by Shelly Ellis
Ricky nodded. “But that ain’t the reason why I helped her. She said she thought her sister might have gotten mixed up in some shit . . . that she might be turning tricks, and she thought . . .” He looked around the club at the partygoers, the men at the bar, and the couples dancing only a few feet away from their table. He then leaned toward Derrick, lowering his voice to a whisper. “She thought Dolla might be involved, that he might be the one pimpin’ her out.”
Derrick stared at his boy in utter shock. “Wait. Wait. Wait a minute! You mean to tell me you’re helping a cop who’s trying to go after Dolla?”
“She’s not going after him! She just wants to get her sister back. And as it turns out, he is keeping her at his crib and he’s making her—”
“But he’s not gonna know the difference, Ricky. He’s not gonna care. Bruh, have you fuckin’ lost your mind? If he finds out what you’re doing, he could kill you!”
“You don’t think I know that?” Ricky exclaimed. “I told you, I know what I’m doing is stupid as hell! But she reminded me about Desiree and how I didn’t help her. I thought . . . I thought this was finally a chance to . . . you know . . . do the right thing.”
Derrick’s face softened.
“And now . . . and now I think I’m starting to get sucked into this mess for other reasons.”
“Other reasons like what?”
“I don’t know what it is about her, but . . . she got into my head, Dee. And not just because of her little sister being in trouble like Desiree was. Last night, she started kissing on me, rubbing on me like she was ready to get it poppin’, and I wanted to do it too, but I just . . . I just couldn’t. And you know that’s not me! If a girl is down, I’m down too—especially a fine ass broad like this one. But this time, I stopped myself.” He dropped his eyes to his glass. “It didn’t feel right.”
Derrick stared at his friend in silence for several seconds, pursing his lips.
In the two decades that he’d known Ricky, he’d never seen him have any real feelings for a woman. Even Ricky’s girlfriends had seemed as disposable as a five-dollar razor; he’d often move on to the next chick without any sadness or regret, with little to no afterthought. But for Ricky to risk his life and his livelihood for this cop, there had to be something more substantial between him and her, something that went beyond mere attraction.
“Well, it sounds like to me you’re starting to have feelings for her, bruh.”
At those words, Ricky’s eyes shot up from his glass. He glared at Derrick.
“What the fuck you mean?” he asked angrily, like Derrick had just called his mama a whore.
“I mean exactly what I said. You like her so it’s not easy to just separate—”
“I barely know her, Dee. I can’t like her like that.” He shook his head in denial. “Nah, it’s probably because all the shit that’s swirling around her. My dick didn’t want any part of that mess! I don’t want to get involved with her any more than I already am. I helped her find her sister. I can walk away now with a clear conscience. I did my part. It’s time to just end this shit.”
“You’re probably right.” Derrick finally took a sip of his Jack Daniel’s. “You know I’m not a fan of Dolla, but as long as you work for him, hooking up with a cop would definitely put your ass in jeopardy—not to mention a cop who has beef with him.”
“I told you I know, Dee. You’re preaching to the choir, man! I made my decision. My little drama with Officer Fuller is over. I’m done!” he said, draining the last of his drink.
Derrick gazed at his friend warily, wondering if Ricky would stick to his declaration.
* * *
Derrick arrived home a couple of hours later. When he pushed open the front door, he saw the apartment was cloaked in total darkness; Melissa had already gone to bed for the night. In the past, Melissa might have waited up for him. Maybe he would’ve found her reclining on the bed in one of her negligees, ready to give him a little midnight lovin’ before they fell asleep, but tonight that obviously wasn’t the case. When he turned on the hallway light, the only person who came to greet him was Brownie who purred softly, rubbing himself against Derrick’s leg.
“Hey, buddy,” he said, running his hand over Brownie’s ears and back.
