But if Cheryl thought that it was just going to be an easy ride, he had something for her. He bounced her luscious ass up and down for a few strokes, but he also reached over and opened the ice bucket for a couple of cubes. She didn’t see it coming, mainly because her head was lolled back while she babbled incoherently. Xavier plopped the ice into his mouth and then tilted his head forward so that he could then latch his mouth to her right nipple.
She gasped the moment the ice cube touched her nipple. It was so cold that it was a little painful. The sort of pain she liked.
His strokes quickened as he delivered hard slaps against the side of her ass cheek. While she moaned and he groaned, their bodies were having their own conversation—one that was even louder than they were. With one strangled cry, Cheryl’s honey cream overflowed around his hammering cock; a second later Xavier exploded and filled the walls of her pussy. It was all he could do not to drop her. Somehow he managed to hold on.
“God. I love you so much,” he moaned, peppering kisses along her neck.
His words stung her, but not as much as the tears flooding her eyes. How can you love me? You don’t even know me.
Chapter 22
“I want off the case,” Cheryl said the minute her butt touched the seat of the chair in Lieutenant Mackey’s office.
Mackey’s head spun around while his brows dipped together. “Come again?”
Tugging in a deep breath, Cheryl prepared herself for an explosion that she knew was sure to come. “I’ve thought about it and I think that it’s the best thing to do…given the circumstances.”
Mackey allowed a long silence to stretch between them while he eased back in his chair. “And what circumstances would that be exactly?”
He’s not going to make this easy. “I’ve engaged in some inappropriate behavior while on this case.”
“Such as?”
“Jason.” She gave him a measured look.
Ignoring the look, he braided his hands together and waited her out.
“All right,” she said, drawing in a deep breath. “I’ve been…engaged in an intimate relationship with Xavier King.”
Another wave of silence crashed between them.
“I see.” He nodded. “An intimate relationship. Sounds a bit sterile to me,” he said. “I would have said something like, you’ve been fucking his brains out, but then that’s just me. I’m glad that you’ve finally admitted it, though I’m sure you’ve noticed that I’m not surprised.”
“Don’t act like I do this all the time. I don’t. Other than one lapse of judgment when I slept with you, I’d say I had a pretty good record.”
“You want off the case, fine. But I also want your badge.”
“What?” She jumped up out of her chair.
“I’m suspending you, for behavior unfitting an officer.”
“Please say that you’re kidding.”
“No. And that’s for starters. I intend to comb through the books and see whatever else I can slap you with.”
“You can’t do that.”
“I can’t?” He leaned back in the chair and grinned up at her. “Did you forget exactly who I am—or did you think that just because you’ve slept with me, too, that I would be more lenient?” His eyes narrowed as he nodded. “Yeah. I bet that is exactly what you thought. No dice.”
Cheryl shook her head. “We’re never going to get past this, are we?”
“I’m sure that I don’t know what you mean.”
“Don’t you? You’re not writing me up because I slept with Xavier King. This is still about me not sleeping with you.”
“Or, and you’re going to love this one, this is about your inability to do your job.”
“I was investigating whether there were drugs being trafficked at The Dollhouse. It was a claim that couldn’t be substantiated. Royo and Gilliam have been working the floor as well and they haven’t come up with anything, either, other than that one bag outside, which could’ve belonged to anyone.”
“I wouldn’t say that entirely.”
“What do you mean? Why haven’t I heard anything about it?”
“Maybe there’s been some concern over whether or not you’ve been compromised.”
“Concern by whom?”
Mackey fell silent while he twirled his thumbs.
“You?”
He shrugged. “It looked like I was right. You’ve been screwing our target.”
“Xavier King is not a criminal.”
“You were sent in to investigate. Not become the judge and jury and then render your own verdict. Once upon a time, you used to know that.”
She clamped her jaws together.
“As a matter of fact, how do I know that you haven’t being helping Don Juan out and undermining this whole investigation?”
“I would never do that and you know it.”
“Oh, I do, do I?” He laughed. “And how in the hell would I know that? Because you believe in following the rules? Because you would never use someone to just get what you want?”
Cheryl laughed. “This is about you again.” She tossed up her hands. “Will you get over yourself already? This case has nothing to do with you. I’m still committed to doing my job.”
“Is that right?”
“Yes. That’s right! Damn it! I can’t do this anymore. You want to suspend me, fine. I’ll do you better,” she said, reaching for her badge and her weapon. “I quit.”
Mackey laughed. “Well, I’ll be damned. Are you that sprung that you’re willing to throw away your career? The brother got it like that?”
Cheryl walked up to his desk and sat her badge and gun on his desk. “As a matter of fact, he does.” She gave him a smile and then turned and walked out of the office. As she strolled through the squad room, her smile slid wilder. A part of her couldn’t believe that she was quitting, while the other part was giving herself high fives.
“Detective Grier,” Mackey barked.
Cheryl kept walking.
“Detective Grier!”
Johnnie looked up from her desk and covered her hand across her phone. “What’s going on?” she whispered.
