“Greeting my wife. Seeing how her exam went. Come here.”
To his surprise, she came. Wow. She was full of surprises, his Kira was. Holding out a hand, he took hers and marveled at the perfect fit and the smooth coolness of her palm. He stared down at their fingers twined together and thought that it was the perfect representation of their lives, which were twined together until death and, as far as he was concerned, beyond.
He kissed her wrist, enjoying the leap of her pulse. “How was your final?”
“Pretty good, I think. Only one more tomorrow.”
“And then you’ll be a nurse?”
“I won’t be a nurse until I pass my boards, but I’ll have my bachelor’s.”
“My baby.” He said it with pride because he was proud of her, his beautiful, treacherous wife. A man like him shouldn’t have anything less.
She blinked as he cupped her cheek, no doubt detecting a note of turmoil in his voice. “Where’s Max?” she asked.
“Don’t worry about that dog.” Tipping up her chin, he kissed her.
There was a moment’s hesitation before she responded, but she always responded.
That was because no one could do it for Kira the way he could, just like she always did it for him. The minty-sweet taste of her, the tiny mewls of pleasure she could never quite silence, the willowy feel of her body, curved just enough in all the right places, filling his hands. Oh, yeah. She did it for him.
Breathless now, she pulled back and tried to speak, but he didn’t care about that. He cared about untying the belt of her wrap dress and touching the hot satin of the skin beneath. He fumbled with the belt and she stopped his hands, but only for one second. Distracting her with his mouth on her lips, her neck, the wonderful fragrant valley between her breasts, he drove them both higher and even Kira couldn’t fight it. Not now.
Putting her hands on his cheeks, she slowed him down a little and he was caught by the earthy beauty of her flushed face, bright eyes and swollen lips.
Finally he tugged that belt free and got his hands on her.
Jesus, Lord. Touching her was like holding the universe in his hands. She felt that good. Still she tried to speak, to put a little distance between them.
“Kareem,” she said, panting now, “I can’t. I need to find Max and he needs a walk before I can go to bed. And I’m tired from my exam and—”
“No.”
God, her tits were incredible. She wore this filmy little bra that showed every detail, and what he saw pleased him no end. She was aroused. Her nipples were dark with it, tiny hard points that told him exactly what he did to her. Murmuring some nonsense because he couldn’t think to connect two words together when he had her like this, he bent, sucked one nipple between his lips and used his tongue to rub it against the roof of his mouth.
She went wild and her knees nearly gave way. It went just like clockwork, every single time, and you’d think he’d be tired of the predictability of her responses by now, but no. Seeing that he did this to her was a primitive thrill, every single time.
“Kareem, please stop.” There was a little more steel in her voice this time, a little thrust in her palms as she pushed him, but he outweighed her by an easy hundred pounds and if he didn’t want to stop, he wasn’t stopping. “I need to walk the dog and I’m—”
“What, baby?” Irritation prickled at the edges of his sensual high, a buzzing fly that he couldn’t quite see to swat. “Still on your period?” He crinkled his face in an exaggerated frown. “You better let the doctor know about that.”
“No, I just—”
She paused and let her head fall back and her eyes roll closed, caught between the pleasure of his hand circling lower on her belly, heading toward the edge of the black scrap of lace she called panties, and her determination to keep this from going any farther.
“—I just don’t think I’m ready—”
“You feel ready to me, baby.”
“—and I’d really like for you to stop. Please.”
“No.”
Ahh, there she was. He slid his hand under that elastic band low on her hips and found the thick patch of wiry hair that he remembered so well. Shaking now with the force of his need, he zeroed in on that hard nub and Kira gasped and squirmed.
She was creamy and wet, hot and slick for him, just like always. For one perfect second she surrendered and the low moan rose up from her chest, but then the sound seemed to startle her and she came out of her sensual haze.
For the first time, she got mad.
Not that it mattered. Not tonight.
Anyway, she was mad at herself, not him. Mad because she couldn’t resist him. Mad because she hated and wanted him, and it was all wrapped up together in one tangled knot she couldn’t untie.
“Kareem.” Going rigid, she shoved his hand away and glared, her eyes sharp now with focus. “I asked you to stop.”
Kareem took his time about looking up from the juicy curve of her thighs, the triangle between her legs and her honey on his fingers. He stroked over her belly again, and her hips, and her ass, and he gloried in the fact that all this bounty belonged to him and always would. He was a starved man and he was about to feast.
Finally he met her gaze, saw her dark pupils dilate, and knew the second her bravado gave way to fear. “I told you,” he said. “No.”
An arrested moment passed and things between them teetered between possible outcomes. Not the fucking—that was nonnegotiable tonight. The issue was whether she’d cooperate or not.
When she broke and ran for the door, he figured she’d decided on the not.
It made him sad to see her streak away from him like that, with real terror. It really did. And of course, what she’d done made him really, really sad. Angry too, but mostly sad, because how had it come to this ugliness between them?
It made him sick to think of it.
He still wanted to fuck her, though.
