Just in case all hell broke loose on their wedding night; a power coup, a robbery, a siege, he had to make sure The Queen could handle herself and get out alive.
Knight’s thoughts popped as quickly and as intensely as the gunfire of two dozen B’Amazons and Barriors who were doing target practice in adjacent lanes.
“No emotion,” Knight said close to her ear. “Kill or be killed.”
The Queen’s diamond engagement ring glistened as she gripped the pistol with both hands. She aimed at the man-sized target. Pow!
The bullet blasted into the red bull’s-eye on the man’s chest.
The Barriors and B’Amazons around them stopped to admire The Queen’s sharp shooter skills.
“You doin’ it, baby girl!” Knight exclaimed.
Pow! Another bullet pierced the heart zone on the target. “Baby girl!” Knight said with awe. “You shoot better than some of the B’Amazons.”
“’Cause I’m The Queen,” she said without taking her eyes off the target or lowering the gun. “I dare a muthafucka.” She turned to look into Knight’s eyes.
The potency in her stare was so powerful, Knight shivered. It was like looking in the mirror, on his best days, when he felt like the African god that he was, ruling over his kingdom and making his minions quake in their boots with a glance.
The Queen smiled.
She knows what you’re thinking, Intuition said. You’re the perfect power couple. Gotta be careful, though.
There was a glint in The Queen’s eyes.
“Your cry for help is ‘Isis! Osiris!’ You yell that out if anything happens while you’re in The Penthouse, the wedding suite, or anywhere else. Shout it over and over until the Barriors and B’Amazons get there.”
The Queen stared back with a suspicious glint.
“We’re monitoring every sound and every movement in The Playhouse and HQ. So know that somebody will be there. Until they arrive, though, you can handle it. Stay armed at all times. Does your holster fit okay?”
“It’s fine.”
“Good. Stay armed at all times, even if you’re with security. Even if you think you’re in a place that’s completely safe.”
“Even with you?” she said with a flat tone, staring hard. She put the gun on safety and slipped it into the brown leather holster belt around the waist of her low-cut jeans. “You won’t go to the fuckin’ doctor, you could fall out any minute. An’ I’m just standin’ there like a sorry bitch outta muthafuckin’ luck.”
The anger in her voice made Knight’s cheeks burn as if he’d been slapped. He took a deep breath.
“Baby girl—”
“Naw, don’t ‘baby girl’ me right now.” She jerked her neck. “I’m a grown-ass woman who’s worried about her man who supposed to keep my ass safe, but the way you—”
Knight grasped her arm. Nobody needed to see anything other than complete harmony among them. He pulled her into the small office where men and women had to scan their ID cards to gain entry and check out extra weapons if necessary. Then he guided her with a tight grip on her arm, through a small door to the gun room. Knight closed the door behind them, staring hard at The Queen as she stood framed by a row of rifles. “Never show a public display of anger like that again. This a dangerous time at Babylon. We can trust no one. Because they will divide and conquer if we show even the slightest crack in the veneer.”
The Queen rolled her eyes. “You actin’ way too paranoid lately. Like you ain’t bein’ straight wit’ me about what’s really ’bout to go down when we get married.”
Knight took another deep breath to force down any conscious thoughts about his plan.
She had heard something broadcast over their telepathic love connection. And it had tipped her off but she still had no real information.
“I see some scheme, Knight. An’ I ain’t diggin’ it.”
Knight squinted slightly as he looked down at her. “Baby girl, you’re acting real paranoid right now.”
She crossed her arms. “How the fuck else am I supposed to be acting when you walking around looking sick and worried like you expectin’ some shit to go down? How the fuck you expect me to be acting right now Knight? You want me to act like an innocent little white girl? Like the way I was a year ago?”
“Baby girl, now you’re going a little overboard. I’m just asking you to calm down. I know you worried about me, but you can’t let them see you sweat. Hang in there ’til the wedding and then you won’t have to put up such a front when we—” Knight stopped himself. He was about to say, “When we disappear,” but he stopped himself. Knight cleared his throat. “When we get through Game day,” Knight said softly and reassuringly.