Derrick crept down the hall to his and Melissa’s bedroom. He pushed the door open, wincing as it loudly creaked, sounding like the lid of a coffin. As expected, Melissa was fast asleep on her side of the bed, curled into almost the fetal position. He walked into their bathroom and undressed before returning to the bed and finding her in the same spot where he’d left her.
He lifted the sheets and eased onto the mattress and she stirred a little. He looked at her, seeing only the dim outline of her features in the darkness: her button nose, her slender neck, her long eyelashes. This beautiful woman was capable of bringing him the most sublime joy and making him feel utterly useless. He wished they could get back to the good times. He hoped the connection they once felt hadn’t been permanently severed.
Derrick eased across the bed and lightly kissed her shoulder. She shifted, turning onto her stomach. He then kissed the base of her neck and she raised her head and squinted at him.
“What are you doing, Dee? I’m trying to sleep, baby,” she whispered.
“You don’t want me to kiss you?”
She loudly grumbled. “Dee, please don’t start. It’s almost midnight and I have to be up early, okay?” she murmured, before burying her face in her pillow. “Just go to sleep.”
He rolled onto his back, feeling rejected and frustrated yet again. It would take another hour until he finally fell asleep.
Chapter 20
Ricky
At the ringing of his front doorbell, Ricky stumbled out of his bedroom, bleary-eyed and annoyed.
He had fallen asleep only an hour ago, after tossing and turning for most of the night. He had been tossing and turning for several nights, unable to quiet his chaotic thoughts. He kept thinking about Simone and the last time he’d seen her. He remembered the promise he’d made and the one he’d refuse to make. In his dreams, he kept replaying their kiss in the driver’s seat of his Mercedes—the way she’d tasted, the feel of her breasts against the palms of his hands, and how it would’ve been so easy to slide inside her, if only he’d kept his damn mouth shut. His eyes would flash open and find himself lying in bed alone, half-mast and furious.
The waking hours weren’t much better. He was losing his ability to concentrate at the restaurant and Club Majesty. Throughout the day, while he walked the floor or sat at his table on the mezzanine, his gaze would shift to the restaurant or strip club’s entrance, wondering if Simone would stomp through the front door to ambush him, to ask him why he hadn’t returned any of her text messages or phone calls in more than a week.
But Simone didn’t come to the restaurant or the club, which was good for him. He needed to put some distance between himself and her, at least until he figured out the situation between them, if you could even call it a “situation.” Though he reacted strongly to her, he constantly had to remind himself that he barely knew the woman.
A few of his employees had noticed the change in Ricky—how he got more easily distracted, how he was quicker to catch a temper or reprimand someone for a mistake. Some had even questioned him about it.
“It’s nothing,” he’d murmur. “I’m fine. Worry about yourself.”
But he wasn’t fine and they all knew it.
“. . . it sounds like to me you’re starting to have feelings for her,” Derrick had said more than a week ago, but Ricky knew that wasn’t true. The only thing he felt for Simone was sexual frustration.
Maybe getting a piece might help, he now wondered as he walked down the hallway to his apartment’s front door.
He hadn’t had sex in almost three weeks, which was the longest he’d ever gone without smashing a chick in quite a while. Maybe cleaning the pipes was just what his mind and body needed. Maybe that could help force S
imone out of his head.
Ricky knotted the belt of his robe as the doorbell rang again.
“I’m comin’! I’m comin’! Goddamn,” he muttered tiredly, strolling down the hall. “Who the hell just shows up to someone’s place at two a.m. anyway?”
He finally drew near the front door and looked through his peep hole into the apartment corridor. He did a double take. His mind must be playing tricks on him because he could swear he saw Simone standing out there.
He really must be obsessing about that girl.
“Ricky, you in there? Come on! Open up,” she said, pounding her fist on his door.
He quickly undid the deadbolt then the bottom lock and whipped his door open.
It was indeed Officer Simone Fuller standing on his welcome mat, wearing an oversized hoodie and skinny jeans.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
She gave a small smile. “That’s an interesting way of saying hello.”
