Juma

by Madhuri Pavamani

  “I love you, too.” I met her stare, cupped her perfect face in my hands, and studied her as if seeing her for the first time with fresh eyes, stunned by her sex and beauty. “All of you, even the dark, nasty, fucked-up shit.”

  She wrapped her fingers around my wrists as a smile built of love and relief and wonder spread across her face, slow and sultry, intoxicating in its lazy trajectory, making me hard all over again. She glanced down and licked her lips, her smile reaching her eyes as my dick jumped and even though my body wanted a repeat of the last ten minutes, my mind wanted something slow and serene and reverent.

  I was going to fuck Juma.

  Again.

  But I was also going to talk to her and kiss her and taste her. And I was going to start right then.

  “Why’d you do it?” I asked as I dipped down and bit her full lower lip and listened to her sigh. “Why’d you kill them?”

  She moved to wrap her fingers around my dick, but I pushed her away as I continued pressing small kisses into all her spots, those places on her body so goddamned sensitive, I knew that each time I touched them, her pussy throbbed. “Come on, Juma, talk to me.”

  I sucked her nipples, first one then the other, as I eased her back onto the bed, then stepped away and started working on her boots. She watched me through half-lidded eyes, so sexy and goddamned beautiful and every ounce of blood in my body pounded through my dick, a beat written for her by her on her. Once I had her boots off, I went back to working on her pants. “Scoot your ass up for a second,” and she lifted herself a little so I could pull her pants all the way off and her pussy was in my face and I didn’t mean to tease her like that, I just couldn’t resist.

  I could smell her desire and see her pussy lips outlined against her panties, her clit begging to be sucked, and I licked her over that silk, long and slow and wet. Juma opened her legs wider and moaned deep and I knew I needed to move away from her and the sweetness of her cunt, but first I needed one more lick.

  “Dutch,” she begged, “don’t stop.”

  “I won’t,” I breathed into the silk and she lifted her hips and my lips pressed hers through that thin slip of material, “so long as you talk.” Then I pushed her panties to the side and kissed her clit, soft and barely there, just like she liked, so she knew I was serious about upholding my end of the bargain. “I promise.”

  Juma ran her fingers through my hair and groaned and lifted herself higher, trying to find my mouth again, desperate for contact.

  “I killed them,” she began and I tried to convince her to keep talking with another kiss, this one softer but with some tongue and holy fuck, she tasted like heaven. “Oh god, Dutch. Oh god.”

  “I know, baby,” I whispered against her wet, swollen lips and licked her from bottom to top as I slipped her panties down her legs and out of my way.

  “Because that was the plan,” she gasped as I circled her clit and her hips moved to the rhythm I created, “we made together,” her fingers tangled in my hair and she moaned low and deep and long, “to kill the bastards.” I spread her legs wider and fucked her with my tongue. “Oh god, Dutch. Fuck. Every last one of them. Dead. Please, don’t stop.”

  Juma rocked her hips as I moved up her pussy, taking my time with her, reveling in her taste, her smell, her everything. Every lick kiss suck was soft and almost not there because I never wanted this to end, I wanted to stay buried in her pussy forever, my lips pressed to hers, my tongue working her into a slow-motion frenzy.

  “Please, Dutch,” she begged and placed her hands on either side of my head, guiding me to her sweet spot as I slipped my fingers inside her pussy and began fucking her with my hand while I sucked her rock-hard clit and I knew she was going to come, I wanted her to come I could taste her desire so I fucked her deeper and sucked her harder and I felt her body tense. “Oh god, I’m going to come,” and I moaned because she was goddamned perfection and sex and I loved her so much and wanted nothing more than to make her feel good.

  “Dutch!”

  Juma’s body released every ounce of tension built up on account of my lips and tongue and mouth. She cried out and bucked against my face as I kept sucking and licking and kissing her cunt until she whisper-begged me to stop and rolled onto her side, her eyes closed, a smile curving her gorgeous lips. I pulled her onto my chest, wrapped her in my arms, and held her close, once again flooded with a sense of awe at being in each other’s presence after so long.

