by Meesha Mink
7
One week later
Naeema squatted low and raised her balled fists to protect her face before she jumped up and kicked toward Tank’s rock-hard midsection. He blocked her move like it was nothing. Just thorough as hell.
“Good,” he said, his bared upper body dampened in sweat. “Again.”
Naeema brushed her sweat back with her forearm before she took her position again on the mat of the empty gym. She kicked. Tank blocked it.
“Again,” he ordered.
Kick. Blocked.
“Again.”
Kick. Blocked.
“Again.”
This time Naeema paused and quickly changed plans. She raised the same leg to kick but then jumped down on that one and leveled her other leg toward his side sharply.
Tank caught it just before it landed against his body. He jerked it forward, knocking her off balance, and then dipped low to swing his foot around to knock her other leg from under her. Naeema landed on her back on the mat with an umph. One second later he was on top of her and pinning her arms and legs to the mat. He still looked impressed as he smiled down at her. “You woulda fucked up a lesser motherfucker,” he said, his face just above her as they both breathed deeply.
“A lesser motherfucker almost did get fucked up,” she shot back, trying not to let the feel of his dick pressing against her hip fuck her up.
It wasn’t even hard and she was catching hell ignoring it.
“Lesser than who? Your man?” he asked.
Naeema didn’t say shit.
“Oh, I mean your imaginary man, Mr. Don’t Exist,” he teased.
Naeema still didn’t say a word.
“Your body soft as a pillow everywhere, Na,” Tank whispered as his eyes was all over her face. “Except your nipples. I can feel them pressing against my chest.”
Her pulse raced.
“Why I love fucking you so much?” he asked.
Her clit swelled with life and she bit her bottom lip to keep from answering his question.
“Why your pussy so good, Na?” Tank lowered his head and pressed kisses on her neck, his tongue licking her pounding pulse.
She gasped and released a shaky breath before she turned her head and closed her eyes. Shit. He just did it for her. Sex wasn’t their problem. Never was. It was looking like it never was going to be.
Tank freed her hands and brought his hand down to turn her face back toward him. The first feel of his tongue stroking her mouth made Naeema wet. With a moan she opened her lips and sucked the tip of it. His dick got harder and longer against her hip and she felt her legs spreading wider so that she could wrap them around his waist.
Once again it’s on.
He got up from her body long enough to push her sports bra up above her breasts. He moaned as he sucked one tight brown nipple.
“Lick it,” she demanded softly.
And he did, with quick back and forth flickers.
“Shit,” she swore, bringing her hands up to lightly dig her nails into his back.
The Jaws theme ringtone on her burner cell phone sounded off. Her body went stiff, she knew it was Bas.
Pressing her hands against Tank’s shoulder, she tried to free her nipple from his mouth. “Hold up one sec. I got to get my phone,” she said.
“Man, fuck that phone.”
She freed herself from him and raced across the small garage he’d converted to a gym, to dig the cheap flip phone out of her purse.
“Hello,” she said as she pulled her bra down over her breasts and stepped outside the garage into the heat, remembering to use that playful and simple tone to her voice that the crew knew.
“Whaddup, stranger? How’s life treating you?”
“Better now,” she said.
“Oh, you missed me?” he asked.
“Sum’n like dat,” she said.
He laughed. It was low and husky and cocky as shit. “Keep playing with the snake and you gon’ get bit,” he warned.
“A snake ain’t shit once it fall in the right hole,” she shot back—and then wondered if that was too quick on her feet for the role of innocent and naive Queen who just wanted to belong.
“I hear you, Queen,” he said. “Come to the spot at ten.”
She turned to find Tank standing in the open doorway, his hard dick still hard and fighting to be freed from his jogging pants. “A’ight,” she said, before closing the phone and moving past him to reenter the garage.
Tank grabbed her waist and pulled her body up against his. “Who was that?”
Naeema pulled back to eye with lots of attitude. “When I called you and some bitch was in the background, did I ask you about her? Did I give a fuck about her when you was getting this pussy that same night?”
She brushed his hands off her waist and stepped past him. “Won’t you try not giving a fuck?”
Tank reached for her wrist. “That’s hard to do when you the one always calling me for help . . . for dick.”
“I’ll make it my business to help you and forget your number,” she said. “ ’Cause if you think I can’t, you got me fucked up, playboy.”
“Whateva, Na. Keep acting like you so hard and you don’t need nobody in this fucking world. Keep believing that shit,” he snapped, walking past her to start punching the heavy bag hanging in the corner.
“I wanted to lose weight and working out with you was always good exercise,” she said, hoping the piss-poor excuse would ease his suspicion.
“Lose weight where?” he protested, pausing in hitting the bag to look over at her.
She turned and gripped both of her ass cheeks before jiggling them. “So you not gonna help me?” she asked, now standing there with her arms crossed.
“You don’t need me, remember?” Tank called over to her as he continued to pound away on the bag.
But she did need his ass.
She was out there confronting people and chasing down her son’s killer and she couldn’t just rely on her gun. Every situation didn’t call for that. Sometimes she just needed to yoke somebody up, and Tank could train her to do that well—or at least well enough not to get hurt.
