Lethal Love: Deceit can be Deadly
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LETHAL LOVE
A Nova Levine Novel
Copyright © 2020 by Perri Forrest
Chic Lioness Publishing, LLC
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. Without limiting the right under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form by means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.
Cover Design
Cover Couture | Book Covers & Designs
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Hey y’all!
It’s been a minute. I hope you’re doing well and that you and yours are safe, healthy, and without too much stress during these trying times. I’m sure I’m not alone when I say that 2020 has dealt us all some devastating blows. My hope is that we have a better year to come that sees happier times for all.
So, just a little about this new character—my lead character for Lethal Love. Nova was born in my mind one day about a year and a half ago. Ever since Siobhan (Rush’s Mama… the fave), I’ve wanted to write about a girl who kills. I like it there. Don’t judge me.
But as much as I like that place and have a ball with where my mind goes, every time I got ready to pen Nova, I started to feel that it might not be such a good idea. Not sure why, but I guess it doesn’t matter because she’s here now. Don’t be confused about Nova, though. She’s not just out here killing people for the sake of it. She’s not a serial killer or anything like that. She’s something like an… uhh… necessity killer, if you will. So, yeah, she’s a little textured.
You might love her. You might hate her. Kinda up to you to decide
I want to take this time to thank my loyal readers. Those of you who get excited about a Perri Forrest novel. Do you know it means the world to me? I hope you do, because it does! I also want to thank the new readers that find themselves with me for the first time. I welcome you to my world, and hope that you like what you read enough to come back for more, and then even more after that!
Taninha, this book is for you. I love you so much. Fuck. Six months and counting. Not a day goes by that I don’t miss you. Not a day. I’m still not ready to let go, Baby Girl…
OTHER BOOKS by PERRI FORREST
-SERIES-
Dario Caivano (2-book series)
In the Ring 1: BWWM Alpha Male Romance
In the Ring 2: BWWM Alpha Male Romance
Rush Cambridge (4-book series)
Rapture 1: BWWM Alpha Male Romance
Rapture 2: BWWM Alpha Male Romance
Rapture 3: BWWM Alpha Male Romance
Rapture 4: BWWM Alpha Male Romance
Gavin Brooks (2-book series)
Special Delivery 1: BWWM Fiction/Romance
Special Delivery 2: BWWM Fiction/Romance
Love’s Awakening (2-book series)
Kennedy’s Awakening: BWLM Fiction
Awakened Desires: BWLM Romance
Risqué (2-book series)
Book 3 coming November 2020
Risqué 1: BWWM Romance/Erotica
Risqué 2: BWWM Romance/Erotica
Pandora’s Box (Brooklyn Kellogg continuing episodes)
The Color of Lies
What Lies Beneath the Surface
Beautiful Lies
Crooked Lies
-STANDALONES-
Lethal Love: Interracial Fiction/Romance
Last Night: Interracial Romance/Suspense
Family Ties: African American Fiction/Romance
Beautiful Vengeance: African American Fiction/Romance
Destined: Interracial Romance
Captivated: Interracial Romance
Isa: Gift of the Baloma: Interracial Paranormal
INTRODUCTION
Thursday, August 12, 1999
Central California Women’s Facility
I wasn’t a stranger to my grandmother’s fury. I’d seen it up close and personal. No, never, ever against me—against people who she felt wronged her in some way. Since I was well-versed, I read it immediately. I saw instantly, the look of rage in her piercing dark-brown, doe-shaped eyes. Then I saw dots of dew creeping across her irises and knew that she had crossed the threshold of rage, and without a break in between, had fallen into devastation and hurt. She understood when I lowered my eyes, the implications of my nonverbal gesture. It was right after she asked me how “it” was going. It, being life with my foster parents, inside of the beautiful Victorian in a section of West Oakland.
I had been with the Harvey’s for two years—since my grandmother was arrested—for murder. Of course, being that my grandmother was the only thing I ever had resembling a parent, I was broken… devastated, inconsolable, when they plucked her from my tight grasp in the comfort of our second-story living room. At first, things with the Harvey’s were good. I had been fortunate enough to make out better than most kids who found themselves in “the system”. At least I thought so. Beatrice, the mother, was a gem. She was a churchgoing woman who cooked meals from heaven each and every Sunday, and who always made sure that I had enough lunch money for school, as well as balanced meals to eat at dinnertime. The father, Thomas, was a quiet, hardworking man who worked for the city’s electric company as a supervisor.
It was their son, T.J.—Thomas Michael Harvey, Jr., who was the problem.
My grandmother continued reading my expression, her eyes swimming left to right like a person speed reading. And reading me, was exactly what she was doing. After putting on a poker face, she posed the question, “Can you give us a little space?”