  “I forgot,” she whispered several minutes later, “the magic of your mouth.” And I could feel her smiling against my chest and god, I fucking loved her. I didn’t care who knew or what anyone thought, she was my goddamned everything.

  “How could you?” I feigned dismay as I reached for a smoke and a light, mastering the two with one hand while the other traced circles on her back, listening to her purr into my skin, everything about her feline and sexy.

  “Blame it on all the Keepers I’ve been killing,” she deadpanned, then pushed up from my chest and stole my smoke.

  “When did you start smoking?”

  She blew a perfect ring into the air and smiled. “And here I thought you’d be worried about me murdering your people.”

  I took back my smoke and laughed.

  “My people?”

  “Yes, sexy”—she kissed me, licked me really—“you’re married to one of them, so yeah, your people.”

  “Ahhh, you did hear that part.” I smoked and waited, wondering what I would have to do to crawl out of another Khan-created black hole.

  “I did, and pity that girl, having all this brown sexy forced on her.” Juma ran her fingers down my chest and over my dick and holy fucking shit she needed to stop. “You like that, huh?”

  “Being married?” I asked knowing it was not at all what she meant.

  Juma gave me a playful tug and warned, “Watch yourself, Mr. Mathew.”

  “Or what, Ms. Landry?”

  “Or I might just kill you, too.”

  For two beats, her words sat in the ether between us, pulsating with their challenge, their dare, their Fuck you, Dutch, you asshole who left me to handle this shit. I regarded her in the fraught silence, the glow from the low lamps highlighting her impossible cheekbones and the murderous mischief dancing in her eyes, testing me to question her actions, wonder at her darkness. I traced a finger along her jaw as I considered my next words.

  “Which I would never do.” She beat me to the punch, breaking our silence and speaking first. “But I fully intend to kill the rest of those Gate motherfuckers. Just like we planned.”

  “Just like we planned,” I repeated and smoked and wondered at her and her magic. Which I knew she considered darkness, something akin to the black filling my soul, darkening my everything, but she was wrong. Her death and fury was all magic because it was born of love, her love for me and her refusal to let anyone cross me again.

  And not that I needed her protection, but fuck if it didn’t feel good. Or made me kind of proud—in a sick and twisted way, but proud nonetheless—because the fact remained, Juma was a goddamned badass. And she was my badass. And I fucking loved her.

  “You can’t kill my friends.”

  “I would never kill your friends,” Juma insisted as she pressed a kiss to my chest.

  “You don’t even know who my friends are,” I replied and smoked and ran my fingers over her bare back.

  “Avery Lu, highly respected Keeper but stalled career because of his affection for one Dutch Mathew, scion of the Mathew clan; Kash Kalish, also a Keeper but much better at being Avery’s lover and right-hand man; Frist, also known as one Miss Penelope Camilla Astrid Carnegie. I believe you refer to her as your mad scientist, mostly because that’s exactly what she is, but I saw her, Dutch, and if I know you like I think I do, then I know you’ve also fucked her and trust when I say, I can’t blame you because I want to fuck her too. And finally, the Dosha, that group of gatekeepers for The Gate, guarding your portals around the world, making sure the right
folks come through those mysterious doors into and out of this world, those men and women who love you something mad.”

  She rested on my chest, smiled, and placed my smoke between her lips, looking smug and sexy and it took everything in me not to roll her on her back and fuck her stupid right there and then.

  Instead.

  “Someone’s been doing their research.”

  “You think I didn’t realize those lucky enough to be close to you are few and far between? So it was vital for me to find them, or at least know who they are, so I knew that when the dust cleared and the blood no longer flowed, they would step from the ashes of my destruction and keep going about their business.”

  “Jesus, Juma”—I rolled her onto her back and kissed her long and slow and deep—“you even make murder sound like goddamned poetry.”

  22: JUMA

  “Dutch!”