“You’re right Knight,” she said through tight lips. “I guess all this stuff going on lately has me feeling weird.” Her eyes became shiny and silvery as they filled with tears. “I love you, Knight. I love the idea of spending the rest of my life here in Babylon beside you, runnin’ things an’ raising our family. I don’t want anything to happen to you”—she paused—“or us.”
Knight’s throat burned. He wanted to pull her into his arms, cover her with kisses and whisper that he would always protect her, make her smile, make her cum, and be the perfect mate. But he was frozen by guilt. It sliced through his gut like a giant knife.
I’m deceiving her. She trusts me with her life, and I’m tricking her. If she fooled me, it would forever destroy my trust. So how will she forgive me once everything shakes down and we wake up in another life?
Something flickered in her eyes. “I got this feeling with Duke too,” she said with a weak tone, as if she were about to vomit. “You betta tune your thoughts back to a better frequency where you ain’t givin’ off that vibe I just felt. I don’t like it. An’ I’ll slip off your radar before I let you or anybody else play me. The Queen don’t get played.”
Knight stepped close to her and rested his hands on her shoulders. “Everything I do is for us.” He lowered an open palm to the soft, warm swath of belly exposed by her low-cut jeans. The diamond in her belly button seemed to wink up at him. “For us and for Baby Prince.” Knight kissed her.
Their lips did not move. But the heat and the energy passing between them caused The Queen’s tense shoulder to relax under his hand, and her belly quaked slightly. She gripped the crotch of his black jeans.
Shane surged to attention.
“Make love to me,” she whispered, grabbing the big silver belt buckle that said KNIGHT. She dropped to her knees, unfastened his belt, unzipped his pants, and pulled Shane out in front of her face.
He surged out like a black python.
The Queen had the power and concentration of a snake charmer in her eyes as she stared at his dick as if it held all the secrets to the meaning of life and love.
Knight almost smiled. He couldn’t think of any situation in a relationship that didn’t get resolved with some good dick therapy. Because sheer bliss glowed in The Queen’s eyes as she parted her lips and stuck out her tongue to slide it under the giant black head and lure him into the hot chamber of her mouth.
This is the answer.
Having her mouth on Shane twenty-four/seven was the remedy for his health crisis, because as soon as her steaming hot mouth closed around his cock, it sparked a chemical reaction in his body. The stress and worries that caused tight sensations in his muscles and made his mind reel, suddenly transformed into a warm swirl of liquid opium.
He threw his head back with his eyes closed and enjoyed the sensation of Shane sliding in and out of The Queen’s warm, moist mouth.
Evrything’s gonna be all right as long as I have my Queen by my side.
Chapter 75
Trina Michaels hurried into her office at the Global News TV Network in Washington, D.C. She was trembling with a nasty mix of emotions, ranging from fear to excitement and anticipation, to disappointment and rage.
I’m never gonna fuck again. Sex never led to anything but trouble.
That was the
whole reason she had married her first husband. And her second husband. And that jerk she left at the altar last year, when she realized that sex was her only motive for wanting to tie the knot with him too.
Otherwise, she didn’t give half a shit about those cavemen. Cavemen who had gone to the best schools and came from the best, most bourgeoisie families on the East Coast, but cavemen, nonetheless. They all were. Just big apes playing with the bananas between their legs, hoping to hump it into any and every female they encountered while swinging from tree to tree.
“So why does sex make me so stupid too?” she asked aloud as she set down her suitcase and perched on the chair at her desk. “Why do I think that in order to feel clean and respectable, I have to marry the dick of the day?”
And how come, the first time she decides to indulge her curiosity for sex with women, she gets mixed up with some inner city bandits who try to blackmail her by videotaping the female sexcapades? When in her thirty-five years on this planet did Trina Michaels ever have sex that didn’t end up a mess?
