by L. A. Banks
“If there’s any flux happening, innocent or otherwise,” Damali said, unsheathing her baby Isis, “then maybe you’d better come home with somebody who can deal with it.”
Carlos almost smiled. He gave the team his back to consider, catching Berkfield’s pained expression before he turned around.
“If you’re injured,” Berkfield said, beginning to walk down the steps. “Maybe—”
“No,” Carlos yelled. “Don’t touch me.” He then mellowed his next response. “I’m fine. Y’all have put me out of the house, so, fine. I don’t need anything from anybody.” He waited, watching Berkfield remain on the step, unmoving. The last thing he needed was for a healer with sacred blood running through his veins to attempt to lay hands on him. He didn’t know what the repercussions of that would be, and would make it a point not even to shake Berkfield’s hand until he knew.
“Carlos,” Juanita said, coming down the steps past the others. “Listen, it’s not like that, okay?”
Carlos tilted his head as he watched her come closer. A thousand thoughts ran through his mind and captured it … Oh, Juanita, ya don’t want none of this …
She froze in the path, just like the deer had, and then began backing up the steps one at a time. “But, uh,” she said, slowly recovering, “we’ve got kids in the house. Try to understand.”
“Yeah, man,” J.L. said, placing a possessive arm around Krissy’s shoulders. “That’s the only reason people are tense. I mean, with the contagion, and all, who knows how bad any of us is gonna get—and you’re stronger than any of us, if you flux out, or something. It ain’t personal.”
Dan nodded and body-shielded Bobby. “Don’t take offense. They can’t deal with it. That’s the only reason, man.”
“Oh, fuck all that,” Inez said, her eyes narrowing on Carlos. “I don’t like how the man looked at Juanita in front of my girl!”
Inez was practically down the steps, and were it not for Big Mike’s hand on her shoulder, she would have been. Up to this point, Inez had been skittish, but was spiking a battle surge within him. He hadn’t banked on Inez having the leanings of being a seer, not to mention, he forgot that she was Damali’s cut-buddy. Inez was also from the ’hood, and had street sense to hone the other gift she obviously had. Right now she seemed ready to go down for her girl over a respect principle. So be it.
“Let her go,” Carlos said, his tone even and lethal. “I didn’t look at Juanita no kinda way, and if Jose was cool with it—”
“But I wasn’t,” Marlene said in a flat tone. “He stays out of the house until daylight hours.”
Damali gave Marlene a knowing glance. “In the morning, we pack and move out. Everybody get some rest. We’re going back to L.A.”
He couldn’t believe his good fortune. Carlos kept his gaze out the window of Damali’s Hummer as they made their way down the road. He used an attitude as a shield to keep her from seeing his overwhelming relief. They’d be off this prayer dirt in no time. It was making him sick.
She jumped out of the Hummer without looking at him. She’d fled it so quickly that she’d practically forgotten to turn off the engine.
“Strip,” she ordered, using her short blade as a pointer. “Right here in the front yard. Then I’m gonna douse your clothes, and I want you to see what happens to them when I do. Then you’ll be able to understand why everybody is just a little bit nervous around you, brother.”
“All right,” Carlos said, allowing a half smile to tug at his mouth. “You’re the boss,” he added, slowly hopping down from the Hummer and pulling his shirt over his head. He held out the ripped T with two fingers and dropped it, as though providing her with a slow striptease. He bent to unlace his Tims, but steadily kept his eyes on her as he straightened and stepped out of them, then kicked them near his ruined shirt.
It was something she’d seen him do more times than she could count, but for some reason, tonight, his slow undressing was so sensual that he might as well have been doing a male version of the Dance of the Seven Veils in her front yard.
Damali’s gaze traveled across his broad shoulders and the sculpted form of his chest, lingering on each bulge of defined abdominal muscle packs. His skin seemed like fired bronze in the moonlight. She couldn’t help staring at his hands as they took their time unfastening the top button of his jeans. Reflex made her lick her lips as his hand slid his zipper down. Her mouth went dry, her face flushed hot. A hard shiver made her belly clench as he rolled the denim fabric away from his body as though peeling back an onionskin. Just looking at him had made her so wet that she feared the emulsion between her thighs would soak through her pants.
