Hook Shot (Hoops #3)(106)

“No,” I’d protested hastily, panic gripping me. “Just . . . no, please don’t make me.”

She’d watched me unblinkingly for a moment, her eyes filling with a dark promise.

“No police,” she’d finally agreed. “But there are other ways.”

I hadn’t thought about what that meant, but just felt relief that I wouldn’t have to tell anyone or see Ron again.

“Now your hair’s a mess,” she’d said briskly, her smile and eyes bright again. “Let’s wash it.”

She’d washed it and let it dry on its own. That night, she’d laid the comb on the red, livid eye of the stove.

“No,” I’d said, my voice hushed. “I don’t want my hair pressed.”

She’d looked at me, looked through me, and seen things I hadn’t even known.

“Let’s braid it,” she’d said, sitting on the couch, and pointing to a spot on the floor between her knees. I’d sat down and her fingers, still nimble for a woman her age, worked steadily through my hair for an hour, maybe more. When she was done, she held up a mirror for me to see.

“This is . . .” I’d touched the swirls and patterns she’d created. “It’s pretty.”

“You’re pretty,” she’d said it like she was reminding me. “And now, your hair reflects who you are.”

I’d looked in the mirror again. “What do you mean?”

She’d traced the patterns, telling me what each represented. “This is your courage,” she’d said, touching the pattern on the right. “And this is your kindness.”

She ran her fingers over the whorls in my hair on the left. “And this is your discernment.” She touched the pattern in the back. “The eyes in the back of your head to see what others miss.”

“And what about this one?” I’d asked, touching the pattern on top.

“That, my beautiful girl,” she’d said, smiling, “is your crown. Your pride. Your self-esteem. The glory of knowing who you are, and that it’s enough. No one has to tell a queen to wear her crown.”

Her words, all the things she told me in this backyard, whisper through the oak trees. Her wisdom flaps in the white sheets pinned to the line and blown by the wind.

Angel’s wings.

I washed the sheets so Kenan and I will have something to sleep on tonight. Last night, we ate from the snacks and sandwiches I brought with me. We talked and laughed.

I cried.

Telling him about the hospital and my mama, I cried, and he held me until we fell asleep on the couch. We’ll leave tomorrow, but we have one more night here alone, and I’m determined we’ll sleep in a bed on clean linens. I’m pulling the last of the sheets from the line and into the laundry basket when strong arms scoop me up from behind and whirl me around.

“Kenan!” I screech and laugh. “Put me down right now.”

He keeps one arm around my waist and uses the other to grab a sheet from the basket, tossing it to the ground.

“I just washed that,” I protest, frowning at him over my shoulder.

“Good.” He lays me down on the soft cotton, looking down at me. “I like clean sheets.”

I reach up to trace the bold planes of his face, the sensuous curve of his mouth, the thick feathering of lashes against his hard cheeks.

“You’re magnificent,” I whisper. “I think in another life you ruled a planet. You were the king of your own galaxy.”

“And in this other life,” he says, the laughter fading from his eyes, “were you my queen?”

In this place where I learned about all the things our eyes ignore, the dimensions teeming with life just beyond the evidence of what we see, I could conjure up our existence together before or the one to come, if that’s a thing. I’m not sure what’s true sometimes.

“I’ll be your queen in this one.”

We stare at one another across centuries, across continents, across time and space, and I actually believe that I would have found him anywhere. There is no place, no spot on the continuum of time that could have hidden this man from me.

He smiles, lifting some of the weight from the moment, and coaxes the hem of my dress up past my knees and over my thighs.

“What are you doing?” I ask, my breath snatched when his fingers caress the inside of my thigh.

“Fucking my queen out in the open,” he breathes in my ear. “How often will I get to do that?”

Dirty things on angel’s wings.

I should resist, but who am I kidding? He presses into the cove between my thighs, and our gasps mingle. Even through my panties and his sweatpants, he’s hot, hard. I’m wet. Ready. He lowers his head, his chin nudging aside the neckline of my dress to worship my nipple with his lips. He slides sure fingers into my panties, and I stretch my neck in unmitigated pleasure. I come in seconds. My eyes drift closed and I bite down on my lip, but my whimpers escape into the air. I fill the backyard with the sounds of my ecstasy.

When I open my eyes, he’s watching me. “I never get tired of seeing you like that.”

His kisses start gentle, soft as clouds on my cheeks, drizzled like raindrops over the bridge of my nose. But then our mouths, our bodies collide like two bolts of lightning in the sky.