Sighing, he looked to heaven for some guidance about how to deal with his wife, but God, as usual, didn’t have shit to say to him. That being the case, Kareem took matters into his own hands and ran after her.
They met at the door and, catching her around her waist, he hefted her off her feet and she screeched with some combination of fear and frustration. “No, Kareem!”
She kicked out at him, and maybe he was a twisted fuck, but he liked it. He liked the high pitch in her voice. He liked her healthy new respect for him when she’d been leading him around by the nose for months. He liked her emotions, which were finally raw.
But then she kicked him again and it got on his nerves because they had overdue business to attend to and his dick was like granite in his pants. Clamping his hand down on the crown of her head, he grabbed a big hank of hair and spoke calmly because his yelling too would escalate the situation and it was already escalated enough.
“Stop,” he told her.
When she didn’t stop, he got a little more irritated and pulled that hair until he felt it give way and rip away from her scalp in a clump. She screamed again, but that was too damn bad. It was her own fault for not listening when he told her to stop; everything was her fault. But she’d learn her lesson before the night was through. She certainly would.
Taking only enough time to kick the door shut with a crash that shook the rafters, he swung her around and slammed her into the dresser, which was just the perfect height for what he had in mind. She roared like a trapped bear, trying to kick him, trying to get his hand out of her hair, trying to stop the inevitable.
But that was the thing about the inevitable, wasn’t it? There was no stopping it.
Bending her at the waist, he mashed the side of her face against the wood. Not to hurt her or anything—just to keep her still. She cursed him with language he’d never heard her use before, and it amused him. For a minute.
Then he thought about how she’d lied to him—how she’d betrayed him, how she obviously thought he was a fool—and he focused in on the lesson he need
ed to teach her, which was this:
Kareem Gregory always had the last word.
Wedging one thigh between hers, he widened her stance and took a minute to grind his dick against her ass, getting harder the more she writhed to get away.
Then he went to work on his zipper.
Chapter 28
Amara surrendered in the end.
To Jack’s immense satisfaction, she settled on all fours and offered herself, just the way he’d known she would. She held still, quivering like a mare in heat, and tilted her hips back to receive him.
Coming up behind her, inhaling the musky freshness of her slick body’s fragrance, he took his length and ran it through her thick folds, lubricating both of them. She was soaking wet, soft and swollen. Beautiful.
With a cry, he grabbed her hips and drove home, sheathing himself in her tight heat, nearly blinding himself with the pleasure.
There was one arrested moment when they both reeled with the shock of joining, the absolute perfection of it, and then she breathed, “Oh, God,” and they started to move.
He wasn’t sure whether he was driving her or she was driving him, but they were both loud and frantic, both beyond shame or embarrassment. He took her as hard and fast as he could, until great slapping sounds mingled with their cries, and she swiveled her hips, giving as good as she got.
He reached for her breasts and nearly roared with frustration when her sweater blocked the prize from his hands. Shoving the sweater up and out of his way, he stroked over her breasts in the satin cups of her bra, and then the bra irritated him too. Jerking one cup down, he squeezed and rubbed her, running his palm over her nipple, and her cries rose, both in pitch and volume.
Yeah. He needed more of that.
Waiting until her body began to stiffen and he knew she was coming, he rolled the engorged nipple between his thumb and forefinger and squeezed it.
She yelled and bucked, nearly pitching him off the bed in her frenzy.
He came for what felt like ten minutes, the ecstasy surging on and on until he was destroyed and exhausted. Her arms and his knees seemed to give way at the same time and they collapsed to the bed in a heap of sweaty bodies and winter clothes.
Over their harsh panting and the steady thunder of his pulse as it roared through his ears, he heard her voice, which was soft but relentless as the Colorado River carving its way through the Grand Canyon.
“Tell me about your mother.”
He could almost laugh at his own foolishness for thinking either that he could distract this woman with sex or that he could keep her at some emotional distance. As though Amara the Fierce would let him get away with that kind of nonsense. Resigned to his fate, he slipped off her and smoothed some of the silken black strands away from her damp face.
“Come to bed,” he told her, “and I will.”
Kira’s cries finally brought Wanda out of her room.
They were too terrible to ignore.
Wanda kept one ear to the ground at all times, but she knew when to keep quiet and when to disappear. The last thing she wanted was for Kira to convince Kareem to kick Wanda out because where would Wanda go then?
Kareem had told her to leave, so she’d left.
Now she was back, in the dark hallway outside the master bedroom door, shaking like a leaf in a tornado, her heart going a thousand beats per minute. She didn’t know what was going on in that bedroom, but she knew it was nothing good.
Kareem’s mood earlier had worried her, of course, but Kareem was always in a mood of some sort and they often passed before she could diagnose them.
Then Kira came home and there’d been yelling, which Wanda ignored.
Next came running feet and the slam of a door, and Wanda ignored that, too.
Kira’s high-pitched wails, though, like she was in pain—Wanda couldn’t ignore that.
She listened, disbelieving, sick to her stomach, paralyzed with fear, and horrified to the depths of her soul because her son, her Kareem, couldn’t have anything to do with noises like that.