She couldn’t move as she watched him; didn’t want to move. Oh, yeah, he’d blown her mind with sexy vamp drama in the past, but she’d never almost fallen over at his antics from twenty-five feet away. Her skin felt damp and warm, and before she knew it she was breathing out of her mouth in short sips. Maybe Marlene was right, all they needed to do was sync up … and man oh man was she ready to sync and squash whatever had been between them. This was the sexiest shit he’d ever done to her.
Carlos yanked his pants down his thighs slowly, and let them slide the rest of the way to his feet. His intense gaze held her in place as he casually kicked them toward the other clothes that lay in a pile. She was not looking at his face. Her jaw went slack, her heart seemed to stopped for a few seconds, it was beating in arrhythmia for sure … It had been a while, but she didn’t remember hombre being hung like that!
He walked nearer, an easy smile of satisfaction rooting her to the top porch step. “Can I come in the house now?”
She had every intention of saying something flippant, but the words got caught in her throat.
“Well, you just gonna leave me out here in the raw?”
She shook her head no. “I need to douse you and your clothes,” she quietly gasped.
“Why don’t you worry about that, later. Obviously, I’ve missed you. How about if you douse me in the shower, like old times, instead?”
From some reservoir of common sense, she scrambled together a sentence. “We can’t just jump in the shower … no … uh; we have to use protection. I could get pregnant.” She wasn’t sure why those words were first to come to her mind or out of her mouth.
Carlos shook his head and clicked his tongue, making a little tsking sound. “And here I thought you’d consider making another baby with me tonight.”
Forget warning bells—cymbals went off in her head, breaking what felt like a spell.
“Latex or nothing … Why are we even shouting this conversation in the yard?” Damali looked around, confusion eating at her brain. Then she felt her mind pry open and nearly snap.
“Latex?” He chuckled low and sensually, his eyes roving over her body like a caress. “You don’t trust your Sankofa to do the work for you?”
In all truth, she didn’t. Not tonight. There was something very dark, half scary, but way, way too magnetic about him at the moment. But to admit that would fly in the face of everything Neteru within her, not to mention might blaspheme her Queens. She forced a smile to cover up her distress. Y’all got my back, right? she mentally whispered. This brother ain’t no joke. I don’t know what’s wrong with his ass tonight.
“Since you’re packing heat,” she said as coolly as possible, “and talking plenty of trash, a double layer of protection is a girl’s best friend. A condom or the couch. Your choice.”
“What I’ve got for you tonight,” he said, his voice a tone lower than she’d ever heard it before, “will burn right through latex.”
His voice had washed her entire body with a wave of want, and then entered it between her legs to coat her insides with new heat.
“Oh, shit …” she murmured, having meant the comment to come out as a possible battle-readiness shout for him to back off. She weaved, caught the porch banister, and gripped it for support as another penetrating wave hit her.
“How many times have I asked you
to stop playing with me, Damali?”
As he walked toward her she could feel the warmth of his hands on her body, touching every place he’d learned by heart. The black box in her head felt light, the lid on it struggling to remain shut. Images began to surround it, taunting it to open, and her gaze slowly found his. Tears blurred her sight, and short pants escaped her mouth.
“Baby, stop,” she whispered.
“Why?” he asked in a subsonic tone.
“Because I’m asking you to,” she said in a near squeak.
“You know you want a soldier, raw, Mamacita,” he said in a voice so low it rumbled through her and produced a pleasure wave that knocked her head back, causing her audible gasp. “Stop trippin’.”
Mamacita? He’d never called her that before. Something was definitely wrong. She’d felt every sound decibel from his throaty response drop inside her as though he’d let each word fall like a droplet of water … or blood. Circles of ecstasy spread through every cell within her, uniting every essence of liquid in her system to its throb. Concentric ripples connected each spreading ring in a million tingles that felled her to her knees where she once stood.
