Hook Shot (Hoops #3)(65)
“I do,” I agree quietly, frowning. “How do you know that?”
“Anyone in Soho could know that,” he says, walking in tight circles. “Step into the Gilded Bean and bam. It’s right there.”
Something prickles my memory. The Gilded Bean. Where have I heard . . .
“Chase,” I blurt. “He has some photos showing there.”
“Bingo.” He props his big body against an unsuspecting table I’m not sure can hold him. He’s not exactly sitting, but not quite standing. I worry for them both.
“Is there a photo of me in the collection or something?” I ask. “You think you saw something that—”
“I don’t think I saw shit, Lotus,” he snaps. “I would recognize my girlfriend in a photo that’s as tall as I am.”
His girlfriend.
It’s the first time he’s called me that and I can’t even appreciate it because of this interrogation.
“No, it can’t be.” I shake my head, unable to compute the data. “You saw my face?”
“I didn’t need to.”
“Then you could be mistaken.”
“The tattoo on your collar bone, the moons on your fingers, your gris-gris ring, the lotus flower around your belly button. Do I sound mistaken?”
“That doesn’t make sense. I didn’t sign a release for any nudity. I saw the photos he took. I’d remember that. I don’t have a problem with nudity in art, for the record, but I didn’t want to do it personally.”
“But you did pose for him?” Another accusation. One he isn’t entitled to, and it’s starting to irk me.
“Yes, I did,” I answer stiffly. “I was finishing up at FIT, and was basically an intern here making no real money. Chase paid me to sit for him. It’s not a secret, and it’s none of your business.”
He runs a hand over the back of his neck. “I know. You’re right. I just . . .” His head drops back, his eyes on the ceiling. “I hate people seeing you like that.”
“I don’t belong to you, Kenan,” I tell him. “You don’t get to criticize me posing for photos, even if there isn’t supposed to be any nudity. I’ll deal with Chase, believe that, but you don’t get to come up in here growling with some caveman shit over things that happened before we were . . . anything. It doesn’t work that way, and if you think you can tell me what to do, let me set you straight. I am not that chick.”
“I know you don’t belong to me, Lotus,” he growls. “Why do you think I’m acting like an asshole? It makes me crazy that you don’t. If I’m honest—”
“Yes, please, let’s try that.”
“If I’m honest,” he repeats, both brows raised meaningfully. “It makes me crazy that Chase had something with you that I haven’t yet. He knows you in ways I don’t.”
“You mean because we fucked?” I cross my arms over my chest. “In this little game where you and Chase keep score, it bothers you that you’re behind? We can fuck right now and your problem will be solved, right? You’ll be even? You want to fuck me, Kenan?”
“Of course I do, but not just that.” His frown softens. His voice softens. “You know not just that, Lotus.”
I push off the door and walk over until I’m standing in front of him. “Then what is this about?” I ask, my voice softening, too. “Chase and I had sex, yeah, but I thought you wanted more.”
“I do.” He cups my hips with huge hands, and pulls me to stand between his legs. “You know I do.”
“Then don’t ruin it,” I whisper. I press closer, and, with him sitting and me in my stilettos, I can more easily link my arms behind his neck. “Don’t let him ruin it.”
His hands shift from my hips to rubbing my back through the silk.
“I haven’t been jealous of him before,” he says. “I mean, I didn’t like that you’d been with him, but you’re a grown woman with a normal sex life, so I get it.”
“Things haven’t been exactly typical for me in the sex department lately.” I laugh dryly, “but go on.”
“The photo is so gorgeous, and he wouldn’t sell it to me.” He tucks my unruly hair back, tracking the shell of my ear like he does often. “You’re fantastic in it, so uninhibited. It’s decadent, and you look like you’re . . .”
“Like I’m what?”
“Coming.”
The word caresses my lips. “I realized he’s seen your face, how you look when you come, and I haven’t. He knows things about your body that I don’t. For instance, I have no idea what the ink is at the top of your thighs. I’ve seen flashes of it, but I don’t know. He does. I guess what I’m saying is he knows you intimately.”
“No, he knows me sexually. I draw a line between those two things, and no one has ever crossed it.”
I lift a little higher to kiss his jaw.
“But you could,” I whisper. “I think you could cross that line, Kenan, and it has scared me since the moment I met you.”
I draw back a few inches to peer into his face. “That, what I just told you, is intimacy. It’s truth that I’m trusting you with. Chase never had that.”