“Yeah—but I don’t know you, and I don’t hop into cars with strangers—or customers.”
“Sooo . . . what? You’re like on first-name basis with everyone at Uber?”
Klaudya opened her mouth to refute, but the man had a valid point.
His smile bloomed, making something flutter in the pit of her stomach. “C’mon, I’m a good guy.” He placed a hand over his heart. “Scout’s honor.”
“You’re working the hell out of the Boy Scout angle.”
“Is it working?”
“Surprisingly, yes.”
“Excellent.” He winked. “Oh, by the way, I’m Javid Ramsey.”
He offered his hand.
Klaudya whipped out her cell phone and snapped a picture.
“Whoa. What are you doing?”
“David Ramsey?” She grabbed her cell phone.
“No. Javid. J-A- V-I-D.”
“Thanks.” She typed in his name, moved to the back of his car and took a picture of his license plate.”
“What are you doing?”
“Texting your information to our roommates so they’ll have your details for the police . . . just in case.”
He grinned. “Ah. Smart.”
“In this millennium, it’s necessary.”
He whipped out his cell phone and snapped a picture. The flash blinded her for a second. “And what’s your name again?” He grabbed his phone, too.
She frowned.
“Just in case.” He smiled. “You know, this millennium and all.” He wrangled another smile from her, and it only made her more beautiful.
“Klaudya.” She slipped her small hand into his larger one. Instantly, a kinetic spark shot up her arm. She was suddenly drowning in the pools of his blue eyes. “Klaudya Mathis.”
“Nice to meet you, Klaudya. Now about that cup of coffee . . . ?”
Her smile expanded as she looked at her girls. “We can do coffee.”
“And that was the night Javid fell in love. They were married four months later. Javid’s father was pissed that he hadn’t married the woman he had picked out for him. But you only live once, right?”
CHAPTER 7
“She did it,” Lieutenant Schneider told his partner over coffee the next day. “I don’t know why this is so hard for you to admit. Once a murderer, always a murderer.”
“C’mon. You don’t believe that.” Armstrong pushed his coffee away.
“Don’t I?” Schneider laughed. “I’m an old enough cat to know people don’t fundamentally change. They may play around the edges: get a new haircut, lose some weight, and move from an old neighborhood. But they are the same people they always were.”
“All right, Dr. Schneider. Thank you for your dissertation.”
“Your problem is guilt.”
“Guilt?”
“Yeah. Guilt. You’re the one who broke the Ramseys’ happily-ever-after. . .”
2014
Calabasas, California . . .
Nestled in their seven-million-dollar dream home, Javid and Klaudya rose early to get in some playtime before the children woke up. As usual, Javid woke with a brick-hard hard-on and Klaudya was ready to take advantage of it.
“Sex with me is amazing,” Klaudya sang softly with a nice, slow grind.
Javid’s curled toes dug into the mattress while his hand locked onto her hips and his head lolled among the pillows. After seven years of wedded bliss, his wife still rocked his world to its foundation.
“Ah, baby. You feel so good,” he groaned, licking his lips.
Klaudya gloated and watched the range of emotions on his face. “You fuckin’ love this pussy, don’t you, baby?”
“Aw, fuck, yeah. Baby, you’re the best.”
“Damn right.” She bucked, clapping her ass around the base of his cock in quick succession until her toes curled. “Yeah, baby. That’s it. That’s my spot,” she cried.
As each of their nuts built to a climax, their attempt to remain quiet went out of the window. Before it was over, Klaudya flipped onto her stomach and Javid worked her body like a pro.
A knock sounded at the door, and seven-year-old Mykell’s voice floated inside. “Mommy?”
“Shit.” Javid took a pillow and plopped it over his wife’s head to buffer her cries.
Unfazed, Klaudya threw her ass back into him, challenging him to keep up.
He obliged.
“Daddy?” Mya joined her twin brother on the other side of the door.
“We’ll be . . . out in a few minutes, sweetheart.” He smacked Klaudya’s ass and took pride in his glowing handprint.
