1. AMAI LANDRY #4
She stopped and looked down at me.
“Leave it,” I said.
Her pulse jumped under my fingers. “You sure?”
I stood, still holding her wrist, and pulled her closer. She came willingly, her body fitting against mine like it always did.
“I’m sure.”
She tilted her head back, her eyes searching mine. “Rough day?”
“You could say that.”
“You need to talk about it?”
“No.”
“Then what do you need?”
I didn’t answer with words.
I kissed her.
Hard. Hungry. The kind of kiss that wasn’t about romance or tenderness—it was about release. About burning off the violence still coiled tight in my chest.
She kissed me back just as hard, her hands fisting in my shirt, pulling me closer. Layla didn’t do soft. She didn’t do gentle. She matched my intensity, met my hunger with her own.
I backed her against the island, my hands sliding down to grip her hips. She gasped into my mouth, her body arching into mine.
“Upstairs,” she breathed.
“No.”
I lifted her onto the island, stepped between her thighs, and kissed her again. Her legs wrapped around my waist, pulling me in, and I felt the heat of her even through our clothes.
My hands moved to the hem of her tank top, pulling it up and over her head. She wasn’t wearing a bra. Her breasts were perfect—full, firm, dark nipples already hard.
I bent my head and took one into my mouth.
She moaned, her fingers threading through my hair, holding me there. I sucked hard, then bit down gently, and she gasped, her hips rolling against me.
“Amai.”
I pulled back and looked up at her. Her eyes were half-closed, her lips parted, her chest rising and falling with quick breaths.
“Say it again,” I said.
“Amai.”
I kissed her again, slower this time, tasting the wine on her tongue. My hands moved to the waistband of her leggings, and I pulled them down along with her underwear in one smooth motion.
She was already wet.
I slid two fingers inside her, and she cried out, her head falling back, her hands gripping the edge of the island.
“Fuck.”
I worked her slowly, deliberately, watching the way her body responded. The way her thighs trembled. The way her breath hitched every time I curled my fingers just right.
“Look at me,” I said.
She did. Her eyes locked on mine, dark and desperate.
“You want more?”
“Yes.”
I pulled my fingers out, brought them to my mouth, and tasted her. She watched, her pupils dilating, her breath coming faster.
I unbuckled my belt, unzipped my pants, and freed myself. I was already hard—had been since the moment I touched her.
I pulled her to the edge of the island, positioned myself, and pushed inside her in one hard thrust.
She screamed.
I didn’t give her time to adjust. I fucked her hard, fast, the way I needed to. The violence from earlier was still there, still burning, and this was the only way to let it out.
Layla took it. Took all of it. Her nails dug into my shoulders, her legs tightened around my waist, and her body met mine thrust for thrust.
“Harder,” she gasped.
I obliged.
The sound of our bodies colliding filled the kitchen—skin on skin, her moans, my ragged breathing. I gripped her hips hard enough to bruise, pulling her onto me with every thrust.
“Amai… fuck… I’m?—”
“Not yet.”
I slowed down, pulled almost all the way out, then slammed back in. She whimpered, her whole body shaking.
“Please—”
“Not. Yet.”
I kept her on the edge, building her up and pulling her back, over and over, until she was begging.
“Please… Amai. Please?—”
I leaned down, my mouth at her ear. “Come.”
She shattered.
Her orgasm hit hard, her body clenching around me, her cries echoing off the walls. I felt it—felt her lose control, felt her surrender completely—and it pushed me over the edge.
I came with a growl, my hips jerking, my hands gripping her so tight I knew she’d have marks tomorrow.
We stayed like that for a long moment, both of us breathing hard, our bodies still connected.
Finally, I pulled out and stepped back.
Layla sat up slowly, her legs still shaking, her skin flushed and damp with sweat. She looked at me with those dark, knowing eyes.
“Feel better?” she asked.
I pulled my pants back up and buckled my belt. “Yeah.”
She smiled—small and satisfied. “Good.”
She slid off the island, picked up her clothes, and walked toward the stairs without looking back.
I watched her go, my pulse finally starting to slow, the violence finally starting to fade.
The hunger was satisfied.
For now.
I turned back to the kitchen, looked at the dishes still on the counter, the wine glasses half-empty.
Tomorrow, I’d deal with Raymond. With the surrogacy search. With the contract and the woman who’d signed it.
But tonight, I’d burned off the darkness.
And that was enough.
Laughter erupted from the hallway off the kitchen—loud, obnoxious, unmistakable.
“Goddamn, cuz!” Syx’s voice carried before he did. “You be fuckin’ the shit outta your chef lady!”
He stepped into view, all six-foot-one of him, locs swinging past his shoulders, that cocky-ass grin plastered across his dark-skinned face like he’d just won something. He was wearing a white Amiri shirt and joggers, looking entirely too comfortable in my house at damn near midnight.
My jaw tightened.
“Syx.”
“What?” He threw his hands up, still laughing. “I ain’t lyin’. Y’all was goin’ crazy in here. I heard everything from the game room.”
Layla’s footsteps paused on the stairs. I didn’t look at her, but I felt her hesitation—deciding whether to keep going or come back down. She kept going. Smart woman.
I turned my full attention to Syx, and the temperature in the room dropped.
