by L. A. Banks
CREEPIN’
Edited by
MONICA JACKSON
L. A. BANKS, DONNA HILL, MONICA JACKSON,
J. M. JEFFRIESANDJANICE SIMS
CONTENTS
PAYBACK IS A BITCH
L. A. Banks
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
About the Author
THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT
Donna Hill
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
About the Author
VAMPED
Monica Jackson
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
About the Author
BALANCING THE SCALES
J. M. Jeffries
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Epilogue
AVENGING ANGEL
Janice Sims
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
About the Author
Veteran bestselling African-American paranormal romance and erotica authors serve you up a collection of strange and sexy tales with werewolves, demons, voodoo, vampires and avenging angels—oh my.
We’ve stirred in love and tenderness, and spiced liberally with scrumptious raw sex.
Lemme tell you, these dishes are even better with unexpected delicious twists of betrayal, infidelity, jealousy and revenge, topped off with dollops of old-fashioned cheatin’ and gettin’ even.
L. A. Banks takes us into the world of werewolves when a wronged wife shows her man what being dogged really means in Payback Is a Bitch.
Donna Hill delves into a risqué addiction, when a lonely woman becomes obsessed with an unseen lover in The Heat of the Night.
Monica Jackson knows how a woman can feel when her man’s too fine for his own good. It’s easy to get a bit jealous, but a girl should be careful not to bite off more than she can chew in Vamped.
J. M. Jeffries shows us revenge can be a dish with a high price, at least it is when voodoo is involved in Balancing the Scales.
Janice Sim’s angel spreads a bit of heaven on earth, until hell decides it wants her for its own in Avenging Angel.
Don’t expect the same ol’ boring dishes or any reheated leftovers. Dig in to this quintet of hot and spicy stories and try something new, something fresh and something different.
But I warn you, we might get a little dirty up in here. It’ll be worth it.
Enjoy,
Monica Jackson
PAYBACK IS A BITCH
by L. A. Banks
Dedicated to the readers who make it possible
and the authors who took the time and effort
to contribute their muses.
Chapter One
* * *
Cherry Hill, New Jersey
“Oh, Douglass…get it, baby.”
“You know I’ma wear it out—just open your legs a little wider.”
“Save some for me, too, lover.”
“I’ve got enough for both of y’all.”
The long, toffee-hued, brunette beauty leaned back on her elbows with her lids half-closed as he carefully sprinkled another line of cocaine on her inner thigh and then dragged his nose the length of it to her crotch, licking up any tiny particles he’d missed. He powdered her bud as she opened her legs wider for him, and then numbed his tongue and lips suckling it off. Her deep moan brought the blonde away from his shaft, the loss of warm, wet mouth-contact made him thrust against air while he watched her dust the brunette’s dark nipples with the expensive white powder. Visual ecstasy claimed him as her small pink tongue laved at the sugared teats, causing the woman beneath him to writhe and buck as his tongue plunged into her swollen pussy.
Blonde hair mingled with brunette hair as the blonde slid her body above her prone friend’s. An agonized expression captured her face as she offered her tight pink nipples to her girlfriend, her finger working against her slippery slit.
“Just suck them,” she murmured to the woman beneath her. “This shit has me so horny, I can’t stand it.”
He watched the brunette struggle to lift her shoulders so she could lap at the double-D sized silicon breasts swaying in her face. The blonde arched and moaned as her friend flicked the pad of her thumb against one nipple and drew the other into her mouth, then finally pushed both creamy breasts together so that she could suckle the sensitive tips at the same time. The brunette’s hips bucked against the attention his tongue was giving her clit.
Pussy and ass were in his face, his hand furiously stroking against the cock-ache both women produced. Need finally forced him to his knees to plunge into pink, hairless blonde pussy from behind for a few strokes, and then hot, bushy, toffee-hued pussy in the next. Withdrawal and reentry was driving him crazy. The coke had thoroughly buzzed him, keeping his dick so hard that tears were in his eyes. It didn’t get any better than this…the bitches were moaning, begging for him not to pull it out, snorting hits while humping each other beneath him while he fucked them both. Damn—this was living!
But he was so close to the edge, he couldn’t pull out again. He’d slipped out of the brunette’s tight snatch, the need to cum making his balls contract, and the blonde had dropped down low to grind her bud against her friend’s. Blonde ass was the target, whatever orifice was open would do. Female tongues were in a wicked dance, fingers working in and out of each others drenched vessels in jerky near-orgasm motions. The blonde’s legs were wide open, her rectum supple, ready, tight. The thrust made him holler; the explosion in his groin put lights behind his closed lids. His deep guttural wail fused with the cries from the two women beneath him. He pulled out hard, splattering the blonde’s ass with seed, and then collapsed.
Who needed an uptight wife when the perks of being a sports management mogul offered all of this? He loved cheerleader wannabes!
