He nods, assessing me. I know without make-up and with my hair in these two braids, I look about fifteen.
“And how old are you?” he asks.
“Twenty-five.”
“Shit.” He slips his hands into his pockets and frowns, biting one corner of his mouth. “I’m thirty-six.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, oh,” he says. “Eleven years.”
“Does it really matter?” I grin and bite my thumbnail. “I mean we are just friends.”
After a few moments, he relinquishes an answering smile. “Right,” he replies. “And friends don’t let friends listen to crap music.”
“Here we go.” I put my hands on my hips and throw my head back. “Hit me with all your oldies but goodies.”
“You little . . .” He chuckles and shakes his head. “Mumble rap is not music, Lotus.”
“It totally is,” I defend on principle more than because I actually like mumble rap. I just enjoy a good debate. “It’s an emerging subgenre.”
“Did you read that in Vibe magazine?”
“Who in hip-hop do you consider great?”
“I grew up during the renaissance of hip-hop. Take your pick. Biggie and Pac are given, so we won’t even go there. Nas. Jay-Z, Rakim. I’ll even give props to millennial rappers.”
“From my generation, you mean?” I mock.
“You’re having too much fun with this. Sure. From your generation. Kendrick. Lil Wayne, Drake.”
“Do not say Kanye,” I interject. “He’s in the sunken place.”
“I did see that on Twitter.”
“Twitter?” I scratch my chin. “Hmmmm. I think I remember Twitter. The little blue bird?”
“So you’re strictly Instagram, I assume? Thousands of people who have no idea who you are, but who follow your perfectly filtered life? Little snapchat birds flying around your head and shit?”
“Oh, you are old,” I say with a pitying shake of my head. “And cynical with it, but Twitter has made a comeback.”
“Don’t get me started on social media.”
“We’ll save that for another day. Finish schooling me, or should I say, old schooling me, on my ratchet music choices and how millennials are ruining the whole world.”
“Not the whole world,” he says, patting my head condescendingly. “Just most of it. Definitely music.”
“We probably like some of the same music,” I counter. “What’s your favorite song to listen to when you want to unwind?”
“It never entered my mind.”
“Well, let it enter your mind. Think about it and then tell me—”
“Lotus, stop,” he says, squeezing his eyes closed. “Say you’re joking.”
“What? I’m asking which song you like to—”
“And I told you.” He laughs and tugs on one of my braids. “’It Never Entered My Mind’ by Miles Davis. It’s my favorite song of all time.”
“Wait.” I run through my mental playlist. “Miles Davis the trumpet player?”
“So you have heard of him.”
“Does that song even have words?”
“None you can hear, no.”
“None that you can hear?” I cock a dubious brow. “Explain, old man.”
“I’ll let you get away with that just this once,” he says with a wide smile. “That man speaks his soul through his trumpet. It’s not words. It’s emotion. Power. Passion. Pain. You don’t have to hear one word to know what he’s saying.”
“I honestly don’t think I’ve heard it before,” I admit.
“That’s a travesty,” he replies, still holding one of my braids lightly in his grip. “I’ll play it for you sometime.”
“It’s on Spotify, I assume?” I ask, pulling out my phone.
“No way.” He grabs the phone and shoves it into my back pocket. His hand lingers at the curve of my ass through the thick denim, and our eyes lock. Hold. Heat.
“Sorry.” He withdraws his hand from my pocket, leaving the phone behind and clearing his throat. “I want your first time hearing it to be on vinyl.”
“Vinyl? And where am I going to find vinyl just laying around? Much less something to play it on?
“At my place,” he answers, his voice low and deep, his glance caressing my cheeks, dipping to touch my lips.
Any retort dies in my throat. My face is on fire, not from embarrassment, but from the heat of his look. Of the answering fire it stokes in me. This man is so dangerous. He’s the kind who could fool me into thinking I’ve had it all wrong. That the cycle I’ve seen from the women in my family is one I could break. That I could share more than my body, and be rewarded with more than his in return.
“Michael Jackson,” I blurt, needing to shatter the intimacy swirling between us like sweet smoke.
Kenan blinks once, twice, clearing some of the desire from his gaze. “Excuse me?”
“Michael Jackson’s pretty universal,” I reply quickly. “Millennials love his music. People your age do, too.”
