She closed her eyes and kept up with his rhythm as best she could. She didn’t want to look at him. Looking at him reminded her that she didn’t have forever in his arms.
Determined, he kept up his sensuous assault, slowly driving her insane.
“Look at me, baby.” He whispered the words in her ear, taking a nip as he finished his demand.
She shook her head and kept her eyes closed. She felt her sex tighten and release and could have sworn she saw stars lighting up the darkness. The bright boldness of her orgasm made her eyes spring open as a scream poured from the depths of her stomach to the tip of her tongue and out into the room.
He caught her in his gaze and he stilled. “I want us to explore this relationship without all the drama going on. Once we catch the person who killed the McKnights and tried to kidnap you, I want you to give us a shot. I want you to stay. Tell me that you’ll stay.”
He licked her bottom lip and nibbled. “Stay with me.”
She didn’t trust herself to open her mouth. If she did at that moment, with him looking so genuine and true, she would have told him that she loved him. Her heart was full of love and no longer content to hold it inside. So she slowly nodded.
“Is that a yes? You’ll stay?”
She nodded again and he captured her mouth in a soul-stealing kiss.
Then he moved. Slow at first and then faster. His strokes were mind-blowing, atmosphere-altering.
“I’m glad you’re staying with me, baby. So glad.” He kissed her again.
“Lawrence!” She screamed his name and then bit her tongue not to say more. I love you. I love you so much. She wanted to say the words. She wrapped her hands around his neck and pulled his head down, taking his lips with her own.
He held her tight as they both found their release.
He kissed her on the forehead before getting up to remove the protection. When he came back he wrapped her in his arms and kissed her again. The smile on his face made her heart burst wide open. She bit her lower lip to keep quiet.
“I really am glad you’ve decided to stay in Jersey when this is all done. I think you’ll find several great MSW programs at the universities here. You could probably even go to school full-time, since you won’t have to worry about a roof over your head or anything like that.”
Her eyes widened. “Huh?”
“I got you, baby. I want you to be able to reach your goals while we figure this thing out between us.”
“So you want me to be a kept woman?”
“Not a kept woman. I just want you.” He pulled her close. “And I want you to be happy and have everything you ever hoped for.”
“But I can’t just stay here and let you take care of me, Lawrence.”
“Hey, you promised me just now that you would stay. I’m holding you to it.”
“I may stay in New Jersey. But I don’t want to become a leech. I can find my own place maybe…once things are all settled…and we can…ah…we can still see each other if you want…”
“I want…” He kissed her lips softly.
“I want you.” He let his tongue trail the outline of her mouth.
“I want you here with me.” He deepened his kiss, consuming her breath, taking everything.
He pulled away and gazed at her. “I’m not letting you go. But if you feel like you want to do something nice like make me one of your delicious meals every now and then, I won’t complain.”
She laughed. “I knew it. You don’t want me. You want my cooking!”
He gaze turned serious. “I want the whole package. I want all of you, Minerva Athena Jones.”
You already have all of me… She bit back the words in her mind and snuggled into his embrace. He wanted her, but he hadn’t said that he loved her. She couldn’t put her heart on the line if she didn’t know for sure.
They sat in the safe house, a one-story home on the outskirts of town, with Detective Victor Morales from Los Angeles, members of the DEA and members of the homicide division of the Paterson Police Department.
“I got this package from an anonymous source last week and we’ve been trying to arrest David Sims ever since.” Detective Morales, who actually turned out to be the video model Maritza Morales’s older brother, took a seat in front of her. “Apparently, your brother wanted it to be mailed only if something happened to both you and him. When you disappeared for months, whoever Calvin paid to mail the information must have assumed you met with foul play.”
“There’s enough evidence in here to get David Sims on drugs, racketeering and a host of other crimes.” The redheaded DEA agent, Donald Fitzpatrick, kept his green eyes fixed on her.
“But we want to get him on murder, as well. That’s where your helping us can come in,” Jennings, the guy from Paterson’s homicide division hedged.
“She’s not going to be used as bait!” Lawrence snapped.
“Does she want the man who killed her brother to pay for it? She’s the only person he will come out of hiding for. We already have the person in place to leak the information. In exchange for leniency, your Detective Johnson has agreed to call Sims with the location of the safe house. We’ll all be right here in the garage, listening, videotaping and waiting for him to confess. We’ll get him on everything,” Fitzpatrick stated.
“Johnson was dirty and working with Sims?” Lawrence shook his head.
Minerva could only shake her head. Well, at least she had called that one properly. She had known Detective Johnson was no good.
All the information made her head spin, but she knew what she had to do. For her brother. For her future. “I’ll do it. You can use me as bait.”
“No.” Lawrence shook his head. “We can find another way to catch him.”
“If he killed my brother and the McKnights, I want to be the one to catch him. Have Johnson make the call.”
