Hey girl, can you write about Unique from Raising Kanan who is played by Joey Bada$$, if you've seen the show that is. Can it be about him being in alone in the game without someone to have because he's scared of losing people like crazy, crazy angst, with runs into a childhood friend? And they decide to get some lovely-dovey alone time, and smut please?😭 I love your writinggg😩❤️
You Never Left
Pairing: Kadeem “Unique” Mathis x Black!OC (Kendra)
Summary: After ten years of silence, Kendra returns to Queens — and to Unique. In a city that took everything from him, she’s the one thing he never stopped needing. A story about unfinished business, aching memories, and finding home in the one person who never forgot you.
Warnings: Slow burn, emotional smut, loss, angst, possessive tenderness, explicit sexual content (f!virginity, creampie, oral f receiving, grinding, praise, dirty talk), canon-level violence mentioned, strong language, grief, and themes of healing through love.
Summer in Queens moved sticky and slow, like honey dripping off a dull blade. Back then, the sun hit different—warmer somehow, brighter in a way that made concrete glisten like silver, not like now, when everything felt dulled by blood and bad decisions. The streets used to sound alive too: radios blasting Mary J. from cracked windows, the squeak of sneakers on blacktop, ice cream trucks playing lullabies through heatwaves. He was just Kadeem then. Not Unique. Not a name wrapped in whispered fear. Just a loudmouthed kid in Jordans too big, sprinting across cracked sidewalks with Kool-Aid on his lips and trouble trailing behind like a shadow.
Kendra was the only one who ever kept up with him.
"You run like you owe somebody money," she used to tease, breathless from the chase, braids sticking to her sweaty forehead. He’d laugh so hard his chest hurt, doubling over, eyes crinkled, teeth too big for his grin. She was always there, racing him, tripping him, helping him up, stealing his hoodie when the wind turned sharp. They grew side by side like weeds in the same stretch of forgotten dirt. Same school fights, same corner store candy, same bruises from falling off their bikes in the alley behind her building. They made the block their kingdom, even if it was built from rust and broken glass.
She saw him when his older brother got locked up. When his mom stopped cooking. When he learned how to hide a razor in his sock. She saw it all, what he was turning into, and never left. She stayed when other people looked away. She had this way of sitting in silence with him, like it meant something, like just being there was enough. He never had to explain himself to her. She just knew. And that was rare.
That night under the project stairs, when the air smelled like malt liquor and piss, he kissed her. Clumsy, hot, too fast. She kissed back slower, with that knowing way of hers, like she already understood he’d never belong to anyone easily. Her palm was soft on his jaw, steadying him like a grounding wire. His heart had pounded so loud he thought she could hear it echo off the walls.
"Don’t fall in love with the streets, Q," she whispered, pulling away, her forehead against his. "They won’t love you back."
But he did. And they didn’t.
The night her brother got shot, Kendra vanished. No goodbye. No note. Just gone, like a ghost pulled straight from his ribs. He checked the old corner store, her stoop, even her grandma’s church. Nothing. Just a cold hole where she used to be. And with her absence, something in him hardened. He stopped laughing with his whole chest. Stopped running like he was chasing light. Started moving like a man who’d already lost too much to ever lose again. His voice dropped low. His eyes stopped dancing. He started wearing black even in July.
People stopped calling him Kadeem. Started calling him Unique. The name stuck. Got whispered across boroughs, wrapped in fear and awe and bad news. But even as he rose up, richer, sharper, meaner, he never filled the space she left behind.
Now it’s ten years later. And she’s standing in front of him like time never moved. Same mouth. Same eyes. Same energy that used to burn through him like summer.
And he doesn’t know whether to hold her or run.
The city didn’t whisper his name anymore. It said it loud. Clear. Like a warning.
Unique.
He moved through his old blocks like a myth wrapped in mink, always alone. The power still clung to him, heavy and silent—he could feel it in the way people stepped back when he passed, in the way eyes followed him from porches and corner store windows. Mothers called their kids inside when they saw his car slow-roll down the block. Corner boys straightened up and dropped their voices. But the reverence felt hollow now, a cold kind of loyalty. No one touched him. No one questioned him. And no one really knew him anymore. He was all edge now, sharpened down to the bone.
