CHAPTER 9
Miley’s POV:
The heavy, metallic thud of the Nissan Patrol Nismo’s door closing behind me felt like the official curtain drop on a movie I had no business starring in.
Marcus gave me a polite, silent nod through the glass, his gloved hands resting on the steering wheel as he pulled away from the curb, leaving me standing on the cracked pavement of my block.
It was exactly six o’clock in the evening.
The Harlem air was thick with the scent of halal carts, exhaust fumes, and the heavy, humid heat of a June twilight.
I stood there for a second, my designer flats resting on the concrete, adjusting the strap of my Telfar bag.
My lips still felt slightly numb, tingling with the phantom weight of Helisa Smith’s mouth.
My skin still carried the expensive, sharp scent of her French perfume and the crisp, lingering acidity of vintage Dom Pérignon.
I felt like a walking contradiction—a girl from the block wrapped in the sensory armor of the corporate elite, trying to remember how to breathe normally.
I climbed the five flights of stairs to my apartment, my thighs aching from the sheer physical and emotional weight of the day.
When I finally reached our door, I dug my keys out of my bag, jammed the brass into the deadbolt, and pushed it open, expecting the usual sight of Terra’s dirty sneakers by the shoe rack and the low hum of the television playing reality reruns.
Instead, the minute the door swung back, a thick, intoxicating wave of vanilla bean and midnight amber hit me right in the face.
I froze on the threshold. The hallway lights were turned completely off, but the entire space was illuminated by the flickering, warm glow of at least a dozen scented tea lights lined up meticulously along the baseboards.
And there, scattered across the cheap linoleum floor like a trail of crimson breadcrumbs, was a dense path of fresh, velvet red rose petals.
The trail wound past the coat rack, straight through the narrow corridor, and disappeared right under the crack of Terra’s bedroom door.
"What the fuck?" I muttered under my breath, my voice dropping into the quiet apartment.
I loved a good scent—hell, anyone who knew me knew I kept my room smelling like a botanical garden—but I had absolutely no idea Terra would go all romantic on a bitch like this.
When we had our little playtime this morning before I rushed out to catch a Uber to E-Tech, it was pure, unadulterated lust. It was an itch that needed scratching, a quick, chaotic burst of adrenaline between two roommates who knew exactly where the boundaries were.
Or so I thought. By the looks of this setup, Terra wasn't just trying to get her back cracked anymore; she was getting sentimental.
She was turning a mutual craving into a whole-ass Hallmark movie, and a sudden knot of apprehension tightened in my stomach.
I was just trying to satiate my baseline desires, but now I was walking into an emotional minefield.
"Terra! Terra!" I called out, my voice echoing off the thin drywall of the living room.
Silence. The flickering shadows of the candles danced against the wall.
"Yo, Terra! Stop playing with me, girl!" I called out again, stepping carefully over the crimson petals so I wouldn't crush them beneath my work flats.
Still, no one answered. But just as I reached the edge of the kitchen counter, I caught the soft, unmistakable sound of silk sliding against wood, a faint shuffling coming from behind the refrigerator alcove.
A second later, Terra sauntered out into the amber glow of the hallway, and my breath caught in my throat.
She looked absolutely beautiful—and sexy as hell.
She was wearing a loose, flowing cherry-red silk robe that hung precariously off one of her smooth, dark shoulders.
The tie around her waist was loose, deliberately parted down the middle to reveal a skimpy, matching red lace lingerie set that left absolutely nothing to the imagination.
The bra cups were sheer, lifting her full breasts, and below the curve of her hips, the thin, razor-thin strap of a matching red G-string cut cleanly across her smooth skin, highlighting the thick, flawless curve of her thighs.
She was holding a crystal champagne flute in her right hand, her acrylic nails clicking against the glass as she took a slow, deliberate sip, her eyes locked onto mine with a smoky, predatory gaze that was entirely ghetto-fabulous and completely unapologetic.
"Who calls?" Terra said, her voice dropping into a low, sultry purr that had a distinct, slow hood cadence to it.
She sauntered over to me, her hips swinging with an intentional, heavy rhythm that made the silk of her robe billow behind her like a cape.
Before I could even open my mouth to crack a joke, she stepped right into my personal space.
