Can't Get Enough (Skyland, #3)

by Kennedy Ryan

“I really didn’t mean to sound like some sugar daddy who thinks he can buy your way into television.” There is self-deprecation in the twist of his lips and his sigh. “I know you’d never look for that. I respect what you’re doing. Hell, why do you think I want you? Besides being gorgeous, you’re brilliant and generous and principled and industrious.” This man could talk me into my own bed if I let him.

got my man now, the right one. And let me tell you, ain’t nothing like the right one.”

“You said being whole means acknowledging all our parts. And that there were parts of me that wanted to be held, want to be needed and loved.” She pauses and searches my face. “I know there’s a part of you that wants to be a successful producer, to fulfill those ambitions, but is it at the cost of the other parts? The parts that might want something else? That might want someone? Will you have to sacrifice those other parts for this one?”

“You said don’t throw it away. Give it a chance.”

“The right one won’t ask you to give up your dreams, but will care just as much as you do about them.”

“You feel guilty about what we did, but do you know what’s happening when this party’s over?” I ask. “Zere’s gonna be getting hers with Charles, not thinking about me, and my ass’ll be at home in bed by myself jerking off and thinking about these.”

“You bring a goddess offerings. The whiskey is a gift, an expression of worship.” I roll my eyes. “If you’re saying that I’m a—” “I am saying that.” His eyes roam the length of my body and I force myself not to squirm. “If you give me the chance, I’ll make you feel like the goddess I see you as.”

There are parts of you that want to be held, want to be needed and loved. That is just as emotionally valid as the parts of you that crave independence.

“I am a chaser, Hendrix. I go after things. You won’t find a man more ambitious than me, but I’ve learned that it’s never enough,” he says, his stare burning with belief, blazing with conviction. “You can’t earn enough. You can’t achieve enough. Ambition for things and accolades is a bottomless pit. It’s all you can eat, but you never get full.” He takes my hands between his and looks into my eyes—it feels like he looks into my soul. “My life won’t be measured just in what I did, but who I did it with. Who I chose to be in friendship with. In relationship with. I think that’s where real contentment is found, and I think I could find it with you.”

“But I—” “You don’t want a man holding your happiness hostage, putting his needs over yours, but isn’t that what Zere would be doing if she tried to stop you from seeing me if that’s what you want?”

“You said you’re here to negotiate our future.” I struggle to swallow whatever is rising in my throat. I suspect it might be hope. “What are you offering and what do you need? Where’s your list of demands?” “I don’t have a list. I have one thing.” “One thing?” I frown. “What is it?” “Let’s be good to each other.” “That’s it?” I ask, incredulity stretching my expression. “That’s everything because that means I’m good to you and you’re good to me. Being good to you means wanting what’s best for you. If there is an upper hand, baby, I don’t want it. I know I’m asking you to take a big risk, but all I can do is promise that I’ll never try to hurt you and I’ll do everything to protect you. I’ll do everything in my power to make sure you don’t regret choosing me and I’ll protect your dreams as fiercely as I chase my own.”

“Maybe I was so determined not to miss out on the opportunity of a career goal, that I was willing to compromise a personal one.”

“And I think I’ve been avoiding it to protect my dreams. I’ve never wanted to look back on my life and not have accomplished the things I wanted to do because I had to compromise for someone else’s sake. Maybe that sounds selfish—” “Only because you’re a woman. Men do it all the time and we don’t think twice about it. Our wives stay home, keep our kids, hold down the house, and we’re not considered selfish. It’s expected.” “Yes, and I expect something different from and for myself. I know the kind of woman I want to be and the kind of life I want and I’m not willing to forfeit it to have a man.

His happiness for my misery is not an even trade.”

“Now I’m on the cusp of everything I’ve been working toward in my career, and I realize that acknowledging those parts of me that want care and companionship doesn’t make me less whole. It doesn’t mean I’m not happy, but that this is something else that can make me happy.” “Thank you for trusting me, Gorgeous.” He leans up and whispers against my lips. “You won’t regret it.”

“This,” he says, holding up the bottle of Macallan, “is a two-hundred-thousand-dollar bottle of whiskey.” My jaw falls open. That’s more than my car. It’s more than my last commission. It’s a lot of damn money. “And you want to get me drunk first?” My laugh is weak as I try to play off my shock. “No.” He doesn’t smile or laugh. “I want to pour it as an offering before I worship you.” I gasp as he lifts the bottle and pours chilled liquid down my body.

