“Are you a breeder? Is that why they call you Pound?”
“Som’m like that,” Henry said, grasping the brown dog’s ear to examine a huge, oozing sore. “Damn,” he groaned. “Yeah, I’m in the dog business.”
“You’re almost as vague about what you do as you are about who’s coming to pick me up. And why are those girls across the street still staring at me? If looks could kill.”
“Vee, you in the best hands,” Henry said. “If it’s anybody ’round here you can trust, it’s me and the boss man.”
“Oh, great,” she said sarcastically, wrapping her arms around herself to rub away a shiver in spite of the warm weather. Even her still-throbbing sex couldn’t stop the terrifying barrage of questions assaulting her brain. “I’m in the middle of Detroit and now the boss man is coming to get me. Sounds like a really bad scene from an even worse superhero comic book.”
Henry laughed. “Yeah, he definitely got supa’ powas!”
“Who?” Victoria snapped. “When we were little, Henry, you used to say stuff like, in code. Now I still have no idea what you’re talking about. One day I’m gonna beat you at your own game, so tell me or don’t laugh.”
“I got orders,” Henry said, dumping the box of biscuits in front of the dogs. Their claws screeched as they lapped up the crumbs.
“Well, I got needs,” she said seriously. “I have to get a job and my own place, somehow. I am not going back into Kay-Kay’s lecherous lair.”
Henry let out a deep laugh. The dogs growled. “Girl, you be sayin’ some words! Now I see why he want you.”
Victoria stared hard at her cousin. “Who wants me?”
“You ain’t heard it from me,” Henry said, “but you gon’ get offered e’rything you need and much, much more, so chill.”
“If it’s anybody around here,” she said, glancing toward the street where a souped-up Monte Carlo with window-rattling rap music and three barely visible black heads was rolling past, “then the offer probably has far more strings attached than I want to pull.”
“You a trip wit’ yo’ words.”
She tapped his shoulder and said, “I need a job, I’m a snob, no urban mob to rob, make someone sob.”
Henry grinned. “Yo, lay some beats an’ we got Eminem half-black sistah in’a house!”
She smiled, rhyming to her own beat. “I need cash in a flash to live away from Kay-Kay and lay in peace. Eat, sleep, and breathe, free to be me.”
A white blur made her turn toward the street.
“Do not tell me they’re here for me,” Victoria said. Her heart was pounding as two big black guys, the same ones who’d been here before, got out of their Porsche. “They were front row spectators earlier.”
Henry leaned close. “Listen, cuz. I know you ain’t used ta seein’ six-foot-six brothas unless you in yo’ daddy suite at the Palace watchin’ the Pistons.” Henry’s voice deepened. “But you in anotha world now. You asked me to help you, so I went straight to the top o’ hood hierarchy.” He smiled. “That sound like one o’ yo’ words, don’t it?”
As the guys walked toward the porch, the tall, bald one moved so gracefully and powerfully, he reminded her of an animated superhero. Wow, Henry wasn’t joking. That guy’s expensive-looking leather sandals seemed to barely touch the ground as he approached with a step as soft as a cat’s, like a giant black panther—powerful, stealthy, quick, dangerous, and elegant.
“Always follow your instincts and make decisions quickly,” Daddy would say. She glanced back at the house. Inside, she could suffer with roaches, hunger, smoke, and Kay-Kay’s debauchery. If she got past those wicked little dogs. Or outside, she could step into the urban version of a fairytale. He was probably the neighborhood drug lord. Probably didn’t even finish high school. Probably had a gun, or three on him. And a criminal record. A whole bunch of out-of-wedlock babies by different teen mothers who were probably part of a whole bus load of those flashy, sexy girls who shook their butts in rap videos. Besides, who knew what STDs were dripping into this petridish of a neighborhood under the lowest rung of the socio-economic ladder? It seemed like a news report about HIV and gonorrhea was always coming out to say Detroit was one of the most infected cities in the country. Yuck.
These were two more reasons Victoria wanted to stay a virgin—to stay healthy and not get pregnant. No, the longer she looked at this guy, the more she thought about all the statistics he could help her become, and none of them were good.