The streets had taken too much. Friends. Blood. Laughter. They’d fed on everything soft in him until only steel was left. These days, he spoke in low tones and hard looks. Didn’t drink unless he was alone. Didn’t fuck without keeping his socks on. Didn’t trust anybody who smiled too wide or talked too long. He trusted silence more than words and shadows more than people. That was the cost of the crown; he wore it, but it dug into his scalp every day. The price of survival was loneliness, and he paid it in full.
That night, he pulled up slow to the corner where everything started. Same bodega. Same busted payphone. Same chipped curb where he used to post with his crew before the bodies dropped and the feds started listening. Engine humming low beneath him, he leaned back in the seat, shades on even though the sun had already dipped behind the buildings. The fur coat on his shoulders made him feel more ghost than man. He looked like a legend sitting in the haze of dusk, untouchable, untethered, unbothered. But inside, his stomach rolled.
He didn’t know what pulled him there. Habit maybe. Grief in disguise. Or maybe something more dangerous, a quiet hope that something, someone, had survived the years untouched.
Then he saw her.
Kendra.
Like the block had spit her out just for him.
She was standing across the street, half-lit by the buzzing corner store sign. Older now, but not in the way that dulled her. She looked sharpened by life, like a blade that'd been tested but never broken. Braids down her back. Gold hoops glinting. She had that same stance, too: weight on one leg, chin high, like she dared the world to try her. Same aura. Same pull. Same fire that had always drawn him too close.
He didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Time didn’t slow. It froze.
Their eyes locked.
Ten years of distance collapsed in a single breath. His throat tightened. His fingers flexed against the steering wheel. She didn’t smile. Didn’t flinch. Just looked at him like she was reading every scar he thought he’d hidden. Like she’d never left. Like she never forgot.
And he hated that she still had that power.
She looked good, too good. And that pissed him off. Because the last time he saw her, her eyes were red and wet and full of hurt, and now she was just... standing there, unbothered. And still, his pulse jumped the way it used to when she touched his neck in the dark and whispered his name like it meant something.
He turned the key, killed the engine, but stayed inside. Pride kept his hand on the door. Pride, and the weight of everything they’d never said. The ghosts between them were louder than the engine cooling off. He watched her shift her weight, like she was deciding whether to cross the street. Like she felt it too.
Because he might’ve been a king now. But when it came to her, he still didn’t know how to be anything but a boy too scared to lose her again. And right now, he didn’t know if seeing her was a second chance or a new kind of punishment.
They ended up outside the shop, sitting on a cinderblock ledge like no time had passed. The metal gate was halfway pulled, buzzing faint behind them, the corner quiet except for the occasional car gliding by with the bass low and windows tinted. Queens at night still had that hum, that pulse, low and steady like something waiting to snap.
But before that, before the ledge, before the smoke, there was the space between them.
Kadeem got out the car like the weight of the moment was stitched into his coat. Every movement deliberate, slow, like his body remembered her even if his mind was still trying to catch up. The door clicked shut behind him with a soft finality. The block stretched out quiet between them, concrete and ghosts under his boots. He adjusted his coat collar like it mattered, like it could hide how raw he suddenly felt.
She hadn’t moved.
Neither had he, at first.
The night air pressed down, thick and humming, and for a second it felt like the city was holding its breath with him. His steps were unhurried, eyes never leaving hers. He could hear the distant wail of sirens, the metallic thump of a train a few blocks over, but none of it touched him. It was just her.
Kendra.
Up close, she was sharper than memory. Skin kissed deep by the sun. Lips full and still curled like she was holding in a thought she wouldn’t share. She didn’t look away. Didn’t soften. Her eyes tracked him like she was cataloguing the changes, the weight in his shoulders, the drag in his steps, the cut of his jaw now set tighter than it used to be. Every line in his face felt exposed under that stare.
When he stopped a few feet from her, the space between them crackled. Close enough to smell her, shea butter, warm skin, faint vanilla, and it hit him low in the gut. She always smelled like comfort dressed in temptation. That scent pulled up old nights on rooftops, her legs draped across his lap, fingers in his hair while they talked about getting out. Back when getting out was still a dream, not a warning.
Neither of them spoke. Not yet. The air between them said too much.
She tilted her head just slightly, assessing. Waiting. Like she wanted to see who’d speak first, who’d crack. But he didn’t give her that, not yet. He stood there in silence, hands in his coat pockets, the city buzzing faintly around them like background noise to a memory playing in real time.
Then she turned, slowly, and walked toward the cinderblock ledge in front of the shop without saying a word.