“But I get it. My pussy has that effect on people.” He leans forward to cup my jaw. “I don’t want to hear about the effect you have on anyone but me.”

“I’m not doing a good job of this, and you’re right. I can’t assume anything, so I’m saying to you very clearly I want to make love to you as many times as humanly possible. I only want to do it with you and I would appreciate it if you would consider only doing it with me.” My heart melts around the edges.

What does your gut say?” I’m almost afraid to voice what I feel at a molecular level is the right thing for me to do. Not for Zere. Not for Chapel. Not for my business. For me. Maverick feels right for me and it is absolutely terrifying. “Go,” I whisper. “My gut says go.” “Then you go,” Soledad says,

I search my heart, my mind, my gut. All the places that have unfailingly steered my decisions over the years. Do I have a good enough reason not to pursue Maverick Bell? I don’t think I do.

“She was angry?” “And hurt. She asked point-blank if I fucked you on her birthday,” I tell him with quiet misery. And it does make me miserable that she suspects and that it hurts her so badly. “She was probably in bed with Charles that night,” Maverick says. “Oh, undoubtedly. She’s in Paris with him now.” “Wait, and she’s angry that we’re together? How does that make sense?” “It doesn’t and yet it does. I’m a woman and on some level it makes perfect sense to me.”

“You’d help me if I needed it, right?” he persists. “However I could, yes.” “I know you would because that’s the kind of person you are. Your big heart, that generosity, is one of my favorite things about you. You always extend it to everyone else. It’s time you let someone do that for you. Let me do that for you.”

“I’ve been doing me for a long time. I pride myself on my independence.” “I don’t want to take that from you, but I also don’t want you worrying about people thinking you’re using me to get ahead. I’ve learned to block out the noise of other people’s opinions and live my life the way I want to. The way that makes me happy, and you make me happy, Hen.”

Inside this relationship, we know why we’re here. Remember, let’s just be good to each other, okay?” Be good to each other.

Father, forgive me for I have whored.

I may be wild in the sheets, but I would never have a man spend the night in my mama’s house. Not with the “Footprints” poem and the Black Jesus oil painting hanging on the wall in the living room.

“It’s kind of scary and sad. And I feel…” “Helpless?” Mr. Bell offers, understanding and compassion mixing in his eyes. “Yeah, and I hate feeling helpless. I’m always in control. Ya know?” “I know the feeling. For people like us, like Maverick, too, the worst thing you can do is put us in a situation where we have no control.” He leans forward and covers my hand with his own. “But it’s also the best thing for us, too. It teaches us a lot about life and about ourselves. Strength is not always control. Sometimes it’s surrender.” “You mean like giving up?” Because that is a foreign concept to me. “No, not giving up—accepting. Accepting that you can’t control a wave, so you ride it. You set aside the idea that things will go exactly as planned. In a situation like this, they never do.”

“But what is my plan for this? I don’t mean like legally or care or… I mean, how do I plan for the hardest thing I’ve ever had to go through? How do you plan to lose someone this way?” “The plan is love, Hendrix.” He pats my hand. “The plan is love. It’s the no matter how bad it gets or how much I want to run, I’ll stay kind of love. I’ve watched you over this last week, and have heard how you talk about your friends and the people in your life. You have the capacity for that.”

When life deals you the worst hand, the biggest test is how you get through it. Laugh, cry, wail, whine—doesn’t matter. Just through. And here with them the last few days, I see more clearly than ever, that’s what Mama’s doing. What we’re all doing. The best we can to make it through.

After we hang up, I sit holding my phone, humbled and stunned by the kindness of my mother’s friends; of her community. I’d never realized that I’ve built a community of strong, loyal women as my friends because Mama modeled that for me. I saw it in my mother’s friendships when I was growing up and replicated it in my way.

“Can you give me details about where you are? Anything you need?” “I don’t need anything, but…” But Mav. I don’t say it, but it’s all I can think about; how him holding me would be such a comfort right now. How hearing him call me Gorgeous and feeling his strong arms around me might trick my heart into believing, even if for just a few minutes, that everything will be all right.

