Chapter Twenty-three
Mannish stared at the sky.
“What are you thinking about?” Lola said.
“What has to be done. The only way to end it so you can live in peace is to kill this dude when he breaks in here.”
“Now we’re premeditating murder.” She shook her head, feeling a sharp pain from when Stoney jerked her head back. “We can’t do that.”
“The whole situation is premeditated.” Mannish leaned his forehead against the glass. “We’re just switching the bait. It’s the only way you can walk away from this legally and not have to look over your shoulder for the rest of your life.”
“Blasé is dangerous. You’d risk your life for me?”
Mannish turned away from the picturesque view of the imminent dawn and faced Lola. He swallowed. She stood inches away from him with her bathrobe hanging open and off her slender shoulders.
Straight skin.
“I was a cop. I’d risk my life for you and any other human being.” He took the scenic tour of her skin. From her pouty lips to her delicate collarbone to her tender breasts that hadn’t lost the fight to gravity to her peek-a-boo navel to her goodness gracious hallelujah.
The robe fell to the marble floor.
“You’re the only man I never wanted to wash off. I fantasize about you in my head continuously.” Her tears softened into something intangible and spiritual. She gave him steady eyes, commanding him not to resist their connection as she reduced the few inches separating them to a centimeter. “Make love to me.”
“Lola—”
“Shh. I might not make it through this, Mannish.”
“You will.”
“I’m not willing to risk leaving here without making love to the man my heart desires. I can’t.”
“I won’t let nothing happen to you. I promise there will be a tomorrow.”
“But not for us, so it’s the only way I’ll release you when tomorrow comes.” She pressed her lips against his. Their kiss needy but giving. Serious but noncommittal. Long but too short. “Love me, Mannish. Love me right now while we’re each other’s.”
Mannish had sex with nameless concubines, strictly unadulterated “wham bam thank you, ma’am’s.” The essential ingredients he longed for that each of his previous coital encounters lacked, emphatically robbed him of, and left him feeling stupid and ashamed when the bumping and grinding ended and the money exchanged hands, Lola Jones was now offering free of charge: raw affection, emotions that weren’t conceived by a dollar amount. She was offering her heart and post-fuck snuggling.
He picked her up with little effort, latched his mouth on her inviting nipple, and carried her to the baby grand.
Silence. Except for the rapid beat of hearts drumming in their ears.
He placed Lola on the piano’s immaculate wood casing. She leaned back on her palms and brought her knees up against her breasts, gapping her legs wide, advertising her wetness, implying how she wanted her pussy pleased. Mannish read her body language and smiled. He explored the intricacies of the inner and outer folds of her pussy with the point of his tongue and small kisses. He loved the way she moaned and locked his head in place when he nibbled her labia majora and blew on her labia minora just the way she liked it. Lola curled her fingers into his hair and softly humped his face, appreciating his dedication to the art.
“You like that?” he said, replacing his tongue with his longest finger.
“Uh-huh. Keep going, baby.” She humped. “Damn you know what you’re doing.”
His tongue circled her clitoris, loving the flavor of her copious daiquiri. He became sexually intoxicated while working his finger in a c’mere motion, tickling her Ernst Gräfenberg.
“God, you’re touching my G-spot.” She palmed the back of his head as she squirmed and gyrated her pelvis. “Feels so good.” She threw her head back and thrashed it side to side as the aroma of her pussy fanned their lust to new heights. “Uh-huh, that’s it, Mannish. That’s how you do it.” The tension of ecstasy swelled within Lola. “No one . . . Never had an orgasm from getting my pussy ate until . . . I’m about to . . . ’bout to come dammit.” She pulled his face into her pussy with a strength Mannish had no idea she possessed. Lola screamed as her body jerked to a pulse that Xavier had never been able to create. Mannish sipped her daiquiri until her shakes were gone.
Lola’s fingers made short work of his sweatpants’ drawstring. She practically ripped his shirt off. When Mannish stepped out his boxer briefs and his dick pointed at the natural skylight, she gasped and went to her knees like she was kneeling before royalty. She had to suck it. Feel his power in her mouth. Swallow his energy. She licked it first, a taste test. She liked it. Lola pulled him into her mouth with so much enthusiasm that Mannish got goose bumps.