He laughs and shrugs, letting me diffuse some of the sexual tension with the King of Pop.
“People my age.” He inclines his head and leans back against the wall, arms folded and slightly bulging. “You might be right. What’s your favorite Michael Jackson song?”
“There’s so many.” I bunch my brows, concentrating. “Maybe ‘Man in the Mirror.’ What about you?”
“I used to think it was ‘Off the Wall,’” he says, recapturing the braid hovering at my shoulder and brushing the curled tip over my mouth, leaving my lips throbbing, aching. “But I think I have a new favorite.”
“Oh, yeah?” I ask breathlessly. “What is it?”
In a flash of straight teeth and wicked humor, he has me hanging on his next words. Waiting to see what he’ll say. How he’ll fascinate me next.
“PYT.”
Pretty Young Thing.
He dips to catch my eyes with his, just in case I missed the significance of the title. I don’t. I get it. I get him. After talking to him for the last few minutes, and looking under his hood, so to speak, I’ve found that he’s a classic. They don’t make them like him anymore, and if I don’t change the subject, change the course of this conversation, I’ll fool myself that we don’t have to keep things simple and that we could be more than just friends, not just for the summer, but for a long time to come. As long as I’d like.
“Okay,” I say, switching gears without a clutch and pulling a tie off another of Amanda’s racks. “I think that shirt could work really well with this tie.”
He doesn’t look at the tie I’m holding up, but keeps his eyes fastened on me. He’s not playing along. I’ve boxed myself into a corner with him. And the quarters are too tight. His scent. His warmth. His intelligence. His thoughtfulness. He is pressing in on me, overtaking my good intentions in all the ways I never thought a man could.
“Try this on,” I say, blindly shoving the mint green shirt at him.
When I look at him, he’s already peeled one shirt off and is reaching for the one I chose. I didn’t think this through. Didn’t forecast that Kenan changing from one shirt into another would mean his naked chest. I lose my train of thought and all my chill. Besides my mouth dropping open at the sight of the sculpted terrain of his chest and abs, I give no other indication that he affects me. Taut, bronze skin stretches across his broad shoulders like supple canvas pulled over a frame, the foundation of a masterpiece. He’s a big man. Not bulky, but instead chiseled to the specifications of a master sculptor: arms roped with muscles, biceps like rocks under skin glowing with health. The forearms Chase raved about are lined with veins and sinew. And I die for a great chest. I’ve never seen one more spectacular than Kenan’s.
Two words.
Male. Nipples.
Jesus, my mouth is literally watering at the thought of tasting them, sucking them, licking them. And if that pectoral perfection weren’t enough, the two columns of muscles, four each, are stacked over his lean stomach arrowing down to a narrow waist and hips. I can’t look away. I lick my lips, imagining how he would feel under my mouth. How I’d lick around his nipples and drag my tongue down that shallow path bisecting his abdominal muscles. I’d slip that belt off and sink to my knees. Unzip those pants and take him out. God, hold him in my hands and then take him all the way to the back of my throat. I’d choke on him. A man this big . . . I’d be so tight around him.
“Lotus,” Kenan says, jarring me from my torso trance. “Should I go ahead and put this shirt on? Or did you need a little more time?”
I snap a glance up to his face, embarrassed to find him laughing at me. Oh, God. I’m as bad as Amanda. I turn to leave, but he catches my elbow with a gentle hand and turns me back around, walking us behind two of the racks. He bends until he’s almost eye level with me.
“Don’t be embarrassed,” he says, searching my face intently. “I’m glad you like my body.”
“I didn’t say I . . .” My words trail off at his knowing grin. “Okay. So you have a nice body. I work in fashion. Do you have any idea how many great bodies I see on a daily basis?”
“I’m sure many,” he says, his smile still firmly in place. “I can’t speak for any of them, only for the way you looked at me.”
“And how do you think I looked at you?” I ask defensively, forcing myself not to look away.
In the quiet that follows, his smile fades, and heat replaces the humor in his eyes. “You looked at me the way I bet I’ve looked at you every time you walk into a room,” he says, the timbre of his voice rolling over my sensitive skin like a caress. “Like I would eat you if I could. Head to toe, everything in between.”