But the same media that had filled her mind with so many stereotypes about young black men had also made her father sound like a psychotic criminal for the past week. And today that same media was after her.
Daddy’s deep, comforting voice echoed in her head. “Never prejudge,” her father used to say. “Remember, the black farmer in overalls and a straw hat may be holding a sack full of hard earned cash to buy a new pick-up truck, while the white man in the Brooks Brothers suit driving the Cadillac may be on his way to federal prison for bribery and murder.”
Victoria’s head ached from hunger. Her stomach cramped. Her pussy was finally quiet and calm.
“Vee,” Henry whispered. “Tha’s the only cat you got to know ’round here. Let me at least introduce you. Then decide if you wanna go wit’ him.”
Victoria nodded, taking Henry’s hand as he led her down the steps. They stopped on the sidewalk where a golden beam of sunlight was slicing through the trees. The guy in the Pistons jersey was looking around, casting a mean look at those girls on the porch across the street, his hand on the right front pocket of his baggy, saggy jeans.
She would talk with the bald guy first and figure out if he felt safe. Even though his whole image, when viewed through her lens of aristocratic suburbia, was screaming “Drug dealer!” he actually looked just like that new NBA star, Tyrell Jackson. Victoria knew, because her brother was a basketball fanatic. He was always talking about games and players and statistics.
I have no way to reach my own brother. Don’t even know where he is . . . Or my sister. Melanie is probably going straight to the convent. I’m all alone.
Her jittery insides were making her pussy ache for attention. This fear, on top of the grief of losing her father and her whole life, made her throat burn with dryness. Maybe it was because all the moisture in her body was getting sucked between her legs. She was so hungry and horny and sleepy, she could pass out right now and sleep for three days.
She shivered because this guy was hot, so physically gorgeous that he didn’t look real. His vibe was so cool, so sexy, so powerful that it stunned her. All she could do was stare.
He was so tall, her eyes were level with his solar plexis, the center of the chest that Da Vinci was always diagramming as the central point on human beings. His open-necked shirt made a little frame around that swath of hairless skin. It contrasted with the white linen so vividly, it mesmerized her. She couldn’t help imagining what it would look like if their bodies were tangled together—her buttermilk legs, arms and ass wrapped all around his dark chocolate muscles.
“Vee, this The Duke. Duke Johnson,” Henry said. “Duke, Victoria Winston.”
Victoria looked up into his eyes.
Oh. My. God. Her pussy creamed. She felt dizzy because his eyes were like giant onyx jewels, just like the ones in her necklace. The way he was looking at her, his eyes were sparkling down with equal intrigue.
His face was as masculine and sculpted as Michelangelo’s David. His skin was taut and flawlessly stretched over a broad jaw, angular cheekbones, a wide forehead, and a thick neck so dark in the creases that it shimmered with iridescence.
His arms, from where his shirt ended just above his elbows, all the way down to his enormous and elegant hands, were just as beautiful. The distance between the base of his thumb and the tip of his index finger, which all the girls at school swore equaled the length of a guy’s dick, seemed to stretch from here to eternity.
Victoria’s body ached for the comfort of cuddling up and curling u
p in his length and his strength. What she was feeling was far more than physical. Just standing there, gawking at this god-like statue, she felt like his spirit was wrapping around her like the sheared mink coat she abandoned at her house. Right now it felt like she was connecting with this complete stranger on another level. A soul deep dimension where she’d known him forever.
Her pussy throbbed. Celeste was going wild with the idea of hopping up on this guy and solving the mystery of what fucking was all about. At the same time, she had the urge to run. Fast and far. But that hot, gushing sensation surged up to her brain, which flashed an image. She leaps up to embrace him . . . he’s holding her up around his waist by cupping her butt with those giant hands . . . and she’s kissing him as if the very touch of her lips to his keeps her heart beating . . . and if she pulls away even to breathe, the spark of electricity that makes blood pump through the body would fizzle out and she would dry up and blow away, leaving him with two handfuls of white confetti . . . but she doesn’t have to pull away to breathe because his expelled air, the oxygen molecules dancing around his windpipe with carbon dioxide and heat and moisture, that’s all she needs to sustain her own life . . . just him, inside her, his big dick inside her hot, hungry pussy.