“Well, it’s in the middle of the night and I wasn’t expecting fucking house calls. Excuse me if I forgot my manners,” he answered sardonically. “How did you find me anyway? How do you even know where I live?”
“If you can find me, I can certainly find you. We’ve got databases for those things.”
He should’ve known.
“So you’re pulling my DMV records now? Why are you here, Simone?”
“Because I wanted to see you, and you weren’t returning my phone calls.”
“I didn’t return them because I had nothing to say to you. I haven’t run into Skylar again. I told you that I would call if—”
“I am worried about Skylar. Of course, I am! But that’s not why I’m here.” She took a step toward him and peered over his shoulder into his living room. “Can I come in?”
He shook his head. “No, you can’t! Whatever you have to say to me, you can say it right here,” he insisted, pointing to the floor.
She shrugged. “Fine. Have it your way.” She then wrapped her arms around his neck, stood on the balls of her feet, and kissed him.
He was caught off guard at first, wondering why her lips were on his. But confusion was replaced with lust within seconds. He wrapped one hand around her waist and used the other to cup her bottom, grabbing a handful. He kissed her back and they quickly went from a languid pecks and nibbles, to dueling tongues and panting.
Despite his proclamation only a minute ago that she couldn’t come into his apartment, Ricky practically lifted Simone off her feet, carried her over the threshold, and slammed the door behind them. They landed with a thud against the entryway wall and console table near the door where he kept his keys, loose change, and wallet. All of it went clattering to the hardwood floor.
He quickly disrobed and she did the same, tugging down the zipper of her hoodie, showing that she wasn’t wearing a shirt or a bra underneath. Both his robe and her hoodie went flying in some unseen direction. She started to unzip her jeans and push them down her hips, but she didn’t get to finish. He was kissing her again, fondling her breasts and rolling the hardened nipples between his thumb and forefingers.
She moaned, and that moan was like a whip being cracked over his head, urging him to go faster, to make her moan even louder. He shoved her jeans down to her knees, revealing the black satin briefs underneath. He eased his hand past the elastic waistband and delved between her thighs.
She was wet already. He could feel it against his fingertips. He began to toy with her, to stroke her there and she twisted her hips and eased her legs open in ready invitation as much as the jeans around her knees would allow. He toyed with her even more even as they kissed, increasing the speed of each stroke, playing her like an instrument.
And she sang like one too. Her whimpers and moans grew louder. She gripped onto the edge of the console but couldn’t stand still, shifting her hips, backing away from him then easing forward.
“Mmm, that feels good,” she whispered hotly, licking her lips, closing her eyes. “Do that again, baby.”
He grinned because he knew he could do a lot better than “good.” Simone was about to get the full Ricky Reynaud experience.
He stepped back and abruptly turned her around, making her face the wall and lean over the wooden console. This time she was the one caught off guard. She stared over her shoulder at him quizzically.
“What are you doing?”
He could hear a hint of unease in her voice. He placed a finger to her lips and shushed her.
“Trust me,” he said before kissing her neck then nibbling her shoulder.
She smelled exactly like she did the night he first spoke to her: musk mixed with vanilla and a floral fragrance he could now pinpoint as lavender. The scent made his mouth water.
Ricky took her hands and pressed them against the entryway wall. “Don’t move,” he ordered, and like a good little police officer, Simone followed his command.
He shifted his kisses from her shoulder to the nape of her neck, running his tongue over the glossy skin. He cupped her breasts and squeezed them gently as the kiss trail descended lower and lower, past her shoulder blades, down her spine, and right above her ass where he was delighted to find a silver-dollar-sized tattoo in the shape of a purple butterfly.
Well, look at that, he thought. This woman was full of surprises—but so was he.
He roughly tugged her panties down to her knees too, getting an up-close-and-personal view of her delectable ass. He slid his hands down her hips and playfully nipped one cheek then the other, making her yelp.
“Oww,” she said with a chuckle, twisting away from him. “That hurt.”
