by A. C. Arthur
In his life, Roark was used to leading, whether with his family or at work, so their personalities should’ve clashed, but they didn’t. Instead, the more time he spent with her, the more drawn to her he felt.
“Absolutely! I have some great ones in mind, and I promise you’ll love every one of them.”
“Well, even if I don’t enjoy the movies, I’m sure I’ll enjoy the company.”
They were at the car then and Roark reached to open the door for her, but she stopped him. She took both his arms and wrapped them around her waist, then she leaned into him while closing her arms around his neck. “I enjoy your company too, Roark. I enjoy it a lot.”
With her palms pressed to the back of his head, she pulled him down until his lips touched hers. Roark held her tight and slipped his tongue between her lips. Her tongue met his, and the slowest, sweetest, melody began.
“Are you serious right now? You think John Wick was better than Robert McCall?”
She was sexiest when she was excited. It had only taken three movies, two bowls of Dorianne’s chicken and dumplings, more dinner rolls than he cared to admit and two glasses of rum for him to figure that out. “Look, McCall was a smooth killer, I’ll give him that, but Wick was brutal in his attacks. He went after everybody who betrayed him and even the people he’d originally worked for, all because of a dog.” He’d actually enjoyed the movies she’d suggested they watch, including Speed, which had the romantic angle he’d expected from the quote she’d mentioned earlier.
She shook her head. “You’re delusional. We’re gonna have to watch the sequels to both so you can rethink your answer.”
“Not tonight, I hope,” he said. She’d already picked up the remote to the television in his room and was pressing the buttons to change it from the movie channel.
“Why? You ready to go to bed? It’s only…” She paused and clicked on the TV’s menu. “It’s only twelve-thirty.”
They’d been in his room watching movies since returning from their walk. After making the calls to arrange for a complete security detail for both of them, along with Tamika’s mother and the housekeeper at the hospital, he’d changed his clothes. The button-front shirt he’d been wearing had been switched to a T-shirt, and he’d decided to forego shoes the moment he’d seen her walking barefoot. She’d actually taken her shoes off the moment they’d stepped back into the house. Then she’d gone to her room. When she returned to his room, her jacket was also off and her was pulled back into a ponytail. He’d sat on one end of the couch and she’d sat right beside him, one leg tucked under her butt. To anyone on the outside looking in, they probably appeared to be a normal couple having a movie night.
“I’m ready to go to bed, with you.” It seemed so easy to tell her what he wanted. He didn’t have to expect an interrogation or a counter to whatever he said. No, he wasn’t going to compare her to Katrina—they were different women in every aspect. And yet, he was more drawn to Tamika than he ever recalled being to his ex-wife.
Standing from the couch, he extended his hands to hers. She turned the television off, dropped the remote and put her hands in his before standing.
“And I’m not just talking about sex,” he continued. “I can’t explain it, and that’s something new for me to digest, but I know I liked sleeping with you last night.”
“Roark Donovan, are you saying you liked not snuggling with me?” Her tone was teasing, but her eyes were telling him something else. Not quite arousal, but definitely a warmth that settled into her eyes as she stared up at him.
He’d been waiting for her to bring up that little inconsistency. “I’ve never snuggled with a woman before.” It was an admission he wasn’t sure he should’ve made, because her expression immediately turned serious.
“Not even your wife?”
Well, he was in it now, no backing down. “Not even her.”
“How did she feel about that?”
As far as Roark knew, women didn’t like to talk about a new lover’s past relationship, but Tamika seemed genuinely interested. “To be honest, I don’t really know. The subject never came up.”
She tilted her head slightly like she was deciding whether or not to believe him. Then, dismissing it, she came up on the tips of her toes and dropped a soft kiss on his lips. “No wonder you never had children.”
Easing her hands from his, she walked away, going toward the bathroom, but Roark couldn’t let the conversation go so easily. He quickly turned off the lamp in the sitting area and followed her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
She was at the bathroom door when she turned to him. “It means if the two of you didn’t communicate enough so you’d know whether or not she was bothered by you not holding her in the night, there was no way you were ready to have children.”
He wasn’t sure he subscribed to what she was saying. “We never even talked about children.”
“That’s my point exactly,” she said with a nod. “Communication is key to any successful relationship. If you’re not telling each other what you like and what you don’t like, what you expect from the other person and why you’re not getting what you need out of the union, what’s the point in being together? You might as well just be friends with benefits.”
“Did you and Colin communicate well?” He knew the moment the question was out that he maybe shouldn’t have asked, but if they were going to discuss relationships, then hers had to be fair game as well.
Annoyance flashed in her eyes briefly, and she shrugged before replying, “No. And that’s the lesson I learned from those two years with him. If I’d been honest with myself and admitted I wasn’t getting any sort of emotional support or mutual respect from him, maybe the break-up would’ve come sooner. And if he’d have been honest about how he felt about my physical appearance, I could’ve told him to kick rocks long before the two-year anniversary. But we didn’t, and so it ended, which again, proves my point regarding you and your ex.”
