After the Kiss Page 5

  I lifted my leg to the ledge and leaned onto the wal , imagining the cool tile was his embrace. My finger pushed inside and I let out a tortured moan, one so ful of regret and want that I squeezed my eyes shut.

  It was wrong, to touch myself and think of someone except for Max, but I couldn't help it.

  And as my fingers built a steady pace and the ripple of ecstasy burned from head to toe, I realized I didn't want to.

  "Demetrius," I whispered, my fingers rubbing the intimate places within. "Oh Demetrius."

  I said it over and over until my orgasm made me sink my teeth into my bottom lip to muffle my cries.

  I leaned down and grabbed my pouf and slowly ran it over my body, stil trembling with the after throes. The release should have made me feel better, but I felt more alone than ever.

  ****

  TONY/DEMETRIUS

  It was Friday, and when Boris asked me for the thirtieth time if the 'negress' was any good, the weekend couldn't come soon enough.

  “She has a name,” I said, trying to not seem as annoyed as I real y was. He struck me as the type that fed off reaction, pressing buttons until you explode. “Rose.”

  “How sweet it is,” he said with a sigh. “And I’d love to see her rose up close and personal.”

  Jack White, a squirrely man that had permanent raised eyebrows and worked as Kournikova’s accountant, let out a giggle.

  Great. That would only encourage the schmuck.

  “I mean, how old are you, D?” Boris asked.

  I bristled at my new nickname, though I guess it was better than ‘pretty boy’. “I’m 29.”

  He shook his balding head like it was the greatest travesty known to man. “Oh what I’d give to be 29. The whole world was my oyster!”

  I was familiar with Boris Karev’s dossier. Once upon a time, he’d been as vicious as Kournikova. The mugshots of the young man with eyes the color of stone and a heart even colder was a world away from the sloppily kept man in front of me. “I bet.”

  “Couldn’t keep the ladies off me with a stick,” he winked. “Bet that’s why you’re so close lipped because Rose was just beggin’ for some Greek meat.”

  “Jesus Christ,” I groaned. “It’s none of your business, Boris.”

  Boris grabbed a handful of chips and crunched them solemnly, taking me in. "You tryna be chivalrous?"

  I perked an eyebrow. "You even know what that word means?"

  For a flash, his eyes went dead cold and I worried we'd have a problem. The man ran off at the mouth, but I had a feeling he had a hel uva right hook.

  But instead of coming to blows, he snickered and shook his head. "You're a joker alright." He leaned forward and a wave of Doritoes flooded my nostrils, making my stomach churn. "Guess I'l have to nab her myself, next time in the neighborhood."

  I'd tried to save her from Nikolai's wrath when he commented that I'd left the room in a tizzy. Of course he had the place under surveil ance. Al seeing. Al knowing. I'd made up some lie about how she reminded me of an ex and it was just too much. His aqua eyes had registered disappointment. A man that couldn't get it up was frowned on in a culture ruled by virility. But after he had a minute to mul it over, he'd told me he hoped that someone in his employ was immune to the charms of black women so they could help talk some sense into his son.

  "...unless she's yours."

  "Mine?" I repeated, reluctantly turning my attention back to Boris.

  "She's your piece. Means no one else can touch her without your permission."

  I watched Boris' mouth move and his words muted as the wheels in my mind turned.

  Mine. Of course my head went right back to forbidden territory--went right back to her. How was it possible that just the sight of her was enough to make me through my caution, my job, hel , even my life to the wind?

  I’d always wanted things I couldn't have. My father had been a successful businessmen in the old country, people coming far and wide to buy his wares. Al my life I'd been told I'd go into the family business, that I'd be cut off if I studied law enforcement. Sad thing was, the higher my father's blood pressure climbed and tried to rope me in, the further I delved into criminology. It was the can't that got me going. Even Katie had said so, claiming I'd only pul ed out the big guns when she was already gone and out the door. She'd been the last in a long list of failures. Was that why I was looking at someone that was no good for me? To prove myself wrong...or to prove myself right?