He followed.
They sat down side by side. Still didn’t speak. Let the air stretch out taut and full between them. The kind of quiet that said: I remember everything.
Kendra took the first drag, slow and smooth, passing him the blunt with two fingers and a side glance. Her nails were painted gold. He remembered when she used to bite them down to the quick. Now they were long, sharp, gleaming in the streetlight. She lit it like she’d done it a thousand times without him.
“You still smoke?” she asked, voice low, almost teasing. Like she wasn’t sure if the joke would land, but tossed it anyway.
He took the blunt, let the silence stretch. “Only when the night feel like this.”
She nodded, like she understood. Maybe she did. Maybe she always had. Her fingers rested on her knee, tapping a rhythm he almost recognized. One of those little tics from back in the day when she'd hum a beat without thinking, like music lived in her bloodstream.
There was a time when they used to post up just like this, shoulder to shoulder, talking shit and dreams, back when the world still felt like it could be theirs. Before bodies hit pavement. Before names turned into headlines. Before he stopped believing in softness. Now every word felt like a risk.
He watched her out the corner of his eye. She was studying him too.
“You don’t smile no more,” she said.
“You used to like that about me.”
“I liked a lotta things about you,” she said, looking straight ahead now. “You used to laugh with your whole body. Now you just... sit there like a closed door.”
He exhaled smoke slow, eyes narrowed. “Doors stay closed for a reason.”
That made her turn to him, really turn. “And what’s the reason tonight, Kadeem?”
His name sounded different in her mouth. Realer. He hadn’t heard it in years—not from someone who meant it. Not from someone who remembered what it sounded like when he still had something to lose.
“You a ghost now?” she asked.
“Nah,” he said after a long beat. “Ghosts haunt people. I don’t chase nobody.”
“But you pulled up,” she said, head tilted. “You saw me. Stayed. That don’t sound like someone running.”
He wanted to say something slick. Wanted to play it cool. But his chest felt tight, like the smoke wasn’t reaching all the way down. Like his lungs weren’t sure how to breathe around her. He'd only found out she was back because Alpha, one of his corner boys, someone he’d known since before they both had facial hair, had mentioned seeing a woman come outta one of the old houses over on 139th. Said she looked familiar, said she moved like she’d been there before. Kadeem hadn’t said anything at the time, but something had prickled under his skin. He’d filed it away like a name he didn’t wanna say out loud. Kendra had seen Alpha too—once, maybe twice, out the corner of her eye, same gold grill, same walk, same sly-ass smirk, and she figured it out. He was still around. Which meant Kadeem might be, too. So when their eyes locked on that corner, it didn’t feel like a coincidence. It felt like something slow and inevitable, finally catching up.
“You smell the same,” he said instead.
She blinked. Just once. “So do you. Like leather and sin.” She paused, then smirked. “And bullshit.”
He let out a short breath, almost a laugh, but it didn’t make it past his throat. She always saw too much. Saw through the fur coat, through the shades, through the weight he wore like armor. Her gaze was a scalpel. Always had been. She cut clean, never messy.
“You left,” he said finally.
“You let me.”
The blunt burned low between them, fingers brushing as she passed it back. And in the stretch of silence, the ache thickened, pulled taut like a thread straining to snap. He didn’t look at her, not fully. Because if he did, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to hold himself together.
Some nights weren’t made for fixing things. They were just meant for remembering what got broken. And the way she sat there next to him, calm and close, felt like a wound pressed open, not bleeding, just aching. Familiar and unbearable all at once.
The air had shifted between them by the time the blunt burned down to a nub. That old rhythm, that unspoken knowing, it was still there, humming underneath every word they hadn’t said. But something else buzzed beneath it too, something heavier. Like unfinished business. Like years compressed into glances and breath. A rhythm interrupted, now trying to find its way back.
“You need a ride?” he asked, voice low, already knowing the answer.
Kendra looked at him, head tilted like she was still trying to decide what version of him she was dealing with. Then she nodded once, slowly. “Yeah. Guess I do.”
They didn’t speak as they walked to his car. The silence wasn’t awkward, though. It was loaded. Every step echoed with memories neither of them dared touch just yet. The hum of the city faded behind them as they reached his car, parked under a flickering streetlamp. He opened the passenger door, watched her slide in with that same grace she used to have even as a girl, shoulders squared, chin up, like nothing could shake her. Then he rounded to the driver’s side and got behind the wheel. The leather interior still smelled like his cologne, deep, spicy, expensive. It wrapped around her like a memory she hadn’t asked to revisit.