She kept her greenish eyes on him and sucked his dick until his knees buckled and his spunk filled her mouth. Mannish was so lost in his orgasm that his body twisted with abandon as he emptied himself. Lola sucked and sucked as semen spewed from the corners of her lips, her tongue darting in and out trying to collect every drop of his life-giving energy. Mannish couldn’t shake Lola off his dick if he wanted to.
“Ah, baby, you suck good dick.” He lifted her to her feet. “Give it to me, Lola.” He backed her into the piano’s ivory keyboard.
Lola’s ass pressed out an attractive andante tempo, as if it were playing the piano. She grabbed his hard dick and rubbed the head in the crease of her wet labia. Once she was certain that Mannish was covered with her daiquiri, she looked into his eyes, smiled, and pulled him into her body.
And she came again during the initial insertion.
She felt so good to Mannish, her hot liquid wrapped tightly around him. If it were possible, he’d stay inside her forever. He pushed the whole of him inside her until his balls kissed her ass cheeks. And with every stroke, the piano played their melody. Mannish was fascinated with the way his dick looked going in and out of her; how her pussy stretched to receive his offering; how hot her body temperature was; how he was met with a blast of cool air each time he pulled back.
A beautiful, beautiful sensation.
Lola couldn’t control it any longer. Her ass banged against the keyboard, meeting Mannish stroke for stroke. They didn’t speak a word. The piano translated everything their bodies had to say. Their lips found each other’s and completed the nexus of their sexual grip. Lola dug her nails in his back, marking her territory, and instantly his dick spat come. Lola wailed, joining him, climaxing for the third time. The piano played a hypnotizing sonata that Beethoven would envy.
“Take me to my bedroom,” Lola said, trying to catch her breath as she grabbed Mannish’s hand and led the way. “Fuck me in bed. Wanna feel your whole body against mine.”
The keys E-flat, A-minor, and B-major were imprinted across Lola’s ass. Mannish grinned. He gave new meaning to making music.
Mannish jabbed the elevator button over and over and over until the mechanical box dinged and opened. He jumped inside as if the thing would take off without him. Then he stabbed the button that promised to deliver him to Rain’s floor. And he stabbed it again, hoping it would make the damn thing go faster. Not because of any conscious effort, but he read the Patient’s Bill of Rights posted on a neat little placard above the call buttons. It was his brain’s stratagem to outwit his despair.
When the doors dinged open again, Mannish took off like a blue ribbon race horse, nearly knocking an overworked orderly down. He burst into Rain’s hospital room just as a nurse was stripping the sheets from Rain’s bed. He looked at the nurse then back at the bed as if Rain would magically materialize out of thin air.
The nurse, an older black woman, gave him a sad look and hesitated before saying, “I’m so sorry.”
“No!” Mannish screamed; anguish knocked him to his knees. All of a sudden his eyes popped open. He was chilled by a cold sweat, but nevertheless relieved to find himself in bed with Lola’s head plastered to his chest, smelling the scent of their sexual concoction.
He shuttered when he thought of the dream, then he got a hold of his bearings. He peeled himself out of the arm-and-leg knot she had him tangled in, grabbed his iPhone, and eased into the master bathroom. Leaning against a contemporary crafted his-and-her marble sink set and appreciating Lola’s naked flesh through a slit in the door, he texted Rain and told her how much he loved her. Then he stared at his phone, waiting for Rain to text him back. When she didn’t he called Rio.
“Hello,” Rio said broken and weary.
He skipped all pleasantries and their personal formalities. “How is she?”
“Same.”
“Anything new from Dr. Fillmore?”
“Nothing.”
“Rahjea and Reality?”
“With my parents.”
“You okay?”
“Will be when you come back.”
“I’m coming.”
“And your friend’s situation?”
“Messy.” He chewed the corner of his lip. “More than I could have imagined.” He glanced through the slit again; Lola was no longer in bed. “Tell you everything later, at home.”
Rio was quiet for a long moment then said, “Yes, at home.”
“What hospital room did they put Rain in?”
“Uh, 417.”
“I love you, Rio. God made us for each other. Always remember that.”
While tender in nature, those words alarmed Rio. Mannish only uttered this specific declarative when he used to work for the St. Louis Police Department and he and Blair, his ex-partner, were being sent out on a dangerous call. It was his way of saying good-bye if for some reason he never saw her again. While Rio didn’t know the details of Lola’s dilemma, she now understood it was truly life threatening. And she knew the cop in Mannish would urge him to risk his life to balance things.
