Deadly Pursuit (32 page)

She faltered, her jaw flapping. “But—”

Here he dropped his voice because sometimes speaking softly scared people worse than anything else, and if there was one thing he wanted to do tonight it was scare some people. “Don’t make me tell you again, Mama.”

Some combination of his voice and the look on his face seemed to do it. She scurried off down the hall, leaving him alone in Kira’s bedroom with only her belongings and his memories of the days when she’d been a loving wife.

The bitterness rose again, nearly choking him this time.

Kira was many things now, but loving wife wasn’t one of them.

Passing the bed, he came to the chair where, just like always, she’d thrown her nightgown, a pale blue one. He picked it up in a slither of fine silk, pressed it to his nose, and dropped to the chair as the sweet familiarity of her scent swept over him. No one smelled like Kira. She wore some elusive combination of
flowers and sex that gave him a hard-on every time he whiffed it. Like now.

Despair hit him in sudden, giant waves, and he propped his elbows on his knees and buried his hot face in the nightgown. For one terrible second he actually thought he might cry—he was that upset. But then he heard a welcome sound and it gave him something else to focus on: Kira’s light footsteps in the hall.

His loving wife. Returned to him at last. What a fucking joke.

Standing, he tossed the nightgown aside and smiled at her. “Hi, baby.”

“Hi.” She lingered in the doorway, obviously not knowing what to make of finding him in her precious off-limits sanctuary. He imagined her expression would be the same if she found a turd in her bowl of ice cream but, to give her credit, she recovered pretty fast and plastered that fucking Stepford wife smile on her face. “What’re you doing here?”

“Greeting my wife. Seeing how her exam went. Come here.”

To his surprise, she came. Wow. She was full of surprises, his Kira was. Holding out a hand, he took hers and marveled at the perfect fit and the smooth coolness of her palm. He stared down at their fingers twined together and thought that it was the perfect representation of their lives, which were twined together until death and, as far as he was concerned, beyond.

He kissed her wrist, enjoying the leap of her pulse. “How was your final?”

“Pretty good, I think. Only one more tomorrow.”

“And then you’ll be a nurse?”

“I won’t be a nurse until I pass my boards, but I’ll have my bachelor’s.”

“My baby.” He said it with pride because he was proud of her, his beautiful, treacherous wife. A man like him shouldn’t have anything less.

She blinked as he cupped her cheek, no doubt detecting a note of turmoil in his voice. “Where’s Max?” she asked.

“Don’t worry about that dog.” Tipping up her chin, he kissed her.

There was a moment’s hesitation before she responded, but she always responded.

That was because no one could do it for Kira the way he could, just like she always did it for him. The minty-sweet taste of her, the tiny mewls of pleasure she could never quite silence, the willowy feel of her body, curved just enough in all the right places, filling his hands. Oh, yeah. She did it for him.

Breathless now, she pulled back and tried to speak, but he didn’t care about that. He cared about untying the belt of her wrap dress and touching the hot satin of the skin beneath. He fumbled with the belt and she stopped his hands, but only for one second. Distracting her with his mouth on her lips, her neck, the wonderful fragrant valley between her breasts, he drove them both higher and even Kira couldn’t fight it. Not now.

Putting her hands on his cheeks, she slowed him down a little and he was caught by the earthy beauty of her flushed face, bright eyes and swollen lips.

Finally he tugged that belt free and got his hands on her.

Jesus, Lord. Touching her was like holding the
universe in his hands. She felt
that
good. Still she tried to speak, to put a little distance between them.

“Kareem,” she said, panting now, “I can’t. I need to find Max and he needs a walk before I can go to bed. And I’m tired from my exam and—”

“No.”

God, her tits were incredible. She wore this filmy little bra that showed every detail, and what he saw pleased him no end. She was aroused. Her nipples were dark with it, tiny hard points that told him exactly what he did to her. Murmuring some nonsense because he couldn’t think to connect two words together when he had her like this, he bent, sucked one nipple between his lips and used his tongue to rub it against the roof of his mouth.

