Creole Kingpin

by Meghan March

  “You’re such a man.”

  He looks down at the vicinity of his dick and nods. “Damn right I am. Bona fide.”

  “Well, maybe if we weren’t sharing a house with two other men, that’d work. But my days of parading around in lingerie in front of a crowd are long over.” The smile on his face dies at my words, and I want to bring it back. “Hey. Don’t look like that. It’s the past. Don’t let it take what we have today from us too. Okay?”

  Moses makes a turn toward the French Quarter, and I see him half grinning. “When’d you get all wise, woman?”

  I knock my shoulder into his. “I don’t know if I’d say I’m wise, but I’m . . . learning. Just makes sense that you can’t hold on to yesterday if you want to live every bit of today. Also, you just missed our turn.”

  His full smile is back, and he laughs full out. “I should’ve let you drive. You know this city a hell of a lot better than I do.”

  I grimace, all too sure my driving skills aren’t up to par with his, given the way he whipped that U-turn and drifted the rear end of the car perfectly before bringing it back into line. “I don’t know if I could’ve done what you did back there. I imagine you’ve got some stories if you know how to drive like that.”

  He winks, making me melt into the leather beneath me. “I have a few. And all three of us—me, Jules, and Trey—took a lot of tactical driving classes. Partly because we needed to, but mostly because they were fun as hell. Saved our asses more than once, though.”

  “Then I’m glad you did. Turn here, Earnhardt.”

  A few minutes later, we pull up in front of my cheery yellow house.

  “It won’t take me long,” I tell him as I reach for the door handle.

  “I’ll help. We’re a team, after all. Where you go, I go.”

  Moses shoots me a winning smile, and it’s in that moment that I realize I’m falling in love with him all over again. Not with the man I knew fifteen years ago, but with the man he is today.

  Despite everything, today is a lucky day, I decide. Now, here’s hoping it keeps on going.

  Forty-Eight

  Moses

  When we get back to the house in the Marigny, my gaze lands on Trey as I carry in Magnolia’s twin suitcases. “Any luck? We could use some good news right about now.”

  His attention darts from us to his keyboard as he speaks. “I got a hit on the plates, but it doesn’t match the description you gave of the driver, unless he’s secretly a seventy-four-year-old black woman and his disguise was damn good.”

  “Damn it,” Magnolia says from behind me. “Does that mean he stole it?”

  Trey’s head bobs from his seat at the kitchen table. “Most likely, or he stole the plate of another black Fusion.”

  Jules leans against the kitchen island. “What’s our next move? Because we gotta do something.”

  Part of me wishes I’d taken Jules’s advice and had him intercept the guy, but there’s no way in hell I was going to let him take this on alone. I also wasn’t risking a confrontation, one that would most likely end in blood being spilled, with Magnolia at my side.

  She might be tough as hell, but she doesn’t need to be in any more danger. Visions of her getting ready to stitch up the slice in her own side are still all too recent in my brain, and I refuse to let it happen again.

  Across the table that Trey has turned into central command, complete with notebooks littered by scribblings and a slew of empty coffee cups, I ask, “You find anything else on the dead guy?”

  “Nothing helpful yet. I’m still looking.” He scratches the back of his neck, and then his fingers are flying again.

  I don’t need to tell him to hurry or look harder, because Trey’s already doing everything he can. The man is a beast on a computer, and I trust him to do the job better than anyone else could. Plus, he doesn’t know the word quit, which is exactly why we work well together.

  “Okay, so we keep running that down, and we’re on high alert everywhere. No driving without checking for tails. Mama, you’re with me. Like glue. We’re taking no chances.”

  She worries her bottom lip and crosses her arms over her stomach, feeling whatever is going through her head. “What about my girls? And Desiree’s? Is there a chance he could go after them? I still own the house. Because I was young and dumb, it was in my real name from the beginning.” Magnolia’s weary tone is filled with concern. “If this guy is looking for me and tracked me to my condo, would he try to find me through them? I mean, the bond for deed between me and Desiree is filed, but technically, my name is still on the house, so I’m connected.”