Grief is some bullshit.

“Bible say the love of money is the root of all evil, not money itself. So just do the right things with what you got.”

I have a boyfriend. A lover. A guy. A person.

What I want, I go after, and what I go after, I usually get.”

“You know, Zere,” I say. “We are both women trying our best and doing big things against the odds. You won’t ever catch me tearing someone else down, especially not another woman, and most especially not another Black one. I don’t want to be at odds with you. I grew up in church, and for the benediction we used to say all hearts and minds clear. I’m telling you that my heart and my mind are clear as relates to you. I hope, in time, we can repair what has been broken between us, but if we never do, I still wish you the best in all things.”

Mama used to say You make the plan. God’ll make the way.

I never knew I could be completely my own person and completely someone else’s, but that’s the beautiful dichotomy of being with Maverick.

I’ve heard people talk about platonic soulmates. These are mine. God said Hendrix will need somebody, and saved the fiercest, sweetest, most badass women on the lot for me. I found them later in life, but I found them and I’m never letting go.

“Does Maverick check any boxes?” Yasmen grins knowingly. “Chile, Mav checks all the boxes and writes in some new ones. He’s like what about this? You’re gonna need this other thing, too, right? Did I mention I also color in the circles? I got ya covered.”

“Mav,” I whisper, smiling at him in spite of the ache in my chest. “We lost. At least for now.” “I know, baby.” He kisses my hair and opens the door for me to climb in. “Don’t worry. I’ll make them pay for it.”

I have so much love to give, and it would be easy to assume that because I don’t want children, I don’t want the responsibility of caretaking. There’s nothing further from the truth. The chance to be an auntie to Soledad’s and Yasmen’s kids is an honor I’m so grateful for. Being there for my friends however they need me—one of my greatest joys. And being free to devote so much time to take care of my mother in this final stretch of her journey— I’d never abdicate that daughter’s privilege. Maverick trusts me to choose where I pour my love instead of making the assumptions culture imposes on who should receive it. I’ve felt desired before. I’ve felt needed. Now I know what it means to feel seen. To feel known.

My heart squeezes around the reality of my father really being gone. Of the people I’ve loved and lost. I don’t blame Mama for slipping away sometimes, her mind taking refuge where it finds it. If I could escape to a place where they were still alive, I would. Sometimes I want to say Take me with you to this place where you can still hug Daddy, still sing hymns with Grammy, and freeze-frame the best times of our lives. I can’t do that,

I allow myself one last tear because it’s not actually Maverick who is teaching me how it feels to miss someone before they’re gone. It’s Mama.

“You know I joke a lot about gifts and stuff, but I don’t need any of that. I just want you.” “I know.” I run the back of my hand over the high curve of her cheekbone. “But I want to give you everything, Hen. You work hard. Let me make things soft for you.”

“It’s bad business to let the person on the other side of the negotiating table know they can have anything they want.” I gently cup her face and hold her eyes so she can read the absolute truth of what I’m saying. “But that’s what I want you to know. And I don’t just mean jewelry or gifts. I’m giving you my whole heart, Hendrix.”

I lift her chin and meet her eyes. “Falling in love with you is the easiest thing I’ve ever done,” I tell her. “It happened before I even realized it. I just knew you were the most fascinating woman I’d ever met and I wanted to know you. I wanted us to be friends, and then I wanted us to be everything.”

I wasn’t looking for this—what we have, what we’re building—because I didn’t know it was possible. Not for me, but this woman had me looking, had me searching, had me chasing. I caught her. She caught me. And now, thank God, there’s no letting go.

“I know you said once it’s not Black Girl Magic, but you are magic, Hendrix Barry. And I’m more than happy if this is a spell you cast on me.”

I’ve poured my love and care into a circle of people who surround me now and will encircle me then. I’ve watched my mother survive nearly everyone she loved throughout her life until now there are so few left. When I couldn’t be there, her sister was. Her church was. Her neighbors were because she’d extended herself all her life, not just to me, her child, but to everyone around her, and they wanted to extend themselves to her. That’s community. Yes, there is power in making your own way and joy in sharing it. Sharing it with your family. Sharing it with your friends. And—if you find the blessing of it—with the love of your life.