AISHE

I’ve never missed anyone as much as I missed Troy tonight at the Greek place. Smooth and calm, he sat there, fresh white t-shirt against the beautiful brown of his skin, safari-greens never far from me as he kept tabs on the politics of the table and tried to avoid crazy Hailey.

Now, I’m back in my room, relieved to have it to myself again. And not relieved to have it to myself. I’m burning up, and I need to do something about it.

I used to take what I needed when I needed it. Finding men was never hard, and the chance of catching the love fire from one-night stands was zero to none.

Troy’s room is next door, and I feel his presence through the wall. He’s not making a sound. No TV, no music, no drumming. We came up here on the same elevator, so I know he’s there.

I’m burning. Burning. Burning.

Someone knocks on his door.

Hailey’s voice. It’s pleading.

I’ve been like that before, in such a similar situation. Just, it wasn’t Troy, and the door didn’t shut with the girl stomping away unhappily.

It’s midnight. I wonder if he would shut the door on me?

It’s not good when I slip my gown on and leave my room barefoot. I’m dipping the love fire in kerosene when I knock quietly on his door, hyper-conscious of how I’m not wearing any underwear.

I hear his fingers tap against the door first. I picture him leaning his hands against the wood as he stares out through the peephole. He can’t have locked the door, because it gives without a sound as he opens it and stands there.

“Aishe.” He whispers my name with the same longing I have in my throat. His gaze flickers as he waves for me to come in.

I don’t know what to say.

My head and my heart know better than to be here, but my body—I’m here for my body. The Drago Fuoc needs a matchstick dropped into its kerosene.

He doesn’t make excuses for how he’s dressed. I’m the intruder into his boxer-brief haven of tan muscle and dreadlocks.

I’m scared, I mouth and lift my arms to him. He accepts me like I knew he would. Burrows his nose into my hair and sucks in the smell of me. I moan, and that’s what he needs to lift me off my feet and cradle me to his bed, lower me, sink down over me.

Don’t be scared, he whispers, and his kiss is exactly what I need, not a matchstick but soft assurance of desire, of a build with kindness and gentleness, the promise of all-consuming pleasure, of the kind it was both times with him for me. I’ll do nothing you will hate.

I open my gown, and I give him my breasts. They tighten under the magic of his lips. I arch up to him, moaning, begging in ways I have done in my head for days.

I want to make you happy. His words are at my ear, and my eyes fill with liquid. I’m full of courage when I open my legs for him, let warm fingers find me, caress my folds, pull them apart so he can draw the slickness I have for him out. His pleasure is mine when he groans at the sensation.

There are stars in the sky outside. I know this even though the curtains are drawn. His mouth is on me. Strong arms lift my butt off the mattress. I’m his best meal, and the stars enter the room as I scrunch my eyes shut, writhing in climax.

It’s not enough. I need him so fully. My hands are greedy, dragging over taut thighs that ripple with my touch. I pull his briefs off—

“Oh God,” he hisses when I use both hands around his cock, feeling it hard and pulsing in my hands. I drag over the tip of it, a preemptive droplet making it even silkier. He smells like musk and man and spices when I lick it and slowly allow my mouth to feast on him.

When I’m ready, I spread myself over him. He’s my mattress, heaving with desire beneath me. Lips parted, this beautiful man waits for me—this man who’s been waiting for me for so long. His gaze doesn’t leave me while I plaid our hands and straighten them above his head.

His lips tremble when I kiss him again, and a lump in my throat grows. We’re made of hips and hands and touch, and he’s rubbing against me, right where I need him so much.

“You don’t still my fire,” I whisper, and in a rush, he grabs me, strong arms around my waist. Suddenly, I’m on my back, and for a second, he hovers over me.

I pull him toward me.

“Let me, and I will still your fire, my moixcha.”