She didn’t wait for him to ask another question but instead continued into the bathroom, closing the door behind her. Moments later, Roark heard the start of the shower and he moved closer to the dresser, opening the top drawer and taking out a shirt he planned to give her to sleep in tonight, since she hadn’t brought anything from her room when she’d come in earlier.
After placing the shirt on her side of the bed, Roark began removing his clothes. He left his boxers on while he waited for her to come out of the bathroom. He’d take a shower next and when he finished, he planned to snuggle tightly with Tamika tonight and to cherish this amazingly honest woman who was now waist-deep in a murder investigation with him.
In the middle of the night, Roark rolled away from Tamika. He removed the new boxers he’d donned after his shower and leaned over to the nightstand. Pulling open the top drawer, he grabbed a condom and covered his hard dick. When he was once again in the center of the bed again, he eased back into the same position he’d been in all night—on his side, his front pressed up to Tamika’s back, one arm around her, hand cupping her breast.
She sighed and snuggled back against him as she’d done many times throughout the night, hence his rock-hard erection at three in the morning. But instead of falling back to sleep—which he was extremely grateful to be getting now—he pressed his dick to her ass and waited for a response. It came almost immediately when she wiggled against his dick. Roark moaned as the desire that had been on a slow simmer throughout the night fully blossomed. Her ass was so soft and so arousing, ready to welcome him should he dare to enter.
And oh, did he dare.
Burying his face in her neck, Roark trailed a line of scorching kisses to her shoulder. She lifted a hand to cover his on her breast.
“This,” she whispered and backed her ass up on him again, “is one of the perks to snuggling.”
This was a fucking awesome perk to snuggling in his book. “It can get better,” he replied and reluctantly slid his hand from her breast.
“Show me,�
� she said in a breathy whisper when his hand continued down past her torso and belly.
She wiggled, knowing where he was going, and opened her thighs when his hand eased over her mound. His fingers slipped between her pussy lips easily, to brush over her already hardened clit.
“You’re always so hot and ready for me.” He groaned at the feel of the warm moisture on his fingers.
“That’s because you’re always making me hot with your brooding looks and sexy voice.” She lifted her leg then, planting her foot on the mattress and giving him even more access to her slick, hot pussy. As the motion had her rolling back toward him, Roark eased his other arm around to grab her breast again. The weight of it in his hand always sent a bolt of arousal soaring through his body, and this time was no different. He kissed her shoulder again, running his teeth along her skin while his fingers dipped deep into her pussy.
“You like my voice, huh? What do you like to hear me say, my sweet? You want me to tell you how beautiful I think you are?”
She reached an arm back to cup the back of his head, her breaths coming faster as he continued to pump his fingers inside her.
“Or perhaps you’d like to hear how fuckin’ hard you make my dick each time I think about being inside you?”
“Yes! Say that again.”
With two fingers inside her, his thumb rubbed over her clit, and she arched back. “You can feel it, can’t you?” He pressed his dick into her ass. “Feel how hard you make me. All I can think about is fucking you right now.”
“Then do it. Do it right now!”
He didn’t have to be told twice. Easing his fingers out of her, he let his hands slide down her thigh to the back of her knee. He lifted her leg up higher, shifting his hips so his dick slid down the crease of her ass. With a little more adjusting, he finally slipped into her and they both yelled out with pleasure.
When Roark began pumping, his whole body shook with desire. She held his dick so tight inside her while her essence dripped around him. He’d never felt anything as blissful before and didn’t want it to stop.
“More,” she groaned, throwing her ass back against his thrusts. “I need more, Roark. So much more!”
He was shifting them again, this time coming up on one knee and lifting her leg even higher. This position allowed for deeper penetration and for him to look down at her while he moved inside her.
“Mmmmm.” She brought her hands up to cup her breasts that bounced with his strokes. “Yes, Roark! Yes!”
Tearing his gaze away from the sensual sight of her fingers squeezing her nipples, Roark stared down at his dick easing in and out of her pussy. It was erotic as hell and made him speed up his thrusts. Passion swirled like a torrential storm throughout his body, creating a funnel that eased down his spine.
She moaned his name again but this time arched her back while her thighs trembled. Roark groaned and gritted his teeth as her release covered him.
“I don’t know what this is.” The words tore from him in a ragged sound. “I don’t know why now.” He kept pumping, kept inching toward his own release as his muscles began to tighten.
“Just now,” she whispered. “Just now.”
Roark heard her words and focused on this, on being buried inside her warmth and wetness, on easing in and out of her, stroking the embers of fire within them both. He focused on the intense pressure building at the base of his spine and the force of his pumps into her. He focused on her voice, on her. Until he exploded, and then nothing else mattered.
When he could finally catch his breath and had lowered her legs and eased out of her, Roark whispered her name. She pushed him onto his back and lay with one leg over his, her cheek pressed against his chest, her hand over his wildly thumping heart.
“What are we doing?” he asked because he just didn’t know.
“What we can, for now.”
“Right.” He nodded, even though he knew she couldn’t see him. “This is for now.”
“Exactly,” she whispered. “Just for now.”