Mainline, Philadelphia—Radnor…
Sidney Coleburn-West remained as still as stone within the darkened living room of her expansive Radnor home. An eerie half moon bathed the large bay windows of the Tudor in a wash of luminescent blue-white hue. The exterior flood-lights had been turned off per her contact’s instructions. No porch light. The house sat idle, dark and vulnerable—like her. Now she’d wished she’d agreed to meet somewhere other than her home.
She could hear the large, antique grandfather clock in the open, cathedral foyer ticking its warning with a solemn echo off the polished hardwood floors. The Oriental rugs didn’t mask or absorb that ominous sound. Her eyes remained fastened to the window. Her best friend Leonora was a cop, and she knew some people who knew some people in the hardball business. Leonora wouldn’t have steered her wrong, and she wouldn’t have gone here unless it was absolutely necessary. Douglass West was out of control. Her husband had to get out of her life. That was non-negotiable.
Sometimes justice wasn’t just, and most times, the wheels of justice ground too slowly and very unpredictably. Evidence was often hard to come by. Getting it to be admissible was a whole other can of worms. Her husband had high-powered, sports legal team connections, people who’d do a lot of his work pro-bono. She would have to pay every step of the way, even though she was an attorney. Her contacts weren’t as high-profile as
his. Therefore, since the high road wasn’t an option, she would fight for her dignity by way of the low road this time. Yeah…by any means necessary.
Sidney drew the hurt around her like a blanket and glimpsed the thick envelope on the Queen Anne oval coffee table. The image became blurry from tears she refused to allow to fall. Thirty-nine and soon to be single again. No children. Her time was running out, ticking away like the large grandfather clock down the hall. Fear of that reality had made her ignore the signs and overlook certain truths until they were so bold and so ugly that there was no way to turn a blind eye.
She’d been used to building up her husband’s sports management career…her hard-earned assets siphoned into his enterprises, her name used to block his child support payments and hide his debt, she’d later learned. Then an LLC reversed her fortune again, and silent partnerships and hidden trusts ripped the foundation right out from under her.
Nothing in her life had prepared her for her lover, her husband, her best friend, to become a financial predator. Book learning didn’t equal intrinsic knowledge of betrayal. That was something hard-learned by experience, and her loving family didn’t even have that in their experience base to draw from…not like this, not this insidious. It was her good name and contacts that had been absorbed, picked over and then discarded, her hopes of a real family shattered along with her heart.
Sidney shuddered and blinked back the tears. How could he have been selfish enough to go away on what was supposed to be a business trip and get a vasectomy, just to keep from having a family with her? So cruel that he’d smiled at her sobs and told her he already had three children from a previous marriage and he’d decided that was enough for him—but he’d never given her real access to even those children, citing they were his. She was an outsider.
But what about her need to nurture, to feel life grow within her, or to have a tiny new life to love? How did the man sleep at night? she wondered. No soul. Now the bastard was having an affair? Plus, he had laughed in her face and told her he’d walk with half of all she’d worked hard to acquire, when he’d brought nothing, not even real sweat equity to the table…would ransack her life for her future earnings, too, as though he’d built her fast-track legal career? Oh, hell no. This was war.
A shadow moved across the window and Sidney tensed and stood. She picked up the envelope and headed toward the grand foyer, her destination the front door. But a deep, baritone male voice spoke from the darkened hallway within the house, paralyzing her.
“Put it down on the table and step back from it.”
A thin sheen of perspiration instantly covered her body. Her heart beat in mild arrhythmia as fear nearly strangled her. How did the shadow get into the house and into the foyer that fast? Leonora said the guy was good, but damn…
Sidney dropped the envelope on the crescent-shaped table in the hallway and quickly backed away. How had he gotten into the house? The question gnawed at her as her eyes strained to see into the darkened corner to no avail. She didn’t even hear a car pull up in the driveway or on the street. After tonight, she’d call the alarm company and have motion detectors installed throughout the second floor, too!
He sniffed the air, her fear was doing irrational things to his brain. No fraud detected, this lady was the real deal. He watched her fists balled at her sides and the way her soft ivory Mohair sweater clung to her curves. Camel-hued slacks hid her long, graceful legs. Even in the darkness he could see her regal bone structure beneath satiny, cinnamon skin, thick tresses washed her shoulders in auburn…her pretty brown eyes held a strange combination of fear, indignation, hurt, and the most profound rage he’d seen in a very long time. She smelled good enough to eat. Later, he told himself. Yeah. This one was good, and he’d take the job.
He stepped out of the shadows and picked up the envelope, weighing it in his hand. He didn’t need to open it to tell that all his cash was there.
She tried not to gasp when she saw a hulking six foot six frame exit the hallway darkness and reach for the envelope. The size of his hand alone made her stare. His skin was the color of midnight—nearly blue-black, just like the leather jacket and pants he wore. A pair of haunting, dark eyes with a strange reflective quality to them roved over her body, making her fight not to shudder. It was impossible to tell whether or not the sensation was fear, bizarre desire, or both. It had been a very long time since she’d been this close to real testosterone, and had never truly been in the company of what Leonora called, “an enforcer.”