A boiling sensation sizzled across every inch of her skin. Her cheeks were burning. Lips were scorched. And Celeste was bubbling, as if that geyser inside her turned upside down and was blowing steam and frothy splashes onto the pink velvet shores of her pussy.
She had to run, get away from this overwhelming feeling. No way could she maintain her vow of celibacy if she were around someone who, in a split-second, aroused more potent sensations than she’d ever felt. And even though Celeste told her, during that awesome orgasm inside the house, that she had to share her mix-race woman powers in order to set off their true, phenomenal potential, she didn’t believe it. Her physical and emotional state of mind today was so crazy, Celeste was liable to say anything in the heat of the moment.
Your sweet little cherry is about to get plucked, sucked and fucked by this black superhero, Celeste said through the inner voice in Victoria’s head. Victoria’s mouth watered with a hunger for—
Oh my God, this guy could turn me into a certified nymphomaniac serial killer.
She turned around and ran toward the house. “Vee!” Henry called.
She stomped up the first two steps.
The pit bulls growled. They got into attack stance. The brown one glared with red-rimmed eyes and leaped at her.
A blur of white teeth . . . brown fur . . . claws dog-paddling midair. Pow!
A red splotch exploded on the side of the dog’s round belly.
Chapter 8
Duke couldn’t stand the sight of fear in her huge eyes. They were like blue-tinted mirrors, flashing code that only he knew. Good thing he was seeing this message here right now, because he was going to make it his life mission to erase it and never let it flash on her fine-ass face again. Ever.
And so it is written, and so it is done. Like right now, Duke just knew this chick was going to be putting herself out of her virgin misery in a Motor City minute. Tonight. On his dick. If she thought she was in shock now, she couldn’t even imagine the raw dog dick-down that was about to rock her world like a meteor. And make her fly . . . tonight.
She gon’ be so ridiculously horny she gon’ be throwin’ that sweet pussy at me befo’ midnight tonight in my penthouse.
Timbo was burning and tingling just as tough as Duke’s right hand from the kick-back. He balled it up, along with his left fist, to stop himself from rushing up on her and sweeping her into his arms. She’d probably pee on herself if he did that. If she hadn’t already. She was a suburban, half-white princess one day, and standing in the hood with dog blood on her pretty toes the next. A dead pit bull was staring right up at her. Now she knew never to run from The Duke, but she also knew if she were in trouble, she would be safe.
Damn, fate was a motherfucker, the way stuff was happening at the right time to help The Duke manifest his destiny with The Duchess.
“Oh my God!” she shrieked, spinning around. Her big eyes were trying to figure out who shot the dog, but she’d never know. Henry was walking as cool as he could up to the porch to take the other dogs inside and grab the hose to rinse off her feet.
Beamer was strolling back to the car with the smoking dog defense.
And I’m standin’ here cool as Luke. The fastest, slickest ma’fucka on the planet. He wanted to say this to Beamer and Pound, That quick draw was some wild, wild, west shit! But Duke had to play it cool, standing there waiting for her introduction as if he hadn’t just popped his top fight dog. The way she was looking at him before the bullet, Duke knew there was no question. She was already struck. On Duke.
Ain’t gon’ take but a minute to crown her queen o’ Babylon. And queen of my bed.
“You coulda shot me!” she screamed. Her right foot stomped the patchy grass. All that long, black hair swayed like a cape from around her back, tickling her ass and swooshing around her right hip. “Who did that?”
“Divine intervention, baby girl,” Duke said. “Immaculate ammunition. Don’t matta the who, jus’ the what. That we gon’ protec’ you.”
“Who’s gonna protect me from you?” she snapped back. Just as quickly, she stared down at her bloody foot.
“Yo, Vee,” Henry said, splashing her feet with water from a green hose. “It’s cold but clean.”
She kicked off her shoes. Henry handed her a small orange towel to dry her feet as he washed her sandals.
