Kiss the Ring

by Meesha Mink

11

  Naeema’s eyes widened a little bit in surprise when she first stepped inside Bas’s house. She hadn’t really paid much thought to where he lived, but the small two-bedroom brick structure with bright yellow shutters didn’t seem to fit him . . . especially after hearing more about his high-saddity upbringing in a house that looked like a mansion to her. “Where’s your situation?” she asked as she took in the contrast between the outdated house more suited to an old woman and the leather furnishings and high-end electronics more suited to him.

  “Out of town.”

  She stepped in front of a large framed photo of Bas and a slender dark-skinned woman. If you didn’t know any better, they looked like Mr. and Mrs. Suburban Black America. Only thing missing was the two kids and a fucking dog. Bunch of bullshit.

  “I wouldn’t want no other bitch in my spot while I’m gone,” Naeema said, sitting down on the rich-looking brown leather sofa with metal studs lining the edge.

  “I wouldn’t worry about the next bitch,” he said. “Plus this ain’t her spot. It’s mine. This the house I grew up in before we moved to the other one.”

  Here we go with his past again. Naeema bit her lip to keep from expressing how little she gave a fuck.

  “My dad killed himself.”

  She was studying her nails but she looked up at him as he dropped that info like it was nothing serious. “Damn. For real?” she said, not sure what to say.

  Bas walked into the kitchen and came back with two bottles of Heineken beers. He handed her one. “Getting cheated on, put out the house you love and bust your ass to pay for, not able to see your son and then sued for major alimony after getting lied on was too fucked up for him to deal with, I guess.”

  Naeema didn’t miss how he told the story of his parents without directly mentioning his mother. She looked at him over the bottle as she took a sip. This shit was too weird for words.

  “That’s when I learned to never trust a bitch.”

  “You can trust me,” she lied.

  Bas stepped over her legs to sit down by her on the couch. “For your sake I hope so,” he said, glancing over at her as he picked up the remote and turned on the television.

  Naeema set her pocketbook beside her and felt a little safer with the heavy weight of the gun leaning against her thigh.

  Bzzzz . . .

  He glanced at the front of his cell phone before swiping his thumb across the touch screen. “Yo, whaddup,” he said, rising to his feet and stepping past Naeema again to walk out of the living room.

  First Brandon and now his mother? What was he avoiding by not talking about them?

  “Queen, I gotta make a quick run,” he said, already striding his tall figure to the door.

  “Okay,” she said.

  The door slammed before she could fully get it out.

  Naeema hopped to her feet and walked over to one of the windows flanking the door to watch as the orange soul car pulled down his drive and turned to speed down the street.

  She started searching every damn thing, not even sure what she was looking for but not wanting to miss any chances while being in Bas’s crib alone. The hallway closet. Every kitchen and drawer in the Suzie Homemaker kitchen. The living room.

  She moved quickly but didn’t find much to speak of. The only thing she knew for sure was that a woman definitely lived there with him, they kept a clean house, and the house was old but he—no, they—liked nice shit.

  There were three bedrooms and two were filled with boxes of all kinds of electronics. Bank robberies. Car thefts. Now stolen goods. This motherfucker dibble and dabble in all kind of shit.

  The last bedroom was the master and she left the door open as she moved past the king-size bed that dominated the room to pull open the bedside dresser drawer. She frowned at the pink rabbit vibrator and lubricant before slamming that shut and coming around the bed to pull open the top drawer of the other.

  WHAM.

  Oh shit.

  Naeema eased the drawer shut at the sound of the front door slamming closed. She looked around like her ass could hide somewhere or leave the room quick enough not to get caught. Think, Naeema, think.

  And her pocketbook was still in the living room.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  She quickly pulled off her clothes and lay across the bed in nothing but her lace bra and thong just as his figure filled the doorway.

  His eyes searched the room before they rested on her curvy frame half-naked on the bed he shared with another woman.