She went wild and her knees nearly gave way. It went just like clockwork, every single time, and you’d think he’d be tired of the predictability of her responses by now, but no. Seeing that he did this to her was a primitive thrill, every single time.

“Kareem, please stop.” There was a little more steel in her voice this time, a little thrust in her palms as she pushed him, but he outweighed her by an easy hundred pounds and if he didn’t want to stop, he wasn’t stopping. “I need to walk the dog and I’m—”

“What, baby?” Irritation prickled at the edges of his sensual high, a buzzing fly that he couldn’t quite see to swat. “Still on your period?” He crinkled his face in an exaggerated frown. “You better let the doctor know about that.”

“No, I just—”

She paused and let her head fall back and her eyes roll closed, caught between the pleasure of his hand circling lower on her belly, heading toward the edge
of the black scrap of lace she called panties, and her determination to keep this from going any farther.

“—I just don’t think I’m ready—”

“You feel ready to me, baby.”

“—and I’d really like for you to stop. Please.”

“No.”

Ahh, there she was. He slid his hand under that elastic band low on her hips and found the thick patch of wiry hair that he remembered so well. Shaking now with the force of his need, he zeroed in on that hard nub and Kira gasped and squirmed.

She was creamy and wet, hot and slick for him, just like always. For one perfect second she surrendered and the low moan rose up from her chest, but then the sound seemed to startle her and she came out of her sensual haze.

For the first time, she got mad.

Not that it mattered. Not tonight.

Anyway, she was mad at herself, not him. Mad because she couldn’t resist him. Mad because she hated and wanted him, and it was all wrapped up together in one tangled knot she couldn’t untie.

“Kareem.”
Going rigid, she shoved his hand away and glared, her eyes sharp now with focus. “I asked you to stop.”

Kareem took his time about looking up from the juicy curve of her thighs, the triangle between her legs and her honey on his fingers. He stroked over her belly again, and her hips, and her ass, and he gloried in the fact that all this bounty belonged to him and always would. He was a starved man and he was about to feast.

Finally he met her gaze, saw her dark pupils dilate,
and knew the second her bravado gave way to fear. “I told you,” he said. “No.”

An arrested moment passed and things between them teetered between possible outcomes. Not the fucking—that was nonnegotiable tonight. The issue was whether she’d cooperate or not.

When she broke and ran for the door, he figured she’d decided on the not.

It made him sad to see her streak away from him like that, with real terror. It really did. And of course, what she’d done made him really, really sad. Angry too, but mostly sad, because how had it come to this ugliness between them?

It made him sick to think of it.

He still wanted to fuck her, though.

Sighing, he looked to heaven for some guidance about how to deal with his wife, but God, as usual, didn’t have shit to say to him. That being the case, Kareem took matters into his own hands and ran after her.

They met at the door and, catching her around her waist, he hefted her off her feet and she screeched with some combination of fear and frustration. “No, Kareem!”

She kicked out at him, and maybe he was a twisted fuck, but he liked it. He liked the high pitch in her voice. He liked her healthy new respect for him when she’d been leading him around by the nose for months. He liked her emotions, which were finally raw.

But then she kicked him again and it got on his nerves because they had overdue business to attend to and his dick was like granite in his pants. Clamping his hand down on the crown of her head, he grabbed a big hank of hair and spoke calmly because his
yelling too would escalate the situation and it was already escalated enough.

“Stop,” he told her.

When she didn’t stop, he got a little more irritated and pulled that hair until he felt it give way and rip away from her scalp in a clump. She screamed again, but that was too damn bad. It was her own fault for not listening when he told her to stop; everything was her fault. But she’d learn her lesson before the night was through. She certainly would.

Taking only enough time to kick the door shut with a crash that shook the rafters, he swung her around and slammed her into the dresser, which was just the perfect height for what he had in mind. She roared like a trapped bear, trying to kick him, trying to get his hand out of her hair, trying to stop the inevitable.

But that was the thing about the inevitable, wasn’t it? There was no stopping it.