Chapter 15
Her roiling stomach, and the piercing ache she felt in her gut, stopped her from feeling safe and secure no matter how many cops and DEA agents were in the garage next door listening in. She had been duped for years. And what did that say about her? Was she that bad a judge of character? How could she not have known? Why had she been fooled by his clean-cut business manner?
She had been sitting around the safe house bored and not able to be with Lawrence for a couple of days before David finally took the bait and showed up. She answered the door, sincerely hoping that the cops next door were really ready to step in if things got bad.
“David, what are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same thing. What the hell are you doing here? Did your little cop boyfriend put you up in this little spot? Are you playing live-in whore to the pigs now?”
He had an ugly expression on his face, almost crazed. She had never seen him like this and at that moment she knew David had killed her brother.
“Why are you in New Jersey, David?”
He hauled off and slapped her, catching her before she hit the ground. He dragged her into the living room.
Her head was spinning. The force of his blow made her see stars. She pulled away from him and slapped him back with everything in her.
“What did you hit me for? What is wrong with you?” Tears streamed down her face and they just made her angry. She didn’t want to give him the benefit of her tears.
“Asshole. Don’t you ever put your hands on me again.”
He grabbed her arm and gave her a shake. “And if you don’t stop asking me questions like that, I’ll smack the shit out of you again. I’m asking the questions, here. Your ass is answering them. You got that?” He shook her again before flinging her on the sofa.
She blinked and bit back her retort. The taste of blood in her mouth made her wary of upsetting him further.
“So you were with that cop the entire time I’ve been here looking for you?”
She took a deep breath, but she didn’t respond.
“Answer me, bitch, or you’ll be swallowing your teeth.”
<
br /> “Yes. I was with him. What’s it to you?”
He backhanded her again and her head bounced against the back of the sofa. She reared up and lifted her hand reflexively, coming close to slapping him back. The sinister expression on his face stopped her.
“You’re smarter than this, baby girl. Don’t make me hurt you. Now, ask me another question if you want to.”
Where were the freaking cops? They needed to come in before he really hurt her.
“Did you give it up to him? You let him hit it?”
She rolled her eyes. How did she ever think this crass jerk had any semblance of class? She folded her arms across her chest.
He smirked. “You’d better answer the question.”
“It’s none of your business, David. I don’t have—”
The next blow knocked her off the sofa and onto the floor. She could feel the blood coming from her nose and her mouth. This wasn’t good.
“I’m sorry, David. Please don’t hit me again. What did I…” She remembered his anger at her asking him any kind of question and stopped herself.
“Tell me something. Does your cop know that you carried weight across state lines? Does he know that you brought cocaine from California to Jersey for those idiot cousins of mine?”
“What? I did not! I didn’t bring anything but the jacket you said was a family keepsake.”
“You didn’t know what kind of product was sewn into that jacket. A jacket I got from the Salvation Army, by the way. But, I’m pretty sure your cop won’t care. He’s a narc, right? No, he wouldn’t understand your moving weight like that.”
“But I had no idea. And your cousins weren’t selling drugs anymore. They were trying to do the right thing.”
“Yeah, they flushed my drugs. Can you believe that?” He shrugged. “So I had to kill them. The only problem is now there’s only you left to make up the cash for my product. At first, I was going to let it slide. See, I had other plans for you. Since your brother went to his death trying to keep you from me, because you were supposed to be so pure and perfect. I was all set to court you and keep you in that perfect little bubble world Calvin had you in. But now that you’re around here screwing cops, I think I ought to take my money out of your ass. I didn’t take the time to have those punk little boyfriends of yours jumped so that you could give it up to a cop.
“I waited a long time for this and I’m not waiting anymore. This is what I’ve been waiting to taste since you were fifteen. Who would have thought your simple ass would get busted shoplifting and not go through the initiation? Then Calvin made it so none of the others would approach you about joining. Well, he’s dead and can’t stop me now.”
He snatched her up from the ground and started dragging her back out of the room. She dug in her feet and pulled away, flailing her arms and connecting with any part of his body she could. She kicked and punched until he grabbed her and held her still.
She glared at him with all the hatred in her heart. “Did you kill my brother? Did you kill Calvin?”
“Yes, I killed him. And if you keep asking me questions, I will kill you, too.” He slapped her and sent her spiraling toward the coffee table. The back of her head hit the end of the table before everything faded to black.
From the moment they saw David Sims enter the house, Lawrence wanted to go right in after him. The guy gave him the creeps and he knew without a doubt he would regret not following his gut.
His superiors, the DEA agent and Detective Morales from the LAPD wanted to get at least a confession out of David.
So they sat there in the garage and listened.
“Why are you here, David?”
Lawrence could hear the attitude in Minerva’s voice as she asked the question and he wanted to tell her not to provoke the man. As soon as he thought it he heard the sound of flesh smacking flesh. Steam burst from his head as he made his way to the door, only to be halted by his superior officers from the homicide division.
“He hit her!” Lawrence struggled against the men holding him.