For a few blocks, they said nothing. Just the sound of tires rolling over cracked asphalt and the soft rattle of something in the glove compartment. The heater clicked on low, blowing warm air that didn’t quite reach the tension sitting between them.
The city rolled by in a blur of sodium lights and chain-link fences. Inside the car, it was all tension and questions, thick like smoke.
“So you live around here again?” he asked, eyes on the road but stealing glances.
“Mmhm. Dad left me the house.”
He glanced at her, jaw tightening. “Didn’t know he passed.”
“Couple months ago. Heart just… gave out.” Her voice was flat, like the grief had already sunk so deep she’d stopped trying to carry it on the surface. “Didn’t plan on staying. But I stepped inside and it just... hit me. Like I owed it to him. To my brother.”
He gripped the wheel tighter. “I remember that house. You had that busted screen door that squealed every time it opened.”
She smiled faintly. “Still squeals.”
Silence stretched, but this time it wasn’t sharp; it was full, carrying the weight of everything left unsaid. She turned her head, eyes tracing the line of his jaw.
“You know,” she said, “I waited. Back then. For you to call. Just once.”
His hands tightened again. Knuckles's pale.
“You ever seen what happens to people close to me?” he said, voice flat, words scraped raw. “They end up in cells. Or graves.”
“You was supposed to be safe,” she whispered. “We was supposed to be safe.”
He didn’t answer. Couldn’t. The streetlights kept flickering across his face, highlighting the tightness in his jaw, the way his lips pressed into a line. His eyes were on the road but his mind was somewhere else, back in stairwells and alleys, on rooftops and old dreams.
She shifted in her seat, the question rising even though she already knew some of the answer. “You think I wanted to disappear?”
“I don’t know what you wanted,” he said. “You just... left.”
“My pops put me on a bus the night after the funeral. Sent me down south to live with my aunt. Said this city was gonna eat me next if I stayed. Said I already lost my brother, wasn’t gonna lose me too.” Her voice cracked slightly at the edges, but she swallowed it down.
He sucked in a breath, deep and shaky. “You never told me.”
“I was sixteen. They took my phone, had me on lockdown. New school. New rules. I wasn’t even allowed to go outside after dark.” She shook her head. “I used to walk to the edge of the property and just... wait. Like maybe you’d show up one day.”
His grip on the wheel loosened, just a little. He looked over at her finally, really looked. Her profile in the dark was a punch to the chest. That same stubborn chin. Those same lips. But her eyes held too much history now. Like she'd been through storms he couldn’t protect her from.
His hand drifted toward her wrist, fingers brushing skin just for a second. A soft graze, light as breath. Then he pulled back like it burned.
She didn’t say anything. Didn’t flinch. Just stared ahead, silent.
He wanted to say something then, something real. Something soft. But the words backed up in his throat like traffic behind a wreck.
When they pulled up to the house, neither of them moved at first. The porch light was on, casting long shadows over the cracked steps and crooked railing. That same tree out front she used to climb. That same mailbox still missing its flag.
“This is it,” she said, breaking the quiet.
“Yeah,” he said. “I remember.”
She reached for the door handle.
“Thanks for the ride,” she said. But her voice held a question she didn’t ask.
He didn’t stop her.
She stepped out, the door shutting with a final-sounding click. Walked up the steps to that same porch with the squealing screen door. Her shadow lingered a moment before disappearing inside.
He sat there, engine still running, eyes on the porch.
Then he drove off, slow.
Like maybe distance would keep her safe this time. Like maybe he still believed he could protect her by staying away.
He couldn’t sleep.
Didn’t even try. Just sat in the dark with a bottle half-gone and his mind full of her. The sound of her voice. The weight of her silence. That look she gave him when she stepped out the car, like she wanted to say something and couldn’t. Or wouldn’t. Like she was on the edge of spilling over, but she kept it inside. Same as him.
Kadeem wasn’t used to being haunted by the living.
He’d told himself, after he pulled off, that it was done. That he was doing the right thing. Letting her go. Again. Keeping that distance, like space could erase history. But hours passed, slow and sharp, and his chest stayed tight like something was pressing on it. Like maybe she’d lit a fuse under something he’d buried and walked away before it exploded. He kept thinking about how she looked in the streetlight, strong and tired, like she'd been through hell and still dared the world to test her.