What did he say? Soft, hard, blunt, the crown of him against my entrance is almost too much. Stars twinkle behind my eyelids again. They’re a rush around me, about to pull me under. I need him inside of me. Now, I need him. I chain myself to him, my heels digging into his buttocks as I pull him closer, moaning, opening, getting ready for him to fill me with a pleasure so complete I’ll never forget—again.

Moixcha. Is that what he said?

Troy called me “forever-love.”

The slight shift of him as he steers himself over my cleft, moaning with the sexiest impatience I’ve ever heard. Warm, slick with passion, he wants to give it all to me and take it all in return.

“Troy. I can’t do this.”

His body stills over me. His breath is ragged with need, thighs quivering with the urge to continue. I’m ready for his anger, but all I get is a whispered, “Okay.”

Troy falls to the side of me. His pulse sings in his exhales as he gets himself under control. In less than a minute, intense desire sinks to tenderness in his touch. I can’t look at him at first, while I control my own reaction to what I just did.

“You’re so beautiful, Aishe,” he murmurs.

“I did it again, didn’t I?” I say, letting my eyes leak after all.

“You did nothing you didn’t have the right to do.” He makes no effort to cover himself as he lies there, shiny and gorgeous, the epitome of anything I’d ever want in my bed. And here I am rejecting him. His cock is still half-erect, waiting for me, a long, thick animal that could pounce on command.

I’ve got less control over myself than Troy does. The disappointment of my body is like angry embers concentrated in my abdomen, my vagina, my thighs. It screams for the real thing, but all my heart wants is for us to run away and cry somewhere safe.

“We’ll never get it right,” I chuckle in despair. “First, we did it all. But under false premises.”

He gazes at me waiting for more.

“I was going to get you back, taking your pleasure and not giving you mine, at the video shoot. I was in control. Completely. And now, look at this mess?”

Troy’s smile rises slowly. “I’m looking, and it’s a beautiful mess.” His eyes run over my bare form with desire-free appreciation. They trail over the gown I tossed to the side. My breasts feel heavy from his attention. The moisture at the apex of my legs goes cold under the A/C, another sensory impact he ignites.

He lays his head down to the pillow, a hand still around my waist in a loose embrace. Slowly, he strokes circles around my belly button, each shift full of gentle respect. I want him to do this. I want him to touch me.

I don’t think I can leave this bed and scurry back where I came from, tail between my legs like I should.

“Do you want to talk?” he asks. “You know I always do. With our bullshit past, I’m a sucker for anything that can help.”

I blow my mouth up, keeping the air there while I decide. “About this—what just happened?” Arching my head into the pillow, I concentrate on the small cracks of the vertebrae in my neck at the move.

“If you want to. Anything.”

That thumb around my belly button.

“Okay.” I blow out another breath. “You remember the other night, when we were talking about the fire love?”

“Of course I do.”

“We digressed, and I didn’t tell you everything. But I think I have to be candid with you. I’ve made so many mistakes over the last year and a half, a lot of them stemming from not being up front with people. So, take this for what it is: just information. It’s not meant for any of us to do anything about.”

He just looks at me.

“Do you understand? Are you okay with this?” I ask.

“With what, to not do anything about whatever it is you’re about to tell me?” he asks, hiking himself up on an elbow.

“Yeah.” I chew on my lip, really needing him to agree to this.

“I’ll try.”

I give him a half-playful stare-down.

“Tell me. I’ll be nice,” he murmurs, as if that’s the issue.

“I sort of said it already,” I backtrack.

“Aishe?” The back of his hand accidentally brushes over my nipple on its way up to my face, and it contracts. Troy caresses my cheek before letting go again. “Just tell me already. No more prefacing.”

“Okay. It’s just that I… That I had a break from believing in the love fire, and now I’m full circle back again, because one of the first signs of it is this.” I wave over my body.

“It’s getting a sexy-as-hell body?” he jokes. “You’ve had that as long as I’ve known you.”

“Silly. No, it’s feeling overheated the whole time, like I can’t get enough, and all I want is you. That’s why I was afraid when I came in here. That’s why I couldn’t go through with it.”

