Page 105 of Pride and Protest
“So damned deep,” he murmured against her ear. Then he began to move. Liza held him tight, not allowing him any escape from her embrace. She heard the gentle slaps of her body against his and his deep moans. For a while, they just moved together, looking each other deep in the eye. The intense eye contact was sending Liza over some invisible cliff. She had never made love like this—they were one soul passing between two bodies. He bent down to taste her mouth again, and Liza tightened around every inch of him, making him whisper her name into the hollow of her neck.
“Oh, Liza!” He moved like he had been inside her his whole life. Slow, deep strokes gave way to powerful, grinding pumps. They were a closed circuit, and the power flowed between them until Liza’s body shook with it. She was losing control, and she drove with Dorsey toward a powerful release. At the crest of her orgasm, she cried out.
“I love you! God, Dorsey, I love you so much. Don’t ever go.”
He kissed her deeply, tasting her salty tears and swallowing her “I love yous.”
Grabbing her high on his hips, he pounded the words back into her, hard strokes that made Liza grip the black sheets and arch herself up like a bow. Waves and waves of extraordinary pleasure cracked her completely open.
His orgasm rocketed behind hers, and he collapsed on top of her. He didn’t go. He just nuzzled her neck and cooed in her ear. Emotion overwhelmed her, and she sobbed. Not cute little cries but deep, racking sobs that shook the bed and alarmed Dorsey.
“Are you... Did I hurt you, Liza?” Dorsey’s face was horrified, and Liza’s embarrassment tripled. That was it. The verylast of her dignity. He wrapped his arms around her, and her cries softened. Why had he not said it back? Why couldn’t he just put her out of her misery and sayI love you too?His arms around herfeltlike it. His soft murmurings against her earfeltlike it. But it would be a long time until she completely trusted her knee-jerk feelings again.Just say it, Dorsey.
“I know this great way to get to sleep. I like to think about all the kinds of cloud formations,” Dorsey said, still trying to calm her. Liza nodded into his arms.
“Mammatus clouds. Those are my favorite because they look like boobs.”
Liza chuckled in his arms. Maybe if he thought of boob clouds, he would forget her horrifying declarations—or return them.
“Shelf clouds roll in with thunderstorms. Lenticular clouds...” Liza drifted off on his warm chest.
She woke up sometime later and found his body in the pitch dark. They made love again—this time slowly, with searing intensity and without speaking. They moved together powerfully until their cries shattered the silence. Liza was unsure if the wetness against her face was from her tears or Dorsey’s.
Liza awoke to the smell of fried eggs and coffee. She went to the bathroom, then grabbed one of Dorsey’s shirts from the closet and padded down the stairs.
She saw him smiling at her as she approached. He looked damned good in the morning. She touched her head. Oh lord, she had gone to sleep without a bonnet. Her ponytail was definitely tilting to the side.
“You look good in my shirts. How do you like your coffee?”
“Ton of cream, no sugar.” With the sun streaming into thewindows and the warm mug in her hands, it would have been a perfect morning. But there was a twinge of awkwardness due to that desperate declaration of love and endless sobbing shit she did last night. She came here telling herself to be breezy, and she had ended the night like a telenovela.
“Liza, I think we should talk about how we want to move forward.” Dorsey’s voice was stern.Oh, here we go.Stiff posture, formal speech. He was about to reiterate that he did not want a relationship. If he was going to come at her with some long list of side-chick rules, he could save it.
“No, Dorsey, I—” She was stopped by a hard pounding on the door. This type of knocking wasn’t a request. Dorsey rushed to open the door, and Liza saw Gigi pushing her way through. She held out her phone like it was a hot sack of manure.
“Liza, is this your sister?” Gigi blurted out.
“Oh, I don’t think you—”
“I kind of Instagram-stalk you, so that wasn’t a question. This looks like Deya, right?” Gigi asked.
Liza took the phone and looked at an Instagram account called conscious_melanated_mind.
Then she heard LeDeya’s voice. “I’m tripling my money today! With my fifty-six thousand, I’ve invested in my future, and you can too.” The camera panned to three striking Black women all made up with distinct touches Liza recognized. “Contribute to the cause. Invest in yourself and watch your blessings triple!”
Liza’s heart drummed. Where had Deya gotten such a precise sum of fifty-six thousand dollars? If she added up the last time she’d made a deposit in Granny’s savings and her mother’s bank account...
Gigi nodded toward the phone. “Liza, Isaiah is there. I heard his voice.”
Liza’s knees went weak.
Deya had taken Bev’s and Granny’s savings and given them to WIC.
That girl.
It could ruin them.
Liza pressed the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger.