“You’ll be here soon, right?” That was what she always used to respond with, easily falling into their personal formality.
And true to form, he said, “Yeah, that’s the plan.”
“Promise.”
Mannish hesitated, uncertain of how things would play out when this Blasé character showed up to rob and murder Lola.
Just like in the past when he gave her the silent hints that he was a little scared, Rio said, “That bad that you can’t promise your wife?”
“That bad.”
“Then promise us you’ll be careful.”
“Promise,” he said. “And I hope to see you and my girls soon.”
“I love you too, Mannish.” Like always, she spoke her good-bye words in case she never saw him again.
“I know,” he said and clicked off. He looked up and Lola stood in the doorway with her nakedness covered in a thousand-count sheet. Following her gaze down to his package, Mannish prayed that the slight chill in the air hadn’t caused a shrinkage that would cause major ego damage.
“Rain’s your daughter.” Lola found his eyes and settled in hard. “If she’s in the hospital, then what are you doing here with me? Make me understand.”
“I’m here for a lot of reasons. One is that you didn’t give me any other choice but to show up. The way you were talking set off my warning bells, like you were contemplating suicide or something.”
Lola thought about his words and sighed. “That was selfish of me. I panicked and self-preservation kicked in.” She gave him an expression that begged for forgiveness. “I’m sorry. Is Rain going to be all right?”
Mannish shrugged an I don’t know. “Hard to say.”
Lola was unsure of what to say next; she figured she’d let Mannish choose the next words. She stepped inside a walk-in linen closet and got Mannish a toothbrush from her supply of toiletries and a new stick of Men’s Degree that she used to stock for Xavier. She selected a fluffy tan towel and washcloth set then adjusted the triple-headed shower system’s temperature to her liking.
Lola had a way about her, a seductive air in the way she revealed her nakedness. When the sheet slid away from her and gathered at her feet, Mannish told his dick to behave.
She stepped inside the shower and held the glass door open for him. “You coming?”
His dick was screaming, “Yes, yes, go, you fool.” But his common sense screamed, “Put a stop to this right now. End it once and for all.” He needed to summon the strength to break free of her hold. The intimacy of sharing a shower would only serve to solidify their forbidden bond. The only woman he’d ever shared a shower with was Rio. Then, all was right in the world. He and Blair hadn’t conspired to sell drugs to beat the economic crunch. Dakota Applewhite was alive and would probably be planning a trip to the mall with his daughters, and he wasn’t a convicted felon on federal probation.
The water was soothing and relaxed the tension in his muscles, or maybe it was just that he was sharing the space with someone he cared for, someone who offered him affection and expected it in return.
“Forgive me if I’m out of line,” Lola said, washing his back with a bar of apple and apricot soap. “What happened to your daughter?”
As the hot water rinsed fruity suds down the drain, Mannish thought about that question long and hard. “She overdosed on this new drug they call dragonfly.” Her hands felt good working the washcloth over his body. “She doesn’t even fool around with the drug scene, so I’m sure it was experimental or peer pressure.”
“Here, get my back.” Lola handed him the soapy rag and turned around to face her thoughts. Jeremy’s first experience with drugs landed him in jail. All because of their financial situation. Now Mannish’s daughter was in the hospital, and it probably boiled down to his family’s situation. He was right: she had to let him go. She couldn’t interfere with his family no matter how bad she wanted him for herself. She loved him enough to sacrifice her love so he could make his family happy.
“Mannish, my ass is clean already.” She giggled. “You cleaned it five minutes ago.”
“I was just making sure.”
She stepped out of the shower. The lights came on. They both looked at the bathroom light as the house came alive.
“Thank you,” Lola said.
“No need for that.”
Lola started to walk away, leaving wet footprints in her wake.
“Where are you going?”
“To spend time with my children before Blasé shows up. You don’t have to come back. Go to your family. They need you.”
“You need me too.” He followed her into the bedroom.
She stepped into a pair of panties. “Yeah, but how do you really think we’re supposed to stop this guy? I fucked up, and now I have to live with it until he shows up. No point in getting any more involved than you have.” She pulled on a tight pair of jeans and sucked her flat belly in to button them. “We had our time. We enjoyed ourselves, and maybe we will have each other in another life.”
“I need a house key.”
“For what, Mannish? For what? Leave,” she yelled. “I’ll handle it.”
“I need it so I can get back in here after I go get a gun.”