And she needed him because she knew he would always love her just like she would always love him.
Naeema walked around the mat on the center of the floor and came over to pull the heavy bag out of his reach. Tank dropped his fists and eyed her with those sexy eyes. “What?” she asked softly, pushing the bag toward him.
He easily leaned his upper body out of its way. “That’s it for today, Naeema,” he said, his voice hard.
She knew he was dead-ass serious.
Coming over to stand in front of him, she tried to wrap her arms around his waist and he blocked her from doing it. Feeling challenged, she stripped before him, tossing her sports bra and leggings aside to stand before him naked. Turning, she wrapped her hands around the chain attaching the bag to the ceiling and pulled her body up, wrapping her legs around it. She had barely done two twerks of her fleshy ass before she felt Tank’s hands guiding his hard dick up inside her pussy. She moved down lower on the bag until her arms strained, but the snug fit of all of him inside her pussy was worth it.
“Shit,” they both swore hotly as he rocked the bag to guide her back and forth on his hard inches.
The feel of his hard body pressing her body against the leather of the bag as he fucked her was intense. She let her head fall back as she fought not to let go of the chains. “Fuck me, Tank,” she begged.
He pressed kisses to her shoulder blades as each of his hard thrusts made her ass jiggle against him. “It’s so tight,” he moaned against her back.
Naeema pulled up on the chain just enough to swivel her hips as she continued to swing back and forth on the bag. “Oh my God, your dick got harder,” she gasped, pressing her face against the bag as she bit her bottom lip in pleasure.
She felt one of his hands move up her spine to tightly grip the back of her neck as his strokes deepened, sending hi
s hard curved inches against the tight and wet walls of her pussy.
Back and forth on the dick.
“Yes, yes, yes,” she cried out as his grip on her neck tightened and he reached down to alternate between a gentle push of the bag and a slap of her round buttocks.
“You want this nut?” he asked thickly.
“Please,” she begged, letting her head fall back to rest on one of his strong shoulders.
As the thrusts of his dick got deeper and faster, Naeema let the chain go and her upper body fell back on him while he continued fucking her. “I’m cumming,” he moaned against her neck.
“Mmmmmm,” she sighed, bringing her hands up to tease her own nipples and massage her soft breasts as her nut exploded, sending her to a world where nothing else fucking mattered at all. She felt each pump of his dick as he filled her with his cum.
She was still shivering when he wrapped his arms around her and turned her body to hold her close. She felt so emotional that she pressed her face against his neck to keep from getting caught up and telling him how much she still loved him.
“We can’t keep doin’ this, Naeema,” he told her.
She knew what he said was money.
They couldn’t live with each other but it was clear as day they couldn’t do without each other either. And that was the realest shit ever.
• • •
“What did you do with your money, Queen?”
Naeema looked over at Bas sitting wide legged in an old office chair, his brown eyes locked on the small television broadcasting video surveillance of their secret entrance into the church. She was the first to arrive and, like he would for the others, Bas had unlocked the door to let her in.
Bas was a thug but he didn’t look shit like what most people assumed a thug should be. His hair was cut into a low fade that emphasized the strong lines of his lean face and his full eyebrows. He looked like a model in a fashion magazine. Even now he was dressed in khakis and a white polo shirt with a rich-looking brown leather belt and matching deck shoes. She wouldn’t doubt they were Gucci or some other high-end brand. He could’ve been heading off to a day at college, work at a retail store in the mall, or even church.
But Naeema made no mistake that the fine-ass man sitting in that chair was ruthless. Bas was tall, with the slender but muscular frame of an athlete, but his temper was short. He was one of those motherfuckers that skipped the arguing and just straight put hands on someone challenging him.
Did Brandon piss him off? Did the boy far too young even to be in the company of a twentysomething crowd of thieves become a nuisance to their shit?
Did you kill my son?
She looked away from him as her hand itched to grab his throat and choke the truth out of him. Chill, Naeema.
“Nothing yet,” she said, sipping from the shot of Henny he had poured for her into a plastic cup.
“You still scared?”
She glanced over at him. “I wasn’t scared,” she said.
He laughed and even that sounded laid back. “Oh, you was scared as hell and you still scared but don’t worry. We won’t get caught. I’m too smart for them motherfuckas.”
But not too smart for me.
Naeema just shrugged and took another sip. “I ain’t gon’ front. I don’t want to do that shit again,” she said with a giggle meant to come off as silly.
“Nah, you good. Once was enough to show and prove,” he said, rolling across the dusty floor in the chair to pick up the bottle of Henny sitting atop the large safe.
“Prove what?”
Bas uncapped the bottle and took a sip directly from it, his eyes locked on her as he swallowed the brown liquor. “That you can be trusted,” he said, before wiping his mouth with the back of his hands.
Just like I thought.
“You can trust me, Bas,” she said softly, cutting her eyes up at him with a smile.
He shrugged before he stood up and walked over to pour more liquor into her cup. “Nothing happens that I don’t want to happen,” he said.
Including murders?
She tilted her head back to look up at him.
“If I told Viv not to fuck with you like that no more she wouldn’t,” Bas said, still standing over her until his height cast her in the shadow.