“Now,” Henry said, kneeling to slip her feet into the clean shoes. “I know you starvin’. Duke takin’ you out to eat.” Henry put his hand softly on her back and guided her toward Duke.
“From the frying pan into the fire,” she said, striding so elegantly, even though she was mad, on those long giraffe legs.
Damn, Duke, be cool, man.
She stopped so close that he could have rea
ched out and squeezed her big, juicy titties, pointing at him in that innocent pink sweater. She was close enough for him to smell that hot, virgin pussy, sweet, salty, and served up fresh, just for him. It was probably as wet as his watering tongue right now. She was ripe, ready to get plucked like a big, juicy grape bursting under his tongue, squirting sugar every which way.
Timbo was throbbing like a mug, aching to poke into that tight jar of jelly and stir it, spread it, whip it, dip it, flip it, and sip it dry. But if the look in her eye was any indication, this chick was the type who would stay wet because she liked it so much. Duke just knew. He had pussy radar like that. Some bitches had a dry look in their eye. They’d fuck you, but they weren’t in it for the pleasure. They were in it for the treasure. This chick, she was hungry as hell for something she hadn’t tasted yet. She was scared to take the first sample because she knew she would be addicted. Fiending.
“As we were saying, I’m Victoria Winston.” She held out her hand in a business-like way. Her exotic eyes were hard but sexy and soft, too, fringed by thick black lashes. She was the perfect chameleon to snow plow the Moreno Triplets. She looked white enough to make them lose their minds, but once he brought out the sista in her, she would be fatal.
And Duke would reign.
Duke’s mind was a filmstrip of Duchess going into meetings, representing him, putting folks at ease with that creamy skin and drop-dead beauty, using her King’s English and brilliant business mind to manifest the Babylon that was his birthright.
The touch of her fingers snapped him out of his visions. She was taking his hand, the one that was still burning from the gun, and shaking it. Her baby-soft fingers disappeared in the hot wrap of his huge hand. She felt so hot, he imagined steam shooting out of his palm like Iron Man. Sweat prickled up through his skin, from his head to his toes. And Timbo . . . good thing his shirt was long and swaying, or else she’d see the tree trunk with her name written all over it.
I ain’t neva felt like this . . . like I�
��m ’bout to bust. “I’m Duke. Duke Johnson.”
It felt like time stopped when he stared into her eyes. Every time he looked at her, those creamy cheeks turned pinker and those lips became redder. Her chest rose and fell as he took hard breaths. He almost couldn’t stop himself from bending down to taste that smooth, pretty skin on her chest where her sweater made a U-shaped scoop on top of her pretty titties.
“I’m hungry as ten men,” Victoria said. Her voice was deep and smooth, like warm honey in his ears. “Let’s go.” Still holding his hand, she pulled him toward his own car.
“I’ll have you at any restaurant you want in a Motor City minute,” Duke said. He nodded toward the car. “That mean zero to sixty in five seconds.”
“Thanks, but I don’t need a translation. I’m pretty quick. So, let’s rock.”
Duke’s feet would not move. It felt like he was wearing cement boots and his whole body was numb. Except for his pounding heart. His pulse was so strong and loud, it sounded like a hammer inside his ears. Damn, Duke. Be cool, man. Ain’t no woman ev’a sucked yo’ powa. She s’pose ta make you stronger.
She turned back. “What are you waiting—”
Duke made his right foot take a step, then his left. He remembered Momma telling him, Knight and Prince at the dinner table, “Be careful what you ask for, ’cause if you get it, you bett’ be ready. I loved y’all daddy mo’ than life itself. Finally got him, blessed me wit’ three babies, but stole my heart, my soul, an’ my settlement check. I jus’ wasn’t ready to take on somebody so slick.” Then Momma would always get that sad look in her brown eyes. Duke never knew if it was for losing his daddy or for the baby that died, or both. Her lawsuit against the hospital won her $200K, but gave the man she loved enough loot to book while she raised three babies in the ghetto. Now, Duchess’ sad expression made him realize they had both lost their fathers.
Sex in the Hood Saga Page 6