“Whose shit is this?” he growled.
The pillow muffled her answer, but it didn’t matter. Every inch of her fine body belonged to Javid. He could do whatever he wanted with her.
The kids knocked again.
“Go downstairs and get Ruthie to fix your breakfast,” Javid barked, annoyed.
Whether the kids followed his instructions or not, he didn’t care. He wanted this next nut, this next blast to heaven.
Klaudya’s body detonated first, sending an oceanic wave of honey gushing around his cock. He cried for the almighty before tilting forward and collapsing against her back, spent.
“Damn, baby,” he panted. “What the hell am I going to do with you?”
She pushed the pillow off of her head. “You’re going to keep doing what you’ve been doing.”
“Oh, yeah?” He rolled onto his back and dragged her into his arms. “And what’s that?”
“Love me.” She kissed him. “And never let me go.”
“Go? Oh, no. Never. Until death do us part, remember?”
“Yeah. I remember.”
They snuggled for a few more minutes before the commotion downstairs propelled them out of bed and in for a quick shower.
“You two behave,” Klaudya shouted to the children while she raced to answer the front door. However, it wasn’t the plumber, whom she was expecting. “Lieutenant Armstrong?” She peered around his six-foot frame, but there wasn’t a patrol car. “What are you doing here?”
He smiled and removed his shades. “Hello, li’l K. It’s good seeing you, too.”
“Li’l K?” She laughed, folding her arms. “I haven’t been called that in a long time. I’ve grown up.”
Armstrong’s gaze swept over her while his smile expanded. “Yes. You most certainly have. May I come in?”
Klaudya’s instincts were to say no and slam the door, but she hesitated.
“For old times’ sake?” he asked.
Klaudya lifted an eyebrow. It wasn’t like they were friends. “Fine. Come on in.” She stepped back.
“Thanks.” Armstrong crossed the threshold with his eyes widening. “Whoa. Nice place.” He made a small spin in the middle of the foyer. “A place like this had to set you back a pretty penny.”
Klaudya’s smile tightened as she closed the door. “One or two.”
He lowered his head. “Bad social grace to talk about money. Sorry, I was raised better.”
Klaudya’s face remained tight. “Don’t worry about it.” She crossed her arms again. “So what brings you all the way out here to Calabasas?”
“Would you believe I was in the neighborhood?”
“No.”
“Ah, well. I was never a good liar,” he joked to an unamused Klaudya.
A glass shattered in the kitchen.
Mya screamed.
“Damn it!” Klaudya raced to see the latest destruction the twins had created. Sure enough, Mya and Mykell were engaged in a full-fledged food fight.
The sixty-five-year-old housekeeper refereed.
“Stop it. Stop it!” Klaudya clapped her hands, trying to gain the children’s attention. But they were focused on killing each other with pancakes. Though Mya screamed the loudest, she was winning the fight. “Give it to me.” Klaudya wrestled the last pancake from Mya’s fist. “I swear I can’t turn my back on you two for a minute!”
Arms
trong chuckled.
“What’s so damn funny?” Klaudya wrestled the sticky breakfast out of the child’s closed fists but ended up with the mess all over her clothes.
“Nothing.” Armstrong grabbed a roll of paper towels from off the kitchen counter and came to her aid. “It’s just . . . I remember a time when my wife and I tackled our kids like this every morning. It was a real pain.” He laughed. “I miss those days.”
Against her will, Klaudya’s heart softened toward the cop. “I’m still waiting,” she reminded him as she wiped Mykell’s face clean. “You weren’t just in the neighborhood. All my crimes are well past the statute of limitations.”
“That’s not exactly how it works. But I get your point.” He chuckled.
“So?”
“Well, it’s about your mother.”
Ice slid through Klaudya’s veins as her face turned to stone. “My mother? What about her?”
“Well . . . I don’t know if you know, but she’s out now. Sort of.”
“And?”