He saw her face when he closed his eyes. Heard her laugh in his ear even though she hadn’t laughed in front of him in years. Saw her lips moving in the dark of memory. And every time, it felt like being pulled back to the edge of something he couldn’t name. Something too close, too hot, too personal. Her presence sat on his skin like sweat, impossible to ignore.
She was still in there. In him. Not just the old version, the girl with the busted Walkman and loud opinions, but this new one too. The woman who came back. Who sat beside him like she was holding the same ache. He realized there were parts of her he’d never known. And it made him feel something he hadn’t felt in a long time.
Curious. Hungry. Dangerous.
He thought about what it meant. That after everything, all the blood, all the time, she could still undo him without trying. How his body still remembered hers, not in a sexual way—yet—but in something deeper. Like muscle memory. Like warmth. Like she’d once meant safety in a world where safety had been extinct.
He thought about how her voice cracked when she said she used to wait for him. How she still had the same damn screen door. How she didn’t flinch when he touched her wrist.
By the time the rain started, he was already in the car.
It came down in thick, angry sheets. The kind of storm that wrapped around the city and squeezed made everything feel smaller. More quiet. The streetlights looked like ghosts through the windshield. Wipers slapped the glass in a slow, tired rhythm. But he knew where he was going. Didn't punch in the address. Didn’t second-guess. Just drove.
He rolled past the familiar blocks like a man drifting toward something inevitable. His knuckles stayed tight on the wheel, even though he didn’t know what he’d say once he got there. Maybe he wouldn’t say anything at all. Maybe he didn’t need to.
The porch light was on again. She hadn’t changed it. Still that dull yellow glow, flickering like it couldn’t make up its mind whether to stay lit or die out.
He stood there in front of her door, soaked to the bone. No umbrella, no hood up. Water running down his face, soaking his lashes, his starter windbreaker clinging to him, soaked through, his Jordans catching water with every step. The rain didn’t bother him. It made it feel real. Made the moment feel sharp, cinematic. Like something big was about to happen.
He didn’t knock at first. Just stood still, breathing. His heart hit hard in his chest, and he hated that. Hated the way she made him feel like a kid again, unsure, half-shaking. He wanted to believe he was still the version of himself that didn’t need anyone. But standing there, dripping, he knew that was a lie.
Then the door opened.
She didn’t look surprised.
Didn’t ask why he was there.
Her eyes just flicked over him, rain trailing from his jaw to the collar of his jacket, soaking the steps beneath his shoes. She took him in piece by piece, slow, quiet. He looked like a mess, and she looked at him like she could still see straight through it. Like she knew this moment was coming too.
Neither of them spoke.
She stepped aside.
He walked in.
The door closed behind him like it had done this a hundred times before.
And even soaked, chilled, and silent, he’d never felt warmer than he did crossing that threshold.
The light in the kitchen was soft and gold, humming low from the old overhead bulb. The kind of light that made everything feel slower, gentler. Like time bent around it. Rain tapped against the windows like fingers drumming on glass, steady and low. The warmth of the house wrapped around him, clung to his soaked clothes, made his skin itch with the weight of water and memory.
Kendra didn’t say anything. Just moved past him, her bare feet silent against the floor. She grabbed a clean towel from the drawer near the fridge, turned, and held it out like it was the most natural thing in the world. No questions. No speeches. Just care, casual and deep-rooted, the way only someone who used to love you without saying it could offer.
He took the towel, but she didn’t let go right away.
Their fingers touched. Just barely.
Then she released it, and he started to dry his face, slow. The rain was already cooling on his skin, making him shiver. She watched him for a second before stepping closer, plucking the towel from his hand and pressing it to his neck.
“You’re dripping all over my floor,” she murmured.
“I ain’t ask for hospitality,” he said, but it came out too quiet to hit like a joke.
She didn’t laugh. Just kept dabbing at his jaw, moving down to the collar of his windbreaker. Her hands were steady. He stood still under them, like he couldn’t bring himself to move. Her touch wasn’t rushed. She was deliberate, almost careful, like she was memorizing the shape of him through the fabric and damp.
“You always had a way of showing up in the rain,” she said, half to herself.
He looked at her, but said nothing. Didn’t know how to explain that the storm outside wasn’t half as loud as the one inside him.