Mary, the court-appointed shadow, assigned to accompany me to my bi-monthly visits to Chowchilla, looked up from the Ebony magazine in her hand, and shook her head. “I’m sorry, Deneen, you know I—”
“Fine,” my grandmother curtly stated, refusing to allow the rest of Mary’s statement to play out. Deneen Sinclair wasn’t happy. She reached around to the back of her neck to free the dangling ponytail from inside the collar of her jumpsuit. “Baby girl…” she started when she began addressing me. “Strategy, okay? Remember everything that I taught you. Plan everything—down to the wire. That way—”
“You know what?” Mary announced. “On second thought, I do need to tinkle. She stood up from the metal bench, straightened out a few invisible ruffles in her blouse. “I’ll be right back.”
I watched my grandmother roll her eyes hard, and couldn’t help but chuckle beneath my breath. She hated Mary. In fact, I knew with everything in me that if the two women met in a place with no bars, Mary would be six feet beneath a fancy headstone. So, I knew to hold tightly to the words Mary said all too often whenever we left Chowchilla:
“I don’t even know how she has regular visitation rights anyway. She’s a lifer. They’re not even supposed to have contact visits. No telling how she got that to happen. Aside from being a killer, I heard your G-Ma was something of a loose woman. Nova, don’t you think you’re better off without a person like that in your life? You know you don’t have to agree to come see her, right?”
Mary had a lot more to say, but I made a habit of tuning her out. I did that so that Mary wouldn’t end up cussed out, or busted in her mouth—and so that I wouldn’t be removed from the only “home” I’d known since I lost my own.
I needed to borrow a little more time…
/> As soon as my grandmother was sure the coast was all the way clear, she looked into my eyes, tears standing still in her own. “That muthafucka put his dick on you, didn’t he?” she shot, as one of her tears sprang free. “This is my fault,” she breathed out in a deep, defeated sigh laced with years of guilt. “My God, baby. I’m so sorry. Who else have you told?”
I shook my head, then followed a few seconds later with, “Nobody. I don’t need to.”
A prideful smile crept across my grandmother’s face, as she quickly scanned the room to see if Mary was returning. “Nobody?” she confirmed.
“Nuh-uh. Because I know what to do,” I told her.
“Right, baby. Because hurt people… hurt people. And nobody can govern how you tend to pain. No…body.” She nodded. “My careless mistake cost me a life with you, baby. My hunger for revenge was... it was too much. So, do what you have to do, but be careful. You don't deserve this life,” she said, tapping the hard table with the meat of her forefinger. “You've got too much life to live. I just…” She dropped her head low, and I watched as her graceful posture sank, shoulders first. “I just wish you never had to go through it in the first place. A man is never supposed to inflict pain on a woman. Not ever, and not under any circumstances. And when they do, they need to be violated in the wor—”
“I’m back,” Mary sang when she threw her meaty leg back over the bench and locked her thick fingers together. “And right on time, since it seems it’s about time for us to head out, Nova.”
I didn’t want to leave my grandmother. She was the person I loved most in the world, besides my younger cousin, Gianna. They were all I had. But my grandmother had made her bed and had to lie in it. Admittedly, there were times over these two years where I wished she had thought about me, more than she did revenge. But like she had always taught me, the mind travels to a different place when hurt is inflicted. I finally understood.
“I love you, sweet baby girl. And I wish you the happiest birthday ever,” my grandmother said to me when I stood up to leave.
“I love you too, Lady Deneen.” I smiled at her and nodded. “I’m going to make you proud.”
“I don’t doubt it for even a split second.” She smiled, then blew me a kiss.
Even in an orange jumpsuit that was at least two sizes too big for her, and no makeup to speak of, my grandmother was still the most beautiful woman I knew.
As the distance grew between us, my heart pounded. I missed her already. I wanted to cry, kick and scream. But I stayed strong. I had no choice.
When I’d insisted on seeing my grandmother today—on my born day—it was more than wanting to spend a special day with her. It was more about her approval. And now that I had it, I knew that with all the planning I had gone over in my sixteen-year-old mind, that I was on the right path.
And it was a path that I intended to stay on…
Lethal Love
“Sooner or later, everyone sits down to a banquet of consequences…”
~Robert Lewis Stevenson~
1 | Nova Skai Levine
Hatred darkens life.
812 Cedar Lane. The location of our beautiful home. One of sixteen on the well-groomed, tree-lined block. When the houses in our Boca Park Bridges neighborhood were being built, I made sure to secure this particular one; because not only was it an attractive design on paper, but eight-twelve… August 12th … that was my birthday. Needless to say, I saw it as a sign of good luck. I had to have it. Once the model was completed, and the visual came to life, its beauty couldn’t be denied. With three master bedrooms, four bathrooms, a swimming pool, the kitchen of my dreams, and several other amenities, it was the home I had always dreamed of. And while the love for my home still stands, the love for my husband does not. The man who promised to love me. The man who promised to cherish me. The man who said he would be my protector, but who soon proved that the protection offered, didn’t include my heart…
I hated him; but he didn’t know it.