  “Surprise,” she said, keeping her voice light and flirty. Just beyond him she could see her pocketbook sitting on the sofa. That motherfucker was of no use to her from there. “You said not to care about the next bitch . . . but I can get up.”

  “Nah, fuck that,” he said, dropping something from his hand onto the bed.

  She looked. It was a bag of powder. At least a half ounce. Definitely the kind of weight to be flipped by a small-time dope boy and not snorted. Fuck around and have a coronary.

  Powder changed Bas and she did not want him snorting that shit with her so far from home and her piece.

  She got up on her knees and pressed her hands against the deep curve above her hips. “You can handle all this?” she asked, feeling nervous about the situation she was in.

  This man was not to be trusted and she already knew he didn’t trust her.

  Bas locked his intense eyes on hers as he unzipped his jeans and freed his dick from his boxers and zippers. It was long, thick, and a few shades darker than his medium-brown complexion. “What you think?”

  “You straight,” she said with a lick of her lips.

  Well damn . . .

  Naeema had seen and done a lot in her younger days. A one-night stand hadn’t been shit for her. And there had been plenty of times the dick was so whack that she faked it or just lay there thinking of other random shit until he was done.

  She was attracted to Bas but her wild days were a long time behind her and she didn’t want to give up the goodies to Bas. No matter how fine and how promising the dick looked.

  And it did look promising.

  He stepped up close to the bed and cupped her breasts in his hands like he was weighing them as he stroked her nipples through the sheer lace. “Touch my dick,” he said, his voice dark and low and even huskier.

  She did, feeling the heat under the smooth skin as she massaged the length of that hard motherfucker from the base covered by thick hairs to the smooth tip. Back and forth.

  Very damn promising.

  Bas arched his narrow hips forward as he eased her bra strap off her shoulders. “I didn’t bring you here for this, you know,” he said as he pushed her down onto the bed to lie beside her.

  Naeema felt a thrill at his touch but she made her mind go blank. She knew how to do it well. Having a lot of sex didn’t mean it was always a lot of good sex. She gripped the back of his head and arched her back as he sucked her nipple through the see-through material but her eyes were open and staring at a long, deep crack in the ceiling.

  Bas lightly bit the sheer material between his teeth and worked it down to expose her full breast. She felt his breath blow against it just before he circled her areola around the dark brown edge and up until the tip of his tongue dragged against her nipple.

  Naeema’s eye shifted to the open closet door even as she felt a slight tremble of pleasure course over her body. I should have checked this . . . this . . . this . . .

  She gasped and closed her eyes as he shifted to kiss the warm crease under her breast. Now that’s some new shit. Damn.

  Naeema’s fingertips lightly dug into his lower back as he sucked the flesh just above the crease. He pulled her thong to the side and stroked her pussy from the moist opening and up to her pounding clit. Her eyes opened in surprise at the feel of his touch. She tried like hell to focus on something—any motherfucking thing—in the room and not the feel of Bas’s tongue, lips, and fingers on her body. Shit.

  She locked h
er eyes back on the crack in the ceiling but when he shifted his body to pull the cup of the bra down to free her other breast and gather them together to lick at both her nipples at the same damn time, her eyes crossed until everything was a blur.

  It was nothing like the fiery chemistry she had with Tank, but there wasn’t shit lacking in Bas’s skill to get a pussy primed for fucking.

  “You like that?” he whispered against her wet nipples.

  “Do it again,” she said, pulling the edge of his shirt from his jeans to stroke the smooth flesh of his back. Soon she felt tiny bumps under her fingertips as he reacted to her touch.

  Bas pressed his dick against her hip as he moved his tongue back and forth from one aching nipple to the other before sucking one deeply into his mouth.

  “Ah,” she cried out, cupping the back of his head as she trembled.

  Bas moved from licking the crease under her breast to kissing a trail up to the taut nipple to suck it deeply into his mouth before he did the rotation all over again.

