"Just watch him with Qwest the next time they're together," she sneers. "They fit. Everyone sees it except you. She's just waiting for him to wake up from this dream, shake off that jungle fever. Maybe you're a black man's fantasy, but she's real life, and when it comes down to it, Grip is nothing if not real. Deep down, you know it."
Her lies and speculation circle me like rope, slowly restricting me. For a frozen moment, I can't speak, and even though Grip's love is gospel to me, my religion, my truth, some little voice within me whispers, What if she's right?
Jade doesn't say more words. She's quiet, allowing the ones she's already spoken to take root. I know she's hoping she'll get under my skin, but she won't. Even with that tiny granule of doubt, I try not to let her. I'm still staring at the blood surging from the tiny cut on my finger when Grip walks into the kitchen.
"Babe, what'd you do?" He moves my finger under the flow of cold water, concern clumping his brows.
"It's just a cut." I swallow against the unreasonable hurt that he introduced Jade and Qwest.
"Well I don't like any kind of cut on you." His voice admonishes and caresses at once. "Jade, where are the bandages?"
"God, Grip. The girl's fine." Jade huffs an exasperated sigh. "It's not like she's gonna lose a finger."
Grip angles a glance at her, his frown deepening. "Would you just go find a Band-Aid?"
Jade's eyes connect with mine before she shrugs and heads out of the kitchen.
Grip watches the door for a moment, even after Jade leaves, questions queuing up in the eyes he turns back to me.
"She bothering you?" he asks. "I know she's still coming around about us."
Is that what he thinks? Jade shows no sign of coming around any time soon, but even irritated with her, I see the affection, the place she holds in his heart, and I really don't want to come between them-especially not when that relationship is so newly restored.
"No, it's cool. She's . . . just being Jade." I try to free my finger, but he doesn't let me go. "My finger's fine."
"I'll be the judge of when it's fine." He offers a lopsided grin. "And who thought it was a good idea to leave you in the kitchen with a knife?"
I know he's teasing me about my legendary culinary ineptness, but now is not the time. I'm still a little bruised from my conversation with Jade.
"I may not be a great cook, but I'm not a child." I snatch my finger back. "Like Jade said, it's just a cut."
When the words come out harsher than I mean them to, Grip grabs my finger, taking it into the warm silk of his mouth, sucking and running his tongue along the injured groove. Electric current spears me down the middle, landing in my core. He sucks all the oxygen from the room, and my lungs desperately push breath from my chest. He studies me under hooded lids, knowing exactly what he's doing to me.
"Was Jade messing with you?" he asks, his voice husky, but his mouth a firm line. He's abusing the sway he holds over my body. I know it, but he still makes me want to confess. I close my eyes and clear my head long enough to tell him only what I want him to know. I need to make my own way with Jade, and I won't do myself any favors if she thinks I go running to Grip to complain every time we disagree.
"No." I meet his eyes steadily. "I was just a little surprised. She was texting Qwest about a song they're working on, and I didn't realize they even knew each other."
"Yeah," Grip says. "I introduced them."
His eyes are clear, free of discomfort or regret. I know he doesn't think this should be problematic at all. It shouldn't be, but I can't resist pressing a little.
"You didn't tell me they were working together."
"Should I have?" Grip bites the inside of his cheek and frowns a little. "I didn't think it was important. Qwest was looking for new material, and Jade's looking for artists to work with."
"And you thought they'd be a good fit."
"Of course." Grip's powerful shoulders lift and fall carelessly. "They have a lot in common."
"Really?"
"They both have this badass sensibility. I knew Jade's lyrics would feel right to Qwest. They've both overcome a lot, lived through a lot of the same things."
Things I have no idea about, things they can easily bond around when I basically have to negotiate a treaty just to have a conversation with Jade.
"You admire her." It's a statement, because it's obvious he does. "Qwest, I mean. You admire her."
"I respect her, yeah," Grip says. "I mean, hip-hop's a male-dominated industry where most of us call women bitch and ho without blinking, and she shoved her way to the top. Her drive and talent and intelligence have made her one of the biggest names in the business, and she takes no shit from nobody."
Grip watches me carefully, probably catching on to the fact that this means more to me than it should.
"Does it bother you that I respect Qwest?"
I could just say yes, but it's not that simple. I, too, admire everything Grip just described about her. I relate to it because in many ways, those are the challenges I face in my career, too. Those aren't the things that bother me, and I have to be honest with him and with myself about what does.
"It doesn't bother me that you respect Qwest. I think it bothers me that you fucked her."
He doesn't even flinch, and I wonder if I can still shock Grip, or if he knows me so well he anticipates my thoughts, reads them in the air over my head before they make it to my mouth.
"And I hate every son of a bitch you ever fucked," he says, his voice remaining steady though his eyes darken. "But I can't change your sexual history, just like you can't change mine. We can only worry about the future."
His hand slips between our bodies, between my legs, to cup me, his wide palm hot as a brand through the thin linen of my shorts.
"And this," he says, pressing into my pussy, "is the sum total of my sexual future."
"Are you using my body against me?" I ask, my voice sandpapered by lust.
"I will use whatever is at my disposal to keep you with me forever."
"And you think my pussy is at your disposal?"
Grip slides one finger over my clit through my clothes.
"You think it's not?" He grabs my uninjured hand and presses it to his crotch. "Because this is completely at your disposal as much as you want, any time you want it, and any way you want to use it."
He links his fingers with mine, careful of the cut on my pinky, and settles our twined hands over his heart.
"And this is yours, too, Bristol, all the time, whether you want it or not."
My eyes rest on our hands over his heart, and I feel some peace for the first time since I walked into the kitchen to talk to Jade, maybe since we arrived . . . maybe since I woke up today with this party hanging over my head. When things are out of control, he's always my peace, always my sigh of relief. He's the reminder that come what may, there's us, and we aren't going anywhere-ever.
I step closer, his hand still between my legs, my hand still on his dick, and rest my forehead against his chin.
"I'm sorry." I breathe the apology into the Grip-scented skin of his neck. "I just feel . . . possessive, probably even more when it comes to Qwest because I know she would never have had you if I hadn't thrown the two of you together. I love the way you love me, in and out of bed, and the idea of someone else having you . . ."
My words trail off as his dick thickens and lengthens in my hand. My eyes zip up to his face, where his eyelids hang heavy over the dark storm of his eyes and his lips are parted on a hot breath.
"Does it turn you on that I'm possessive of you?" I ask.
"I'd fuck you in that sink right now if it wasn't full of collard greens," he says, his eyes speculating like he might follow through on his threat anyway.
Despite power surging through me from the knowledge that I affect him this way, and even with the air so thick with lust I could cut it with the knife I used just minutes ago, I laugh. It's a robust sound that scrambles from the bottom of me and climbs to the very top, like I'm a mountain and this sound scaled every challenge, every obstacle, to soar.
"Is that you laughing like a bird again?" Grip's chuckle vibrates from his chest into mine.
I slide my hands over the ridges of his abs and chest to link my wrists behind his head, peppering gentle kisses over his lips.
"You're never gonna let me live that down, are you?"
"Not a chance." Grip rests his hands at my hips, pulling me into his hard heat. "You can be a bird-my pretty bird."
I lift to touch my lips to his, ready to settle into a stolen kiss before we have to get back to the party.
"I shoulda known," Ms. James says from the kitchen door, hands braced on her hips. "Sent you in here to get Bristol, and here you go, all booed up."