He didn’t know what he’d been thinking beforehand, but he could never hurt this woman. Would never hurt this woman. This incident was his second chance to be exactly what she’d needed and deserved. He was never going to let her go again and if Eddie Jarvis, Delgano Richards, or anyone else had a problem with that, he took no issue with taking them out with his bare hands.
Sweat dripped from his body onto her sleek silhouette, and she erupted a second time as rivulets of ecstasy spurted from his body into her silken core.
As the waves of pleasure blissfully ebbed, she looked up at him, smiled, and he returned the gesture before placing kisses on each of her lovely eyelids. Then, pulling the covers over their bodies, she molded into his side and he held her there until she fell asleep. Kissing her again, he apologized for ever leaving her alone and promised her that from that point on, he would give her anything and everything her heart desired—as long as she left some space in it for him to fit into.
Chapter Seven
Larke sprang awake and frantically searched the room for the two men she expected to find there. Instead, all she saw were the slits of sunlight peeking between the wooden blinds, and heard the sound of Desmond’s even breathing in the bed next to her. She calmed as she watched his masculine chest rise and fall, remembering the night before and the way he’d navigated her body as if he’d had an insider’s guide on the path to her pleasure. He’d been so attentive and giving that she was beginning to want him again, and wished that she could slowly slip his beautiful, creamy chocolate skin through a straw.
Aside from the godlike profile he possessed, as well as his unforgettable smile and laugh, she was slowly falling for his strength. It also amazed her how he always seemed to be the calmest person in the room, and how his determination and focus were reminiscent of traits that both she and her father possessed. To think that all of that was neatly wrapped up in such an attractive package…
She laid back on the pillow and spooned into his body. Instinctively, he pulled her closer and pressed a tender kiss into her hair, melting her. In such a short time, she’d come to feel a sense of safety like never before because of him. All he had to do was be near enough for her to feel the heat emanating from his body, and smell his raw, enticing, male scent.
Still, the two men from her dream had felt very real. She’d even felt the weight of one of the men’s bodies on top of her.
She’d been back at her townhouse in DC and there were two men in the room, much like how the two men had burst in at the resort. But these were not the same men. One had dusty brown hair and jewel-green eyes, and the second had slightly longer, highlighted blonde hair with piercing blue eyes to match. They were both extremely large and the minute she’d set her eyes on them, she’d known that they’d intended to bring trouble much bigger than she could have ever visualized.
They’d dragged her from the bed by her ankles and she’d tossed whatever she could find at them: books, a glass vase, and an old brown cigar box that she’d kept some of her jewelry in. Unfortunately, they still managed to overpower her and pull her to the living room before tossing her onto the sofa as if she were as lifeless as a ragdoll. One of the men held her down while the other fiddled with something in the kitchen, but determined not to go down without a hard fight, as her Grandmother Ruth had taught her, she’d kicked the man holding her down and threw him a bit off balance. In retaliation, he picked her up by the arms and violently forced her into the wall, several times, until she slowly began to succumb to the fog of unconsciousness. Then, he released her and as fell to the floor, she scratched the area beneath her shoulder blade on an end table. Her eyes had briefly opened to a wide open front door, and she remembered wondering why no one had heard the commotion to come to her aid. Then, as if answering her thoughts, Desmond had appeared in the middle of the doorway. And, he’d been angry.
Larke squeezed the back of her neck. Usually, the realness of her dreams quickly dissipated the minute she woke up, however this particular one was acting quite differently. It was acting more like a memory.
Out of sheer curiosity, her hands moved further down her back and she nearly choked on a sharp intake of breath when she felt the healing abrasion right below her shoulder blade. Right where she’d fallen onto the end table in her dream.
It hadn’t been a dream. It was a memory. Which meant that, Desmond had been in DC. She’d known him before the incident.
She pulled herself so furiously from his grip that it startled him awake. Then, when he found her eyes in the dimness, his expression changed from confusion to concern.
“You’ve been lying to me,” she accused, putting a few regrettable inches of distance between their bodies. He reached out to pull her back, but she remained stiff.
“What are you talking about?” He asked, easing onto an elbow. She turned around and showed him the scar on her back, and he ran his finger along the abrasion. Even upset, his touch still caused stirs in the pit of her stomach.
“You’re remembering,” he said.
She swung around. “So, there is something wrong with my memory. These haven’t been dreams. They’ve been memories.”
He raised an eyebrow. “What else did you remember?”
“Two men at my place in DC.”
“The same two men from the suite?”
“No. Two different men. Big. Strong. They broke in. Dragged me downstairs. Manhandled me.”
A flash of anger darted across his eyes. “What else?”
“One of them forced me into the wall. I kept hitting my head. I lost consciousness but right before I did, I looked up and you were at the door. You were standing at the door to my place in Washington DC. Were you really there?”
He hesitated, then nodded.
“So, do we know each other?”