That abortion just before the senior prom, so she could go to college; Chlamydia after pulling a train at that frat party during her sophomore year at Georgetown University; the rumors and lies that the married anchor spread about her at the first TV station where she worked, in that dusty little hick town in Kentucky; the catfight in the newsroom at her next station, in Atlanta, when she and another female reporter had gone to blows over the hottest guy in TV news at the time.
“Talk about drama,” Trina said out loud as she logged on to the blue screen of her computer.
This last situation clearly took the cake over everything else. Even that white network TV headhunter who promised an extra $25,000 in her contract if she fucked him after the interview. When she negotiated it to $35,000, she thought of it as a signing bonus, which helped her get a luxury sports car that projected the appropriately glamorous image for a serious TV reporter in the nation’s capitol.
So there was no way that anybody especially that “thug” and “thugette” in Detroit, was going to stop her now. Nope, onward and upward. Alone and without sex.
“Those niggers in Detroit think they got somethin’ on me, but I’m gonna do a report that blows them outta the water.”
Yes, when The Queen and her caveman, The Knight, first threatened her, Trina felt scared for her safety, her career, and her reputation. But as she fumed on the plane ride back to D.C., she realized, in this day and age of technology and computer manipulation of video, nobody could ever prove that was GNN’s Trina Michaels on that nasty tape. Plus, she did so many negative reports about vile people, and the court cases they generated, dozens, if not hundreds, of people in America would’ve loved nothing better than to destroy her so she could say it was just someone making stuff up to get revenge on her.
I’ll say they forged the video using my face from TV and another woman’s body. Another woman who was smoking marijuana. Then they’ll be busting on their own asses, after my report blasts their little empire to smithereens.
Trina wasn’t stupid. She’d grown up with street hoods just like that on the South Side of Chicago, always hustling to make a dollar. No matter what toll it took on someone’s body, mind or soul.
A pimp and a ho were a pimp and a ho, no matter how classy, sophisticated, or beautiful their whole spiel appeared to be. They were breaking the law. And they would have to stop. Soon. And she wasn’t buying that sob story ’bout growing up in the hood and not having any opportunities. Stupid idiots. Her parents were both honest, hard-working people, who taught her the right values. Mother worked downtown as a seamstress at a clothing boutique, and Father had a good job in the U.S. Post Office. Her brother was a lawyer, thanks to Harvard, and her sister was a stay-at-home mom, married to a stockbroker.
Yep, the Michaels family was as American as apple pie. Whereas The Queen and The Knight represented the dark, rotting core that threatened to bring this great country down through moral corruption and blatant disregard for the law.
But not if Trina could stop them first.
“Now, where is that picture?” Trina said out loud as she typed the name Victoria Winston into the GNN video archives.
No, Trina had busted her ass to get where she was. And she wasn’t going to allow it to be ruined by that horny mulatto bitch living some ghetto girl dream. Or nightmare, depending on who was talking. And that Knight guy. Whew! What a piece of work!
Trina hated the way he just sat there silently like the king, as if everybody should read his thoughts and act accordingly, or else.
Men. The male ego knew no bounds as far as being selfish and self-centered. He should be ashamed of himself, too. Hiding that girl from the authorities.
Trina shivered under her dark brown pantsuit. Her nipples poked through her lace bra and pushed into her white satin blouse.
Babylon, schmabylon. Blackmail or not though, that was undoubtedly the best sex she’d ever had.
Chapter 76
Duke wanted to fuck Reba right away, but she was acting all in a hurry to leave and do a party at The Garage.
“Why you gotta leave?” Duke stroked Timbo. He was nude, sitting up on the bed, his back against the headboard, his legs outstretched, and his dick in his hand.
“Ooooh, you got a pretty dick.” Reba stepped closer.
“I need some sexual healing,” Duke said. “Doc said it was okay.”
“I say it ain’t.”
“If you gon’ marry me,” Duke said, “I need a test-drive first. How I know you can’t grind down on it like I like?”
“You do know,” Reba said, straddling the top of his thighs. Her hot ass in tight jeans against his skin made his dick throb harder. “Or did fuckin’ Miss White Chocolate erase all memories of the sistas you used to kick it wit’?”