He should’ve taken the jacket off. Should’ve peeled out of it the second he stepped inside, but something about her hands on him made the storm outside feel like background noise. Like it couldn’t touch him in here. Like he was someplace safe, just for a moment.
She undid the top button of the windbreaker. Then the next. Her fingers worked slow, not shaking, but not unaffected either. She was close enough now that he could feel the warmth off her skin, hear the soft catch in her breath.
“Kendra…”
“You’ll get sick.”
Her voice was calm, but her eyes weren’t. There was heat there, and something else. Like she was daring him to stop her. Like she didn’t know how to stop herself. Her fingers slipped under the edge of the jacket and pushed it off his shoulders. It landed with a soft splat on the floor, water pooling underneath it.
She disappeared for a second and came back with another towel, smaller, rougher. She started with his hair, running the towel over his head, down the back of his neck, then over his shoulders. There was something reverent in the way she did it, like she was caring for a version of him she used to know. Or maybe a version she missed.
He didn’t stop her when she reached for the hem of his shirt.
Didn’t say a word when she lifted it up, slow, letting her knuckles graze his stomach, his ribs, the planes of muscle that tensed under her touch. Her breath caught. The shirt came off in one fluid motion. He didn’t break eye contact once.
And she saw it then.
The scar.
High on the left side of his chest. Ragged.. Like a mouth that never closed. Like a wound that had something to say and never got the chance.
She didn’t ask what happened. She already knew. But knowing didn’t make seeing it any easier. Her fingers hovered for a beat before touching it. Barely there. Just a brush. Soft. Reverent. Then she leaned in and kissed it.
Her lips stayed there for a moment, warm and unhurried. Like she was offering something without asking for anything back.
His breath caught. His body stiffened under her mouth, under the weight of the moment.
He stepped back like the touch burned. Jaw tight, eyes dark.
“Don’t do that like it means something.”
She looked up at him, quiet. Steady.
“Then stop looking at me like it does.”
The space between them throbbed, swollen with heat, regret, and the kind of yearning that had claws. He looked away first, but only for a breath.
“I don’t know what this is,” he muttered.
“You don’t have to,” she said, softer this time. “Not yet.”
The silence after wasn’t awkward. It was just heavy. But neither of them moved to break it.
In the next room, the storm kept pouring.
It happened in the quiet after. When the storm softened to a whisper, the tension in the room couldn’t stretch any further without breaking. The silence had a pulse, and it beat in time with the ache in his chest.
Kadeem stepped forward.
One hand lifted slow, almost hesitant, fingers grazing the side of her face, then sliding back into her braids. His fingertips lingered there, threading through the strands like he was grounding himself. Her skin was warm beneath his palm, and the moment stretched into something that felt sacred. She didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. Her lips parted just slightly, not in shock, but in readiness. Like she’d been waiting. Like she always knew he’d come back. Like she never stopped hoping he would. Her lashes fluttered once, slow, and she looked up at him like she could see everything he’d ever held back. And for the first time in a long time, he let her. Let her see the ache, the longing, the guilt. She reached up, her hand brushing the back of his wrist, not pulling it down, just touching. And that small contact, barely anything, felt like the final click of something long locked finally sliding open.
The kiss wasn’t soft.
It was rough, unpracticed, years of want crashing into years of silence. He kissed her like he was mad at her for leaving, like he was starving, like he didn’t know how to stop. His hands were on her face, then her waist, gripping her like he needed proof she was real. Their teeth clicked, mouths pulling, pulling again, until it shifted, slowed, melted into something deeper. Tongue, breath, the wet sound of mouths trying to remember how to speak in a language they’d never finished learning. Her lips parted wider under his, their breaths tangled in the tight space between heartbeats. It was messy, imperfect, and alive, desperate like they’d both been waiting too long and didn’t know how to say so. His thumb brushed along her jaw as their rhythm settled, their kiss deepening, uncoiling something inside them both. It was all too much. And not enough. It felt like coming home and burning down in the same breath.
She gasped into his mouth, her hands sliding up into his damp hair, pulling him closer like she needed him to feel how real she was, how real this was. His hands gripped her hips, firm, possessive. He walked her backward without looking, their bodies still locked, until the hallway opened up and the couch caught them.
He didn’t speak. Just kissed her like a confession.
