I nodded. “Oh, I see.” There it was.
Zack’s sneer melted a little and his smile faltered as he noted the look on my face. I was grinning widely, manically. “Kiki, look, I was just chatting, I’m sor—”
I shook my head and wrestled my arm from his grip, still smiling, like he’d told the funniest joke, which was somewhat close to the truth in that he was a fucking joke. Malakai’s friends were laughing at something, carefree, unaware. Malakai didn’t join them. His brows were furrowed slightly as he looked at me, eyes bright, glimmering at me in the dim violet light. I swore they were saying something. I swore I heard them say what I was thinking.
Zack took my silence for softening and tried to place a hand on my waist. My stomach turned and the safeties came off my inner glocks. I put my empty cup down on a nearby table, looked back up to him and smiled. “I know you’re sorry.”
Chapter 6
I found my legs and strode toward Malakai, weaving deftly through the crush of twined bodies. Kofi was playing a song that sampled Floetry’s “Say Yes.” We had entered a slow-jam section of the night and so backs were pressed flush against fronts, faces were in necks, and arms were wrapped around waists, as hips swayed to the sultry song, making it relatively easy to make my way through what would normally have been a thick crowd.
Malakai pushed himself off the wall immediately. My heart slammed against my ribcage with the full weight of itself, in protest of what I was about to do, but there was no backing down now. He was looking at me with calm curiosity. He’d moved a little away from his friends and into a corner that was slightly obscured but still visible to eyes that were purposely seeking and trailing. He flicked his head at me to follow suit. I stepped up to him, ignoring the interested eyes of his boys, and the gentle jesting calls of “Jeez, is that you, yeah, Chief Malakai? A whole Kiki Banjo, ya kna? How much did you pay in dowry?”
Malakai directed a middle finger at them while looking straight at me, his plush mouth bent slightly in intrigue, his eyes sparkling. He had to be kidding me with this. How were they so dark and so bright at the same time? I didn’t think horoscopes were my thing but his eyes really looked like stars and I suddenly wanted to be an astrologer, to learn how to read them as they flashed at me.
“What you need me to do?” His voice was low, gravelly.
A thrill ran through me but I had no time to assess it. I rose on tiptoe, wrapped my hand around his neck, and said, with a breath into his ear, “Kiss me.”
He smelled good, a dark, musky, woodsy fragrance with the clean sweet scent of whatever lotion he used, and I took it in deeply to distract myself as two long seconds ticked by in which he said nothing. The lengths of our bodies weren’t touching but I was close enough to sense his surprise. The adrenaline from my war-surge was beginning to thicken and slow enough for embarrassment to creep in. I wanted to humiliate Zack in the language he understood, twisting his toxic machismo and shoving it down his throat, but now I was the one choking.
I let go of the back of Malakai’s neck and began to retreat, accepting my defeat, prepping my shit-sorry-forget-I-said-anything speech, when he put both hands on my waist and drew me to a halt. A shot of heat rushed through my entire body. His fingertips rested lightly on the top of my skirt, just below where the slip of skin exposed by my crop top began. It was a comfortable pressure, politely light, respectful, and yet the pit of my stomach flared, impolitely, disrespectfully. The slip of skin itched for his hands to move a scintilla upward. What had I got myself into? I needed to be in control, always, but the way my skin seemed to be feening for something it had never had before was beyond mine. He had barely touched me.
Malakai lifted his head so he was looking right at me. I was on my tiptoes still and if he hadn’t been holding me I was pretty sure the intensity of his gaze would have been enough to knock me off balance. My heart wasn’t beating like war drums anymore; it was carnival drums. My body had been ready to move into combat, but now, strangely, I wanted to dance.
Malakai nodded, the corner of his deep and delicious looking mouth flicking upward. “Okay.”
I only saw a flash of Malakai’s eyes amping up in wattage, the increased gradient of his crooked smile, before my bottom lip nestled between his and I slowly, gently pressed, causing his own mouth to part immediately, welcoming me into a dark and decadent warmth. His lips moved in a motion that was in deep conversation with mine, filling in the cadences, an instant response to my calls that sent a thrill so sharp through me I almost stumbled. I pushed my body closer and he took it as permission to draw me in with teasing languidness.