Armstrong blinked in the face of her emotionless reaction. “And . . . she’s not doing too well. Your mother is having a hard time finding a good place to live and keeping a job. She’s already violated her parole. She spent the last two nights in jail, unable to make bail. But I know a guy who knows a guy.”
“Great. Everything has been taken care of then. Is that’s all?”
Lieutenant Armstrong frowned.
Klaudya slid her children’s morning juice in front of them. “Maybe you should cut the bullshit and tell me what it is you’re expecting from me, lieutenant.”
“I’m sorry.” Disappointment blanketed his face. “I thought . . .”
“What? That I give a shit about what happens to her? I don’t. In her own way, she abandoned me, too.”
His bushy brows jumped again. “Does that mean you remember what happened?”
She pulled herself together. “You should leave.”
“I’m sorry. I made a mistake.”
“Damn right, you did.”
Javid’s heavy footsteps thundered down the stairs.
“Shit,” she muttered before her husband rushed into the kitchen.
“Sorry, sweetheart. I had to take a call and . . .” Javid stopped when he spotted Armstrong in the middle of the kitchen. “Hey, um.” He glanced at his wife for an explanation while he approached Armstrong with his arm extended.
Jaw tight, Klaudya fussed with the children again.
“Lieutenant Erik Armstrong, this is my husband, Javid Ramsey. Javid, this is Lieutenant Armstrong.”
The men shook hands.
“Lieutenant?” Javid attempted to catch his wife’s eye again but failed. “Is there a problem, officer?”
Klaudya cut in, “There’s no problem. The detective—”
“Lieutenant,” Armstrong and Javid corrected her.
“He was leaving,” she said.
The men stared at her while tension mounted.
Mya threw a greasy sausage at her brother, but instead of him screaming his head off, he grabbed a fistful of scrambled eggs and launched it upside his sister’s head.
Klaudya’s blood pressure shot through the roof. “Fuck it. I can’t deal with this shit right now.” She threw the roll of paper towels and stormed out of the kitchen.
The children fell silent and joined their father and Lieutenant Armstrong in staring after her.
Finally, Javid turned toward the cop.
“Sorry,” Armstrong apologized again. “I didn’t mean to upset her. I . . . thought she wanted to know about her mother.”
Javid blinked and cocked his head. “Her mother? I thought her mother was dead?”
CHAPTER 8
The storm
Klaudya had been in the freezing rain so long she was numb. Despite knowing she needed to leave, her heart overrode her head and had her sloshing her way out of the woods and creeping toward the house. It was her house, goddamn it. She had every right to be there, had every right to see her babies and her husband. He was still her fucking husband, even if her mother had turned him against her. A lump swelled in her throat. For all her street smarts and hustle mentality, she’d failed to stay two steps ahead of her mother. Klaudya was lucky she’d landed in jail and wasn’t pushing up daisies in a cemetery somewhere.
Nichelle, the liar.
Nichelle, the manipulator.
Nichelle, the gold-digger.
Klaudya should have slammed the door the moment Lieutenant Erik Armstrong appeared at her door. She listened as her babies shrieked and giggled in the midst of a pillow fight. As usual, Mya was determined to prove she was as crafty and as strong as anybody. She had her mother and grandmother to thank for that. Smiling, Klaudya maneuvered around the second-floor family room’s entrance and crept up the second staircase toward the third floor.
The children’s boisterous laughter faded, replaced by the sound of running water. Dread slithered up her spine; as its smooth scales glided over her delicate bones, it caused the hairs on the back of her neck to rise. The static in the air was wrong, and the steel knots in her belly threatened to do her in. However, determination forced her to put one foot in front of the other. When she took one step across the platform, her sneakers squished and squeaked so loudly, she had to stop dead in her tracks.
Convinced she’d given herself away, she froze and remained stopped in her tracks for a full minute. When no one came rushing out of the bedrooms to bust her, she exhaled a relieved breath. But before she took another step, she slipped out of her wet sneakers and headed the rest of the way toward the master bedroom barefoot.
