chapter 11
'Let me ask you this, if I should pick from a million women, yourself inclusive, whom do you think I am going to pick?' Ana forced her lips close to prevent the smile that was gushing out. She did not need to be told the treat in his question. Vodka looked down at her before red cheeks had the courage to look up. She blinked like a hundred times. When the urge to kiss his eyes had begun boiling in her inside, she tossed her gaze aside.
Ana wanted to bare her heart out to him.
In his arms, the strong willed Ana was the weakest. Kwame was a land of plenty that she could hardly resist.
'Based on what criteria?' blush was speaking.
'What do you think they have that you don't?'
Ana's gaze had dropped to her lap. It appeared as though she was not listening but all she could manage was to dance to his utterances.
'Is it your comely forehead that creases like the waves of the ocean each time you look up at me?'
What soberness conceals, drunkenness reveals.
Surprised he had noticed the crease of her forehead to a lovely effect, she looked up at him.
She watched his stare move from her eyes to her forehead in sheer admiration. He returned his gaze, which forced Ana to drop hers.
'Mm? Tell me. Or you think someone has more spellbinding eyes than yours?'
At the sound of this, she went wide-eyed. Not because of the nice treat, but because of the sameness. All her life she had come close to only two men: her late husband and Kwame. What just slipped off his lips was sweet yet terrifying.
Spellbinding eyes.
She recalled her late husband using these exact words on her just a week before he passed away.
Oh no, he will not cheat on me, will he?' Her face was as stoic as possible.
Ana, after her late husband, had likened any similarity to sameness. If anyone came close to sharing something similar to her late husband, that person was branded heartless, a cheat, a big liar, and other names in her world of bad men. For Kwame, she resorted to sheer coincidence and coiled into herself. He pressed her into himself to shelter her from the chill in the breeze.
'Maybe someone might come close to your pretty little nose but certainly not your lips.' At the mention of her lips, a reflex twitched her upper lip. She was tempted to touch her own lips but declined. She realized he spoke living words. Words that had the power to touch her physically. His words were already caressing her. A fight had begun between herself and the effects of his words. It needed not to be said that her losing prospects were becoming clearer.
He spoke of her lips again, which run her mouth dry. She swallowed the unadulterated lust that had come to hang on her lower lip.
'How do you bring that to fruition?' he asked.
'Bring what to fruition?'
'Keep me glued to your lips each time you are talking.'
Oh boy! Stop talking, please. The voice in her head was close to a whisper.
She twisted her lips to succumb the effect of his words.
He watched Ana toy with her fingers like a kid. Ana loved the feel of his heavy breath on her forehead each time he breathed. She knew if she looked up at him again, she would not be able to withstand the sweet temptation. She was bound to kiss off every compliment on his lips just to spare her the word 'tease' if he looked up.
But it was the last move she wanted to take; kiss him when he was intoxicated.
He could be mad at me when sober.
She buried her face into his chest to battle the compulsion. She used just a little make up so his suit was safe. Her breath had switched temperature to warmer.
'Do me another favour please?' his baritone tasted like Japanese jollof rice. This time she actually thought she had been kissed because the vibrations were palpable. The vibrations that buzzed in his chest as he spoke, had electrified her completely unexpected. She then realized burying his face on his chest so that her lips touched him was the worst idea. She licked her lips in pepper-hot relish.
Ana wanted to utter the word 'Go ahead,' but each time she tried opening her lips to talk, the words 'Go ahead and want me,' wanted to come out all at once. She tried 'ok,' but 'ok touch me tenderly,' had taken a shortcut to his lips. 'Ok,' was now descending. Ana was giddy. She had forgotten she could go for a simple nod. Eventually she did, but even that, she nodded to his request three to four times more than the number she decided.
'Would you please make me have a feel of your chin?' he gestured with his thumb and index finger.
Petrol wanted to touch fire, and fire was itching to flare up. Her head felt like bursting. His pamper was majestic and royal. It had this unique treat to it that only he could make her feel. If this was the closest he could come to telling her he loved her chin, then Ana thought she also had the right to ask for a feel of his lips. Though she felt asking for that was too manly for a woman. It was men who asked for that so she dragged that idea under the rag. She took a breath, pouted, and looked straight ahead, so that he could see her looking.
'Feel free.' She closed her lips fast to prevent herself from saying something like 'Feel free to tease them with your basket balling fingers.'
When he had almost touched her, Ana's lips were quivering horribly. The effect his fingers wielded on her jaw was none but magnetic. She was not a land so hers could be called something like a jaw slide. The lips of a kid who has craved for a particular candy the whole year would not shake this much when he finally had a candy as Ana's did. When he held pointed chin, the quivers reduced slowly. Her body had found an antidote to aloneness. He felt it recede to a quick calm. Just feeling it, he was not satisfied, he wanted to taste them. He then went ahead without permission. With his fingers, he toyed slowly to have a feel of its smoothness and cuteness. She could not help but flower her lips into a smile and savour the feel of his fingers right beneath them. She closed her eyes and rested her head on his chest as they took each other in. If the night could go on forever, she would want to be there until thy kingdom came, especially when the breeze had almost disciplined itself to a corresponding slow.
'Which one is it? It is either God forgot he had spent enough time on you or you were created in his leisure time.'
He creased at the forehead, squinted at her, and waited for an answer. She could see in her peripheral that he was staring at her. She bit her lip and shot him a lightning glance. She was beaming like a firefly. All that Kwame saw was the flash of beauty in her big eyes.
Under strict reflex, she rested her palm on her chest. Kwame needed not to be a prophet to know that that hand was telling him he was such a sweetheart. Silence ensued after this. She wondered if he was sleeping. In the silence, she would intermittently glance up at him to meet his fixed stare at her. She would always giggle after each glance, which caused her body to buzz, sending vibrations into Kwame.
'Hey, say something!' she said, after his stare went robotic.
When his words were alive and could touch her, Kwame, that night, left her whole body in a state of excited confusion. His words never failed to have effect on her. When his conversation drifted towards certain places, she could not handle it. When he was finished with her, her chest and bra were in fierce riot. Some other undergarments had begun a protest to go on strike effective immediately. The lovey-dovey mood had erased and replaced all the negatives in her. Hope hang in the air.
Behind the wheel, she was a driving peak. She needed to go as slow as she could, else, the arousal could make her speed beyond the appropriate limit. Almost home, Kwame wanted to dance again. Vodka was not satisfied for the night.