For the briefest moment she wondered how he’d moved through her house with such silent stealth at his size. It didn’t matter how, though—as long as he was on her side. If Leonora hadn’t sent him, she would have hit a security system panic button in the house and tried to dash behind a locked door to call 911.
“It’s all there,” she finally said in a quiet tone, her voice coming out in a dry, husky rasp. “Twenty thousand.”
A low chuckle was his initial response. “Cool. You want me to sic ’em…or just bring you evidence that might make him back down from a court battle?”
She simply stared at the source of the baritone voice. “You do more than investigations?”
“Not all the time,” he said calmly, folding away the envelope into his jacket breast pocket. He looked her up and down with a level of appreciation that began to melt her bones. “Let’s say that sometimes on a job, a man can get inspired. After seeing you, and hearing about what he did to you—I’m inspired.”
For a moment they both stared at each other.
“Thanks,” she murmured, and finally looked away. “I haven’t inspired anybody in a long time. But, I can’t have blood on my hands.”
He nodded and let out a slow, weary breath. “I hear you, was gonna tell you to let it be on my hands. However I take it you’re a lady through and through. But when I see shit like this…it pisses me off.”
She smiled sadly and captured his intense gaze, her eyes now never leaving his. “Yeah, well…welcome to the club and thanks for the offer, anyway. I don’t want that on my conscience, though.”
“You still love him?”
She hesitated. “No. I feel robbed. Like I’m in mourning. He’s already dead to me, really.” She tried to laugh it off, but the sound that came from her was a shallow, brittle tone. “You’re already looking at a widow. The love and what used to be my husband died early on in this travesty of a marriage. There have been so many indignities and so many horrible things said…” She turned away and hugged herself as her voice fractured. “No. I’m not still in love. What’s left here is in name only.”
“Good,” he said quietly through his teeth. “Then anything that happens will be on my conscience, not yours.”
She turned around quickly, her gaze very steady now. “Please. I just want the man investigated, to be able to take some video or get photos—something that will make him just back off, go away, and give me a clean, no-fault divorce. I want my life back, that’s all. I figure God will get him back, I don’t have to do it. I just don’t want to be used any more.”
“Yeah, God will definitely get him back…maybe by sending an angel of death for using a sweet sister like you. Or maybe The Almighty will release a demon that’s bigger than him, something with a bad attitude that will eat his ass alive? Maybe something wild and carnivorous like me, one night? The possibilities are endless, when you go supernatural.”
The man in the shadows chuckled low in his throat. It was a deep, sensual release of sound that partially frightened her but also drew her in.
“As much as he probably deserves it, still…I can’t…”
“Yeah, I know. I was just playing with the concept on my palate…seeing as how Leonora told me what an asshole he really is.”
She watched the tall, ominous male begrudgingly nod, and only then did she relax. If only there really was such a thing as supernatural champions. Sidney sighed. She had to stop tripping. If there were, she’d be out of a job and there’d be no
legal profession or need for courts. Besides, for all of Leonora’s superstitions and psychic counselors—like Madame Irvinia up in Reading, PA, and whatnot, she knew her police officer best girlfriend would not have sent a hit man to her Radnor home. This guy quietly worked with the cops on out-of-jurisdiction cases, so a lot of the fear evaporated just knowing that. It made perfect sense that he had to test her to be sure she wasn’t down to try anything shady. That’s right. He was just testing her character.
“I don’t want him hurt,” Sidney said, lifting her chin, “just…neutralized by truthful information. Please. That’s all. I’m an attorney and can’t do anything illegal.”
“As the lady wishes. Leonora’s good people, said you’d only want it this way—but I had to check for myself, first. The name is Brick,” he said, stepping out of the shadows so she could finally see his face. “I can track anything, and I do a lot of off-the-books work for the cops.” He glanced around. “You got a shirt or something that he recently wore? An article of clothing, whatever?”
Although she’d passed his test, her vocal cords were temporarily frozen. Leonora hadn’t explained what she’d encounter. Sidney could only nod in reply to Brick’s request. Her gaze was riveted to a ruggedly handsome face, the smoothness of ebony skin with a gash in one thick eyebrow from some long-ago fight, no doubt…the way an expertly barbered beard created a velvet matt finish against his strong jaw…then sheer size overwhelmed her—massive shoulders, a stone-cut chest straining against a black cotton t-shirt, a torso that undoubtedly gave him his name. Brick. Yeah…no lie. Eight cinderblocks in a neat builder’s stack of abdomen. She’d dared not lower her gaze beyond that, but reflex won out and made her jaw go slack. Where was this champion when her husband was talking shit and needed his punk ass kicked?