  I winced when Boris poked me with a finger, leaving an orange, greasy print on my forearm.

  "She musta been something." He closed his eyes, smacking his lips. "Wil definitely have to give her a cal .

  "Like hel ," I rumbled. I leaned in, and al congeniality melted from my face. I'd only spent a couple of minutes with Rose, but I wouldn't wish a night with Boris on my worst enemy. "She's mine."

  He let out a chuckle before holding up both of his paws in surrender. "Don't get your panties in a twist."

  “You keep your filthy fucking hands off her.”

  Boris perked an eyebrow. “A chal enge?”

  "Demetrius."

  The voice was like a whip and everyone, myself included, leapt from their seat. Nikolai strode in, his shoulders square as he crossed his arms.

  His eyes locked on me. "Demetrius. You will come."

  I didn't break his gaze, but I heard Boris shuffle behind me. "You sure, boss? Cuz I was hoping to-"

  "Let's go."

  Nikolai exited as smoothly as he entered, and the disdain radiating from Boris wasn't lost on me. I drank it up, only letting myself wonder why Nikolai chose me simmer when I stepped into the garage. Boris was his right hand man, and it was common knowledge that Fridays were a personal day for Kournikova.

  I turned the key in the ignition and the car purred to life. I glanced backward as Nikolai closed the door with a snap and settled. "Where to?"

  "Camden Nursing Home."

  I kept my eyes forward, fighting to let the slap of the tires keep me calm. I knew I'd have to do some questionable things, but I drew the line at beating up people at the old folks home.

  But when we breezed into the reception area, the nurses didn't greet him with reverence. They talked like the best of friends, he asking about their families, them asking about Max. The man almost seemed normal and respectable. I tried to contain my surprise and then he hit it out of the park.

  I stayed back in the reception area but I had a bird’s eye view of him going to the dayroom and hugging a frail looking woman. His massive frame gulped her up effortlessly, but the way he held her tenderly, both eyes closed, spoke volumes.

  One of the nurses saddled up next to me, her acrylic nails glittering as she held onto her stethoscope. "I tel ya, I see people drop off their parents here and they're nowhere to be seen

  'til Christmas. But Mr. Kournikova comes here every other week like clockwork. He real y does love his mother."

  I saw in his mother’s eyes a pride I’d seen in my own. Even in secret, when she told me how her heart swel ed that I was going into law enforcement. That she was so proud that I wanted to make the world a better, safer place instead of just profit from it. I’d been so idealistic then...everything black and white.

  Al it took was the endless red, the endless death, and cruelty to completely change my perspective. The world was rotten, and the best I could do is to make it a little less so until my punch card came up. But like Nikolai, I bit my tongue and put on one hel uva show.

  “My son,” she’d whisper, holding me tight. “You do good.”

  I turned away from their intimate moment and sank into an armchair, my focus outside the window, watching snowflakes dance and drift in the wind.

  5

  EBONY

  I watched as Julio Diaz, my reading partner at PS 016 colored in the cut out. With reds and blues and greens, he created fantastical horses that lived in his imagination. The story we'd read was about a boy who was lonely until he found a magic coloring book. Julio ha
d stumbled on words when we read it aloud together, but with a crayon in his hand, he was Picasso, his face lighting up from the inside out.

  The bel signaling the end of their first period, and the end of our session, came far too soon.

  I helped him gather his things and stuff his backpack. "So what al do you have going on the rest of the day?"

  "I have lunch," he perked, pushing through the exit door into the fluorescent hal way.

  "And then PE."

  "PE?" I said, ruffling his wavy hair. "It's so nice outside, I bet you're looking forward to that."

  He cocked his head and looked at me like I was an alien. "You're sil y, Miss Ebony! It's too cold to have PE outside!"

  "Huh," I said, feigning shock. "I guess it is a little chil y."

  We made a pit stop in front of the bay window just outside the cafeteria. The playground was a winter wonderland, snow and ice turning the jungle gym into an igloo. But being in my element, back in a school, working with kids, was like the sun flicking back on.