  “Shit, yeah. She’s got a point, man,” Trey says with a nod. “We don’t know what the hell this guy will do.”

  “He looked for you at the condo and not the house first, so this guy clearly has some intel of his own on you.”

  “Just like the guy who tried to kill me in the elevator,” Magnolia says, and the reminder burns a hole in my gut.

  Not letting that shit happen ever again.

  I reach an arm around her shoulders and pull her near. “Yeah. Going to the same place as the attempted hit makes sense.”

  “Attempted hit? You really think someone paid the guy in the elevator to kill me?” Magnolia asks, fear causing her voice to rise.

  “It’s a strong possibility. Too many things have happened since. It all adds up to none of this being random, including Ricardo.” I press a kiss into her hair, hating that she has to deal with any of this. “We’ll clear the girls out of the house. If it’s empty, there won’t be anyone he can hurt there. Is there somewhere they can go? Friends? Families?”

  Magnolia presses her lips together, but not once does she falter or lose her grip on the situation or her emotions. Strong as hell.

  After a minute, she says, “They’ll all find somewhere to go. It’s just the money part. Some of them will have to leave town completely, and if they can’t work where they’re safe and protected, they can’t pay their bills. I don’t like doing that to any of them—my girls or Desiree’s.” She groans, looking skyward as if searching for an answer from above. “I don’t like putting them in a position where they might have to make choices that could put their safety at risk. It’s too dangerous.”

  The decision is easy to make. “I’ll cover them. Whatever they would’ve made in an average week, I’ll cover it. Travel too. Whatever it takes.”

  Magnolia’s eyes practically bug out of her head. “What? That’s . . . are you . . . You can’t . . . how?” It’s the first time I’ve ever heard her sputter and trip over her words.

  I turn her to face me and stare deep into her caramel eyes. I want it to hit home that I’m serious about being here for her. I have lost time to make up for, and money isn’t an issue. Her safety and happiness are priceless.

  “If they’re important to you, then they’re important to me. It’s just money, and we’ve got it to spare. And if they don’t have a place to go, I’ve got a buddy with a couple of houses over in Gulf Shores he never uses. Not too bad of a drive. They can take a vacation. Get in some beach time.”

  Magnolia’s lower lip wobbles and drops. “You’d do that . . . for women you’ve never met?”

  “I’m doing it for you, Mags. And if you care about them, then I do too.”

  With no thought to Trey or Jules, she reaches up to wrap a hand around my neck and yanks my face down to hers. She kisses me hard. When she finally releases me, her gaze is soft and warm on my face.

  “Thank you, Moby. It means a hell of a lot to me.”

  I lift my hand and run the back of my knuckles across her jaw. “Whatever you need, mama. I got you.”

  She squeezes her eyes shut, and when she opens them again, they’re shining. “I’ll call Desiree and get that moving.”

  “I’ll have Jules make the arrangements and run cash over today.”

  Magnolia sighs, and to see her relax is lifegiving. “Thank you. Desiree’s girls are already on high alert because of th
e Feds.”

  “The Feds?” Trey, Jules, and I all blurt out the same thing at the same time.

  Magnolia’s head swivels between the three of us before her attention comes back to me. “You didn’t know about the FBI?”

  “No, but you have our attention now.”

  Magnolia’s brows pinch together as she explains. “The day you came into Mount’s office, just when I was leaving, I saw you as the fireplace spun.”

  “He planned that,” I say quietly with a shake of my head. “Fucking devious bastard.”

  “Takes one to know one,” Jules mumbles, and I shoot him a don’t-fucking-start-bro stare.

  He doesn’t even pretend I worry him and shrugs, grinning like a dickhead.

  Magnolia continues. “He called me in to tell me the Feds were watching the house, because he knows I’m still connected to it until Desiree pays it totally off. Mount warned me to be careful. So I had Desiree put her girls on hotel mode. No sex work in the house while the Feds were babysitting.”

