Page 23 of Smoke N' Stroke

“Like what?”

“You.Women. This.”

He shook his head at me.

“You sound crazy, you know that?”

“Then write me a prescription, Dr. Booker.”

His eyes were hard but still full of lust. That never went away.

“I got the prescription for your ass.”

I turned away a moment because something about being back in here where he had my limbs spread apart while I pulled his head back and forth to eat me up started to work on other parts of me and not my anger. When I turned back to his silently accessing presence, his eyes were waiting.

“Don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?” His eyes said we both knew how he was looking at me and there was nothing I could do to stop him.

“You know how. Now is not the time. I’m mad.”

“But are you? Cause from what I can tell, I’ve done nothing for you to be mad about. You are in your head, Nala. Get out of it for a moment andfeel, Dr. Jackson. What is this moment telling you?”

“That you need to stop trying to be my doctor.”

He nodded and waited.

“Okay fine. I’m tripping.”

“You are.”

I glared at him and he shrugged with a smile. “You are tripping, but why?”

I sighed and looked away. I felt myself drifting over to the window, my feet feeling heavy with each step. Maybe I was a bit uncomfortable unpacking this with him present, and would rather do it withmy doctor, but if we were going to try this, I needed to be honest with him and myself. This goes back a long way long before Zaire but I wasn’t sure I was ready to tell him about Eric and how it had me questioning whether I was cut out to guide others in their lives when that loser had me down bad the way he did.Baby steps.

“I really really like you, Zaire.” I didn’t look back at him as I felt his presence come closer.

“I feel vulnerable and irrational when it comes to you, Zaire, and that’s not like me, and not just because of what we do for a living. I mean come on; I’m helping people figure their lives out. I can’t be losing my shit right along.”

I felt his hands grab at my shoulders before forcing me to turn and look at him. Gentle brown eyes were waiting for mine.

“Love isn’t rational, Nala. You can't figure us out with that big brain of yours. This thing takes you feeling with your heart ... and the other parts of you too.”

Damn, this man made my heart melt and my coochie too. There was the love word. He didn’t seem to notice and kept going. “I’m not saying to not use your brain, Nala. If I’m messing up, of course, you’re supposed to call me on it, but gettingupset that a woman finds me attractive isn’t okay either.”

“But you seemed to enjoy it.”

He took a moment to respond, taking a seat on the bed. I came to stand in front of him and looked down at him. I could not blame Alicia. I would want him too if I was alone in the mountains. But she would have to find someone else because this one was mine.

“I can see how it would look that way.”

“So you don’t enjoy the women coming on to you.” It was a statement.

“Truthfully, I used to. But not anymore. It’s old. If I wanted to still fuck my way through life like I did in college then sure it would mean something, but those days are done. I want something real and smiles and flirtations won’t give me that unless there’s something solid beneath that.”

I thought about that long enough to see it from his perspective.

“I have only wanted something real to call my own,” I admitted.

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