Desmond felt as though someone had lassoed his heart and was pulling the rope tighter. It all seemed simple: tell her that he was her estranged husband and then go from there. But, there was still a possibility that telling her could trigger the actual memory and, quite selfishly, he wasn’t ready to go back to the version of Larke that hated him. The one that wouldn’t be in bed with him right now with the soft curves of her breasts poking above the covers half-wrapped around her body.
“Someone called me,” he began. “I do run a protective agency specializing in the protection of key staff in the federal government. You’re part of that key staff. I knew of you, but that’s it. I came to your aid when someone called.”
She placed her forehead in her palm.
“Tell me what’s on your mind,” he urged.
“I’m thinking about what else I might have forgotten.” She squeezed her brow. “There could be some information, something pivotal or crucial from the Jarvis case that could help us out. How is it that I couldn’t even remember that I’d forgotten something?”
Although it pained him to say, he responded, “Maybe what you forgot wasn’t that important.”
Larke didn’t completely believe him, but she didn’t protest. There were still other things missing as she could tell that there were more blank spheres in her brain, but just like how the attack in DC had popped up, she felt confident that those eventually would come back as well.
“So, I really did hit my head?” She asked.
“Yes,” he answered.
“And did you know that I’d forgotten things? That there was something going on with my memory?”
“I knew it was a possibility, but I didn’t want to push you. I figured it would just come back on its own, which it’s doing.”
That part, at least, sounded convincing.
“So, we don’t know each other?” She continued to prod.
Desmond’s chest squeezed again. “Not personally.”
“What about Virginia Beach? Was that real, or a dream?”
“I still don’t know how to explain that one.”
“And I can trust you?”
“My job is to protect you, Larke. With my life if
I need to. You can trust me.”
Oddly, she felt slightly disappointed. “Just to protect me?”
“Yes,” he replied without a flinch. “My job is just to protect you, but that doesn’t change the fact that I really like you.”
The stirs in her stomach reawakened. “I kinda’ like you too. I guess.”
He laughed as she leaned in for a kiss, which he readily reciprocated. Before long, she was astride him and his hands were on her breasts. She rode him until they both succumbed to the throes of orgasmic release, and he carried her into the shower, where they succumbed once again.
After breakfast, they trekked back down the hill and hailed a gypsy cab which dropped them off on the other side of the island in front of a concrete, two-story apartment building with a faded eggshell exterior, and teal shingled roof. White wooden stairs at the front separated the two floors, and an abandoned pink tricycle was parked between two broken yellow lines in the worn, cobblestone lot. Desmond handed a few bills to the cab driver and with a curt nod, the man took off.
That morning, Doug had sent them additional information that he’d been able to retrieve on Taina Bailey. The young girl had actually been a twin. Her sister, Twila Bailey, shared a two-bedroom apartment with their grandparents on the western side of the island. Before Taina’s death, the pair had always been seen together. However, ever since her sister died, Twila became something of a recluse, no doubt still grieving over the loss of her other half.
Desmond stopped at the bottom of the stairs and faced Larke. “Are you ready?”
With knees considerably less stable than they’d been before they left the villa that morning, Larke looked up at the second floor. “We’re just going to go up and knock on the door?”
“Basically,” he answered. “We’re going to play the role of rogue reporters who got a whiff of her sister’s story. We’re privately investigating Taina’s death.”
Her eyes fell back to his. “Ok. Let’s do this.”
Slinging the backpack over his shoulder, Desmond took the stairs two at a time while Larke followed. An eerie feeling of being watched crept up her spine, and she tossed a quick glance over her shoulder before they reached the platform where the grandparents’ unit was located. Number 208.
When they reached the door, before he had a chance to knock, a girl walked up from the other side of the corridor with two grocery bags in her hands. He immediately knew it was Twila because of the pictures of Taina that he’d seen, but when she noticed that he and Larke were standing in front of the door to her apartment, her brows narrowed.
“I don’t feel like giving my life to Jesus today,” she warned, brushing past them. Placing the bags on the floor, she folded her arms in front of her chest. Twila only stood about four-feet eleven inches tall and probably weighed about one-hundred pounds soaking wet. Her sable skin glistened with sweat in the afternoon heat, and her curly black hair was pulled back into a tight bun adorned with a flower barrette.
“We’re not here for that,” Desmond began, holding out his hand. “My name is Kelvin Morris and this is my colleague, Aisha Williams. We were wondering if you and your family had a few minutes to chat.”
Her arms folded even tighter. “Chat about what?”
“About Taina,” Desmond replied.
Twila’s face softened, but her defensive posture remained. “Taina’s case was closed a long time ago. What else could you possibly want to talk about?”
He stepped to the side and gestured to Larke. “Aisha?”
Realizing that he was referring to her, Larke stepped forward and extended her hand as if introducing herself to a new client. “Hello Twila,” she greeted.
At the mentioning of her name, Twila’s eyes widened and she took a defensive step backwards. “How do you know my name?”
Larke cleared her throat. “Kelvin and I have been working independently with a private investigative agency on a murder case involving a man named Eddie Jarvis. Have you ever heard of him?”
Twila’s gaze darted between Larke and Desmond. “I have,” she replied.
