Read Online Joplin's Ghost by Tananarive Due - Free Book Online Page B

making it bulge like a melon, and lathered her nipples. She always knew when Ronn was there.
    Kendrick guided her hand toward where his eager body strained against her, and she grasped him the way she might hold a stick, feeling his juices beading already as she rubbed her thumb across his most sensitive spot. He moaned against her neck, waiting. He’s tripping if he thinks I’m going down on him, Phoenix thought, and she let him go.
    Kendrick pulled her thighs apart and burrowed beneath the sheet, but his tongue felt dry and lifeless on her, as if he had lost his way. He was just a kid, she remembered.
    “Get the condoms, OK?” she said, because she was ready to be done with it.
    Kendrick was better at intercourse, luckily. He kept his eyes on hers, watching her face as he inched his way inside of her, steadying himself with his arms locked. He didn’t expel right away as she’d feared, and he no longer felt like a boy. Kendrick was so long, he seemed endless. Phoenix felt her body loosen and flood, embracing him. His measured, confident strokes felt so good, she almost had a full-blown orgasm. Almost. That would take more practice, and Kendrick wouldn’t have time to learn. When he was ready, Kendrick gritted his teeth and tilted his head so far back that his Adam’a apple bulged. “Oh, shit. Oh, shit.”
    Then, it was over. This was the same way it had been with the Dominican guy she’d danced with at Crobar on her twenty-first birthday: The heat of a buildup realized in brief bubbles, the pleasure over too soon, and wishing she could roll away as soon as it was done. She suddenly wanted to ask Kendrick to leave. She hoped he wasn’t expecting to spend the night.
    But Kendrick had made himself comfortable, gazing at her from his pillow.
    “Phoenix…” he whispered beside her, disbelieving. She could smell a trace of his last meal on his breath, something spicy. She would not kiss him. Kisses were too intimate for a man she didn’t know.
    “Why do you keep saying my name like that?” she said.
    “Like what?”
    “I don’t know…Like it’s…”
    “Like it’s the name of an ancient Egyptian goddess? It is. Like it’s the name of a force of nature? It’s that, too. Pheeeee-nixxxx, ” he said. He cupped her chin in his hand. His eyes were swathed by thick lashes, and he gazed with a gravity she found unnerving. “I’m jealous, girl.”
    “Jealous of what?”
    “I’m jealous because I knew about you first. I knew you when nobody else did. And now everybody’s about to come late to my party. I have to share you.” When he stroked her bare shoulder, his hand lashed fire. Her body didn’t mind if he stayed a while.
    “You really think I’m gonna be all that?” she said. Her voice cracked.
    Kendrick laughed, his head rolling against the pillow. “Don’t even front. You know it.”
    She smiled. “Yeah, you’re right.” Sarge would see to it, that was all.
    “But you changed your sound. I heard a Rising demo, and you’re different now.”
    Phoenix had nearly forgotten that anyone would know her old sound. “Better, right?”
    “Different, not better. Maybe not as good, in some ways, not to me. Too R&B radio. I miss the rock riffs, the freaky keyboard, the worldbeat. But you’re still in there. I still hear you.”
    Phoenix had gone so long without hearing the truth, she hadn’t realized it was missing. When was the last time anybody had the nerve to say something like that to her? Not Gloria. Not even Sarge. Nobody since Carlos, who had seemed to enjoy telling her exactly what she didn’t want to hear. Having a truth-teller was like having God himself in the room, so Phoenix tried to think of a question worthy of Kendrick Allen Hart. She covered her bare chest with the sheet. They were two people talking now, not a wannabe singer and her one-night stand. They could be in a junior-high schoolyard sharing a strawberry soda.
    “What’s the worst cut?” she said.
    He shrugged. “A