That state of oblivion, was why Drew Levine was so confident that he was giving the performance of his life, while sexing me. So would anybody listening through a wall, a window, or the other side of the door of our master bedroom. By all accounts, we were a couple in love, who couldn’t get enough of each other, in a ravenous state of lust, having a full-blown session of passion. If I do say so myself, I put on a spectacular show for my final act. The bed rocked, as we met with powerful thrusts. The moans that filled our room were better than any baby-making R&B melody. We were fire and desire up in there. It was everything one would expect from a couple in love. But if looks could be deceiving, then surely sounds could be as well.
Sex had never felt so good.
To my surprise, in the middle of one of many orgasms, an unexpected tear bulb rolled from the corner of my eye. It left, in its wake, a warm trail down the side of my face, before getting lost at the entrance of my lobe. The escape of emotion wasn’t for him, though; it was for me. He had hurt me for the last time. For that reason, he was penetrating my sacred hole for the last time. With each of his thrusts inside of me, I was reminded of the pain he’d caused. And because he had the stroke of a juvenile boy lost in pussy for the first time, he only knew how to jab—painfully. However, because I knew what was to come, out of anticipation for the dramatic end to my three-year nightmare, the corners of my mouth were turned up into the biggest smile.
His head pointed skyward as he prepared to embrace the orgasm that had him speaking in something that resembled broken English. He missed the good time between my legs, and it showed. He was attentive, eager… desperate. The urge to slap the fuck out of him, and cut the cord that bound him and ecstasy, was so damn potent. Especially with the two-hour old flashback of him begging for my sex, like a dog for a bone.
It was pathetic.
When he thought I wasn’t going to give him what he wanted, he even resorted to laying on an amateur guilt trip: “This shit just doesn’t make sense!” he’d yelled in the middle of his mantrum. “You must be fucking some other man!”
The nerve! He had even tried to protest my decision to use a condom. He had every right to be suspicious. We hadn’t used condoms in our three-point five-year union. Tonight though, if he wanted to touch me, he was going to strap up. And he did.
I hadn’t fucked him like this in a long time. I hadn’t dug my nails into his back, leaving traces of battle wounds. I hadn’t called out his name in such a way that let him know he owned everything about me. There was greed, satisfaction, and eagerness, in the way I grinded my hips beneath him. I wrapped my legs around him so tightly that my pelvis felt as though it was being crushed. Pain was gain—mine. I needed to remember this. Every bit of it. The pain, the pleasure, all of it. Every bit of it meant something.
I felt my husband’s glutes tighten beneath the grip I had on him. He was ready to release. Before long, his back stiffened, his head lowered to meet my gaze and his mouth flew open. At first, he struggled to express, but as soon as the restriction was lifted, the life of his words hit the air with blunt force… “Ahh yeah! Ahh yeah! F-f-fuck. Aww!” His last orgasm seemed to drag longer than the previous ones; his face seemed to contort more as well. The longer I stared up at him, the uglier he became. “That was… oh shit!” he exclaimed when he was finally done. “That was… I can’t believe how good you feel through a sheath. Insane,” he huffed through labored breaths, as he brought the full weight of his sweaty body down on me.
“Suck my pearl, Drew,” I whispered into his ear, on an exhale.
Our session had seen nightfall, and was nearing its conclusion close to the wee hours—several Trojans later.
Drew pulled back to look at me, then bit down on his bottom lip. “No rest for the weary, huh?” he asked, burying his face in the crook of my neck where he starting to paint kisses along my neckline. He imposed the rules of a Hollywood stop at my right breast, where he sucked my nipple into his mouth and slid his tongue about its tip. After giving equal attention t
o the other, he made a slow descent past my navel, before disappearing between my thighs, where he wasted no time putting his mouth to work.
I inhaled short, choppy breaths at the sensation rippling through my bud. While he fed me his face, I slowly pulled myself up onto my elbows. Call me crazy, but I got off on seeing his head bob up and down as he drank my essence, and sent his tongue over my labia like a happy dolphin jumping in and out of water. He hummed his way around what should have been the place he treasured, and it was so amazing that I almost forgot that this was a mission. A mission—nothing more.
Stay on track, I coached myself, as I laid back, closed my lids, and gave myself permission to ride the short wave of passion.
~*~*~
Several hours later . . .
A thirty-four-minute ride away from my house, I cut the engine to Drew’s black Mercedes, stepped out of the comfort of heated leather seats, and into the early morning brisk air. I slid my arms into the straps of my Nike backpack and tightened the strings around my black fleece hoodie. It was nearly 2AM when I ascended the fourteen burnt-orange tiled stairs to my best friend, Royce’s, townhouse.
The royal-blue illumination coming from Royce’s bedroom window was an indication that she was either still up watching television, or the television was watching her. Whatever the case, she was going to need to get up and let me in because we needed to talk.
Instead of ringing the doorbell or knocking, once I reached the top of the stairs, I pulled out my cellphone and called her. After a few rings, Royce’s voice came over the line.