Prologue #3
A slice of cake arrived, and more champagne was poured. We shared dessert, feeding each other, and I decided this would go down as the perfect night.
The check landed on the table. I saw it and reached for it before he could.
He moved my hand without looking up from his glass.
“Ducane.”
“Skye, what are you doing?”
“I want to contribute.”
“You do contribute.” He picked up the check and handed it to the server without looking at the total. “Every single day.”
I sat back.
“That’s not what I mean. You always pay. I have a job. I can pay sometimes.” I pouted.
“Put that lip back. The answer is no. Ain’t nothing in that purse of value to me. Taking care of you as your man is what I’m going to do.”
“Fine. Next time.”
He looked back at me with those amber eyes, completely unbothered. Right then, I knew exactly who I was looking at. This was the person I needed.
He reached across the table and tucked a curl behind my ear.
“You ready?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m ready. And for that other thing.”
He stood and extended his hand. When I rose, he pulled me in close. “What other thing, Skye? Say it like a big girl.”
I looked up at him for a second. My hands found his face before my mouth found his.
He kissed me back without rushing me, his hand settling at the small of my back as he pulled me close enough that every thought in my head disappeared.
I smiled when we finally came up for air.
He didn’t.
His eyes stayed on mine, waiting.
“Ducane,” I said quietly. “I want you to make love to me.” I held his gaze. “But don’t hurt me.”
He searched my face like he wanted to be sure he understood exactly what I was asking.
“Never,” he said. “Not even a little bit.”
We stood there looking at each other until somebody laughed across the restaurant and pulled us back into the room.
He smiled.
“Come on.”
He laced our fingers together and led me out of the restaurant.
“My place or yours?” he asked once we were in the car.
“Your place is best.”
I pulled out my phone. I typed fast before I lost my nerve.
Me: Fee. Don’t wait up. Dinner was perfect.
Three dots appeared immediately.
FeeFee: Tonight is the night… that you make me a woman…
Me: Go to hell bitch. Betty Wright?
FeeFee: Have fun!
I put my phone face down in my lap and looked out the window. Terror and certainty sat in my chest at the same time. Both of them were telling me I was exactly where I was supposed to be.
Fee had put the melody in my head, and I hummed it low until we pulled into his parking lot. Thank God for Fee, because that was the only thing keeping me calm right now.
Ducane’s apartment was ten minutes off campus. He’d had his own place since sophomore year. He said he needed somewhere quiet to study, which was true. It also meant we had somewhere to be alone without managing anyone else’s schedule.
He unlocked the door and let me in first.
I kicked my shoes off at the door. Bless his heart, my boyfriend was clean. Borderline obsessive, if you asked me. I was the exact opposite.
I followed him into the kitchen. He grabbed me by the waist, lifted me onto the counter like I weighed nothing, then reached into the refrigerator. He twisted the cap off a bottle of water and tipped it toward me.
“Drink.”
I sipped and giggled.
“Should I be scared?”
“No. But I want to make sure you’re as comfortable as possible. Are you still sure?”
“Please don’t ask me again. I’m sure.” I slid off the counter and took the water to the head. I turned to face him, and he smirked, pleased with my boldness. “Ducane, I don’t think I’ll ever trust anyone as much as I trust you. If not you, then it won’t be anyone. I’ll die this way.”
“Poetic.”
“Now show me why I had to jack Tonya up for playing stupid games.”
I loved Ducane. Things had been great, but they hadn’t come without detours and a few fights along the way. Ducane was a handsome man, the kind that gave strong classic Black man, confidence in droves. Sex appeal completely unfair. Smart, prodigy level smart, and the wit always did it for me.
I’m saying all that to say I had touched a few women for thinking I was anything but willing to take it to hell about Ducane Isley Simmons.
Poetic, indeed.
“You drive me crazy, Skye.” He grabbed me up and carried me upstairs to his room bridal style.
On my feet now, he slipped up behind me and placed soft kisses along my neck. I shivered as he unzipped my dress. We had fooled around plenty, but he had always respected my wish to wait. He never once brought it up. It was always my choice.
“I love you, Ducane.”
“I love you too, Skye. More than anything in this world. I’d watch this shit burn to the ground if that’s what you needed from me.”
That was what scared me about us. That was also what I loved the most. My young mind couldn’t formulate or rationalize the dangers of loving someone so deeply that even the earth burning didn’t scare them.
There’d simply be no other. No other would ever do.