Bending her at the waist, he mashed the side of her face against the wood. Not to hurt her or anything—just to keep her still. She cursed him with language he’d never heard her use before, and it amused him. For a minute.

Then he thought about how she’d lied to him—how she’d betrayed him, how she obviously thought he was a fool—and he focused in on the lesson he needed to teach her, which was this:

Kareem Gregory always had the last word.

Wedging one thigh between hers, he widened her stance and took a minute to grind his dick against her ass, getting harder the more she writhed to get away.

Then he went to work on his zipper.

Amara surrendered in the end.

To Jack’s immense satisfaction, she settled on all fours and offered herself, just the way he’d known she would. She held still, quivering like a mare in heat, and tilted her hips back to receive him.

Coming up behind her, inhaling the musky freshness of her slick body’s fragrance, he took his length and ran it through her thick folds, lubricating both of them. She was soaking wet, soft and swollen. Beautiful.

With a cry, he grabbed her hips and drove home, sheathing himself in her tight heat, nearly blinding himself with the pleasure.

There was one arrested moment when they both reeled with the shock of joining, the absolute perfection of it, and then she breathed, “Oh, God,” and they started to move.

He wasn’t sure whether he was driving her or she was driving him, but they were both loud and frantic, both beyond shame or embarrassment. He took her as hard and fast as he could, until great slapping sounds
mingled with their cries, and she swiveled her hips, giving as good as she got.

He reached for her breasts and nearly roared with frustration when her sweater blocked the prize from his hands. Shoving the sweater up and out of his way, he stroked over her breasts in the satin cups of her bra, and then the bra irritated him too. Jerking one cup down, he squeezed and rubbed her, running his palm over her nipple, and her cries rose, both in pitch and volume.

Yeah. He needed more of
that.

Waiting until her body began to stiffen and he knew she was coming, he rolled the engorged nipple between his thumb and forefinger and squeezed it.

She yelled and bucked, nearly pitching him off the bed in her frenzy.

He came for what felt like ten minutes, the ecstasy surging on and on until he was destroyed and exhausted. Her arms and his knees seemed to give way at the same time and they collapsed to the bed in a heap of sweaty bodies and winter clothes.

Over their harsh panting and the steady thunder of his pulse as it roared through his ears, he heard her voice, which was soft but relentless as the Colorado River carving its way through the Grand Canyon.

“Tell me about your mother.”

He could almost laugh at his own foolishness for thinking either that he could distract this woman with sex or that he could keep her at some emotional distance. As though Amara the Fierce would let him get away with that kind of nonsense. Resigned to his fate, he slipped off her and smoothed some of the silken black strands away from her damp face.

“Come to bed,” he told her, “and I will.”

Kira’s cries finally brought Wanda out of her room.

They were too terrible to ignore.

Wanda kept one ear to the ground at all times, but she knew when to keep quiet and when to disappear. The last thing she wanted was for Kira to convince Kareem to kick Wanda out because where would Wanda go then?

Kareem had told her to leave, so she’d left.

Now she was back, in the dark hallway outside the master bedroom door, shaking like a leaf in a tornado, her heart going a thousand beats per minute. She didn’t know what was going on in that bedroom, but she knew it was nothing good.

Kareem’s mood earlier had worried her, of course, but Kareem was always in a mood of some sort and they often passed before she could diagnose them.

Then Kira came home and there’d been yelling, which Wanda ignored.

Next came running feet and the slam of a door, and Wanda ignored that, too.

Kira’s high-pitched wails, though, like she was in pain—Wanda couldn’t ignore that.

She listened, disbelieving, sick to her stomach, paralyzed with fear, and horrified to the depths of her soul because her son, her Kareem, couldn’t have anything to do with noises like
that.

The guttural grunts of male excitement and satisfaction. The relentless
slap-slap-slap
of flesh against flesh. The heavy bang of furniture into the wall.

And soaring high over the rest, Kira’s wails.

No, God. Please, Jesus, Lord—no.

Wanda slumped against the wall and clapped her
hands over her ears, but the sounds were inside her now, church-bell clear whether she wanted to hear them or not.