“Stop,” he ordered.
“Why? Why are you touching me anyway?”
“Because I want to.”
His answer caught me off guard and I didn’t know how to respond. Instead, I swallowed hard and tried to look away. He brought his other hand up and grasped my chin, turning my head back to face him.
“This is silly,” I said softly.
“Is it?”
I sucked in a deep breath as he leaned closer to me. He stopped when our faces were barely an inch apart. I could smell the clean scent of his intoxicating cologne. Part of me wanted to push him away, tell him to move. The other part was so tempted to just stand on my tiptoes and kiss him. And when his gaze dropped to my mouth, I found myself doing just that. His lips were soft and smooth against mine and my eyes drifted closed as he kissed me back. Mekhi tugged on my bottom lip with his teeth, and I opened for him, letting his tongue sweep into my mouth to mesh with mine. His hands circled my waist, and I let my arms loop around his neck. He was pulling me closer when his phone suddenly rang. It was more effective than a bucket ofcold water thrown in my face. I jerked back from him, refusing to meet his eyes.
“Farrah—”
“You should answer your phone,” I mumbled before turning my back to him.
I walked toward the bedroom quickly, locking the door once I was safely behind it.What the fuck were you thinking?I asked myself once I was in the shower. I didn’t know. All I knew was that a month ago, I had disliked Mekhi Venzant and the feeling had been mutual. And now, here I was staying in his house and kissing him.
“Get it together, Farrah,” I whispered.
Just because he was fine didn’t mean I had to go around lusting after him. Mekhi was going to provide me with protection and that was all. Anything else was way more than I was ready for.
She tasted sweet.Three days after that unexpected kiss in my kitchen and my mind still wandered to that night. I still maintained that Farrah wasn’t my type, but I had enjoyed kissing her. She was so soft—her lips, her skin, her body, everything. I liked touching her, holding her. Too bad I wasn’t supposed to like her.
She had surprised me, but she had surprised herself even more. I could tell because she’d been avoiding me as much as she could. She left early in the mornings for her internship and, according to Steel and Jarell, when she didn’t have class in the evenings, she went to her campus library. They no longer let her out of their sight, and I was cool as long as I knew where she was. She came in late every night and damn near ran to her room, likeshe was scared I was going to bring up what had happened. Shit was funny to me.
“Khi?”
Texas’s voice snapped me out of my thoughts.
“What?”
“This Trell nigga is incognito. I ain’t heard nothing in the streets, nothing really in the police gang databases, and I haven’t found anything in other databases I can tap into. I’ma send you a couple of pictures to show your girl, but they sound nothing like her description. We gon’ have to draw him out some kind of way.”
Frustrated, I rubbed a hand across my face. Texas was ex-military, had worked in intelligence for a while. If he couldn’t find anything, then this shit was worse than I thought.
“How you think we gon’ do that?”
He hesitated for a minute, so I knew he was about to say some shit I didn’t like.
“Just spit the shit out,” I snapped.
“We might have to let him get close to your girl?—”
Shaking my head, I cut him off immediately. “Hell, no. We not doing that. That defeats the whole purpose of me watching out for her.”
“If we could just make him think she’s alone?—”
“Tex, that shit is a no-go. I’m not risking her.”
Once I said it, I realized I meant it. I wasn’t willing to take a chance with Farrah’s life. She was my responsibility, and I was going to protect her until this shit was over. He sighed and held up both hands.
“I’ll keep looking and listening.”
“Do that. We?—”
I stopped when I heard the doorbell ring. Grabbing my phone, I looked to see who it was. I was surprised to see Farrah—she hadn’t come back this early since she’d been here.