  We turned around the corner and his teacher, Ms. Wick, was waiting. She stepped aside and let Julio push back into the classroom. There was a tape playing and the kids were al at their desks, pencil poised over paper.

  "How was he?" she asked quietly. "He's one of my special cases--I had him last year, but he was so attached that we decided to keep him here another year." She gave me a stern look. "He real y needs this. So if you aren't ful y invested in this program-"

  I glanced over at him and his head shot up and he gave me a shy smile. I hated myself for a moment, for letting my own personal drama keep me from participating like I should. "I'm sorry that I missed the last couple of weeks, but I promise you, I won't miss again." I gave him a smal wave. "He's a great kid."

  Ms. Wick's eyes softened. "Yes he is." She gave my shoulder a pat. "I'l see you next week."

  I buttoned my jacket as I breezed down the hal , past the single file lines of little ones and teachers keeping the peace, past posters and pictures painted with pride. I signed out at the front office and gave back my badge. When I stepped out of the front entrance, I pul ed up the hood on my peacoat. My boots crunched on the sidewalk as I moved toward the bus stop.

  When a guy sitting on the bench, huddled in an overcoat, slacks, and black rubber shoes, turned his head and met my gaze, my heart stopped in my chest.

  The working man gear was a far cry from the crisp polo and jeans he used to wear, but when he turned--even a ful beard couldn't hide his handsome features. Features every girl in Bio skimmed while everything else became irrelevant. It was Scott Cayden. The TA that Max beat into the cafeteria floor at the beginning of the semester.

  His steely eyes went wide as he slowly rose to his feet. His jacket fel open and I caught the blue of his Wal yworld polo. Dr. Krisp had always bragged about him, his papers and his talent for biology. He’d been at the top of his class. Published. Going places.

  When I heard he was taking a leave, I'd envisioned him at another institution. Or I imagined him abroad, working in the field, heading up cutting edge research. That's where he belonged, I mean, I hate science but he'd actual y made it fun and interesting. But now…

  "Ebony." He said the word like an accusation. Or poison in his mouth.

  "Scott, I-" I stood there awkwardly. What was there to say? Sorry just seemed so inappropriate. Sorry that I may have smiled at you a little too much, flirting when I knew I had a boyfriend with a temper? Sorry he broke your face and his family threatened you and pressured school officials and now you're working minimum wage? "I don't know what to say."

  He snorted, shaking his head. He pul ed out a crumpled package of cigarettes and brought one to his lips. He smoked now? He knew better than anyone the effects of tobacco on the human body. "There's one word I'd like to hear." He brought out a lighter and flicked it, breathing in and out, smoke pummeling from his nose. "I'l help you out. It starts with an 's'."

  "God, Scott, you know I'm sorry." I tried to look past the ice to the guy who'd always crack jokes and go the extra mile for undergrads. I came up wanting. "I didn't know he'd do that.

  I didn't know-" My words froze solid in my throat when a woman and her young son teetered up and squeezed onto the bench beside him.

  I glanced into the bustling traffic, hoping to see the bus lumbering toward us, but no such luck. Of course it was running late.

  He rose to his feet and took a few steps in my direction. His jaw seemed so sharp, like a razor. "I remember when you came to the hospital. You said something similar. 'I didn't know you'd do that’." He took a hit and exhaled before continuing. "There was something, something about you...and I just knew. I knew you had no idea. That even though everyone knows who Nikolai Kournikova was, maybe you were just naïve enough to think the apple fel far from the tree."

  I took a step back as he came close. Close enough for me to see that his nose hung slightly off center. A keepsake from Max. "I know you're angry, but you can't talk to me like that."

  My voice shook so hard that not even I was convinced.

  "But now," Scott continued, not even acknowledging the interruption, "now I see different. Now you know." He flicked the butt of his cigarette away. "You're stil with him, aren't you Ebony?"

  His question choked me and my nostrils flared. I wanted to tel him that his anger was misdirected. That if he wanted someone to be pissed at, he should start with the guy who did the beating.