  “Did he say why they were zeroed in on the house?” I ask her.

  She nods. “They were watching for a client. Alberto Brandon. Older guy. Mid-fifties. I guess he was into some shady business or something. I don’t know. Anyway, to hear it from Mount, the Feds have been looking for him and can’t find him. So they must’ve gotten desperate and decided to watch my old house too, because he had a regular thing with one of Desiree’s girls, Naya.”

  I point at Trey. “Add this guy to your list. Dig around and see what you can find, but he’s a second priority.”

  Trey’s already writing the guy’s name down on one of the only blank areas left on his notepad. “Got it.”

  I put my hands on Mags’s shoulders and work her tense muscles in my palms. “All right, mama. Call your girls. Get things moving. Then we’ll get money and arrangements settled. One thing at a time.”

  Over her shoulder, she gazes up at me. Nothing and no one can ever get to her. Come hell or high water, she’ll know I’m her partner from here on out. That’s the vow I’m making with every single one of our moves right fucking now.

  I already lost fifteen years with her because of my own choices. But that was the past, and all we have now is forever.

  Still, a heavy feeling in my gut reminds me that I still have a bomb to drop on her. But, goddamn it, she’s got enough on her plate right now. I swear, as soon as everything is settled, I’ll come clean.

  I just hope it’s not too late.

  Forty-Nine

  Magnolia

  My clothes are in the closet next to Moses’s, my shoes lined up beside his much bigger ones. I even have an entire side of the bathroom counter. This living-together situation feels so . . . domestic. It’s also something completely new to me.

  Other than the two weeks Moses and I spent together after Katrina, I’ve never lived with a man. Not even when I was dating Rafe. He had his space, I had mine, and that’s how we both liked it. But with Moses . . . it just feels right.

  Except last time, he didn’t exactly have any clothes with him. We had to scrounge up shorts and shirts from the men’s clothes stashed in the other girls’ rooms. Since Moses was a big bastard even then, most of them didn’t fit right, but he made do. It wasn’t like either of us were trying to impress the other when we had no power and were just doing what we had to do to make it through until life went back to normal.

  Except, as soon as signs of life restarting showed up in the neighborhoods around us, I knew Moses was going to move on. We’d met under fucked-up circumstances, and I was never under any illusion it was going to last forever. I just didn’t expect it to end quite so suddenly.

  I still remember like it was yesterday.

  Fifteen years ago

  With every person who came back, Moses looked more and more tense. I saw him leaning against the window, watching the house across the street as a big truck drove through standing water in the road.

  “Everything okay?” I asked him, coming up from behind to rub a palm over his shirtless back.

  He turned and looked at me, his quick smile subdued. “People are coming back. I wondered how long it would take for the city to come to life again.”

  For the eleven days since Katrina, the world had been unrecognizable. We were an island, the water coming up to the front stoop of the house and completely flooding everything down two streets. I’d lost count of how many times I’d sent up a prayer, thanking God that this house was on a little patch of high ground. Another foot of floodwater, and we’d be standing in it, but at least only the basement was full.

  There wasn’t shit I could do about that right now, except be thankful I had flood insurance. The previous owner, Linnie, had it when she died, and I made sure to do the same. This was New Orleans, a town that sat mostly below sea level. I knew not everyone got it, but it just made sense to cover my ass on that front, because I wasn’t about to take chances with the one thing of value I owned. So the basement would be fine, eventually.

  But right now, I was more worried about the man in front of me. I wasn’t stupid. I knew he couldn’t stay forever, but I hated to think about how fucking bad it was going to hurt when he left.

  He’d brought up me going with him, but we didn’t talk much about it because I couldn’t leave. Not when I’d just gotten my hands on something worth a damn. The house was all I had, and the memory of being out on the street corner with no protection, at the mercy of a pimp, was still all too fresh in my mind.

  This rickety house was my only security.