Roark lay there holding her, waiting for his heart rate to return to normal and telling himself repeatedly that just for now would be enough.
Chapter 14
London
He pulled on his boots and yanked the turnouts down over them. Standing, he adjusted the suspenders to keep the turnouts from falling down as he walked. The long-sleeved black shirt he wore covered him from his neck down to his wrists. He put on the jacket and buttoned it up before finding his gloves and slipping one on each hand.
There was no more preparation after that. It was time. But he still didn’t move. Thoughts ran through his mind, memories that would never disappear. Pain and betrayal. Lies and deceit. Disappointment and heartbreak. All those things circled the memories, forming the endless black smoke he now yearned to see and to smell. That smoke meant something to him—it meant redemption.
Ronnella McCoy’s house was in Hyde Park. Close to Maxine Donovan, and yet they hadn’t kept in touch. Or at least not that he knew of, and he knew about all of them. He knew about their career success, their marriages, their children, everything. But most of all he knew their faults, the things they didn’t show anyone in their new lives, the secrets they hid.
He drove to her house, parking directly across the street so he’d have a front row seat. It was well after midnight and he knew she’d be alone. Ronnella was always alone, a stark contrast to the vivacious former beauty queen she’d been in her teens and twenties. At one point she’d believed she had her pick of men and that when she was ready, whomever she’d selected would fall at her feet and worship her for the rest of her life. Forty-five years later, she’d never married, had no children and lived in this huge house alone.
He knew about being alone.
Stepping out of his car, he went to the trunk, opened it and removed the can of gasoline. The gun and syringe were in his jacket pocket. He grabbed the helmet and walked toward the house.
There was an alarm, but he already knew the code. Money really could buy anything, and what it couldn’t, blackmail could. Ronnella’s housekeeper was a flirty little brunette who talked a lot when she drank and fucked whoever was paying when she was drunk. He’d paid someone else to do the task for him, because the loud young woman wasn’t his type.
With the code memorized, he walked around to the back door and jimmied the flimsy lock. Ronnella had paid for a sophisticated alarm system but had a cheap lock on the doors, and he couldn’t muster up enough sympathy to feel sorry for her stupidity. As soon as he was inside, he closed the door quietly behind him and hurried to the control panel to punch in the numbers that would kill the alarm.
She should’ve heard the chirping sound of someone entering the house. He’d heard it and hadn’t been at all disturbed. He wanted her to know he was here.
With purposely slow steps, he moved through the house, going by the description the flirty housekeeper had given. He made a wrong turn and ended up in an exercise room instead of her bedroom, but he corrected that and three minutes after he’d entered her house, he was standing at her bedroom door.
He had twenty-seven minutes with her before it’d be time to leave. And time for her to die.
With a gloved hand, he touched the knob and let the fresh memory of that night so long ago seep into the forefront of his mind. For a few seconds he stood there with those thoughts, closing his eyes so he could clearly see every movement, hear every word, watch every flame again.
Pushing the door open, he stepped inside and stopped abruptly.
A naked man was on top of her, his ass cheeks clenching as he pumped into her. Ronnella lay beneath him, giving herself to him the way she gave herself to every man who suited her, every man who showed her the attention she craved. Another memory slammed into his mind, the one where he used to be the man Ronnella had wanted.
Fresh rage layered his purpose in the same instant she looked up and saw him. The two had been so engrossed in their sex, her moaning, the other ma
n’s grunting, that they hadn’t heard him enter the house or the bedroom. Proving again how self-centered and foolish they were.
Ronnella screamed, and the other man turned.
“What the hell?” the man yelled.
A jolt of recognition hit him at once. The other man was Tony, his old friend and roommate. Tony was fucking his girl, again.
Tony grabbed the sheets to pull around him and pushed Ronnella behind him. “What do you want? How’d you get in here?”
Ridiculous questions. Why wasn’t Tony jumping out of the bed and looking for something to defend himself with, to defend Ronnella with? Because he was a selfish coward and even though he wasn’t in the plan for tonight, he was meant to die as well.
“You know what I want,” he said, walking closer to the bed. He set the can of gasoline down and felt a spurt of satisfaction as they both huddled together on that bed, fear evident on their faces.
That was what he wanted, their fear. He wanted to watch it contort their faces and fill their souls as they acknowledged the inevitable.
He pulled the gun out of his pocket, aimed it at Tony’s chest. “I want you to die,” he said, his voice raspy.
“Wait! Wait! If it’s money, I’ve got it. I can get you whatever you want. You want a jet to get out of here, cash, a car? I can get all those things at the drop of a dime, and nobody has to know. Nobody has to get hurt,” Tony insisted.
The idiot didn’t even know who he was. Tony came from money. Just like Gabe had. That made them both assholes at times, because they used that privilege whenever it suited them. He and Lem, they didn’t have money, but the four of them had bonded anyway. They’d forged a friendship in college, four Black men who were going to run the world. But that had never happened.
“You still trying to buy your way outta shit,” he spat the words, hatred filling every crevice of his damned soul. “I never gave a damn about your money.”