Chapter 33: Samedi

I rolled into the plush comfort of a soft pillowcase, and a smile drew across my face inhaling the hint of my favorite cologne. Distant movements caused me to pick up my head and sit up. I covered myself and looked through blurred morning vision. After rubbing my eyes, my sight was clear enough to reveal a shirtless man in dark pajama bottoms. His eyes were already smiling on me as he went on folding my dress at the edge of the bed.

"Ezra," I sweetly called.

He showed his teeth. "Good morning, Ada."

"Bonjour, Ezra," I snickered.

With amusement, he watched me awkwardly laugh at myself. Remembering my weirdness, my hand covered my face to hide it. However, I realized that Ezra's grin wasn't judgemental of me, when he picked up two adhesive breast petals and put them to his chest.

He looked down at himself, struggling to get his question out with a serious face. "Could I use these instead of an undershirt?"

I broke into a great fit of chuckles, "Ezra, no!"

"You sure?" he scoffed with laughter, as he adjusted them properly.

Tears were brimming around my eyes, but I eventually got out, "If you decide to ever go backless, I will let you borrow them."

With faux relief, he sighed, "Oh, thank you."

He's so cute.

I extended an arm to him, and he didn't hesitate to give me his warmth.

So warm.

"Ma belle colombe (my beautiful dove)," he whispered into my ear, and I pulled back to look up and mentally translate.

"A dove?" I mouthed, hoping I was right.

He smiled big, nodding once.

"Wow," I blushed.

"I told you I would find a different animal. One much more fitting for Ada Young," he admitted before kissing my cheek.

His lips were nearing mine before I bobbed my head away and covered my mouth in a smile.

"My breath smells like ass," I complained through my hand.

"I don't care," he laughed, trying to pull my hand from me.

He crowbarred my grip away, but I fell back into the mattress and did my best to turn my face into the pillow.

"Oh no!" I frowned, looking at his white pillows covered in last night's makeup.

"Doesn't matter," he groaned, while playing with my matted hair.

No! I didn't sleep with my wrap! My hair probably looks like an iceberg on the lean!

Knowing that remaining makeup on my face looked like hell was the cherry on top of my instant insecurities. Feeling gross and unattractive, I turned away and picked up the pillow.

"Ada," he grumbled with dead eyes.

His proximity pushed me to shield my mouth again, "I ruined your pillows."

"Ruined?" he scoffed with a sudden smile.

He stroked the outside of my eye with his thumb and looked at the black streak of eyeliner and mascara on his finger. "I don't think you understand just how sexy it is to see half your face still on and the rest on my pillows."

*

I was more at peace as the bristles of a spare toothbrush cleaned my teeth. I was careful not to be completely disgusting and refrained from gagging when I cleaned my tongue. Ezra ventured back into the bathroom with folded towels. He placed a kiss on the back of my head before he twisted the shower head.

He extended his hand in the cascading waters, testing them when he asked, "May I join you?"

I spat and gawked at him. "That's a rude question. Of course!"

Being so rude in his own damn apartment. Why wouldn't I want to see the goods again?

And the goods did I get to see once more before I was drawn into a wet embrace.

"You like hugging me," I blushed.

"I love holding you," he corrected with high brows.

Kisses oscillated along my neck, pushing me to return a gentle bite close to his shoulder. He touched my cheek softly, knowing that it would make me pull back to look at him. He had a kiss for me, and I had to hide my face within a few seconds. I pressed my forehead to his chest, hoping to hide the random influx of tears.

I didn't want to explain what I just started to feel, though I was sincerely happy. With my feelings stuck in the fast lane, I've had to put on my hazards and stop myself from saying the first thing on my mind to him. I know it would be a mistake if I did.

I'd scare you.

Ezra was so strange to me. Even after he caught me rubbing my reddened eyes, I didn't have to explain anything. Instead, he wiped away my tears by washing his wet palms over my face.

I clung onto him enjoying the kisses atop my head as he spread the suds of Old Spice shower gel across my back. I wanted to stay like this forever. I had been cared for in the past, but never like this.

My back was done, I was turned, and the loofah carefully trailed over my chest. A thin layer of foam dressed my skin before Ezra substitute his hands to lather my body. I gasped for air in the opaquing steam. My teeth raked against my lower lip unable to deny the sensitivity of my slick skin in his hands.

I could feel him stiffening against me the more my audible pleasure echoed into his ears. My jaw was captured in his hands, and my head tilted back so only my eyes were for him. His finger circled around my sensitive pearl, twitching under his touch.