She didn't say another word; she just reached up with her free hand, her long, manicured fingers wrapping around the leather strap of my Telfar bag, lifting it off my shoulder with a smooth, fluid motion.
She set the bag down on the entryway table, then turned around and placed her champagne flute next to it on the coffee table with a soft clink.
Without asking for permission, Terra stepped directly behind my back. Her hands, warm and smelling of high-end cocoa butter, came down hard on the base of my neck, her thumbs immediately digging into the rigid, knotted muscles of my shoulders.
"What’s all this for, Terra?" I asked, my voice coming out a little weaker than I intended as I looked around the candlelit living room. "For real, you went out and bought out the whole flower shop?"
"This right here?" Terra whispered, her breath hot and smelling faintly of cheap moscato against the shell of my ear.
She leaned closer, her lips brushing the edge of my jaw before her teeth came down in a gentle, agonizingly slow nibble on my earlobe.
"This is for someone special named Palmer.
A bitch had to roll out the red carpet for the baddest intern in Midtown. "
She kept digging her thumbs into my shoulders, her deft fingers finding the exact spots where the stress of dealing with Helisa and the Tokyo files had accumulated over the last eight hours.
She massaged the tension with a fierce, heavy pressure, and despite my internal panic about her getting too attached, I couldn't help but heave a long, deep sigh of relief, my head dropping forward as her hands worked their magic.
"Look, Terra," I sighed, my voice raspy as I kicked off my tight patent-leather heels, letting them thud against the floorboards.
"Although I like it and all... for real, this is too much, girl. I thought I was just gonna come home, carry your ass straight to the bedroom, show you a good-ass time like we talked about this morning, and that’s it.
But you went all romantic on me, babe. You got candles lit like we about to perform an anniversary ritual. "
Terra didn't stop digging into my shoulders, but her rhythm slowed down, her touch becoming heavier, more deliberate.
"This is a special-ass moment for me, Miley," Terra said, her voice dropping the sultry act for a second, her raw hood tonality bleeding through the sweetness.
"I ain't never been with another woman before, you know that.
Much less my fucking best friend. I been thinking about this shit all day while you was at your fancy corporate office.
So yeah, a bitch wanted it to be special. I wanted it to look right."
Before I could process the heavy emotion in her voice, Terra caught me by the waist and spun me around in one swift motion, forcing my back against the wall.
She looked directly into my eyes, her gaze fierce and burning with a raw, undisguised hunger that made my stomach flip.
She didn't give me room to argue. She reached up, her hands cupping the sides of my face, and took my lips into her mouth in a heat-searing, territorial kiss.
***
The kiss was intense. Terra was pulling my lower lip between her teeth, her tongue immediately sweeping into my mouth with a wild, urgent desperation that tasted like sweet wine and raw, unfiltered Brooklyn energy.
She was kissing me like she was trying to prove something, her body pressing hard against mine, the silk of her robe rubbing against the rough fabric of my blazer.
But as her tongue moved against mine, a strange, toxic thing happened inside my head.
My brain, completely independent of my control, instantly started running a comparative analysis.
While Terra was pouring her soul into my mouth, I found myself thinking back to the backseat of the Nissan Patrol Nismo.
I found myself remembering the cool, calculated, yet terrifyingly dominant way Helisa Smith had taken my mouth—the smooth, liquid precision of her tongue, the taste of high-end espresso and vintage French bubbles.
I didn't know why my mind did that to me—it felt dirty, like a betrayal right in the middle of my own living room—but it did. And the second the realization hit me, a sharp, bitter bolt of guilt shot straight through my chest. I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that Helisa’s lips and her kiss were far more spectacular, far more intoxicating than what Terra was giving me right now.
Terra was raw hunger; Helisa was an elite execution.
Terra pulled her lips back a fraction of an inch, her breath coming in short, ragged gasps against my mouth, completely oblivious to the corporate ghost currently sitting in my head.
She stepped back a pace, spreading her arms wide to showcase her outfit in the amber candlelight, her hips tilting forward playfully.
"You like the outfit, or what?" Terra asked, a smug, ghetto-slick smile spreading across her lips as she showcased the red lace lingerie and the loose silk robe. "I know you see the vision, Miley."