  I jumped at the pounding on the door, my hearing still quite sensitive from crossing back to Dutch and life and all things fucked up, and covered my eyes from the glare of sunlight proudly staking its claim on the morning.

  I stretched long and slow and all of me felt like a cat enjoying a nap in a warm windowsill. Even with my eyes closed, I could feel his gaze all over me and I smiled. Waking up next to Dutch Mathew was nothing short of divine.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” I replied and kissed him in an effort to divert his attention from poking around in my brain and discovering how mad about him I was at that very second and all of the other seconds of all of my existences.

  “Dutch! You awake?” The voice on the other side of the door sounded vaguely familiar, although my reawakening senses could not yet place it.

  “Hold that thought.” Dutch returned my kiss before he rolled off the bed and opened the door so I could catch sight of a ruggedly handsome, tan face with mischievous eyes and perfect teeth. His dark hair was cropped short and his pants were tailored to perfection. Shorter than Dutch, he exuded just as much power and authority without the darkness, lacking the anger.

  Avery Lu.

  The guy from the bar all those nights ago. The gay man in the hush-hush relationship, desperately in love, incapable of admitting such. The Keeper of Dutch’s secrets.

  He poked his head in the room, caught my eye, and winked.

  “She lives,” he said to Dutch, never taking his eyes off me, “which is great because we need you downstairs. You both need to eat and we all need to talk.”

  “We’ll be down in a bit,” Dutch began.

  “You’ll be down now,” Avery interrupted him, the tone of his voice suggesting it was pointless to argue. “She’s awake, you’ve fucked, now let’s talk. Downstairs. Three minutes.”

  He left before Dutch could get in another word about how or why we didn’t need to be downstairs any time soon. I rolled to the side of the bed, placed my feet on the floor, and stretched, nice and long, and after dying and reviving, goddamned good.

  “You are so sexy.” Dutch watched me from the doorway, a gleam in his eye that suggested long hours of touching and sucking and fucking, but I knew better. He might want to do all kinds of wicked shit to my body, more of what we’d just done minutes earlier, but he’d listen to Avery and get us downstairs, maybe not in three minutes, but soon.

  “Why thank you, Mr. Mathew.” I smiled as Dutch stepped into my space, wrapped his hands around my waist, and pulled me close, running his warm breath along the sweet spots of my throat.

  “I believe our presence has been demanded elsewhere,” I whispered as Dutch teased my nipples, and even though I wanted to close my eyes and get lost in his touch, I also wanted to stay locked on him and see myself through his dark and dangerous vision. He dipped down and licked me, a smile curving his lips as our eyes never left each other and I couldn’t help but smile myself—he was positively wicked and wonderful.

  “You are so bad.” I ran my fingers through his hair as he bit my nipple and I jumped in pain while my pussy flooded and just like that he had me in a state, wanting nothing more than to be fucked again owned by his dick shattered by his everything. He dipped his fingers between my legs and smiled.

  “And you are so wet.”

  I stared at him for a second, his fingers glistening with my desire, before I pulled him close, took his fingers in my mouth, and sucked off every last trace of me on him because for real, we needed to be on equal ground if we were ever going to leave this room.

  “Jesus fuck, Juma,” he hissed as I slipped from his embrace with a laugh, “you can’t do that and walk away.”

  “I can and I am, Dutch.” I raised a brow in his direction as I fished around in the closet for something to wear, my own shirt too bloody to put on.

  “What do you do? Fill all of your friends’ homes with clothes just for me?” I asked as I admired the dresses and skirts that seemed to await my selection.

  “Pretty much,” he replied as if it were no big thing. “Here.”

  His heat surrounded me as he offered a shirt made of something gauzy and beautiful and it felt so good against my skin and I knew we needed to be downstairs—not two seconds earlier I’d told him as much—but something about the feel of him behind me made everything fade to the background like white noise. All that mattered was us in that moment, trapped in each other’s wonder and sex and essence. I leaned into his body and his breath caught as I pressed my ass into his dick and he dropped my shirt to wrap his hands around my waist and pull me closer. I moved against him and felt him get hard as my hand snaked around his neck, pulling him to me while my other hand worked his jeans.