She gasped when he pressed her down, when his weight covered hers—not crushing, but heavy. Real. Solid. His lips trailed from her mouth to her jaw, to her neck, biting soft and wet. She tilted her head for him like instinct, like muscle memory.
“Kadeem…” she whispered.
He looked down at her, breath uneven, eyes searching. “Tell me to stop.”
“I’m not gonna,” she said. And there was something in her voice, something soft and shaking but sure. Her fingers touched his chest again, then slid lower. She paused. “I never… not with anybody.”
He froze.
Her eyes met his. “I held out. For you.”
His whole face changed. Like something broke open inside him.
“You waited,” he said, voice cracked. Like he couldn’t believe it.
“I loved you,” she said. “Even when I shouldn’t have.”
His hands trembled where they rested on her waist. For a second, he didn’t move. Then he bent down and kissed her again, slower this time. Deeper. Like reverence. Like apology. Like he was trying to say thank you and I’m sorry and I love you all at once.
When he touched her now, it was different. Measured. Focused. His hands moved with intention, pushing up her shirt, kissing every new inch of skin revealed. She arched under him, breath catching as he licked over her collarbone, down to her stomach. She whispered his name again and again.
“Tell me if anything don’t feel right,” he murmured into her skin.
Clothes came off in pieces. Her top. His jeans. Her shorts. Each layer peeled away like a secret being offered, slow, tender, reverent. He touched her like he was rewriting history, like he could erase every night she'd laid awake missing him, every man she turned away because he wasn't him. His fingers explored her skin with aching care, tracing the soft swell of her hips, the dip of her waist, the sensitive inside of her thighs. She gasped as he found the place that made her squirm, her knees falling open for him like a promise.
He kissed the hollow of her throat, his mouth dragging lower until his breath hit the warmth between her legs. But he didn't rush. Just slipped his fingers there first, slow and steady, teasing, coaxing slick heat from her body. Her moan bloomed in his ear and it made him throb with want.
"So fuckin’ soft," he muttered, voice hoarse and low, every word soaked in want. "So sweet. You been savin’ all this for me, baby?"
She nodded, breath stuttering. "It’s always been yours. Always."
His lips brushed her ear. "Then let me show you what that means."
“Been dreamin’ about this since I was seventeen.”
She whimpered, thighs twitching as he circled her clit, building her up, dragging her to the edge and back again. She dug her nails into his shoulders, panting, breathless.
“Kadeem… please.”
“You sure?”
“Yes. You’re the only one I ever wanted.”
He didn’t rush. He lined himself up slow, kissed her again when he started to push in, holding her gaze as her body stretched around him. Her mouth opened, breath stuttering, but her eyes stayed on him. The couch creaked under them. Her body trembled.
“You okay?”
She nodded. “Just… don’t stop.”
He moved slow. Gentle at first. Letting her adjust. Letting himself feel every tight inch of her around him. It was too much and not enough, perfect and painful all at once. He buried his face in her neck and groaned. Her arms wrapped around him, holding on tight, anchoring them both.
“You don’t even know what you do to me,” he said, voice shaking. “You the only thing that ever made sense.”
She moaned softly, rocking against him, her nails in his back. She whispered his name like it had weight. Like it meant home.
He thrust deeper, slow and controlled, holding back everything in him that wanted to break, grinding his hips into hers, rolling his body against her like he wanted to fuse them together. Her warmth wrapped around him, tight and perfect, dragging a groan from his throat that sounded more like prayer than pleasure. The couch creaked under the weight of them, the rhythm of their bodies turning primal, soaked in need. Wet sounds filled the space between their gasps and moans, skin slapping, mouths parting, breath catching.
He kissed her through it, her neck, her jaw, her mouth again, sloppy, hungry, open-mouthed kisses like he couldn’t get close enough. Like she was the answer to every ache in him. He licked into her mouth, whispered her name into her lips, ground into her slow and deep, again and again, dragging her closer with every stroke.
“I feel you everywhere,” he rasped, forehead against hers. “You feel that? That’s all you.”
She whimpered beneath him, her hips rising to meet his, her thighs trembling as she clung to him like she didn’t want to let go. He moved with purpose now, each thrust a declaration—this is mine, you’re mine, I’m still yours. Ground into her like he could disappear inside her. Like he needed to.
“Talk to me,” she whispered, voice shaking.
“I love you,” he said. It broke out of him like a secret. “I never stopped. You my peace, Kendra. You been gone ten years and you still my fuckin’ everything.”