  Naeema reached for his dick, rubbing her thumb across the smooth tip as she lightly squeezed until he dripped. He rolled away from her and stood at the foot of the bed to snatch his shirt over his head and lower his denims and boxers down to his ankles. She closed her eyes and reached her arms above her head to grip the covers on the bed as she felt his hands on her thighs as he jerked her body to the edge.

  That first lick of his tongue against her pussy made her thick thighs come up to cup his ears as she circled her hips up against his mouth.

  This motherfucker can eat some pussy so good.

  He put some serious attention on her clit until she was so horny that she cupped her own breasts and teased her nipples as she rocked her hips back and forth, bringing her clit against his tongue. “Yesss,” she moaned. “Shit. Eat that pussy up. Eat it.”

  Bas used his finger to open her lips wider and expose all of her swollen clit for him to suck deeply into his mouth. “I’m cumming,” she cried out, a fine sheen of sweat covering her body as she opened her eyes wide like she was truly free-falling.

  He did not let up.

  Naeema’s upper body jerked up like she was doing situps as she fought to push against his head to free his mouth from her pussy as she came.

  He roughly brushed her hands away and kept on sucking and wildly licking and pushing her straight over the edge until her throat was dry from crying out so much.

  Finally, Bas moved away from her quivering body.

  She opened her eyes just enough to see him roll a condom onto his dick before he grabbed her legs and pulled them apart wide as he pressed one knee onto the foot of the bed and guided his dick inside her, gripping one of her ass cheeks. She was wet and he slid inside her with one hard thrust of hips.

  He looked down at her as he fucked her with long strokes.

  They’ll run right through a pretty girl like you.

  Naeema closed her eyes, not believing it. Not only was she fucking Bas’s crazy ass, but she was enjoying it. Her instinct was to fuck back but she wasn’t trying to make him fall in love with her pussy and Naeema knew she could make a dude’s head be gone. No, she let him do all the work. Her participation back would take shit straight to a whole other level.

  Naeema was the type of chick that said fuck it all when she was throwing her pussy game. Nothing was off-limits.

  Bas pulled her legs together and then pushed them down until her ankles were by her ears and her ass up in the air. His dick was planted in her pussy as he lay atop the back of her legs and kept thrusting like a fucking horse trying to get across the finish line.

  Naeema reached behind him to feel the clench and release of his tight ass as he fucked her good like he had something to prove and nothing to lose, until he moaned and cried out hoarsely with his own nut.

  I fucked Bas . . . and I think I liked it. It will be a damn shame to kill him . . . but I can. Fuck that.

  He rose up and freed his condom-covered dick from her. Turning, he flopped back on the bed next to her. “Damn that killed me,” he said, putting his forearm over his eyes.

  Nah, bitch. This gun gon’ kill you if you killed my son.

  Naeema rolled off the bed and eased her ass out the door to the living room, where she picked up and unzipped her pocketbook. She slipped her hand inside and felt the cold metal as she made sure the safety latch wouldn’t keep her from putting it to work.

  She walked back in the room, pretending to check her cell phone before she set the pocketbook on the bed between them. She lay down on her side and propped her head on her hand. “Can I ask you something?”

  “That’s up to you.”

  “Why don’t you like talkin’ ’bout dead people?” she asked, trying to outthink his ass.

  Bas glanced over at her before closing his eyes again. “Talking about it ain’t gon’ do shit to bring ’em back.”

  “No but it helps you remember the good times.”

  “Maybe there wasn’t none,” he said, his tone short as fuck.

  Say what, motherfucker? Her anger popped off and she slid her hand into the bag and slid her finger against the trigger. “So if I get killed out here you gon’ act like I didn’t just give you all that bomb-ass pussy?”

  “My mama and Brandon ain’t never give me no fucking pussy because I know that’s who you talking about.”

  Wait. Hold up. His mama was killed, or did he just mean dead? Naeema focused her thoughts. “Okay, I kinda took Brandon’s spot. If something happens to me you just gon’ forget about me?” she asked, leaning down to press kisses to his chest to distract him.

  “Nobody could take his spot,” Bas said, sounding angry.

