Smoke knows you have that confidence in you, you just need a little reassuring! Sometimes he’ll give you a good pep talk before going into a place, lift your chin up and fix something about your outfit he saw wasn’t right. He’ll say something like “Don’t overwork that pretty mind ‘f yers. Ain’t shit you can’t handle.” Or he’s giving acaress of his hand on your cheek, or giving your thigh a squeeze. And after you say what you need to properly your eyes are immediately looking at Smokes for approval. He doesn’t mind though, give you a little curt but pleased nod that makes you wanna fall on top of him and roll around in his warmth while you giggle.

Or when he’s drilling his meaty length inside your sopping walls, your head pulled to the side with hearts in your eyes. Salvating at the sweat dripping down the side of his face that you want to lick up, you’re mewling out, “Is good ‘Lijah, it’s hck- it’s good?”

He lets out a grumble of curses, damned at how sexy you look all fucked out and needy. Pretty pussy clamping down on him like your aching for his cum, his lips fall to your neck, your chin, leaving sloppy kisses on your lips while he gives you slow sledgehammer into your heat. Crown of his head pressing that special spot you love so much.

“Course it is darlin- fuuuuck me, yer wonderful princess.”

It only makes you moan louder, creaming his length as he holds you close, letting your nails claw down his back as he doesn’t stop railing you, only fucking your through it. Pushing your curls back as he’s got your head inbetween his bicep.

He groans, thrusting his cock into you faster, dirtier, “Shit, you can take this baby, can’t you? You’re my good girl, aintchu? Don’tcha wanna make yer husband cum?”

mean!smoke who keeps your hands behind your back whenever he has you on all fours. claiming his decision to do that is because you always run whenever you two are in doggy style but really he just enjoyed seeing how helpless and overstimulated you got when you had no choice but to take his dick. he’d angle his hips so he could go deeper into your essence and so he could find that g-spot, and speed his pace up so his mushroom tip could kiss it over and over again.

“nah, you gone take this dick. all of it, ain’t no motherfucking running.”

mean!smoke who’s idea of punishing you when you’ve been bratty is tying you up to a chair and holding a vibrator up to your clit. letting you get so overstimulated and overwhelmed that you can’t even think or talk straight. he does all of this while making you apologize , and manipulating you into thinking if you apologize he’ll stop. instead he ups the setting with every apology you give him.

“tell daddy you sorry, an’ then i’ll take it off mama.”

mean!smoke who when he feels as though you’re bratting on purpose just so he can give you a “funishment” he’ll let you act up for a little, let you think you’re going to get what you want before quickly bending you over his knee, riding up your skit and using his hand to forcefully spank your ass. after a few minutes your ass starts to hurt, which causes you to try and block his hand from your butt. but he uses his free hand to move it and hold your hand down. forcing you to take it.

“you had so much shit to say earlier. you better take this shit.”

It’s in when Bo heads outside because his wife wants to go home and his wife cradles him in her arms as they both die, because she told him they were going home and she would not let him go alone. 🥺😭

It’s in Mary trying to refind her place in the family that raised her but getting kicked out to keep her ‘safe’. She doesn’t want to be safe. She wants to be home.

Home. Home for Sammie is music and not the tight fisted hand that his father uses to rule the house that he used to call home.

Home for the Moore twins is also different, because Stack has always denied himself Mary, and Smoke has lived his entire life trying to protect everyone and everything he holds dear. Finally letting go of the tight reigns when Annie beckons him home.

Home for Annie is her culture, her baby, and her man. 🥺

And there’s the other side characters, like Slim who dies for his home. Not for the segregated life they are living but for the sake of the younger generation to hopefully create a better home.

And Remmick is so far removed from his home, that he doesn’t have a place to return to. So inadvertently burns down and destroys the homes of others because he is reaching for a place to call home.