  I didn’t have to say anything, he knew exactly what to do, and without a word spoken, just his lips at my ear, his breath on my throat, Dutch fucked me like I wanted, hard and fast, his beautiful dick filling me, hitting me from behind while his fingers worked my clit. It wasn’t pretty or loving, it was desperate and lust-filled because we both needed to be wrapped around each other and inside each other as much as possible because we had been anything but for too long. And I didn’t know how long we could function like this attached at the dick and pussy as if we were created only for fucking and maybe a part of me cautioned against such careless abandon and uncontrolled desire but another part of me the darker half the half that threw caution to the wind the second Dutch told me not to touch him, that part didn’t give a fuck because I knew what life was like without him so when I was with him I was going to do whatever I wanted whenever I wanted.

  “Oh fuck,” he hissed in my ear as he shot his load deep inside my pussy, filling me with his warmth as I came all over his dick, my body in sync with his, the two of us wrapped in senseless oblivion for a few long moments as our bodies relaxed and our breathing slowed. “Juma,” Dutch whispered into my skin as he kissed me and we pulled apart with the most deliberate movement as if our brains knew what needed to happen but our bodies did not want to heed the message.

  “Pass me my shirt, Dutch,” I replied instead of responding to the implications of my name on his lips, “they’re waiting for us.”

  He smirked and my pulse jumped because as long as I lived as many lives I survived and however many remained, there was nothing sexier than that man and his smile.

  “What?” he asked as he handed me the shirt and watched my fingers work the buttons. “It’s just funny because when you decide we’re going to fuck, it’s okay to be late . . .”

  “I know you’re not complaining.” I laughed before glancing at the bed and grimacing.

  Dutch followed my stare, catching a glimpse of the offensive item awaiting me on the edge of the bed, brand new, and after that red dress he bought me, probably the perfect fit.

  “Don’t like jeans, huh?” he asked as he tossed them my way, along with a washcloth to clean up a bit, amused by my disgust.

  I wiped up and then stepped into them, pulling them over my hips, my skin protesting the entire time. “I abhor jeans.”He watched me as I zipped and snapped myself into place, ran my f
ingers through my hair, and reached for the chapstick on the nightstand.

  “They sure as fuck don’t hate you.”

  I laughed as I stepped into the hallway and waited for him. For two beats Dutch eyed me like he might press me into the wall and fuck me again right there, then reconsidered, took my hand and led the way downstairs.

  He was calm and self-possessed and if I dared to say, almost happy.

  For about ten seconds.

  “What’s she doing here?” Dutch asked as we walked into a kitchen full of people I had never formally met, but I could probably guess each and every one of their names. What had seconds earlier been all banter and sexiness was now coiled ready-to-strike rage. I’d seen it before, even had it directed at me, and it never ceased to fascinate.

  He was an amalgam of pent-up emotions, curious dichotomies, endless contradictions, and there were few things I enjoyed more than discovering each and every one of them.

  The she of Dutch’s ire was tall, willowy, and stunning, with olive skin and midnight eyes so fierce and full of venom I immediately found myself thinking: If looks could kill. I stepped around Dutch, leaned against the counter a little closer to her, immediately felt her chill and knew her to be a Keeper. Based on Dutch’s reaction to her presence, I assumed she was the one and only Sevyn Suleiman.

  Also known as Dutch Mathew’s wife.

  “Grow up, Dutch.” Avery Lu stepped toward me, hand outstretched but eyes glued to Dutch for several long seconds before he turned back my way and smiled. “Avery Lu and it’s quite the pleasure to finally meet the cause of much of this man’s goddamned insanity.”

  “Wow.” I laughed and grasped his hand, his grip firm and warm and inviting, despite the chill I felt in his presence. His hands were surprisingly soft, as if he’d never done a day of work in his life, never gripped a weapon, never killed a soul. “Thank you, I think, but please tell me he was like this before I came along.”