Her eyes filled. She clung to him, whispered his name, over and over, as he lost control. As he thrust harder. As the sound of their bodies meeting filled the space between words. He chased her release, watched her come undone underneath him, her body arching, shaking. She cried out his name, clutching him like the world was falling apart.
That pushed him over.
He came with a raw sound, forehead pressed to hers, hips twitching, voice breaking. Trembling. Needing. Everything poured into that moment. Every fear. Every ache. Every ounce of love he never thought he’d get to feel again.
She held him after. Arms wrapped around his back, pulling him close like she could hold all the broken parts together. Like she could keep him from slipping away again.
He hated that he needed it.
But he didn’t move.
He stayed right there, in her arms, where the storm couldn’t touch him. Where the world stopped hurting for just a little while.
The sky outside the window had just started to bleed pink, soft streaks of light creeping in through the sheer curtains like whispered promises. The storm had passed, leaving only the hush of dawn and the soft hum of the city slowly waking. It was quiet in the room, that kind of sacred morning silence that only came after something honest. After something that cracked you open and left you new.
Kadeem lay still on the couch, one arm slung around her bare back, the other resting on his chest. Kendra was draped across him, her cheek against his heart, her breath soft and warm where her lips brushed skin. The blanket they'd pulled over themselves sometime in the night had slipped down to their waists, leaving their skin tangled, warm, and unbothered.
She was still asleep. Peaceful. Like nothing hurt anymore. Like the past had finally loosened its grip.
He stared at the ceiling for a long time, eyes unfocused, thoughts spinning slow and deep. After a while, he shifted just enough to reach the blunt on the end table. Lit it with the cheap lighter in his pocket, the flame sparking once, twice before catching. Smoke filled his lungs and sat there, heavy, like everything else. Like grief that had made a home in his bones. Like relief that felt too big to speak.
He didn’t want to move.
Didn’t want to ruin the weight of her body against his, or the warmth of her thigh thrown over his. Her arm curled across his middle like she was anchoring them both to something real. For the first time in a long time, he didn’t want to be anywhere but right here. Not the block. Not the trap. Not even in his own penthouse bed.
Just here.
The years had taken so much from him. More than he ever said out loud.
Friends he buried. Blood spilled in alleys. Names he stopped saying because the pain caught in his throat and stayed there. Boys who grew up too fast and died even faster. Brothers turned ghosts. Enemies turned memories. Trust that shattered and never got put back together. People he’d loved who walked away, or never got the chance to.
His mother. His brother. His crew.
Gone.
Loss had become a rhythm in his life, a constant beat under every moment. Every victory cost him something. Every rise left someone behind. Even his own name—Unique—felt more like armor than identity now. It kept people at arm’s length. Kept him alive. But it also kept him lonely.
And yet somehow, in one night, he got back the one person who meant more to him than all of it. The girl who knew him before the streets made him sharp. Before the money, before the violence, before the weight of his own name bent his shoulders forward. The only one who saw Kadeem, not Unique, and wasn’t scared.
She came back.
Not for what he had. Not for the legend. But for the boy she remembered. The one she used to race through the summer streets with, sweating and laughing and fearless. The one who kissed her under the stairwells and promised her something better. The one who cried when his brother got locked and only let her see it. She came back for him.
He took another slow pull from the blunt, let the smoke roll out slow through his nose, then glanced down at her.
She hadn’t moved.
Her fingers curled against his chest like they’d always belonged there, like her body remembered something her mind had never let go of. Her lips were parted slightly, her breath warm and even. She looked younger somehow. Or maybe just lighter.
He exhaled smoke toward the ceiling, watching it twist and fade into the early light. His throat was tight, and he didn’t know why. Or maybe he did. Maybe it was the way she made everything else quiet. Maybe it was the fear that this was all too good, too fragile. That the morning would take her away again.
“You really came back for me, huh?” he whispered.
Kendra stirred.
Her lashes fluttered once. Then again. Her eyes opened slow, hazy from sleep, and when they met his, there was no hesitation. No fear. No regret.
Just a soft smile that said everything.
She didn’t speak.
She didn’t have to.
The morning swallowed them whole, warm and gold and still, and the rest of the world stayed quiet just a little longer. Long enough for him to believe, maybe for the first time, that this was real. That he hadn’t lost everything.
Because somehow, the most important thing had found her way back to him.
And she was still here.
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