Page 65 of Bronx

“Do you want me to make you come?”

She doesn’t answer.

I place my mouth right underneath her earlobe. “If you want my fingers to squeeze your clit with just the right amount of pressure until you come all over them, you’re going to have to say the words. ”

After what Karma shared with me about her foster brother, and I haven’t forgotten the rapist’s name: Jake Benedict, I need to be careful with her.

“Why did you come out in this robe, Karma?” I challenge, hoping she’ll acknowledge that it’s okay to want me too. Fuck it, we’re both adults, right? I’ll figure out the whole I’m going to kill her brother part later. “All I want to do is take it off of you.”

But when she whips her entire body around in outrage, her eyes shooting lethal daggers at my head, I realize I may have said something really stupid.

“What’s that supposed to mean? You think because I’m in a robe that it was some sort of signal for you to put your hands down my underwear?!”

“That’s not what I meant. I thought–” I take a few steps back. “You kissed me earlier.”

“You were the one who initiated that kiss, and what does that have to do with this moment we’re in right now?”

She’s furious.

I fucked up.

“I think I must have misread the situation.”

“You think my foster brother didn’t say the very same thing to me? Judging me for what I was wearing or wasn’t wearing all the damn time. Blaming me for… for what happened.”

Her voice rises with each sentence and my dick shrinks back into its quiet position between my legs.

“I’m not Jake,” I say firmly, trying to defend my poor choice of words.

“Don’t ever say his name!” She slams the bowl of cake batter on the counter. “I shouldn’t have told you anything about it.”

“I apologize.” I say as I walk out of the kitchen and slump back in my armchair. “It won’t happen again.”

Famous last words.

Karma tightens her robe and walks out of the kitchen as well.

“I’m going to go change and then I’ll put the cake in the oven.”

“Understood.”

Twenty minutes later, she’s dressed in a casual, flowy long skirt and an oversized white shirt with a white tank underneath that she purchased at the boutique. The cake is in the oven and it’s been deathly silent between us the entire time.

I really fucked things up and I’ve been deliberating in my head why I care so much, but also how I’m going to fix it. I figure that the only thing that can make this right is to give her what she came for, progress on finding her brother. Unfortunately, I still don’t have many leads and the realization hits me that I’m going to have to swallow my pride and call in the calvary.

“I’m going to take a walk,” she suddenly announces.

“Cool.”

I feel the weight of her stare as if I’m the biggest disappointment she’s ever met in her life.

“Cool?”

“Yeah,” is all I manage to say in response.

“Fine.”

After the elevator doors close, I question everything I ever said or did since I’ve met Karma, when I shouldn’t be thinking about her at all.