The guttural grunts of male excitement and satisfaction. The relentless slap-slap-slap of flesh against flesh. The heavy bang of furniture into the wall.
And soaring high over the rest, Kira’s wails.
No, God. Please, Jesus, Lord—no.
Wanda slumped against the wall and clapped her hands over her ears, but the sounds were inside her now, church-bell clear whether she wanted to hear them or not.
And then, for the first time in years, she began to cry in great hiccuping sobs that burned her throat. They doubled her over and ripped her apart, but they kept erupting with the force of an angry Hawaiian volcano.
Kira. She swiped her eyes and swallowed her nausea. Help Kira. Call the police.
No—don’t call the police because Kareem is already in trouble.
Go in there, Wanda.
Yes. That was what she should do. Raising her hand, she knocked, but they were three pitiful little soundless knocks with no hope against the noises coming out of the room.
She reached for the knob, praying for it to be unlocked and for the courage to open the door and walk inside, but God only saw fit to answer half her prayer: it was unlocked, all right, but Wanda was too gutless to go in there and see exactly what kind of monster she’d raised.
She was still wavering when, abruptly, it was over.
Kareem finished his business and said a few low words to Kira, who answered back. Then the door swung open and Wanda scurried back as if there was any possible way she could disappear or hide what she’d been doing.
Kareem came out.
His pants were zipped but unbuttoned, his belt unbuckled, and there was an insistent bulge there that a mother should never see. Sweat shone on his face.
His eyes …
Wanda shrank against the wall and wondered for one terrified second if Kareem would hurt her because a man with that kind of look in his eyes was capable of anything. Those eyes were glittering and wild with an edge of ruthlessness so hard it could pound granite to dust. Worst of all, those eyes gleamed with grim satisfaction.
Their gazes met and held, and Wanda knew she was looking into the face of the devil.
“I told you to stay away from this room, Mama.”
There was no inflection in his voice. No embarrassment, no emotion whatsoever. They might have been discussing the weather. I told you not to go out in the rain without your umbrella, Mama.
In no particular hurry, he passed by and went to his room, leaving Wanda to tend to her daughter-in-law.
“My mother,” Jack murmured. “Where should I start?”
They were in the bed now, naked and twined, and Amara had one sleek leg slung over his hip, so he didn’t give them much time for talking, but they’d give it a shot for now.
Other than testifying in court today, he hadn’t talked about his mother in forever and barely allowed himself to think of her. The probability of collapsing to the floor and crying like a baby was just too high. But this one time, with Amara, it might be okay.
“What do you most remember about her?”
That was easy. “She smelled like Johnson’s Baby Powder.”
“What do you most miss?”
Jesus. Maybe he wouldn’t get through this conversation after all. “Everything.”
With a low croon of sympathy, Amara cupped his face and brought it down for a forehead kiss. That felt pretty good, so he shifted around so he could lower his head and rest it on her breasts.
They gathered each other closer and held tighter.
“Tell me what happened to her.”
Jack blinked against the hot burn in his eyes and pretended it was dust and exhaustion rather than tears. “She was a teacher. She worked hard every day of her life. She loved me. She loved my father, even though he had a needle stuck in his arm most of the time. She tried to get us to love each other. We never did.”
“Maybe you—”
“No,” he said firmly. “We neve
r did.”
Amara didn’t like that. He could feel it in the subtle new tension in her muscles. Thank God she let it drop, though. He wasn’t up for a debate on all the possible hidden ways his father had showed his love over the years.
“He wanted me to be a doctor,” he continued. “I probably had a subconscious desire to be like him—well, like the old him, anyway. The one in all the pictures on the mantel, with the uniform on. So I joined the Marines.”
He paused because his throat was getting tighter, his voice hoarser, and those tears sure weren’t showing any signs of evaporating.
“About three years after my father died, she retired. She’d been looking forward to it. Two days after we arrested Gregory, I flew to Memphis for this big dinner they were planning for her. And I—”
Jesus. He couldn’t do this.
Amara’s soothing hands stroked over his back. “And you what?”
Breathe, Jack. Breathe. A memory can’t kill you.
“And I went to her house and I knew something was wrong. She was there, on the floor in the kitchen.” He swallowed. “Shot in the head.” He tried to swallow again but, man, that lump in his throat just wasn’t going anywhere. “She was still alive.”
“Oh, my God.”
“So, you know … I called the police and got her to the hospital, where they said—big surprise—that there was nothing they could do for her. So I held her hand and she died.”
“Kareem?” she whispered.
“Who else? You think it was a coincidence that she was shot a couple days after he threatened me?”
“But, Jack—it wasn’t your fault.”
Hah. Funny. “Whose fault was it, Angel Eyes? The boogeyman’s?”
“But—”
“So that’s why you shouldn’t have been in the courthouse today. It’s too dangerous. I don’t want Kareem to figure out what you mean to me.”
Beneath his fingers, he felt her lungs expand and catch as she held her breath. “And what do I mean to you?”
Did she think he wasn’t going to say it after he’d just told her every other secret he had? Raising his head, he looked her straight in the eye. “Everything.”
Deadly Pursuit Page 26