Duke wrapped his hands around her thighs and stared at her crotch. “Why don’t you remind me? Take off yo’ top.”
Reba pressed her fingertips to her nipples, caressing them through her shirt. They got even harder, poking like juicy grapes through her top. “Why you wanna see my titties?”
Duke stroked his dick. “Its gon’ make me heal faster.”
She shifted to his kneecap then ground her crotch into him. “Work that shit,” he said. “An’ suck on Timbo.”
Reba leaped off and stood beside the bed. “Duke, you ain’t in no condition to mess around. You can’t even laugh without pain.”
“Get on top,” he said, “take a ride. Gimme some sexual healing.”
“You been checked?” Reba asked. “Lemme see yo’ card, ’cause I’m still workin’ for Babylon. But if I catch somethin’, I’m out on my ass. An’ this plan ain’t gon’ work from the outside. So—”
“You think I’m some kinda infected muthafucka?”
“Duke, you know damn well that half the shit out there, ain’t got no symptoms. Especially HIV.”
“You know how careful I was when we was fuckin’ before.”
“But when you out on the street, doin’ what you was doin’ . . . no offense, Duke, but y’all gets sloppy.”
“Y’all’? What the fuck you mean?”
“It mean Reba don’t fuck no dick that ain’t been checked. My pussy clean and I’m keepin’ it that way.” Reba cupped his face in her hands. “Duke, this can wait. I don’t think—”
He grabbed her face and pulled her close. He planted a hot, juicy kiss on her lips.
She resisted, grabbing his wrists to pull away.
He didn’t let go; her lips were tense and shut. But he pressed harder. Then he grabbed her ass and pulled her closer so that her crotch nibbed up against Timbo.
She moaned. And her lips relaxed. He slid his tongue into her mouth. She moaned and ground on his dick.
He pulled her ponytail back, yanked her head. Pulled up her shirt, buried his face in those big, delicious titties. Then his fingers pried at the metal button on the waist of her jeans.
She protested. “Duke—”
“I’ll wear a condom, then I’ll have Doc check me out.” Duke wanted the pussy, but he could get by without it.
Truth was, he was sleepy as hell from the painkiller. But he needed to see just how far Reba would go to prove her loyalty to him and his plan. “Baby, I promise I’m clean,” he whispered, pulling her close again for a kiss.
Chapter 77
Something in Reba’s gut told her don’t play with fire, because as bad as Duke looked right now, somethin’ wasn’t right. Maybe it was just hard life wherever the hell he had been for a year. Maybe it was the drugs. Maybe HIV was the reason he was so skinny and pale, and his skin was all jacked up with blemishes.
Reba didn’t want any money so bad she’d risk her life for it. What good would that do? Getting what you want and then dying with it in your hands? And dying from AIDS was no joke. AIDS took its time, like it was a felon of fate inside your body, gloating at the horrible ways that it vandalized your skin, maliciously destroyed your body functions, and attempted to kill many terrifying times before finally committing a homicide. That’s what it seemed like when some muthafucka pulled his trigger inside her sister Lucille and shot up her insides with a spray of HIV infected sperm.
Reba had watched her sister waste away into a skeleton with chronic diarrhea and throat infections. Hearing her gasp for her last breaths convinced Reba that HIV was nothing to play with. That’s why she loved Babylon. If she was gonna trick, then she had the best case scenario.
That computer card with the chip in her purse, the one that all the Sluts and Studs were required to carry and get updated weekly, was her life insurance. Clients carried the cards too, and had to get checked before every party.
Reba thought of her sister every day, to remind her how precious her health and life were. Yeah, this girl from the hood was doing just fine right now. A nice apartment at Babylon HQ, plenty of money, and tons of men to fuck her, flatter her, and buy her anything she wanted.
I ain’t drivin’ my yellow Corvette outside an’ wearin’ designer clothes ’cause I’m strugglin’.
Sex in the Hood Saga Page 42
