GRIND (The Silver Nitrate Series Book 1) by Tiana Laveen Read Free Book Online

thinned out a bit, many returning to the dance floor. “Let me get a gin and tonic,” he hollered over the noise. “What you want, man?” he offered.
    “Oh, you got me?” The man’s mouth widened and his cheeks plumped with exuberance.
    “Of course, go ’head.”
    “I’ll take a Heineken.” The bartender, a short, bushy bearded man with slightly crossed eyes, nodded and marched away to go grab a clean glass from the overhead rack.
    “Thanks, man.”
    “No problem. You don’t have to thank me. Besides, we cool.” He leaned his hip against the bar and unhurriedly crossed his ankles as he fell into a groove. Elijah joined him, echoing his stance. The fellow Iroquois man began to speak of work related things, plans he had for new fangled ventures, but Zenith was only half listening… for in the mirrored reflection of the bar stood a woman in the not too far distance, the one who’d made him spread his shiny, black peacock feathers via the tapping of a drum. A wily smile lined his face as he stood erect, recovering from his slouching position, and raised his ringed finger in the air. “Hey man, hold that thought,” he said.
    Reaching into his pocket, he slammed a five-dollar bill tip on the table and hauled tail. As he drew closer, she ceased chatting with whom he presumed to be a girlfriend of hers, and slowly turned in his direction. There she stood, no longer holding her hookah, tending to a glass of something blue and watered down with shards of half melted ice. Her slender brown fingers toyed with the red lipstick-stained straw in her cocktail, swirling it round and round like the spinning teacups at an amusement park ride. In an instant, the right side of her juicy lips kinked in a perfectly devious smile…
    “Hey.” He slowly looked her up and down, taking her in up close and personal. He liked how she wasn’t overdressed, and her natural beauty shined through. “How are you doing tonight?” Out of his peripheral vision, he could see her friend leaning in a bit closer, a big Chester the Cat cheesy smile on her face. The swan, however, was another story altogether…
    She slowly brought the straw to her lips, leaving him there squirming in his own skin as she took her precious time to respond. She took a tender sip, then, on an exasperated sigh paired with heavily hooded eyes, she replied, “I’m good.”
    “Yeah? You’re good? You’re damn right you’re good. You look good, too… You look real nice…very pretty.” He rubbed his hands slowly together while the distant ambient music of J. Dilla’s ‘Dreamy’ played against the words that tumbled from his open lips. He was shooting the gift, rolling out some of his tried and tested material.
    A sarcastic giggle escaped her friend’s mouth. The woman turned away, acting as if her own drink where five ounces of ‘Haterade’ and simply too delicious to not gulp down whole.
    “Thanks,” the object of his desire finally responded, as if she clearly didn’t give a fraction of a shit and was simply throwing him a dry-rotted bone. His eyes landed on her lips again, then her long neck that begged for his mouth to run real slow across the length.
    Yeah, she’s fucking beautiful… Looks like a black swan… Yeah, that’s what she looks like. She’s too fly to give up on just yet. Let me keep working this shit out…
    “My name is Zenith.” He extended his hand, two rings gleaming on his fingers, and had to suppress a thrill at the anticipation of their skin touching in a slow shake… “May I know yours?” He cocked his head to the side, easily distracted, damn near preoccupied and semi-sedated by her unbelievable beauty.
    She crossed one ankle over the other and he was duly impressed she didn’t fall forward as she held her balance with picture-perfect posture, in step and in rhythm, like a perfectly pronounced poem uttered to a drumbeat. The cruel lady left his hand lingering there with no one to hold…and nowhere to go. Regretfully,