“How many times,” I said, my voice low and controlled, “have I told you to stop lurking around my house?”
“Lurking?” Syx scoffed, leaning against the doorframe like he didn’t have a care in the world. “Man, I ain’t lurkin’. I live here. I was sleep. Y’all the ones who woke me up with all that moanin’ and shit.”
“Get out of my face.”
“Amai.”
“I said get the fuck out.”
He didn’t move. Just stood there grinning like this was all a game. Like I wouldn’t put him out on his ass if he pushed me one more time.
“You got one more time,” I said, stepping toward him. “One more time, Syx, and I’m kicking your ass out for good. You hear me?”
“Man, you the one fuckin’ on the island where everybody eat,” he shot back, still grinning. “That’s nasty as hell, cuz. What I’m supposed to do—come down here tomorrow and eat my cereal where you just?—”
“It’s my fucking house!” I snapped, my voice cutting through his bullshit. “I’ll fuck on the roof if I feel the need. You don’t like it? There’s the door.”
Syx laughed—that wild, reckless laugh that reminded me too much of the streets, too much of the kind of chaos that got people killed.
“Aight, aight,” he said, holding up his hands in mock surrender. “My bad, big homie. Your house, your rules.”
I stared at him, my pulse still elevated, my hands still itching to grab him by the collar and throw him out myself.
But I didn’t.
Because underneath the anger, underneath the irritation, there was something else.
Concern.
I exhaled slowly, forcing myself to step back, to let the rage settle.
“You still going to that therapist?” I asked, my tone shifting.
Syx’s grin faltered. Just for a second. But I saw it.
“Yeah,” he said, his voice losing some of its edge. “I’m goin’.”
“That high-ass therapist I’m paying for?” I pressed. “The one in the Quarter? Dr. Melancon?”
“Yeah, man. I’m goin’.”
“How often?”
“Twice a week. Like you told me to.”
I studied him, looking for the lie. Syx was good at lying—really good. But right now, he wasn’t lying.
“The night terrors?” I asked.
His jaw tightened. “They still there.”
“How bad?”
“Bad enough.”
I nodded slowly, processing. The night terrors had been getting worse over the past year—waking up screaming, drenched in sweat, convinced he was back in that hole with his mama’s body.
I’d found him three years ago.
Priest got the call first—someone heard screaming coming from an abandoned lot off Claiborne. We thought it was a setup, a trap, something Rahsaan’s people had laid to draw us out.
But when we got there, we found Syx.
Buried alive.
Three feet down in a shallow grave, dirt packed tight around him, his mama’s corpse pressed against his side. She’d been dead for hours by the time we dug him out—shot twice in the chest because she owed money to a plug she couldn’t pay.
The plug didn’t just kill her.
He buried her son with her.
Syx was seventeen.
We pulled him out barely breathing, clawing at the dirt, his eyes wild and unseeing. Kaisen held him down while I cleared his airway. Priest called the cleaners to handle the body.
We never told anyone what happened.
Not the full story.
Syx’s mama was my aunt—my father’s younger sister.
She’d been an addict for years, in and out of rehab, burning bridges faster than she could build them.
But she was still family. So, my daddy let Syx watch while the man who took his mama got peeled like a potato.
His own flesh falling at his feet. Every time he’d pass out, my daddy would wake his ass up.
Syx was still blood.
So, I took him in.
Got him out of the Ninth Ward, set him up in one of the rooms here, made sure he had money, food, and a roof that didn’t leak. I paid for the therapy when the nightmares started—when he’d wake up in the middle of the night convinced he was suffocating, convinced the walls were closing in.
Dr. Melancon was the best trauma specialist in the city. Cost me $400 an hour.
I didn’t care.
Syx was my lil’ cousin.
And family didn’t get left behind.
“You takin’ the meds she prescribed?” I asked.
“Sometimes.”
“Syx.”
“I don’t like how they make me feel, man,” he said, his voice tight. “Like I’m floatin’. Like I’m not really here.”
“You’re not supposed to feel like you’re suffocating every night either.”
“I know.”
“Then take the damn meds.”
He looked away, his jaw working. “Aight.”
I stepped closer, lowering my voice. “I’m serious, Syx. You don’t take care of yourself, you’re no good to anybody. Not to me. Not to yourself.”
“I said aight, Amai.”
I studied him for a long moment, seeing past the bravado, past the cocky grin and the reckless energy. Seeing the kid who’d been buried alive with his mama’s body, who still woke up screaming in the middle of the night.
“You need anything?” I asked.
“Nah. I’m good.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah, man. I’m good.”
I nodded. “Then get some sleep. And stop lurking in my house.”
He grinned—smaller this time, but real. “Aight, cuz.”
He turned and headed back down the hallway, his locs swinging behind him.
I stood there in the kitchen, the weight of everything settling back onto my shoulders.
The violence at the jewelry shop.
The sex with Layla.
The surrogacy search.
And now Syx—broken in ways I couldn’t fix, carrying trauma I couldn’t erase.
I couldn’t save everyone.
But I could try.
I turned off the kitchen lights and headed upstairs.
Tomorrow, I’d deal with Raymond. With the contract. With the woman who’d signed it.
But tonight, I’d done what I could.
And that would have to be enough.