  Naeema’s heart was pounding harder than it did when she came. “What did he do to make you mad?” she asked, her eyes calculating as she pressed kisses to the side of his face and massaged his chest.

  “Die.”

  Naeema froze. “Huh?”

  Bas sat up on the edge of the bed. “I first met him when I caught his little bad ass throwing rocks at the windows at the church. I was going to go out there to fuck his little ass up but he stood up to me like he was really ready to get at it with me, you know.”

  She took her finger off the trigger and moved to kneel behind him, pressing her breasts against his back as she wrapped her arms around his neck. She looked off at some indiscernible spot as she visualized Bas’s words. Her boy was a tough one. Just like me.

  “Just a dumb little kid that didn’t even know—or give a fuck—that he was going head up with a crazy motherfucka like me,” Bas said, shaking his head. “I kinda took him under my wing. Wanted to look out for him. He would come around damn near every day fuckin’ with us. Wanting to get put on to whatever we was getting into.”

  Naeema closed her eyes behind Bas.

  “I felt sorry for the little dude,” Bas said, his shoulders getting stiff. “He told me how he didn’t even know his mother or father. That shit was really fucking with him, you know?”

  She dropped her head as pain radiated across her chest. She had to release long breaths through pursed lips that she kept as quiet as she could, and she fought not to let one damn tear fall. “It hurt you when he got killed,” she said softly in revelation.

  “Still fucks with me sometimes,” he admitted.

  “I bet it does,” she said, thinking of her own grief.

  It was ironic as hell that one of her prime suspects for the murder of her son was claiming to be in just as much pain as she was about the murder. Ain’t that a bitch?

  She felt overwhelmed again, with every shift in her footing. Every end to a road she traveled upon. Every addition or subtraction of a suspect from the list. I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing.

  Bas stood up and walked with his jeans still around his ankles as he left the bedroom. The sex haze was over and she had to stay on point about why she was so deeply entrenched in Bas’s world that she just gave up the goodies to him.

  But he claims
that he almost offered Brandon protection of sorts.

  She got up from the bed and straightened her bra and thong on her curves as her thoughts raced like crazy.

  Would his protection be enough to keep Red from killing him?

  Naeema had just picked up her pocketbook to put on the safety when she heard the toilet flush. Seconds later the sound of the shower spray echoed.

  Was he lying? Because the only thing I know for sure is my son’s dead.

  “Not much fucking protection,” she muttered under her breath as she rolled over on the bed to reach and open the bedside dresser’s top drawer.

  “Yo, Queen!”

  She looked over her shoulder toward the bathroom when he hollered to her. With a roll of her eyes she searched through the drawer. Nothing but condoms, some receipts that she checked for anything relevant, and a picture of a couple with a small boy; the woman’s face was burned out. She recognized the stone house in the background and knew it was Bas and his parents. In the photo his mother was a dark-skinned slender woman with style. Naeema’s brows dipped as she lightly rubbed her thumb across the charred film. Well, damn.

  Naeema turned the photo over. “Malcolm and Olivia Jones. 1995,” she read before she put the photo back.

  That shit was so disrespectful, especially knowing her life had been taken.

  She closed the drawer and pushed her pocketbook on the floor just under the bed.

  “Queen!” Bas called again.

  The sex session had loosened the glue of her lace-front wig and she shifted it a bit on her head as she left the bedroom.

  “Who the fuck are you?”

  Naeema looked up to see the woman from the first picture standing in the open doorway with a Louis Vuitton garment bag over her arm and an evil look in her eye. See, all this bullshit is so motherfucking extra.

  Naeema shrugged and sat her still damp ass on their leather sofa and crossed her leg as she used the pointed tip of one nail to clean under the others.

  WHAM!

  Naeema heard the front door slam closed just as the sound of the shower got louder. Bas’s boo was striding across the room just as he stepped into the living room, butt naked and still sudsy and wet from the shower. His eyes went from Naeema straight chilling on the sofa while his boo was coming straight for him with one hand already raised to slap the fuck out of him.