  But al the indignation was just a ruse. It was a cover for the fact that I was ashamed.

  Ashamed that I stil dated a guy who could do that to another human being. Ashamed that I felt pity for Scott, when I was the lost cause. I was the one trapped in a relationship I was too afraid to run from.

  Scott let out a bitter chuckle as the bus pul ed to the curb. “That’s what I thought.” He gave me one last look. "I guess you're not al that sorry then, are you?"

  ****

  TONY/DEMETRIUS

  As someone with a vested interest in getting close enough to Kournikova to bring him to his knees, an invite to dinner at his estate should have been a good thing—for the case and for curiosity’s sake. I’d never seen anything with enough land or a property with enough 0's on the price tag to qualify. It was opulent, acres of green grass and wide open spaces decorated with fountains and statues, with a house that looked like something out of the movies planted in the center.

  His wife, natural y, had her nose so high in the air that I could see what she was thinking, and it was that I definitely didn't have the bucks, or tenure, to darken her doorway.

  And darken I did. The house was impeccably white--wal s, modern furniture with gold accents, more statues of naked dudes with flaccid penises and vaulted ceilings with chandeliers that probably cost as much as most people's mortgages.

  She'd sent the help out to get me a goblet of water, even when I told her a glass from the tap was just fine. She'd laughed uncomfortably as she handed off my jacket, holding it between two manicured fingers, to a man in a monkey suit that bowed like she was the queen and he proud to do her bidding. She perked about dinner, a string of foreign words.

  I was a simple man. Eating something that didn't come out of the freezer section was glamorous to me. The whole thing was absurd, but I told myself at least it meant I was getting chummy with Nikolai.

  She flipped her frosted hair over her velvet clad shoulder and gave me a smile that was a little too wide. "Wel , uh, why don't you join Ebony and Maxhew in the dining room? I just want a word with my husband."

  Ebony? She was here? I quickly cloaked the excitement in his voice and made it cold as ice. Non-committal. "No problem." I stepped from the room, but ducked into a side hal , stil within earshot.

  "First I have to entertain Max's sil y relationship with that girl, now this?" Mrs. Kournikova hissed.

  Nikolai murmured a string of Russian words. "It is only dinner, love."

  "We agreed. When you're out, you're out. And when you're home with me-"

/>   I tilted my head toward the hal that led to the dining room. Ebony was laughing. It was the most lyrical thing I'd ever heard.

  "Keep it together, man," I chided myself. I was here for a job. But it was too late. I'd conceded to a night of polite conversation and dishes that were more beautiful than tasty. She changed everything.

  Now I'd have to work harder than ever to mask this insane attraction I felt to her.

  I'd lingered long enough; there was no putting off the inevitable. I rounded the cover and straightened my spine. Business. Here to do a job. Make yourself cold. Ice.

  Max was standing just outside the dining room, talking to someone on the phone. He didn't even acknowledge me. Good. He meant even less to me. It was easy to turn the blood that pumped through my veins to slush with him in my sights.

  I swal owed the knot in my throat and stepped into the dining room. She was cloaked in shadow, and at first, I could only make out the curve of her bottom, covered in a violet material hugging her frame. She wore those black tights and knee high boots, the same delicious combination that I couldn't get out of my head when I saw her in front of BRisque.

  She slowly pivoted, sensing she wasn't alone, and stepped into the light. Her beauty hit me in the part that I tucked away. The dark tones of her skin brought out her rosy cheeks and her smoldering eyes made me swell. God, what I'd give to touch that skin. To touch that body.

  Her long, kinky braids were down, the curly tips of them brushing her ample bosom. I couldn't help but imagine the tiny strands tossing and turning as I made love to her.

  We just stood there. Watching each other. I didn't trust myself to speak coherently, so I cleared my throat. I was grateful when she went to the table and sat down.

  "Demetrius," she said with that smal smile of hers that made my strength wan. "I didn't know you'd be joining us."