“We need to get the murder confession if we can before we go bursting up in there.” Jennings could talk all that sit-and-wait stuff. The woman he loved hadn’t just been struck.
Lawrence realized he loved her. “Damn it, I didn’t sign on for this and neither did she. I promised her I wasn’t going to let anything happen to her.”
He was breathing so hard he could barely hear himself think. But he did hear the ugly tone in Sims’s voice. And he heard him hit her again and again. It sounded like she was fighting back and he felt an odd mix of pride and fear. He didn’t want her to put herself at risk. But he should have known his little hip-hop feminist warrior goddess of wisdom wouldn’t go down without a fight.
He knew that as soon as his colleagues let him go he would probably lose his badge. Excessive force would seem like a pillow fight compared to what he was going to do when he got his hands on David Sims. He gritted his teeth.
“Y’all can let me go.”
They kept holding him.
“I’m sorry, David. Please don’t hit me again. What did I…”
“Tell me something, does your cop know that you carried weight across state lines? Does he know that you brought cocaine from California to Jersey for those idiot cousin of mine?”
“What? I did not! I didn’t bring anything but the jacket you said was a family heirloom.”
“You didn’t know what kind of product was sewn into the jacket. A jacket I got from the Salvation Army by the way. But, I’m pretty sure your cop won’t care. He’s a narc, right? No, he wouldn’t understand you moving weight like that.”
“But I had no idea. And your cousins weren’t selling drugs anymore. They were trying to do the right thing.”
“Yeah, they flushed my drugs. Can you believe that? So I had to kill them…”
Lawrence wrestled himself from their grip. “I hope y’all have enough, because I’m going in there!”
He burst through the door in the back of the house and made his way as quickly as he could to the front of the house where Minerva and David were. He could tell his colleagues were right behind him. Someone snatched him back before he could get to Sims and they were able to hold him until he saw Minerva on the floor.
“No!” He ran toward her body while they were cuffing Sims. The man’s smirk triggered an avalanche of emotions and Lawrence leaped for him. Again his colleagues held him back.
“Come on, Hightower, you don’t want to give this asshole any excuses to walk,” Detective Morales said, but the man couldn’t look Lawrence in the eye.
He could feel his heart breaking as he knelt down beside Minerva. He felt for her pulse and thanked God when he found one. She was bleeding from her nose and her mouth. There was a gash in the back of her head where she had hit the table. And she was out cold.
He had let her down. He had said he would protect her and he let that animal hurt her. He wanted to cradle her in his arms and never let her go, but he was afraid to move her. His heart felt like it was bursting through his chest and a cold fear washed over him. He couldn’t lose her.
She had to be okay.
He loved her.
Chapter 16
He needed her to wake up.
The guilt started to close in on him as he sat by her bedside in the stark, cold and sterile hospital room. He willed her to open her eyes. She had drifted in and out of consciousness ever since they brought her in. Luckily, she hadn’t needed stitches for the gash in the back of her head. She was a little bruised. But, God willing, she would be okay.
“How is she, son?”
He glanced up and saw his father, James Hightower, in the doorway. He had called the family to let them know what had happened and wasn’t surprised to see his father. In fact, he fully expected the entire Hightower clan to show up once word got around. They had all taken a liking to Minerva at the surprise party and they would want to lend their support.
“She’s been in and out. I h
ope she opens her eyes soon.” He rubbed his hand across his face in frustration. “Everything just went so wrong, Dad. I failed her. I messed up and she got hurt. I’ll never forgive myself for that.”
“Let’s take a walk, son. Let’s go grab a cup of coffee and talk.”
Lawrence looked at Minerva. He didn’t want to leave her, in case she woke up and was more lucid this time.
“I promise I won’t keep you long. Come on. You look like you could use a walk and a strong cup of coffee.”
He got up and followed his father but not before taking another glance at his sleeping beauty.
As they stood in line at the hospital café waiting for their coffee, Lawrence’s mind stayed on Minerva. He played and replayed everything in his mind. Trying to figure out a way that he could have done better by her. Sure they had gotten David Sims, but at what cost? The woman he loved would never be able to trust him to protect her. She’d gotten hurt under his watch.
“It’s not your fault, son.”
The hell it wasn’t! He should have never allowed her to use herself as bait. “I didn’t protect her properly.”
“You did the best you could under the circumstances. You can’t beat yourself up about it and let it stop you from the most important part.” His father’s stern expression gave him pause.
“And what would that be?” he asked as they took their coffee and sat at one of the small green metal café table and chair sets that decorated the place.
“Claiming the woman you love. Letting her know that you intend to do right by her from now on. The way I see it, you are in danger of letting the perfect woman for you get away.”
Stunned, he could only look at his father. He had just admitted to himself that he loved Minerva. He hadn’t even told her yet and he didn’t know if she felt the same way. Hell, he didn’t even know if it would last. This was all virgin territory for him.
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