“Detective Grier, if you walk out of here don’t you even think about coming back!”
“It’s been great working with you. I’ll call you later.” She tossed her buddy a wink. “Detective Grier!”
Cheryl held up her hand and flashed him the middle finger.
Xavier strolled into the gym and looked around to see if Cheryl was there. Because of her weird schedule, she only made it into the gym twice a week where as now he came in every day. Not always at the same time, but he did make it in. In hindsight, he couldn’t believe that he had stayed away as long as he had. There was just something about the energy of the place that he didn’t get anywhere else, not even at The Dollhouse.
When he pushed through the door of the locker room, he was surprised to see My’kael sitting on the bench, hunched over and…crying?
“Yo, man. Is everything all right?”
My’kael lifted his head and swiped at his tears, but those were quickly replaced. “Nah, man. Everything ain’t all right. I let y’all fill my head with all this bullshit, all this believing in your dreams and making it to the top.” He shook his head. “I should’ve known better. A brother like me ain’t never gonna be more than I am right now—just a hustler always chasing paper. Nah-what-I-mean?”
Xavier walked over to the bench and sat down. “What’s going on? Talk to me.”
My’kael gave him a disbelieving laugh. “You don’t know?”
Xavier’s brows dipped together.
“Man, Ricky’s closing the gym. He’s not going to be able to train me no more.”
“What? When the hell did this happen?”
“He just told me, man. I mean, I got my girl’s hopes up. My family. I’ve been talking all this smack, and now I got to tell them…what? That they were right?”
“Is Ricky still here?”
“Yeah, that
old liar is in his office.”
Xavier popped him on the shoulder. “Hey. Cut it out. You got problems, we got problems. I’m going to go see what this is all about. Get changed and work the bag. I’ll be back.”
“But—”
“Don’t argue and be out there in ten minutes.” Xavier stood and then strolled out of the locker room to search for Ricky. Turned out that he was just where My’kael said he was, in his office, hunched over his desk with his head in his hands. Xavier knocked.
“Go away,” Ricky moaned, not bothering to look up and see who was standing on the other side through the square-pane glass window in the door.
Xavier ignored the response and entered the office.
“I said…” Ricky glanced up. “Oh. It’s you.” He lowered his red, swollen eyes and started moving papers around his desk. “What do you want? I’m busy.”
“I see that.” Xavier took a seat in the chair in front of Ricky’s desk.
Ricky planted his elbows on his desk and started massaging his forehead. “Look, X-Man. This really isn’t a good time. Maybe you can—”
“What’s this I hear about you closing the gym?”
Ricky grumbled something that he couldn’t hear.
“I don’t speak mumble. How about speaking up?”
“All right. So what? I’m closing the doors. I can’t go on pretending that this money pit isn’t doing a number on my bank account. So I figured I’d get out now and toddle on down to Florida and act my age.”
“Yeah. I can see you living it up with water aerobics and Jell-O pudding nights,” Xavier said, nodding. “Who knows, you might even take up bingo or shuffleboard.”
Ricky’s face twisted miserably. “God help me.”
“Or,” Xavier said, easing back into his chair. “You could consider taking on a partner. Get someone to help you out around here.”
“Yeah. And who would want to invest in this hole in the wall?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I have a couple of dollars in the bank. Maybe if we rubbed them together, they can make some more babies and I could become your partner or something.”
Ricky blinked. “You’d want to go into business with me?”
Xavier shrugged. “I don’t see why not.”
“Because there is a very slim chance that you’ll make any money,” Ricky answered honesty.
“I have to tell you, you’re doing a lousy job of selling me on this.”
“I’m not interested in pissing on you and telling you that it’s rain. If you’re really interested in doing this, then I want to make sure that you know exactly what you’re getting into.”
“Then consider me duly warned.” He smiled. “And I want to add one more thing.”
“Okay, here it comes.” Ricky rolled his eyes. “When something sounds too good to be true, then it usually is.”
“Please cut the soliloquy short, Hamlet. I don’t have all day.”
Ricky smiled. “All right. Lay it on me.”
“I want to help you train My’kael,” he said.
Ricky lit up. “He’s a star, isn’t he?”
Xavier nodded. “Yeah. I think so.”
“Anything else?” Ricky asked.
“Nope. I think that’s it.”
“Then welcome aboard, partner.” Ricky jutted his hand across the desk and Xavier wasted no time in shaking it.
Now in a jubilant mood, Ricky popped up out of his chair, laughing. “Me and the X-Man, together again. Who would have ever thought it, huh?” He slapped Xavier on the back.
“I guess that life has a funny way of working itself out.”
When they returned to the gym floor, a suspicious My’kael stopped punching the heavy bag and bounced his gaze between the two men. “So what’s up? You still closing the gym?”
“Closing the gym?” Ricky asked with his brows jumping up. “Where on earth did you get such a ridiculous idea like that?”
“But you said—”
“And why aren’t you working out? You think that you’re going to get a championship belt wasting time and throwing punches only when you feel like it?” Ricky barked.
My’kael looked to Xavier.