She could barely lift her head. Carlos’s footsteps rang out as they landed on the steps one by one. The vibration along the wood planks from each footfall made her cry out with desire. Every time he spoke, his whisper was a forceful caress that elicited a sound from within her that she’d never heard. She tried to lift her head to look at him, had to see what this new mood of his was all about … even as a councilman, he’d never blown her away like this.
“I don’t care about what happened in your kitchen,” he said so quietly that her body began to lift from the porch floor without her aid. “You like vamp. Jose’s got that in him, baby … but not like this.”
The moment her head dropped back again, she’d braced for a fang strike, even though Carlos was only a few feet from her. Instead of receiving the bite, she found herself sprawled against the porch floor, actual beach waves washing over her, making her scream from the intolerable pleasure.
Water was everywhere, the salty fusion of it reminiscent of blood. What felt like Caribbean sun was prickling her skin, licking it as erotic waves repeatedly lapped at her body and continued to sweep her closer to her front door. It was so intense a vision, or whatever it was that he’d produced, she was sputtering salt water and trying to stand, when another wave knocked her down. Sand was under her fingernails as she scrabbled to fend off another tidal sensation.
Gasping, she peered at him, confused, panting out sentences in short bursts while trying to wrap her mind around where this power rush was coming from. This wasn’t no freaking relapse! “Male Neterus can do that? They taught you that on the island with the old men—back in Ethiopia? Shit, baby, you apexing on me, or something? You definitely gotta use something extra, for real.”
Carlos tilted his head to the side as he stared down at her. Power was an awesome thing, to be sure. But she’d actually felt desire for some vamp perpetrator over him? His distant line brother? Was she out of her mind? She wanted a change? Something new? Something forbidden? Done. No, this wasn’t a relapse or anything some old men on an island had taught him. Far from it.
“Girl, I know what you like,” he whispered low and dangerously, his voice a swift-cutting pleasure blade, slicing at her resistance. “Be honest. At least with yourself. You want a true baby-maker, wild risk-taker, to-the-bone dealer … night … thrill … seeka, make you wanna holla, mad-crazy soldier, hot-desire waker … breath to bone shaker, out-of-body quaker, yeah … empire builder, dream ful-filla, girl stop playin’, ’cause that ain’t the half of what you want.” He closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath until it hissed. “C’mon, let me get this … and let me get it right.”
His hands slid down his body, creating an unnatural heat within hers. Her skin felt like it was catching fire, leaving acute pleasure in its wake. She couldn’t take her eyes off him, or pull away from what felt like an erotic, magnetic current. He drew in air between his teeth, creating another quiet hiss of pleasure just behind her ear from where he stood.
Say no—How? Tell him back off—not possible. Not when he felt the way he did—even standing just beyond her steps, his scent divine, making her know what he really was with each burning phantom touch … all vamp. Maybe more.
“And you love it,” he whispered, accessing her mind without permission.
“Stop,” she whispered. “This isn’t the Carlos I know.”
“The old Carlos is gone,” he murmured sensually, “Murió en un desgraciado accidente. No quiero desilusionarte, pero … estoy deshecho, cansado … baby, desnúdate, then sufrí un desmayo … helado. Tomorrow we can discuss it. Por lana mañanas tengo la mente más despejada.”
His eyes briefly slid shut, as though he was regaining his composure, and when he inhaled, it sucked the air right out of her lungs, making her feel faint. She struggled to translate what he’d told her, feeling a shred of truth in the vibration resonating within his statement, but couldn’t bring her mind to work that hard for her, not when he was speaking to her low and sexy in Español … not when he was working her body the way he was.
“Please, Carlos,” she gasped, trying to back away on the porch floor. “I can’t think when you get like this, and something is definitely wrong.”
