I looked at his reflection. “Okay, let’s be real . . . there was nothing really to end. There was no beginning to this. It just happened and I—we—kept letting it happen.”
“And I’m glad it happened.” He got up from the bed, came up behind me, and looked at himself in the mirror as he wrapped his arms around my waist, pulling me back against him so I could feel just how glad he was. He looked at us in the mirror.
“Look at how good we look together.” He removed an arm to lift my chin up, as if I’d asked him for help. “People respect you. People respect me. Think about how we would rule this place, babygirl. Looks and brains. Light and dark.”
Babygirl. It sounded slightly foreign on his tongue. He’d gone to a boarding school in Sussex, used to only have white friends, and was still fleshing out this flavor of persona.
I raised a brow. “Which of us is which?”
He smiled, tightening his grip around my waist. “See, funny, too.”
It only took a few seconds for his gaze to flit from me, from us, back to his own reflection. His bottom lip had tucked in. It was honestly like a very uncomfortable threesome where two people were way more into each other than they were you, eventually leaving you to watch them doing their thing, fascinated. I presume.
My Guy’s eyes were still on his own. He kissed my neck. “A peng power couple.”
I bit my lip to keep my laugh in, but by the way his grip tightened on me I think he misread it as a sign of arousal. Oh, man. I knew enough about him （enough was enough） to know he was serious. This had been fun, but I was done.
I unwound his arms from around my waist, his weight against me now oppressive. It was kinda disturbing how despite his heat, I wanted to shudder within my leather jacket. His room smelled of weed, Tom Ford hastily sprayed to cover up the weed, and the heady, musky spoor that could only be described as boy. The cocktail was making me a little queasy. I picked up my satchel, forcing his arms to drop to his sides as I turned to face him. “Do you want me, or do you just want me to want you?”
My Guy kissed his teeth and groaned, running a hand across his face impatiently. “Man, for fuck’s sake, see, like, here you go again, Kiki. Speaking in riddles. Just be straight with me.”
“I always am. I told you from jump what this was. You were cool. You said you preferred it. You do you. I do me.”
My Guy looked at me with almost the same intensity that he’d been looking at himself in the reflection a few seconds before. He was doing it again, hoping the facts that his eyes were hazel and his skin caramel were enough to work for him. I guess it could have worked if I hadn’t already bitten into him and felt the crunch—and discovered that his sexy was fake. Or if I hadn’t chosen him specifically because there was no risk of falling for him.
“Yeah, but maybe . . . I didn’t realize how much I’d like it when I do you.”
I knew how My Guy thought it sounded in his head. His voice had lowered into a purr, his eyes calculatedly heavy, constructed to elicit the image of him on top of me, his voice against my neck. It was meant to weaken me—and it had worked so many times for him, I’m sure—but I had a built-in resistance for that kind of bullshit. I’d been through it before and now I had immunity. He snapped out of intoxication mode on hearing my incredulous laugh, his eyes widening, mild annoyance and confusion slipping into them.
I shook my head. “You haven’t done me.”
“I mean basically.”
“I mean basically, we’ve only had a few spicy cuddles.”
“And whose fault is that?”
I smiled. “I have to go.”
“You’re shook and I get it, but you’re different from the rest, Kiki. It isn’t the same with you. You know I cancelled on Emma from Hazelwitch Hall for you tonight?”
I turned from my way to the door and pressed my hand against my chest. “Oh, you shouldn’t have. Really.”
My Guy nodded, rolled his tongue in his mouth, and laughed humorlessly. “You’re really kind of a bitch. You know that?”
I grinned. “I do. Thanks, though. It means a lot coming from you. If a guy like you doesn’t think I’m a bitch that means I’m fucking up somewhere.”
He laughed heartily, with the energy of someone who hadn’t understood a word I’d said, and went back to his bed, reclining, abs flexing, white boxer-briefs tighter than normal. It was like he had to physically remind himself that he was hot. As if he was actually capable of forgetting. “Be like that. You’re gonna be back.”