Naeema couldn’t front. She felt afraid. Right then she realized it was silly of her to be clear as fuck that he wasn’t to be trusted but then move about them with no weapon. What if something—anything—happened and he flipped on her? It was risky to get caught with the gun but even riskier to hear people keep saying his temper was legendary and trust he would never flip on her. She decided right then not to be around him without her piece.
“Why would you do that?” she asked.
He laughed and backed away from her. “My bad. I said that shit fucked up, yo,” he said, turning with one hand in his pocket, pulling his khakis tighter across his firm ass.
Naeema patted the front of her hair where the glue she used to attach her cheap reddish brown lace-front wig was irritating her skin.
“I meant that I like your look. I told Viv to keep bringing you around,” he said, turning to flop back down in the chair. It rolled back a bit from the sudden weight of his frame.
Where is the rest of the crew?
Where the fuck is this shit leading?
What the fuck does he want?
“For real?” she said, keeping her voice light and flirty.
He nodded and put the bottle of liquor on the faded carpet by his feet before he pressed his elbows on top of his knees. “You ain’t what you seem, Queen . . . just like me,” he said, his eyes locked on her.
Oh shit.
Naeema forced herself not to flinch, blink, or break his stare.
“I been watching you. You come off stupid but there ain’t shit dumb about you, Queen,” Bas reached in his pocket and pulled out a small vial of cocaine. He looked at it and shook it to make the powder fly inside the glass but then he shook his head and pushed it back into his pocket.
“I like it but I don’t love it,” he said when he saw her eyes dip to take in that move.
“What do you love?” she asked.
“Money,” he answered without hesitation.
Naeema pretended to sip the liquor. She was trying not to get faded in case he flipped and she had to try to fight her way out.
Bas turned and looked at the small screen, some two-hundred-dollar setup from Walmart or Target or something. “What do you love?” he asked, as he kept studying the movement of trees on the screen.
Naeema earned time by taking another fake sip. He was in a talkative mood and she wanted to lead him in the right direction. Discover something. Any fucking thing. “I love loyalty,” she said.
Bas slowly turned in the chair to eye her as he nodded his head in agreement. “And money can’t buy it. Best believe that shit,” he said with a tinge of anger in his husky voice.
“Sometimes when I find out somebody I trusted stabbed me in the back, I be wanting to fuck shit up,” she said, looking away and pretending to be embarrassed by her words. He’d called her out on her charade of playing dumb but she was sticking to it. This shit was poker and he could be bluffing to force her to show her hand. Fuck that, no haps, motherfucka.
“Sometimes people got to be dealt with. Period,” Bas said, his voice as cold as the iciness of his stare.
“You ever had to deal wit’ somebody?” she asked.
Did you kill my son, motherfucker?
“Why?” he asked.
She shrugged and looked apologetic, feeling her fear of him return as he eyed her. “We was just conversatin’.”
“Yeah, but keep it about shit that concerns you,” he said.
“I’m sorry,” she said as Queen, making her voice soft and repentant.
Man, triple fuck you.
Bas turned back toward the surveillance TV and then stood up to disappear through the office door. Naeema felt relief that they were no longer alone. She
turned to fling the rest of the liquor in her cup in an empty corner before ramming the plastic cup inside the fake Coach crossover bag she wore. As always she was mindful of not leaving her fingerprints or any DNA behind at the church. If the police ever caught up with the crew for their crimes she didn’t want them to trace any evidence foolishly left behind back to her.
Soon voices led the way for the rest of the crew to walk into the office behind Bas’s tall figure. Naeema eyed each of them as they walked in laughing and joking with each other. Red looked ready as ever to kick ass with his muscled arms showing in a tight black wifebeater and black Dickies uniform pants. Vivica was right behind him in a tank top and jean skirt, her bright pink hair now in a fresh bob. Nelson, like Brandon, didn’t belong in their company at only nineteen, but there he was climbing his short, thick body up onto the safe to sit with a forever-present blunt blazed between lips darkened by chronic use of chronic. Hammer strolled in last in a plaid shirt and a new pair of dark denims with matching Jordans.
She eyed his boyishly handsome face marred by three red puffy scratches on his cheek. “Damn, Hammer, what cat fucked you up?” she asked.
He shrugged and smiled, forever in a good mood. “Pussy problems,” he said, grabbing a cup and pouring himself a double shot of the Henny.
Hammer stayed in the midst of pussy problems because he couldn’t stay out of the middle of so many pussies. He already had six kids by five babymamas that he was still fucking, plus whatever new cutie caught his eye. His ass was always in some drama.
Looking down into the brown liquid of her cup, she swirled it until the center looked like the eye of a hurricane. She wanted to get this process moving. Find out just what motivation any of them had for killing her son and deal with the culprit. She wanted her life back and her son’s death avenged. She wanted out of their midst.
So Naeema decided to shake shit up a little bit. “I never met him but Viv told me a little bit about him and he seemed like a cool kid so I’m’a pour a little Henny out for y’all friend that’s not here. For Brandon,” she said, keeping her voice light as she poured a little liquor onto the carpet.