“It was supposed to.”
“I liked the kisses better though.”
“You like me kissing your ass, huh?” he asked, doing as she requested, reverently kissing the same spots that he had just nipped with his teeth.
“Much better,” she said with a smile, gazing down at him over her shoulder.
Her hands were still braced against the wall. He urged her to lean forward, to bend over the console table. He then switched from kisses to licks, teasing the junction between her thighs and her ass, alternating between the two. This time, she didn’t just whimper, she groaned. She cursed and called out his name. She begged for him to stop, then begged for him to keep going. She was even wetter than before. He could not only feel it against his mouth, but taste it. Her legs started to tremble. Her thighs tensed against his mouth. She started to make a keening sound. That’s when he knew it was time.
He quickly reached for his wallet and pulled out one of the condom packets inside. He had the condom on in less than a minute and quickly rose from his knees, letting his boxer briefs fall to his ankles. He arched her hips, positioned himself behind her, and entered her soon after. The feel of her around him was as good as he had anticipated, maybe better.
He cupped her breasts again, sucked her neck, and tried to start off slow, just to give her a taste—but she wasn’t having any of it.
“Do it, Ricky. Give me what I came here for, baby,” she whispered breathlessly.
He sped up the tempo.
“Faster! Faster! Show me what you got,” she challenged between clenched teeth. “Give it to me!”
So much for measured control.
The next thing he knew he was grabbing her hips and humping for dear life, pounding her from behind like some porn star. Her hands still didn’t leave the wall, but she arched her hips and back. She bent forward even more to give him better access, so that he could go even deeper and the sensation was almost overwhelming. Every nerve ending in his body seemed to concentrate in his dick. His sight started to blur. His heart felt like it might burst out of his chest. Though she shouted commands, he couldn’t utter a thing, not one damn word. He was too busy gulping for air.
She came first, screaming out his name as she did it, shaking all over. Her arms went slack and she finally let go of the wall and dropped her elbows to the console table. He came a minute later.
&
nbsp; Ricky didn’t know what he yelled—more than likely something unintelligible. But it didn’t matter what he said.
That was the best sex he’d had in a long damn time.
* * *
“So what’s the story with the butterfly?” he asked as he and Simone lay in bed together. He trailed his index finger down the slope of her lower back.
They had already gone a second round—this time with her on top—and Ricky was simultaneously exhausted physically and invigorated from the endorphin high. Sex usually did that for him. It was better than a shot of Vitamin C and came with a kick just short of a snort of coke. He wasn’t quite addicted to it, but he’d hate to imagine his life without sex. The lovemaking he’d had tonight had been particularly good though he couldn’t put his finger on why. He hadn’t done anything with Simone that he hadn’t done with the other dozens of women he’d slept with in his thirty years on the planet. And she hadn’t done anything particularly kinky or awe inspiring. But, again, there was just something about her.
Was Derrick right? Was he starting to have feelings for her?
Nah, Ricky though with a mental shake of the head, not possible.
Ricky Reynaud didn’t fall in love—to the consternation of many women he’d dated in the past. He just didn’t have the capacity for it. Besides, he barely knew Simone. And she was a cop, he reminded himself for the umpteenth time. It was just the sex euphoria talking. He hadn’t gotten any ass in a while, and she’d come at the right time—pun intended.
Nothing more, nothing less.
Simone squinted at him and grinned. She pushed herself to her elbows to gaze down at him. “You making fun of my tramp stamp?”
“No, I wasn’t making fun of it,” he insisted, tugging her toward him and kissing her collar bone. “Just makin’ conversation. You know . . . pillow talk.”
She rested her chin on his chest and blew a gust of air that made her bangs flutter. “I got it when I was eighteen. I had just broken up with my boyfriend after he cheated on me, and I listened to the Emancipation of Mimi album about thirty-thousand times. Mariah Carey has that obsession with butterflies so . . . that was the tattoo I got to finally show the world I was over him.”