Other Side

25 | Upper Hand

It was nearing two-thirty by the time her pencil left her hand.

Talia considered finding a red pen to accent Zaid's sleepy eyes in the drawing, as distinct as those of a stoner, but the only thing they were high off was sleep-deprived delirium.

And tension.

Lots of fucking tension.

"Do I at least get the pleasure of seeing this drawing?" Zaid rasped, rubbing his left eye with the heel of his palm. "I stayed awake just for you."

"You drifted off four different times, Zaid," she laughed, rising from her seat. A ghastly crack followed, her back finally straightening out after being contorted like a pretzel for the last hour. After another pleasant stretch, she planted her hands on either armrest, invading his personal space. "I think it would be too anticlimactic if you took a look right now."

"Anticlimactic?" He made a face. "That word only applies is if you don't let me see the drawing. Or wait...did you butcher all my nice features? I have a pretty decent nose for an Arab last I checked."

"Funny you choose to question my artistic abilities after encouraging me to rediscover them." She tweaked his decent nose and let her grip fall to his jaw. "My decision has nothing to do with how the drawing came out, for the record. Maybe...I just want the upper hand, for once."

She could feel the muscles of his mouth tugging at his cheeks, attempting to form a weak smirk. "Who says you don't have it? I can barely see straight, yet my eyes force themselves open just to admire you."

Feeling oddly brazen, perhaps empowered by his shameless expression of attraction, Talia pressed her palms into the armrests and lifted one knee to his side, then the other, until she was just hovering above his lap. The muscles in her thighs stiffened as she tried to lower herself some more, eyes frozen on the hard planes of his chest, still sans a shirt to temper her lust.

His fingers skimmed her spine, feeling fiery through her thin long sleeve, and stopped just where a small patch of bare skin peeked out from underneath the cropped hemline. Her body tightened more, knuckles turning white as she gripped the cushion atop his head with one clammy hand.

She blinked, and two hands cupped her ass. With one tug, he did away with the rest of the space between her legs and his lap.

"Next time, if you really want the upper hand," Zaid said into her ear, fingertips digging into the fabric of her sweatpants, "I shouldn't have to help you."

Throat closing in on itself from nerves, she abandoned her words entirely. A hand gripped the back of his head, fingers losing themselves in the wild ends of his hair, as they'd wanted to all night. Then a pair of lips met his cheekbone, soft and delicate, increasing their tempo as they descended. Another hand was far more reserved, sliding down the middle of his chest, feeling smooth skin and a beating heart.

"You can have it back," she whispered, glancing up. "I like it better that way, anyway."

He cupped her cheeks and tilted her head up, looking into her eyes so deeply she swore he saw something in them she couldn't, even with the help of a thousand mirrors. And then he connected their lips, holding her head and moving her the way he wanted. It was slow, measured, chaste, the opposite of what she wanted, but this was already wrong enough with her grandparents just a floor above them.

Zaid pulled his mouth away, a small sigh escaping it in the process before he folded her into his arms. She lay her head on his shoulder and let him run his hand down her back until her eyelids felt like molasses.

"I should probably—"

"You can sleep, Talia," he said.

He didn't have to tell her twice.