slapped her ass lightly, and everybody in the section started cracking up at my piss pour efforts.
“Harder than that,” Prodigy called out.
Vega handed me more money, and soon there were dancers all around us. Some climbed into the section. Some bent in front of me. Some let me throw money across their bodies while they smiled, danced, and told me I was pretty.
Then one of them eased onto my lap.
I froze as she touched my shoulders, rolled her body against mine, and moved with a sexual rhythm. I didn’t know where to put my hands, so Vega reached over and guided one to her hip.
His eyes stayed on me, and that stare ruined me. He watched every reaction, breath, and nervous laugh. The dancer grinded against me, but Vega’s attention was what made need gather between my thighs until my clitoris thumped with frustration.
By the time the dancer climbed off my lap, my panties were ruined. I was wet, flustered, and entirely too aware of Vega watching me.
“I need to use the bathroom,” I said, standing before my body exposed me further.
Vega stood too.
I looked at him, confused. “Where are you going?”
“With you.”
“Why? Aren’t we safe here?”
His eyes moved over the club before returning to me.
“Security’s heavy at the door. Nobody from Roman’s crew will make it inside, and nobody who looked suspect got past the entrance.
The only people in here with guns are us and security.
You’re fine. Roman wouldn’t pull anything with all the Street Kings here. ”
“Then I’m good. I’ll be right back.”
“You got ten minutes before I come in there and get you.”
The way he said it sent another rush of heat between my thighs.
For a second, neither of us moved. His eyes stayed on mine with enough intensity to make me forget the entire club around us. My panties got worse before I could even walk away.
I turned away before he noticed. The crowd was packed so tight that I had to squeeze between bodies, tables, dancers, and women dancing. By the time I reached the bathroom, I needed a minute just to breathe.
The bathroom was full of patrons and dancers fixing makeup, adjusting outfits, counting money, and talking over the music.
Elana stood at the mirror. She was touching up her lip gloss when I walked in, watching me through the mirror without pretending not to. I ignored her and went into the stall.
After I used the bathroom, I dug through my purse and found a pantiliner.
A quiet giggle slipped out. My life had gotten ridiculous.
I didn’t even know what me and Vega were.
He had feelings for me. But I didn’t fully trust my feelings for him.
He had been all I’d known for a month. He was my kidnapper and my protector.
He was the man who scared me and made me feel safe in the same breath.
Of course, I felt attached.
Of course, I wanted him.
Still, I had gotten to know him in ways that didn’t feel fake. We cooked together, slept beside each other, argued, laughed, watched TV, and survived people trying to kill us. That had to create feelings that I could believe in and trust.
I left the stall and found Elana still at the mirror. I washed my hands anyway.
Elana turned her body toward me and smiled. “Vega isn’t going to stop fucking me.”
I reached for a paper towel, refusing to let her see my jealousy. “Then you should probably tell him that, because he looked very unaware.”
One of the dancers laughed under her breath, and Elana glared at her, making the dancer pull her lips into her mouth to keep from doing it again.
I turned from the sink and faced Elana. “You climbed into his lap in front of everybody, and he moved you like you were blocking a much better view. Now you’re in the bathroom trying to convince me you still matter to him. That sounds less like proof and more like grief.”
“Oop,” somebody grunted.
A few women near the mirrors giggled.
Elana’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”
I shrugged, giving her an exaggerated oblivious smirk. “You’re right. But I know rejection when I see it.”
“Don’t think anything that he said out there makes you special,” she seethed.
“I don’t think I’m special. But I do think that because you feel the need to announce you still have access to him, you’re embarrassed that he played you in front of me.”
The woman washing her hands beside me snorted a chuckle and turned toward her friend.
Elana lifted her chin to look more confident than she felt at the moment. “Bitch, I’m not embarrassed.”
“You should be.” I tossed the paper towel into the trash. “I know you tried your best to be the baddest bitch, and that’s what makes this so disappointing.”
Laughter broke out behind me.
Elana’s nostrils flared. “You can’t possibly be a better bitch than me.”
I tilted my head, giving her a sympathetic gaze. “I love how you don’t let facts get in the way of your opinions.”
A dancer near the stalls bent over laughing. “Damn.”
Elana pointed at me. “You think you cute with that smart ass mouth?”
“No, I know I’m smart. Cute is just a bonus,” I quipped as I looked her over. “You’re probably the first person I’ve ever met who has reached her fullest potential.”
The bathroom erupted in laughter.
Elana’s face twisted with rage. “Fuck you.”
“Intelligence is chasing you, but you run so much faster.”
“Girl!” somebody bellowed with laughter from the mirror.
Elana tried to laugh it off, but it came out fake. “Vega likes real women. Not little nerdy girls playing dress up.”
“Anytime I think I’m less of a woman, I’ll remember bitches like you exist, and I’ll feel better immediately.” Her smile vanished as I stepped closer. “And since we’re being honest, I’m sure he envies the men who never fucked you.”
A few women screamed out in laughter.
Elana’s eyes dropped into a glare meant to scare me, but I had already been kidnapped, hunted, and shot at. A jealous bitch with hurt feelings wasn’t about to be the thing that took me out.