  No matter how I felt about Moses, I’d only known him for eleven days. But then again, going through an experience like this with someone went far beyond the connection you’d make under normal circumstances. From the moment he stormed into the house . . . we had something I’d never had with anyone else, and I didn’t want to let it go. But I was even more terrified to take a chance and leave.

  For all I knew, he’d grow tired of me in a few months. Where would I be then?

  “It’s good people are coming back,” I replied. “Maybe it means we’ll get power eventually. God, I miss hot water.”

  He turned away from the window, his green-gold eyes locking on my face as if he was memorizing it.

  I knew then the faster life went back to normal, the faster I’d lose him.

  “Don’t worry about what’s going on out there. We’ve got plenty going on in here,” I said as I pulled him away from the glass. “Besides, you haven’t beat me at chess yet. I’ll give you another shot tonight.”

  Moses laughed. “I’m gonna need a hell of a distraction to beat you.” A grin split his face right before he scooped me up into his arms. “And I’ve got an idea I think you’re gonna like. A lot.”

  “If it involves your mouth on my pussy and me screaming your name when I come, then I’m all for it.”

  Present day

  The memory of Moses fades away as I hear him call my name.

  He pokes his head into the room, catching me with my hand on the dresser, staring at the wall. “You hungry?”

  I cut my unfocused gaze to his face, shaking free of the dreamlike memories. “Yeah. I could eat.”

  “Good deal. I sent Jules out to handle the girls, and Trey moved his shit out to the pool house so he can blast music to help his searching.” Moses’s smile charms me when his head falls to the side and he adds, “So we’ve got the house to ourselves for the rest of the night.”

  “Just like old times,” I say, excited and still nostalgic. “Except, you know . . . no flooding, and we have power and hot water.”

  Moses comes into the room, wraps his thick arms around my waist, and pulls me against his body. It’s like no time has passed at all between this moment and the memory I was reliving. I curl into his heat and breathe in his unique spicy scent.

  “We made it work, didn’t we?” he asks.

  “Yeah, we did. Those should’ve been the worst days of my life, and instead, because you were there with me, t
hey were some of the best.”

  His body tenses for a beat before he pulls back to look down at me. “I’m glad I was there. So fucking glad.”

  It’s like he shows up when I need him most in my life.

  We both know what would have happened to me if he hadn’t been there after the storm, so I don’t have to say a thing. Instead, I lift my lips to his and sweep them across his warm skin.

  After kissing him earlier, I need more.

  This time, Moses takes over, one hand burying in my hair as he tilts my head to the side. My mouth opens and his tongue steals inside, and all I taste is Moses. After going years without kissing anyone, I want to live in this kiss. There’s something so perfect about the feel of his lips on mine, and the way he holds me like he’s never letting me go.

  I love it.

  My thought from earlier comes back. I’m falling in love with him all over again, and I’m not doing a damn thing to stop it.

  Finally, Moses pulls back. I meet his gaze, and the flames in those green-gold eyes are so hot, they could blister me.

  “I want you bad, mama. I told myself I’d wait. I told myself I’d make you dinner. Remind you who we are together. Then . . . then I’d bring you in here and lay you down and show you exactly how fucking much I’ve missed you.”

  “I don’t want to wait. I need you. God, I’ve fucking missed you, Moby.”

  I reach up again, dragging his mouth down to mine. I want everything from him, even if I don’t know what the hell is going to happen tomorrow or the next day. Tonight, I’m giving myself this. I’m giving myself permission to let go with a man, and that isn’t something I’ve done in a long damn time.

  But with Moses, all my barriers drop away. He must feel it in my kiss. Must feel the longing and desperation I’ve had pent up for years. His hands find my ass and grip, lifting me off my feet. I wrap my legs around his waist and kiss him with everything I’m feeling. I devour his mouth, loving the battle of lips, tongues, and teeth. I feel us moving through the room, but I don’t worry about where he’s going to put me or whether he’ll drop me.