Page 16 of Scribbled Excellence

I barely nodded before I picked my fork up and put it into my salmon. It flaked perfectly the second my fork hit it. Once it was in my mouth, I moaned. It melted and was so flavorful. “This is so good, Kyro. How is yours?”

He finished the bite that he had in his mouth. “This steak is so damn good. I can tell this cow was grass-fed.”

I gawked at him for a beat before I erupted with laughter. “What the hell, Kyro! Now you know if a cow is grass-fed, that’s a powerful filet. Let me get a bite.”

A scowl came across his handsome face. “Were you the one that was just all screw faced when that man said something about sharing? Now you want some of my steak.”

My eyes rolled to the ceiling. I swooped up some of the purée with my fork. “You can have some of my sweet potato purée.”

His head drew back before he chortled. “Yo, that’s wild. You want a piece of my steak, but all you’re offering me is some damn sweet potato purée. Yeah, that’s not going to work for me. It’s gonna have to be a protein for a protein.”

My brow rose. “Well, um, I have a better protein that I think you would like a lot better than this salmon. I just wanted to taste that protein before I taste your other.”

My tone was seductive, eyes sensual, and body language sexual. Yeah, I wanted him to know exactly what was on the menu for later. I guess my sister was right. She would see me in the morning.

His head tilted. He stabbed his fork into one of the filets on the plate and put the whole thing on my plate. “Aye! Homeboy!”

Our server rushed out. “Yes, Mr. Goings. Is everything alright?”

“Yeah, we cool. Tell me, what’s on the menu for dessert.” When the server hesitated, Kyro’s hand rose. “You can tell me. I need y’all to box it up so we can go. I want to know so I know if we need to get to the house immediately or we have some grace time.”

The guy snickered for a brief second. “Understood, Mr. Goings. For dessert we have a charcuterie board of decadent creations for your tastebud’s pleasure. On the board, you have chocolate-covered strawberries, mini crème brûlée, salted caramel cheesecake bites, fresh berries, and dark chocolate truffles. If you two decide to stay, it will be served with your choice of espresso, cappuccino, or hot tea.”

Oh, that sounds so good.Kyro lifted his arm and glanced at his watch. “Cool, you can take a picture of the presentation and send it to my phone. Go ahead and box it up. We can stop at Starbucks for the coffee and shit. By the time you do that, we should be finish with these plates.”

I held in my laughter until the server left. “Really, Kyro? All of that.”

“Fuck yeah, all of that. I’ll make up for the missed dessert opportunity. Trust me, ya man has you covered.”

My man, huh . . .

A Morning To Repeat . . .

My head pressed against the headboard of Kyro’s bed while he ate the common sense out of me through my pussy. My hand gripped his curly hair and pushed a little downward. I was ashamed at how I ran from the tongue. Was this a precursor to how I would run from the dick?

True to his word, Kyro stopped at a Starbucks that was close to the hospital that stayed open until midnight. This man got five damn drinks. I wasn’t sure why he did that when he knew good and well we wouldn’t drink any of it when we got to his house.

I wasn’t sure what I expected when it came to how Kyro’s apartment would look. He had a very spacious two-bedroom loft condo. Why he needed that much space was beyond me at first, but once he gave me the tour, I understood. The two bedrooms were on the main floor. One was his actual bedroom and the other a home gym. It was a beautiful open concept downstairs for the kitchen, dining room, and living room. The decor in his house was artsy.

Unlike my place that had paintings, murals, and sculptures, Kyro’s place had more sketches. I could tell that some of them were his original art, and the others were sketches by other artists. His original work was mind-blowing. He had originalsketches in his shop, but these were on another level. I asked if he had ever tatted any of them, and he told me that he hadn’t.

When he took me to the loft, that was where the magic was. It was his own personal, small tattoo parlor. He said that he only tatted friends and family at his house.

The main attraction of Kyro’s tattoo loft was the mural on the back brick wall. The first thing that drew my eyes to the mural wasn’t the color in it, but the pencil in the hand of the man who I assumed was Kyro. He resembled him, so I would go with that.

The pencil was frozen in time forever amid his sketching greatness. Even in Kyro’s eyes on the mural, you could tell that nothing else in the world mattered except that sketch. Was the sketch in the mural the beginning of a commissioned tattoo for a client?

I didn’t need to ask who the artist was of the mural because the bottom of the piece told me.Sketched by Kyro Goings. Painted by Danielle Goings.It was genius in the way that Danielle didn’t use the entire wall to paint the mural. There was exposed bricks that gave the piece character and depth. It gave the appearance that the wall birthed the mural, not the brushstrokes of her brush.

When I gazed at Kyro on the mural, it reminded me of what the sommelier said when he explained the pairing of the wine he selected for Kyro.It cuts through the richness of the filet but does not overwhelm it.Just like the wine did to the filet, the depiction of him in the mural cut through the richness of it, but it did not overwhelm it. I hadn’t known him for that long, but I knew enough about him to know that he had rather people looked at his work than him.

Under the tracing paper that his pencil sketched on there were other sketches. Some of the sketches were finished and some not. It was a reminder that every tattoo design started from . . . well, scribbled excellence. The woman on the oppositeside of him in the mural seemed like the protector of the loft. She was the watcher. Her expression wasn’t happy or sad, it was peaceful. She was the peace that happened in this space with every buzz of the needle that scraped against the skin of a person who often needed to be healed. So many used ink as a healing tool.

At the bottom of the mural, the script saidKyro’s Loft Of Peace.That was ironic because most would just see a loft where a man tattooed and sketched at the desk in the corner. No, this was so much more. It was a sanctuary of sort. It was so Kyro, and I so loved it.

After the loft tour, I was ready to take this man down. Damn him taking me down. That was the plan, but shit, it didn’t seem like that was what happened. My damn neck was cricked up against this headboard. Kyro had his arms wrapped around my thighs, and I couldn’t go anywhere. “Ky . . . Kyro, baby.”

His head lifted for a moment, and his eyes landed on me. “Mar, you were the one who offered me this protein. Now you’re up there whining about my eating technique. What’s wrong? You can’t take it?”