He seems unsurprised by my confession. Still, he twists his mouth to the side in thought. “I want you day in and day out. For me, it’s been like this for a long time. I don’t fault you for not letting me make love to you. The entire time, I expected my moment of Heaven to be over, but I thought, ‘Fuck it,’ knowing I wanted as much or as little of you as you could give me.

“I guess I don’t understand what you mean, Aishe. Not your favorite, I know, when people want to understand, but”—he flips open a hand—“if you want me like I want you, what held you back? Did… Did it take you back to The Hotel Room?”

His touch returns to my stomach, palm stroking over my middle, and I rest my hand on top of his.

“No, it didn’t enter my mind once tonight,” I whisper. “I was letting the Drago Fuoc rule me again, and I was about to let it take over completely. Then, you just became too much. So perfect and delicious, and I just really, really wanted you.” My breath stutters like it wants me to cry again.

Those light, gentle eyes. The way he lifts them to my face without judgment, asking, “That’s good, right?”

“But then I heard you, see? And everything became jarringly real. I couldn’t do it. Couldn’t put out my fire for one beautiful moment only to make it worse tomorrow.”

I blow out air like I’ve been sprinting. “Troy, you called me moixcha.”

“I remember,” he murmurs, and his voice is warm amber. “There’s nothing I’d like more than for you to be my moixcha.”

I fall asleep on his chest. The sheets are on the floor with our clothes when I wake up, the cool breeze at my back, spreading goosebumps up the nape of my neck. But my stomach is warm. My heart is warm.

The heat of him beneath me is made of Artemisia and tarragon and aroused man. This peace of watching dark lashes flutter in dream. He’s not conscious to me anyway, so I can do this, kiss the corner of his lip with the weightlessness of a feather.

What if I’m careful? Maybe it won’t set my fire on full blaze, turn me into a self-serving bitch who hauls this amazing person into herself.

He thinks he wants me now, but he doesn’t deserve to be devoured. I’m a tornado of stardust, and he’s a man with the world at his feet. He shouldn’t spend his time on devils.

I’m so cautious, but his lashes rise slowly at my peck. There are smiles in his eyes even if his mouth isn’t fully awake.

“Good morning, you,” he rasps, voice as husky and beautiful as him. I blink away my Gypsy thoughts and smile down at him.

“Good morning yourself.”

A little more awake, he folds his hands beneath his neck and focuses his stare on me. His irises gleam against his skin. Never have eyes been brighter. “Do you want to shower with me?”

I arch a brow, going for playful accusation, and it’s stunning the way his smile widens. Suddenly, he looks like a mischievous teenager. “I promise not to seduce you in there. I’ll just rub you nice and clean in all the right spots.” He bites his lip.

“Depends on what you mean by ‘all the right spots,’” I say. “I’ve got very dirty hands. They were all over you last night. Also, the soles of my feet, because barefoot from my room to yours, and such.”

He lets out a lazy gasp. “Whoa, my first picks exactly! We must be brain-mates.”

There’s a giggle in my chest. It bubbles out, and Troy’s freshly awake eyes narrow into slits of amusement.

“Does this mean you don’t trust me to do a good enough job in my own shower?”

He wags a hand sideways in a fifty-fifty motion. “It’s a long flight. Can’t take any chances, now, can we, with stinky feet and—hmm—love-infested hands?”

“What about these,” I murmur, lifting one of his hands, spreading it open so I can grip around a long finger and slide a slow caress up until I taper off at his nail. It’s exquisitely pink with a clean, ivory crescent moon at the tip. He’s a miracle, every inch of him, and I need to— need to stop this.

Still, I can’t help myself. I bring his hand to my face and watch as his eyes darken when I inhale the lingering scent of honey.

“Fuck. You’re intoxicating, Aishe.”

My amusement isn’t as clean as his was when I say, “Because I’m poison.”