Inside the marbled shower, Javid swallowed his disappointment and forced the corners of his lips to curl upward. He should have known she would be looking for a chance to pull a move like this. Nichelle was a smart woman. Undoubtedly, she’d sensed him pulling away from her. She’d been more than clear about what she expected in their new relationship.
He hadn’t.
In fact, he’d stumbled into something he might not be able to get out of.
Nichelle took this as a sign of approval and slinked closer while she slid her arms up his chest and locked them behind his head. “I figured we could steal a few minutes alone before joining the kids downstairs.” She leaned forward and drew him into a kiss.
Against Javid’s will, and better judgment, his cock hardened.
Nichelle chuckled against his lips. “I knew you’d be happy to see me.” Her slender fingers wrapped gingerly around his wet cock. As she stroked him, his limited number of brain cells died. “It’s been a minute since we’ve been alone. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were losing interest.” Her lips grazed the column of his neck and across his collarbone. “It’s not true, is it?”
Javid moaned and shook his head.
“Good.” She sank to her knees. Without missing a stroke, Nichelle kissed the tip of his cock.
Javid shuddered at the sensation of her silky tongue running along his shaft. His knees buckled, and he almost melted down the shower’s drain. The rest of her honeyed words were lost in the wind as he gave in to his desire. It didn’t last long. When he was flying high, a tidal wave of shame crashed over him.
Klaudya would be released soon. She would never understand, and she would never forgive him. Hell, she’d warned him.
Javid peeled open his eyes, and his heart stopped with a gasp.
“What?” Nichelle peered at him. “What’s wrong?”
Javid blinked. The shadow at the bathroom door disappeared.
“Nothing.” He pulled his soft cock from Nichelle’s hands and turned on the water for a final rinse. His mind was fucking playing tricks on him again. It had been happening for a few months now. Everything and everywhere he looked, there she was.
Once again, Nichelle approached him from behind, sliding her arms around his waist, but this time he snapped. “Nichelle, stop.” He pulled her arms and broke her hold. “You shouldn’t be in here.
The kids could come in here any minute.”
“So?”
He spun and looked at her incredulously. “So? Don’t you think it’ll be difficult to explain why their father and their grandmother are naked and taking a shower together?” He shut off the water and opened the glass door.
Nichelle followed, chuckling. “You gotta give them more credit than that. They are adaptable, especially nowadays. Two mothers, two daddies—anything goes. Haven’t you heard?”
“Hardly the same thing.” He wrapped a towel around his hips and marched out of the bathroom and into the adjoining master bedroom.
Nichelle wasn’t far behind him with her own body covered. At the bathroom door, she studied him. “What difference does it make? We got to tell them eventually, right?”
Javid snatched open the top drawer and retrieved a pair of boxers.
“I asked you a question,” Nichelle said, the sweetness leaking out of her voice.
“Look. I . . . I don’t know what the hell this is. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing anymore. Okay? There. I said it.”
A long silence hung in the air. “Look. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I . . . I don’t want to hurt anyone.”
Nichelle pushed away from the doorframe and sauntered toward him. And though he towered a good seven inches above her, fear made his heartbeat pound faster. When she stopped in front of him, he made out her hard features. “Men never intend on hurting anyone. It comes naturally to you.”
As their gazes clashed, thunder rumbled overhead.
Javid didn’t know what to do or say, but was grateful when Nichelle sauntered past him and exited out of the bedroom door.
Nichelle stormed out of the master bedroom as if her hair were on fire. After all her plotting and planning, she couldn’t lose Javid now. Not with Klaudya scheduled to be released any day. They needed to be themselves as one united front. When Klaudya saw her former life with the multimillionaire was over, she’d throw in the towel. It all belonged to her now.
Almost belonged to her.
Javid still had to present Klaudya with the divorce papers. And she still needed to get him in front of a priest or a judge. There were too many eggs outside of the basket, and she didn’t like it. Lost in her tangled thoughts, Nichelle lost her footing and skidded a few inches across the top landing. Luckily, she regained her balance before landing flat on her ass.
No Loyalty Page 5