Elana’s hand twitched at her side, as if she was ready to swing on me, but I smiled wider. “Somewhere there is a tree providing you oxygen. Find it and apologize.”
Rage reddened her cheeks as she took one more step toward me.
I didn’t move. I just looked down at her the same way Vega had looked at her when he told her to get off his lap.
“You already got rejected once tonight,” I told her. “Don’t make me embarrass you twice.”
Elana stood there with her jaw working, trying to find something witty and cold enough to throw back at me, but she couldn’t.
Laughing, I turned and walked past her before she could recover, leaving her in the bathroom with every woman in there laughing at her.
The ride back from the club felt worse than being inside it. At least inside, the music, dancers, liquor, and people gave me somewhere else to put my eyes. In Vega’s car, there was only him and the ache between my thighs that refused to let me think about anything else.
I sat in the passenger seat with my legs crossed, irritated that my body still hadn’t recovered from the way Vega had watched me all night. I had never had a man take me in with his eyes like that.
He looked at me like I was home.
I wanted to be touched so bad that it made me mad. I didn’t understand how he could have feelings for me but resist me.
Driving with one hand on the wheel, Vega suddenly said, “You’re quiet.”
“I’m thinking.”
“About?”
“I understand that you want me to choose you when I’m truly free. You want me free enough to know the difference between wanting you and needing you to survive.”
He glanced at me but didn’t speak.
“And I get that,” I continued. “I really do. But you still treat me like I’m yours in every other way. You protect me like I’m yours. You get jealous like I’m yours. You look at me like I’m yours. Then when I want to feel that, you pull back.”
Vega didn’t answer right away.
I looked out the window, embarrassed by how honest I was. “That’s what I’m thinking about.”
The silence was insufferable. I felt so exposed, but finally he replied, “My feelings for and attraction to you don’t erase how we met.”
“So, you get to decide what I’m capable of choosing now?”
“That’s not what I said.”
“It’s what you keep doing. You keep acting like I can’t know what I want because of how we met.”
“You can know what you want,” he said. “But I need you to be sure. Because once you give yourself to me, Sonnet, you’re mine.”
My mouth went dry.
He glanced at me then, and the look on his face made the ache between my legs pulse harder.
“You’re quiet now,” he said.
“I thought you said we had to wait until this Roman shit was over.”
“I did.”
“So?”
“I plan on getting it over as soon as possible so we can get us started.”
Us.
I swallowed. “’Us’ sounds very confident for a man who keeps dodging me.”
“I’m not dodging you. I’m trying not to ruin us before we get started.”
I rolled my eyes.
His hand shifted on the wheel. “How experienced are you?”
Heat rushed to my face.
He looked annoyed with himself before he even continued. “I don’t want to know about another man touching you. That’s not something I’m excited to hear.”
“Then why ask?”
“Because I need to know what you’re used to before I touch you the way I want to.”
Those words reached places in me they shouldn’t have.
“Before this goes any further, I need to know what’s new for you and what isn’t.”
I stared at him.
“I’m not asking to judge you,” he said. “I’m asking because I don’t want to move faster than you’re ready for.”
The car felt too small. I looked down at my hands, thinking about all the men who had kissed me and promised patience until patience bored them.
I thought about hands under shirts, mouths on my neck, fingers trying to convince me to give more.
I thought about stopping things before intercourse and hearing disappointment dressed up as jokes but some just plain obvious and hurtful.
“I’ve done things,” I said carefully. “I’m not a hermit. I know how to please a man. I’ve given men orgasms. I’ve just never been penetrated by dick.”
In response, his fingers flexed on the wheel and his eyes narrowed as if he were thinking.
Outside that car, we lived two separate lives. I lived in books. He lived in the streets. I dodged bills. He dodged bullets. Beyond the homes he had hidden me in, we made no sense. But inside the car, none of that stopped me from wanting him.
“I know you told me that you’re not involved with anyone, but how do I know you won’t go back to fucking the Elana’s, go back to your previous lifestyle? You’re an attractive man with a lot of money. How do I—”
He suddenly stopped the car in the middle of the street and placed a finger beneath my chin, silencing me.
“Guardami. (Look at me.)”
Fuck.
Suddenly, I regretted not bringing more pantiliners with me. I had ruined the one I’d worn and had to take it off. Now, I was leaking through my thong and possibly onto the expensive ass leather of his car seats.
I batted my eyes, staring up at him.
“There is no previous lifestyle waiting for me,” he insisted.
“What replaced it?”
He held my stare long enough to answer without words.
Suddenly, someone behind us blew their horn. The sudden blare made me tear my eyes away from him. He finally put his eyes back on the road and pressed the gas.
“Do you want to give me your virginity?” he asked.
My breath caught. He didn’t soften the question. He didn’t dress it up. He placed it in front of me and waited.
I turned toward him, my answer already rising.
“Think before you speak,” he interrupted.
I closed my mouth, and his eyes cut to mine for one second, then returned to the road.
“Think all the way through it, Glasses. Because once you give me permission, I’m taking it.”