“Well, you heard the man. What are you waiting for?”
“Something is wrong with you two.” He threw one punch against the bag. “Seriously wrong.” But as he added the tag, a smile slowly hooked the corners of his mouth.
Smiling, Xavier glanced over at his new partner and made another major life decision.
Chapter 23
Johnnie and Larissa sat quietly on the edge of Cheryl’s bed for about fifteen seconds after Cheryl revealed her plan before turning to look at each other and bursting out laughing. It wasn’t the polite kind of laughing, but full-blown belly laughs.
“Are you two finished now?”
“Oh. Oh.” Johnnie wiped her eyes. “You have got to be joking. That’s your plan? You’re going to sit down to dinner and just announce, ‘Guess what, I’m a cop and I’ve spent the past two months investigating you for drug trafficking’?”
“‘But good news,’” Larissa added. “‘You’ve been cleared and I quit my job because I’m in love with you.’”
“Well, I’m not going to say it like that.” Cheryl shrugged. “I’ll leave the sarcasm at home.”
Johnnie shook her head like she couldn’t believe her friend was so naive. “And what exactly is the plan when he jumps up from the table and runs off screaming like his head is on fire?”
Larissa nodded. “Yeah, because you’re definitely going to need a plan B.”
“C’mon,” Cheryl whined. “I’m already nervous as it is and you two aren’t helping.”
Larissa stood and then wrapped her arms around her sister’s neck. “I’m sorry. You’re right. We should be more supportive.” She glanced over at Johnnie and motioned for her to get up.
Johnnie was much slower in getting up from the bed. “Even though I think it’s much too soon to ignore the I-told-you-so part of this conversation, I genuinely wish you good luck. You’re certainly giving up a whole lot for a chance to make this relationship work. You’re a hell of a lot braver than I am…but then again, we always knew that, didn’t we?”
Cheryl smiled, but in the next moment, her nerves got the best of her and she bolted toward the bed and then dived straight in. She had made a mistake. What was she thinking when she gave up her job to take a chance on love. Love. When on earth did she start believing in something as crazy and unreliable as that?
Hell, she’d never made time for it. She was never interested in being someone’s Boo. She was a kick-ass-and-take-names kind of chick who was the one who made the booty calls—not waited for them. That is, until she entered Xavier King’s world, and she was reduced to behaving like a rookie cop, making one mistake after another.
“He’s not going to understand,” she groaned into her pillow.
“Aw.” Larissa followed her over to the bed. “Of course he will. I’ve seen the way he looks at you. He’s crazy about you.”
Johnnie sat on the other side of the bed and tossed in her two cents. “Yeah. After he processes it for a minute, he’s going to understand that you were just doing your job.”
“Yeah?” She lifted her head from the pillow. “You really think so?”
“Of course I do.” She brushed Cheryl’s hair back away from her tearstained face. “I’ve seen how he looks at you, too. Trust me. You have nothing to worry about.”
“You want to do what?” Jeremy asked, his incredulous face filling the flat-screen television in Xavier’s living room.
Across the room at the bar, Quentin made himself a whiskey sour and shouted, “It’s an abomination.”
“C’mon, guys. Please try to understand,” Xavier said. “This is something that I really want to do.”
Jeremy shook his head as if trying to get something unhinged. “Give me a minute. There’s gotta be something wrong with my hearing.”
“Nothing’s wrong with
your hearing,” Xavier droned, shaking his head. He knew this was going to be hard, and so far he had been proven right. His stomach was twisting in knots and he couldn’t stop rubbing his hands together.
“You want to give up your shares in The Dollhouse in order to go run a hole-in-the-wall gym with your old trainer?”
“Yeah, I do,” he said, nodding. “I didn’t know that I wanted to do it until the opportunity was right there in front me. Then it was all so…crystal clear.”
“Uh-huh,” Q said, unimpressed, before tipping his drink.
“Now, what is that supposed to mean?” As soon as he asked the question, he immediately wanted to take it back. It was like serving a tennis ball right into Quentin’s sweet spot.
“I mean…this sudden decision sure does come at a convenient time. It kind of lines right up with you falling in love with our bartender.”
“What?” Jeremy asked, scooting closer to the screen. “What bartender?”
“You know which bartender.” Q set his glass down so that his hands could outline the shape of an hourglass.
“Ooooooh,” Jeremy said, smacking his head. “I should have known. First Eamon and now you. When is the big day?”
“Stop it. Nobody has proposed yet. This is something that I want to do.”
“Fine.” Quentin tossed up his hands. “Why can’t you do both? You can still run the club, she can run the bar and occasionally you can run around your gym. Problem solved.”
Jeremy nodded. “Sounds like a plan to me. All in favor say ‘aye.’”
“Aye,” shouted Quentin.
“Well, it looks like the ‘ayes’ have it.” Jeremy beamed. “Case closed.”
Xavier shook his head. “Nice try, guys. I’m serious. I want to run the gym—turn it into something big. I even want to get into training some potential fighters. I think I’d be good at it.”
King's Promise Page 19