“Ok, good, because some new information has emerged that he might be involved in the events surrounding your sister’s death. Kelvin and I have been working closely on this case and we find it hard to believe that natural causes would suddenly kill a healthy, nineteen year-old girl.”
Twila’s defensive posture lasted for about five more seconds before her shoulders fell, and she leaned back against the front door with her face between her palms. Small sobs quivered in the back of her throat and shook her tiny body.
“I knew it,” she mumbled from between her fingers. “It just never felt right, her death. I knew it.”
She wiped at her eyes, picked up the grocery bags, and opened the front door.
“Come in,” she invited, walking into a dimly lit living room. A formal dining table much too large for the space stood in front of an oak cabinet filled with porcelain dinnerware, and an elderly man sat in a nautical blue sofa in front of a small television tube with rabbit ears poking out at the top, their ends wrapped in foil. When Desmond and Larke entered, he looked up at them confusedly.
“Granddaddy, this is Kelvin and Aisha,” Twila introduced, making her way back to the kitchen to put away the groceries. Desmond and Larke stood awkwardly in the entryway while they waited for her to return, and the man continued to stare at them. Then, he raised his finger and pointed at Larke.
“You’re dead,” he grumbled.
Surprised, she met his eyes. “Excuse me, sir?”
“Dead. You,” he reiterated, jabbing a finger in her direction. Before she could ask him what he was talking about, Twila reentered the living area and wrapped an arm around the old man’s shoulders.
“Granddaddy, how can she be dead if she’s standing in our living room?”
She covered his ears and whispered, “Old-Timer’s,” before grabbing three glass bottles of pineapple soda and ushering them out to the back porch. Larke and Desmond took a seat in two wiry, metal chairs while she hopped up on the porch railing, popped the tops on the bottles, and handed one to them both.
“I thought I was crazy,” she began, taking a large gulp of the soda. “When they called us and said that they took Taina to that hospital, I immediately went down there to be with her. But when I got to the front desk the woman there told me that I couldn’t see her.”
Larke fished a small notepad and pen from the backpack. “Wait, she didn’t come home first?”
Twila animatedly shook her head. “She didn’t. As soon as she got off the plane, they took her to a private hospital over there near Secret Harbour. They made me sit in that lobby for six hours. Every thirty minutes I got up to ask them when I could see her, and each time they would tell me I couldn’t. Then, some doctor came out and told me that she died.”
Her head fell.
“All I can remember is screaming. I kept asking them what happened, but all they told me was that it was her heart. They said that she had something wrong with her heart that she was born with that was like a ticking time-bomb, and there was nothing anybody could do about it. I remember wondering to myself why they didn’t insist on checking me too. We were identical twins. You think they would at least recommend that I check my own heart.”
A light bulb went off in Desmond’s head. “This doctor, what did he look like?”
Twila rubbed her forehead as she tried to remember. “I don’t really know. He never took off the mask when he came to talk to me. All I remember is that he had some weird looking eyes. They were almost like...purplish.”
Larke frowned. It was unusual that a doctor would deliver news to a waiting family member and not bother to remove his mask.
“Did you see him again after that?” She asked.
“I didn’t,” Twila answered. “After that, we just dealt with the funeral home.”
Larke jotted down a few more notes. “We also heard that an outside source took care of her hospital expenses. Is that
true?”
Twila took another gulp and nodded. “Yeah. A policeman from Jamaica.”
“Did he say why?”
She nodded again. “He said it was because he was the last person to see Taina alive and she had been such a sweet girl. Plus, it’s not like we’re rolling in money around here. Granddaddy and Grandma are living off of social security and I work part-time at Texaco. We were grateful for the help.”
Larke turned to Desmond. “The odds of us getting those hospital records are pretty slim since it’s a private hospital,” she pretended to whisper.
Twila shook her head and raised her hand. “I thought so too. See, I was trying to do some detective work myself and went down to the hospital to ask them to release my sister’s records. They kept dragging their feet, but I took the bus down there every Friday to try to pick them up. The thirteenth time I went, a nurse pulled me to the side and gave me a blue folder. On an index card, she scribbled down three words, stapled the card to the folder and shoved me out the door. I haven’t been able to figure out what the words mean, and I haven’t been able to find somebody to help me read her records.”
Desmond leaned forward. “Do you still have them? I might be able to help.”
She nodded, hopped down off of the railing and disappeared inside of the house.
“That nurse knows something,” he whispered. “I can bet information was falsified on the report and she knew it, felt guilty and tried to help Twila out. Good call on this lead, baby.”
He froze. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“You can call me baby,” she reassured. “I don’t mind.”
He reached across and gave her hand a gentle squeeze.
They looked up when they heard footsteps approaching and found Twila’s grandfather standing in the doorway, his gaze again fixed on Larke.
“You’re dead,” he repeated, but this time motioned for them to follow him inside. They cautiously did so and ended up running into an elderly lady emerging from the hallway.
In Love and Rescue: When love is the perfect rescue... Page 10