Chapter 6 #5
East only chuckled then nodded. “Go ahead and follow me, so when you’re creeping later and like a picture from a few years ago, I’ll know it’s you.” He winked at her and Joi’s cheeks warmed, but she kept her face hard.
“Nobody is worried about you, so I damn sure won’t be creeping on your page.”
“Yeah, aight. So we going or what?” East peered at Joi, who sucked her teeth again.
“Give me your gun.”
“What?” East’s face instantly went hard.
“Your gun. I know you have one because I felt it on you. I trust you, but I’m not crazy. Let me hold it.”
East considered his options for a minute before he smirked and removed the Beretta from his body. Once he was certain the safety was on, he handed it over by gripping the barrel and extending the handle then pulled it back.
“You know how to handle a gun?”
“Yes, I have a permit to carry, and I’ve practiced with a Beretta before. Now hand it over.”
“Be careful with that. It damn sure isn’t a toy, and if you fuck around and shoot me by mistake, I’m gon’ hurt your little ass. I don’t care how pretty you are, Grinch. That’s my word.”
Joi shot him a look for calling her Grinch again, but East only chuckled and shut her door, with her allowing him to this time. He knew he had his hands full with Joi but was prepared to handle whatever she brought to the table.
As soon as East was situated, he asked for Joi’s address. She hesitated and he chuckled.
“You have my gun, Grinch. If I act up, you can shoot me, but I can’t get you home if you don’t let me know where you live.
Shit, at least get me to your block, then you can walk the rest of the way if that makes you feel better.
But trust, I don’t have any intentions. I’m not the type who has to take anything. It’s handed over to me on the regular.”
“I bet,” she mumbled before rattling off her address.
East was driving a few minutes after with his eyes on the road. Neither said much until he glanced at her and noticed she had her eyes pinned to the window.
“You’re pretty as fuck when you smile, Grinch. You should do it more often.”
Joi sucked her teeth but kept her eyes on the window. “You should stop calling me that and I might. Words have power, and if you want me to be nice to you, then you should address me as something more endearing, or at least by my name.”
East chuckled and nodded, pulling his lip between his teeth.
He loved the sound of her voice already.
It was soft but aggressive at the same time.
The kind that you couldn’t really take serious in an argument or when it was delivering a threat, but with her fiery attitude, East knew that Joi wasn’t one to fuck with.
She was scrappy and demanding, even if she was dancing around her attraction to him.
“So, what do you want me to call you when I hit you up later?” This time, his voice granted him a visual of her pretty face.
“Who says I want you to call me anything?”
“Your eyes, that slick mouth of yours, and the way you have your ankles crossed to keep your thighs tight over there says you want me to not only call you something but you want me to handle a few things too.”
The way East captured Joi’s thoughts had her feeling exposed.
She was deep in her head about him, which was why her eyes were trained on the window.
And he was also right about her legs being locked tight.
Being this close to him, in his car that smelled like his cologne, had Joi feeling things about a man she didn’t know anything about beyond the fact that he was unpleasant half the time, said what he wanted, and was fine as hell.
“You really are arrogant.” Joi grinned, causing East to release a muffled laugh.
“Nah, not arrogant, just sure about things and not afraid to speak on them. You should try that.”
“I do.”
“Nah, you really don’t. You’re feeling me, but you’re acting like you’re not.”
“But that’s not being arrogant?”
East flashed Joi a smile again and she melted. She was already mildly intoxicated and it had nothing to do with the two shots of C?roc she had before leaving with him.
“It’s facts. You’re not feeling me, Joi?”
He watched her intently for a moment. The way her breath hitched, the way her fingers pushed into her thigh, and the way her eyes fluttered. All signs that she was feeling something.
She didn’t answer verbally but East didn’t need her to. He moved on instead. “Why do you have a permit?”
Joi flashed him a smile before looking down at her lap where his Beretta lay. “Dudes in Atlanta are crazy.”
East chuckled and nodded to agree. It was the reason he was always strapped, even if for different variations of the word crazy.
However, he understood. It was nothing for a dude to run up on the next, trying to take what they were too lazy to work for.
In her case, it was likely physical, whereas with him, it was monetary.
“I won’t debate that. Who taught you to shoot? Your boyfriend?”
East wasn’t sure why he had been on some bitch shit with Joi.
The fact that he had mentioned her man a few times was out of character.
East didn’t give a fuck about him one way or another, since he didn’t feel threatened by his presence in Joi’s life.
East knew what he brought to the table, and nothing could compete with everything he was, but her dude had access to Joi, something East didn’t have, yet.
“One of them.” Joi had learned a few years ago from a boyfriend, but it wasn’t Reg. It was before his time.
“Damn, you roll like that?” He hadn’t expected that answer. Was she really a player? Maybe that was why she wasn’t concerned about her dude cheating.
“No, that’s not what I meant. An ex-boyfriend, not my current one. Definitely not as in I have multiple.” Joi rolled her eyes.
“Ay, I’m just saying. Women are worse than men these days, and if that’s how you rock, who am I to judge?” East smirked and Joi rolled her eyes again.
“Apparently, you wouldn’t care. You already know I have a man, yet here I am.”
His eyes quickly shot over to her, only to meet hers, which were waiting. “I respect loyalty, but only when it goes both ways. Your shit is one-sided because you’re fucking with a little boy, not a man. A man wouldn’t move the way your dude moves.”
Joi frowned at him in a way that had East waiting with an unbothered disposition. “You keep throwing things out here about him, but you said you don’t know him.”
“You keep bringing him up and I don’t know him. I know his type. I also know that if you had a real man, you wouldn’t have been with me all night, and you damn sure wouldn’t be in my car right now, considering the possibility of experiencing a man like me.”
Joi hated how confident and secure East was with his delivery. It was almost condescending in a sense and made her feel silly for claiming Reg.
Because East was so observant, he picked up on the shift in her mood right away.
“Ay, if you’re good with your situation, my opinion doesn’t matter.”
“I know.” Joi spoke as confidently as she could, but truth was, East had her mind reeling.
After a few minutes of processing, she delivered one last question.
“What’s it like experiencing a man like you?”
Her eyes were curious while East’s were intense with answers she would soon discover, he was sure of it. “It’s like the purest high you could ever have. Once I get into your system, you can’t get enough and you want it forever.
Joi’s mouth was slightly agape, her eyes hazy from the implication of his abilities. It took her a minute to snap out of the hold his words had placed on her, but when she finally did, East winked and released a chuckle so sexy it made her body tingle.