Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 72980 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 365(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72980 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 365(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
“Hey!” I snarled, kicking the desk. The metal legs scraped across the floor. “That’s a KitchenAid. When we met and started making smoothies, we had a KitchenAid. Disrespectful ass!”
Washington stomped on the blender’s handle, what remained of it. “Damn thing cost twenty dollars! Couldn’t put too much frozen fruit in it.”
True, but did I care? Yes. Way too much. Guilt had sucked me dry for once appreciating the lavish comforts life provided. My small home-based business hadn’t been enough to satisfy me, and I opened that expensive store in the Quarter. And … I had wanted our own private plane.
“Okay,” I nodded, bashing my bat into a porcelain sink. A crack webbed the white, glassy texture. “This is for your judgy ass sermons about my triannual wine subscription when your golf club deliveries mysteriously multiplied.”
He stopped and stared at me. “Okay. I’ll own that.”
“You’d stand there, Mr. Supreme Court of Shine!” One more hit and I was a certified sink abuser. “And you lecture me like your word was going on a minute order. All I saw?” I snorted. “A man. A super-judgy man with a shiny scalp, who basked in the glory of handing down the verdict and … and the Vaseline.” Nice. That one just came to me.
“Madison.” Washington’s cautionary growl hit that Creole baritone that could melt me out of my panties.
I grimaced. “Okay, stricken from the record. The Vaseline joke was inappropriate. Accurate, but inappropriate.”
Head tilted, he smiled, while I glared at him and went postal on that sink again. Another chunk broke off. “And this is for showers that lasted three hours. What? Did you coat your empty follicles with a whole organic conditioner?”
He hit me with a lethal smile, then shook his head muttering that he never showered for three hours. “You good now?”
“Nope. I’m still on how, while pampering your follicles, you’d sing, and I mean sing, not rap.”
“Madison, don’t mention—”
“Lil Wayne’s Lollipop. Who were you fantasizing about hitting those high notes in the shower, huh?”
“YOU!” Washington caught me mid-swing and turned me to him.
The next thing I knew, his mouth was all over mine. Wild and overdo. This kiss was an explosion of tastes: the tang of tongues, the heat of a fight, and good loving.
In the middle of shards and broken glass, with SZA playing like we were at a trap remix of therapy, I was tugging him, scratching him, and loving him.
Maybe it was the adrenaline, or how he yanked and tugged me.
He pushed me against the wall so hard that I gasped.
“Damn, Maddy, I apologize.”
“Boy, shuddup,” I growled, asserting my dominance while his chest crushed me against the cold wall.
We were supposed to be smashing glass … not lips.
The bat clattered out of my hands. His lips crashed onto mine again. Harder this time. That kiss had enough clapback to outshine any emotional damage he should’ve ever felt about my bald head jokes.
My hands coasted over his head, rubbing my precious, my love.
“I knew you still loved Dome Daddy.”
“Don’t call yourself that,” I said between breathless kisses and bursts of laughter.
“Still mad?” he asked, biting my bottom lip hard enough for me to say Hell yes.
“Big Mad,” I groaned.
“Do something.”
I did. I yanked the collar of his safety vest, my tongue twining around his.
We kissed like people who had no business remembering how amazing it used to be. My hips hit the workbench; his hands slipped between my thighs.
“Wash, no.”
“Yes.”
“Not here.” I wondered aloud, “You think those couples had separate rooms?”
“What?” Washington asked, massaging my hips.
“The couples. I was sure they raged or, you know.”
He grabbed my entire face with his hands and kissed the stupidity from my lips. Cleared my mind enough to make me dumber than a second go. And yet, I had already forgotten what we were talking about.
“Hey, your time isn’t up!” The attendant shouted as we ran out faster than some thuglets up to no good. In the car, hearts a little more wrecked, we were too quiet and giggly. Foreplay.
New Orleans lights blurred past. His hand brushed mine on the console. I tangled my small fingers into his larger ones and breathed in heady anticipation.
As we turned into the drive, the familiar brick facade caught in the headlights. Opulent. Black shutters. Washington was out of the car before I finished my thought. He hadn’t stopped the engine.
“The car,” I said when he opened the passenger door. “Wash, you left the engine …” This achy craving made me forget what engines did when they were on.
“When the keys disappear, it should turn off.” His eyes locked on me, and my insides became liquid lava.
“Mm-hmm,” I agreed, even if neither of our brains was situated correctly.
He leaned in. All that silence, all that heat, snapped me into place. His mouth found mine, low, slow, and with reverence.