“¿En qué estás pensando? But creo que estás equivocado,” he whispered, his lids now half lowered as he continued to inhale deeply. “No te muevas. Ya no hay más. No importa.” He placed his hand on the door. “Permission to enter your house, mi tresora.”
Something fragile snapped inside her and she nodded, defying every instinct that lay coiled within her. He chuckled so low and deep that she felt it across the porch like a depth charge through her womb.
“That’s better,” he murmured, slowly walking toward her, his motions so fluid she wasn’t sure his footfalls had landed against the floor. “Then … permission to enter you?”
Her eyes were shut tight. She heard her front door groan and splinter open behind her, and another pleasure assault washed her into her living room. But when she opened her eyes, she was in a place she couldn’t recognize. Naked, writhing bodies were all around her. A shadowed figure was in her doorframe. A pool, marble, togas—oh shit, old Rome!
Before she could protest, every sensation resident in the tangle of human flesh gathered and covered her, entering every orifice, until she wept from orgasmic exhaustion. Through sobs of exquisite relief, she sought a pair of eyes she knew. Her line of vision locked with the shadow in the doorway. Breathless, she waited for the familiar glow of silver, something to make her know that he was still with her, that this was just a phenomenal floor show, but no silver light returned to her. Dark, blue-black fire met her stare.
“If you love me, you’ll stop right now, Carlos! Do not bring this bullshit into my house! I forbid it.” She covered her mouth with one hand and sobbed as he smiled, and another orgasm arrested her complaint.
“I thought you wanted to really know what was inside the mind of a master? I just opened the first layer of my black box for you, baby. Can’t handle it?” he said in an amused tone. “Before, you said—”
“That was before,” she said, pushing herself up on all fours so she could eventually stand on wobbly legs. But she never made it that far.
“Cypress, maybe, then?” Carlos murmured, “The Greek isles? The Oracle at Delphi had some moves you wouldn’t believe. Three-way? That was a very decadent era … and you are definitely in my favorite position. She’ll love it, too.”
“Don’t,” Damali said firmly. “Let me up.”
“That’s right. You’re an old-fashioned girl. Old school, Old Testament. So maybe we should just go back to the beginning and do thing right.”
Her hands sank into rich, fertile dirt, and vines began to climb up the walls, forming Eden.
“Fallon tried it, I didn’t like it,” she said quickly, before Carlos transformed into so
mething that might lope over her threshold.
“My bad,” he whispered. “Careless and unoriginal. Maybe—”
“Just please stop,” she said quietly, needing to appeal to whatever rational part of him was left. “Let me up; let’s just be who we are. No games.”
A deep chuckle thundered up from Carlos’s insides. “No, baby,” he said slowly, shaking his head as he made her bud throb harder, “you definitely aren’t ready for that.”
She could see him stroke the line of his jaw as though considering her fate, even with the unnaturally dark shadows eclipsing his face and body. Something was definitely wrong; he’d never violated her like this, and his power had never been this strong. Although he’d never laid a physical hand on her, what he’d done mentally was more than enough. Fighting against the new wash of sensations he was beginning to create, she went for his emotional core—given that her long blade was missing, and her baby Isis had probably fallen off the porch.
“Carlos, I will never forgive you for this,” she said in a distant tone, glancing away from him. “I can’t believe you’d act like this or treat me this way.”
He paused. Maybe he’d gone too far. New approach.
She watched him slowly run his fingers through his hair, and instantly, the force holding her to the floor lifted.
Part of him said not to do it, but an overriding desire shunted that protest. He had to get inside her, feel her sweet heat all around him. He’d played too long, had blown his own mind, there was no work left for her to do. Fluid had already filled his shaft, turning it to what felt like throbbing granite.
As soon as the thought was completed, she was outside on the porch, naked in his arms, initially struggling against his hold, her skin sweaty and pulsing beneath his grip until her hands grasped at his back to pull him closer. His mouth consumed hers, devouring her moan, breaking down her resistance. Her Sankofa blazed white-hot silver on her spine, almost searing his hands as they ran down her back. Damn, her will not to conceive was strong.