I couldn't take it for much longer. The need to support myself against the tiles turned into taking grip of the small towel bar. At the first buckle of my knees, Ezra hooked a hold around my ribs and didn't let me go until I convulsed in his arms.

*

My face maintained a hotness after I twisted and pranced out of his bedroom dressed in a plain white tee and pull-string pajama bottoms Ezra had pulled from his wardrobe. Ezra was in the kitchen gathering materials for an afternoon breakfast.

"Yas! Yas! Yas!" I exclaimed when Ezra collected seasonings.

His face abruptly riddled with curiosity, slowly turning back to the rack to make me whisper, "No!"

He was experimenting, looking up to the ceiling and pivoting back toward the eggs. His hypothesis was correct, when I yelped once more "Yas!"

Finally placing the spices down beside the stove, Ezra grinned. "I should consider bringing these into the bedroom?"

"Oh, we don't need those in there," I immediately reassured him with leveled eyes. "Trust."

M'kay? Not after last night and what just happened fifteen minutes ago. Lawd!

"Okay. I will trust," he replied with an exceptionally smug appearance.

I wanted to laugh at how unknowingly adorable he was, but I closed the space between us instead. Wrapping my arms around him from the back. My cheek resting against his bare skin.

He touched my hands and asked, "Qu'est-ce que tu fait, ma belle colombe? (What are you doing, my beautiful dove?)"

"I just needed to feel you," I sighed with happiness.

I could hear his heart beating. I could feel his chest expand and contract. I could feel his body tremor when he spoke.

"Your French is very good, Ada," he chuckled.

My smile faded and I paused before I confessed, "I had eight years of lessons from a Cameroonian."

The beating behind his flesh increased in pace. I waited for what telling the truth would bring me, but, with Ezra, I should have known not to jump too far.

"Ada," he hummed. "Do you have to go home soon?"

"No," I smiled, hoping the assumption in my heart was right.

"Good. I want you to stay with me today," he admitted.

"I can do that," I reassured him with satisfaction.

At first, Ezra refused to let me labor with him in the kitchen, but after I twisted my face into a pout, he said I could have a spatula if I turned on some music.

After he pointed, I zoomed out of the kitchen, and I took up the tablet on the couch.

Trailing back to the kitchen, my eyes were glued on the screen, "Ezra, you'll have to–"

"1200," he cut in, and my eyes jolted up in shock.

Did he really just tell me his password?

There was a little grin on his face; he was warming my heart again. After punching in the code, I held an even bigger smile while scrolling through his library.

I wondered aloud, "Should I be surprised that you have some of Billboard's Top 100 on here?"

He pouted and blushed at my teasing. "Some of those songs are catchy."

"You're so cu–" But I had to stop.

I shouldn't have been surprised, but I staggered as I pressed the song.

Ezra held still at the piano's first chords of Sébastein Tellier's "L'amour naissant".

I closed my eyes in sonic bliss, before putting down the device and retracing my way back to Ezra.

His eyes were full of surprise and he looked down to me to question,

"Why did you pick this song?"

My hands covered my heart. "It is one of my most favorite songs in the world."

The Confection album held too many good memories for me. Though, I'm sure Ezra would have poked fun at me knowing that I was introduced to the artist through Greta's obsession with a Coco Chanel runway show from a year ago.

When I saw Ezra's eyes squint from a big smile, everything felt so good. I hadn't felt such a run of cool happiness for many years swaying around the kitchen and waving a spatula as a baton. We ate delicious strawberry folded omelettes in silence, reveling in the uplifting to melancholic harmonics of an artist's brilliance. I knew I didn't have to explain my musical obsession when the last song came to an end; Ezra immediately put it on repeat.

As I carried our dishes to the sink, my excitement faded into a complacency again. He had to have put something into the air because I was feeling as high as a kite. But the line was cut when he took the place of my shadow, smoothing his hands around my waist.

I blanketed my eyes in darkness, soaking up the incredible feeling of the path his hand took from my stomach up to my neck. I felt close to him when he put a hold on me. Ezra's arms cemented into my list of 'needs' because I knew how it would make me feel when they were gone.

My body began to sway at his will, we were gently moving to a trotting symphony of strings. As the familiar ratatat of a hi-hat and snare filled our ears once more, I got to see his face. Ezra took a hold of my right hand and put his other on my hip. My left hand gravitated to his shoulder, and we were moving. Had we not been together the night before, I would have been surprised at his ability to move his hips.

