Hook Shot (Hoops #3)(107)

You are the storm.

He pushes the dress above my waist and I urge the pants down past his ass. He slots his lean hips between my thighs, and slides my panties aside, entering me in one powerful thrust.

“Home,” he rasps.

He’s big. There’s no denying that, and I have to spread my legs wide to accommodate his body. His cock is thick and hard, and even soaked and stretched, that first thrust knocks the wind from me. Then he eases in deeper until he hits that spot only he seems to have ever found inside me, and I moan. I rock into him, answering the rough, quick motions with the roll of my hips, the tightening of my thighs. My most intimate places put a demand on him.

Deeper. Harder. Faster. More.

Deeper. Harder. Faster. More.

Deeper. Harder. Faster. More.

It’s an imperative rhythm. In the shadow of the tree I always thought was magic, we make our own. A necromancy that’s uniquely ours. In the shadow of the place I thought was safe, I realize it’s not a tree, a city, or a particular place where I find safety. It’s in Kenan’s arms, in the harbor of his love. That’s the safest place I’ve ever known.





*



I wake with a start.

I don’t know what wrenched me from sleep, but I jerk up like someone’s dumped a bucket of water over my head. My heart clamors behind my ribs, and a thin layer of sweat slathers my skin. The moon illuminates a swathe of the bed, showing me Kenan asleep—peaceful, still. He’s too big for the bed, but there isn’t one in this house large enough to hold him. His feet hang off the edge, and his massive shoulders and chest leave only a sliver of mattress for me. I didn’t mind. I laid on top of him and fell asleep. It was the best rest I’ve had in weeks, until now.

Even though it’s almost October, it’s still warm in the bayou, and we slept with only a sheet covering us. A violent shiver reminds me of my nakedness. There’s a quilt I used to love in MiMi’s old room, so I trip down the hall and open her closet to search for it while the warm night air caresses my skin.

The warm night air.

I check the kitchen, the living room, the bathroom—all warm.

It’s only cold where we slept.

My thoughts riot, an unreasonable panic sending me down the hall at a gallop and stumbling into the bedroom. It’s so abruptly cold, the marked difference in temperature stops me at the threshold. An unnatural chill sprinkles goosebumps over my arms and shoulders, pebbling the sensitive skin around my breasts. I approach the bed slowly, afraid to see if Kenan is still breathing.

He draws in long, even pulls of air that lift and lower his bare chest at regular intervals.

But I know what I feel. I know what this is. I’ve felt it before.

A dozen things MiMi told me, all the things she ever taught me crowd my mind. I mentally sift through the information, discarding the useless, grabbing hold of what I need with desperate hands. I rush through the house, collecting the necessary items. Salt. Candles. I dig around in boxes searching until I have everything I need.

I watch Kenan for hours, I think. I’m not sure. Seated naked at the foot of the bed, I watch over him, willing to call in every cosmic favor, to invoke any saint, to utter any prayer. I’ll beg God not to take him and do whatever is necessary.

My shoulders have grown stiff and my feet are numb by the time he wakes. It’s still dark in the room, but I’m not sure what time. He reaches for me, sliding his hand across the cotton sheets, blindly searching.

I’m right here.

I don’t say it. Fear locks my jaws and ties my tongue in a knot.

“Lotus,” he mutters, squinting and pulling himself up to sit, his shoulders almost as wide as the headboard of the narrow bed I slept in as a girl. He’s a king, a pharaoh, the ruler of my heart. And I’ll fight anything, anyone who tries to take him from me.

I’ll fight death itself.

“Lotus, what the hell is going on?” He sweeps the room with a confused look, taking in the four lit candles strategically placed around the bed at the north, south, east and west. At the salt encircling us.

“What’s all this?” He looks at me, naked and completely still, sitting cross-legged with my hands pressed together between my breasts. “What were you saying?”

“Psalm thirty-five,” I croak, my voice raw from repeating the psalm the protection spell required for so long.

“Why?” He walks on his knees toward me, naked, magnificent. Mine.

Tears sneak past my lashes and jagged breaths fight their way out of my lungs.

“Okay,” Kenan says, his voice hardening. “You tell me right the fuck now what’s going on. Why you’re crying. What’s—”

“It’s death,” I cut in over his building tirade. “It’s here. In this room. I can’t lose you.”

Confusion gives way to frustration as he realizes what I’m saying.

“Lotus, this shit isn’t real,” he says, his words heated. “I hate seeing you upset over superstition and hocus-pocus bullshit people use to control others, to make money off them.”

“No.” I shake my head adamantly. “Yes, there is some of that. I know what you mean, but this isn’t that, Kenan. I know what I feel. I felt it when MiMi died. I felt it when my mother died. I know how death feels, and it’s here.”

I close my eyes because I know he won’t believe what I say next, and I need him to believe me. “It’s here for you.”