I stepped out of my dress. There was no need for a bra. My ass was the showstopper, not the titties. I had enough. I grew self-conscious standing there and moved to cover myself.
“Duke, don’t look yet.”
He shook his head and moved my hands. “Don’t hide from me. All of you is beautiful to me.”
My confidence came back as I crawled onto the bed. My nerves were all over the place but I wanted this. I wanted him.
He undressed quick, boxers gone in one motion.
I propped up on my elbows to watch, nerves and desire tangled together so tight I couldn't tell one from the other.
His skin was smooth and chocolate under the light, the gold chain resting flat against his chest. I'd never done this with anyone, and because it was him, the fear felt worth it.
My eyes dropped to his legs, the same legs that carried me on his back whenever I got tired of walking, and I wanted them wrapped around me just as bad as I wanted the rest of him.
I blinked, stunned at how obsessed I felt.
He crawled onto the bed and stopped midway, pulling my panties down over my thighs. The fabric brushing against my warm, sensitive skin made my legs close shut.
“Relax. You’re safe with me, Skye.” He reopened my legs and came closer. Our faces were so close we were nearly breathing for each other.
He began pecking softly at my lips until we were in a full kiss. One hand cradled the side of my face. The other traveled to my purring center. I knew this feeling, this ache.
“Spot, baby, it’s going to hurt for a little bit. If you want me to stop, you tell me. I’m not here to hurt you.”
His fingers played gently at my entrance. My body responded with a tingle down my spine that flowed to my toes. I grew wetter as our kiss deepened and his fingers crept further.
“Just kiss me through it, okay.”
“I have no problem kissing you all night.”
He reached over and grabbed a condom. My heart beat faster. I was certain it was bouncing off the walls. My stomach tight, mouth dry.
Fee’s voice appeared in my head uninvited, running through everything she had told me like a grocery list. Breathe. Relax your legs. Tell him what feels good. And for the love of God, don’t be quiet. Men need the feedback. And if he likes you, he’ll listen.
I was currently doing none of those things.
Skye, focus.
“Music?” he asked, reading my mind.
“Are you stalling?” I looked up at him in the moonlight with a smile.
Ducane covered my lips with his as he pushed in slowly. I tensed, biting his lip, and he never took his mouth from mine. Another push. He groaned into my mouth, and my walls clenched around him like a vice.
“Skye, I’m going all the way this time.” He grabbed my hip and angled me, and a shriek tore out of me before I could stop it. A tear slipped down my cheek as pain shot through me. I gripped his shoulders and let him move me instead of fighting it.
“Slower,” I moaned. He slowed with a kiss to my cheek, my neck, and my shoulder.
Soon, the pain subsided, and I began to enjoy the slow strokes he delivered. Deep before pulling back, then shallow, over and over.
“Yes, like that. I like that.”
“Keep talking to me, baby. Let me hear it.”
I smiled into his shoulder. Fee would be so proud.
Ducane was good at the things I wasn’t. Numbers, logic, thinking that ran straight from point A to point B without getting distracted by everything interesting in between.
I was good at the things he wasn’t. Words, people, reading between the lines of whatever the professor actually meant versus what they said.
We had spent more hours in the library than either of us had planned. As his constitutional law outlines piled up beside my communications papers, I realized my life didn’t feel out of my hands anymore.
I didn’t know yet if that was me or him or both of us together, but I knew I was different than the girl who got kicked out of women’s history on the first day and didn’t know what came next.
That girl was still in there. She just stood straighter now.
“Stay with me, baby,” he said against my skin.
And I did.
When his mouth found my nipples, sucking and licking, pleasure shot straight down to my toes, sharper than anything I’d felt with him before. My body didn’t know whether to arch into it or pull away.
His teeth sank into my neck slightly before sucking. The pressure between my thighs felt deliciously unbearable. Pleasure kept climbing higher than I’d ever let it go, until my eyes squeezed shut and my breath came out in short, useless gasps.
“Oh my god, that... that feels so good.” I moaned, and for a second, I couldn’t tell where my body ended, and the feeling began. I was floating, weightless, gone.
He flipped me to my stomach and trailed kisses down my back, lower and lower until his hands found my hips and pulled them up to meet him. “You okay, baby?”
“More than okay, I want more,” I giggled, anticipating what came next. His hands massaged my hips, my spine curved. He entered me again, slow at first, giving me time to adjust before he picked up a rhythm that had me gripping the sheets and gritting my teeth.
“Oh, Ducane,” I cried out.