We weren't meant to break a sweat, sashaying back and forth. Looking into the twinkle of green eyes, my heart was adhering even faster than before.

He lowered his lips to my ear, "How do you feel, Ada?"

Like I'm not touching the earth.

"Amazing," I confessed instead. "How do you feel, Ezra?"

"Free."

Free.

Unfortunately, he was only as free as his work would let him be. I lied beside him on the couch as he tended to his emails. Tucking my toes underneath his thigh, I secretly took pleasure in Ezra instincts to touch– using his left hand to stroke my calves and bent knees while using his right for the laptop. I hid my upturned face behind my phone's screen and concentrated on trying to snag a Robot Bear in Alphabear.

Though, only a half an hour passed before I heard the computer close.

I lowered my phone and I teased, "Finally, free?"

Ezra stuck his tongue out at me, and I still couldn't help shrieking at his playfulness.

"Put that tongue away," I jokingly chastised.

"Alright," he grumbled, spreading my knees apart to crawl in between.

Oh shit.

He was good at following directions I didn't even intend for him to listen to. Ezra brought his face close, and I my eyes fluttered with a lightness in my chest. His single kisses drove me wild as they always started with a slow slip of his tongue before he briefly possessed my lips. Ezra knew I wanted more from the way I stared at the sheen on his mouth, but he was cruel.

Instead of bringing them back to me again, he used them to ask, "We've got strangely warm weather. Do you want to go for a drive?"

"Sure, but I can't leave lookin' like this. Plus, I ain't got no shoes for my feet," I reminded him with puckered lips.

He winked, "I'll be back."

We lowered into the basement level of the building, and I clung onto him with excitement. Neither of us looked as though we had a care in the world venturing outside of the apartment in matching tees, pajama bottoms, and sneakers– my new kicks from a shop Ezra quickly patronized in the building's lobby.

"My spaces are there," he pointed ahead.

"Wait... what?!" I exclaimed. "Is that yours too?"

He pinched his smile and nodded, and I dashed to what looked like a black Crotch Rocket beside a matching Porsche.

He quietly admitted, "Just two of a few exorbitant things in my life."

"Don't forget the building I live in," I reminded him, still gawking at the shiny black vehicles.

Turning back to around, I made a frame with my fingers and peered through. "Yeah, I can see it now. My Frenchman on a bike."

Ezra's flush was quick to show, but he neared me to steal a kiss. Though, I couldn't enjoy it for long when I opened my eyes to a pair of keys dangling near my head.

He can't be serious.

"Ezra, stop this," I snickered with leveled eyes.

"C'mon," he laughed.

All joking was thrown aside, and I shook my head, "Umm, the last time I drove, I had my little white Corolla and I was nineteen! This explains why you said you had to get sneakers for me, doesn't it?"

He answered with a laugh and unlocked the car before placing the keys in my hands, "C'mon. We want to go while it's still warm."

Jesus, he was serious.

I squeezed myself in the driver's seat and stared at the tiny shield in the middle of the steering wheel. Ezra laughed at me and fastened my seatbelt. Before I knew it, the hardtop of the vehicle was retracting into the trunk and I was officially inside of a petite Transformer.

The engine roared with every tap on the accelerator, and the small car had me feel like Woody driving RC. Of course, the Frenchman was cackling in the passenger's seat.

"Ezra, you must have a death wish right now... Get out of the way! Fool!" I shrieked at a cab that cut me off without indication.

I was relearning how to drive in an expensive car, with incredible handling at thirty miles per hour. At the first stop light, I looked to Ezra and was in disbelief at how relaxed he was– slouching against the car door and staring ahead with a warm smile.

I knew how to get us to the park, at the skirt of the city, but I was more scared than I let on. I didn't have my license on me, and I could barely loosen my grip on a car I never planned on driving in my life. It was no Corolla, but my cautious driving didn't seem to bother Ezra one bit. He had to be insane. As cars honked and raced us by, I continued to shrink into my nervous shell. Ezra faced me, still grinning from ear to ear.

Yep. Insane he is.

He rested his left hand behind my headrest and reassured me, "You're driving well."

"No, I'm not. I'm going to get us killed in your expensive car," I lowly protested.

He winked."Ada, I've already put you behind the wheels of things far more valuable than this car. I'm not worried about anything you do. Trust."