Snatched (18 page)

That thought pushed her even more as
her hands clutched
his back,
as she
tighten
ed
her legs around his back and thrust her hips up, a tacit but unambiguous
plea
for
him to enter her.

He heard her plea. H
e released his lips from her breast
as he removed his fingers
and looked down into her eyes. His
own
eyes seemed black as coal
in a room that was darkening by the minute
.
Evening was coming on.
In answer to her
silent
request he shifted his hips until
his hard penis
thrust
deep
ly
inside her, connecting
them
in one sinuous motion. He shifted his hands to her ass, pushed her upward. The steel of his thighs were almost painful against hers.

"Dele," she whispered as a punctuation to his
motions
.

His eyes seemed to get even darker, as though saying his name wasn't right in that moment.

"Something wrong?" she asked and his expression closed up as he shook his head.

"No," he said huskily. "Everything's perfect right now. Just wished it could stay this way."

H
e covered her mouth and began to thrust
into her
in earnest, his rhythm at first even, but then his pace quickened, his hips bouncing against her harder and harder.

Through the discomfort
she felt
a searing pleasure that was increasing
with his motions. The bed picked up the rhythm and for a second she wondered if the
guest
next to their room was there to hear the bumping, to
realize what he or she was hearing, to smirk knowingly or even press their ear to the wall.

Another thrust pushed any extraneous thoughts from her head. The bed was practically shuffling with the violence of the movement. He groaned against her lips as he began to
find what he needed, at the same time allowing her to
crest upward
, reaching for a much-sought release.

Fear, desire, anger all stoked their coupling. Even if they survived, they would only have this one time. They were strangers despite their bodies coming together. Just responding to circumstances that had pushed them into a situation where they needed to reach out to one another.

She didn't know anything about him and that's the way she wanted
it
. There would be no place for him in her life and she definitely didn't want a part of his existence. Still she sucked eagerly at his tongue, shifted to take more of him inside her, let her fingers tangle in his hair.

This wasn't making love. This was sex. This was sustenance. This was release.
This was life.

The eruption shook her body just as his own climax
went
through him
in a violent shudder that caused him to shout out something unintelligible, something that sounded like her name but not quite
.

They lay there for a minute, recovering their breaths, recovering their strength.

They were reaching for their clothes when the door burst open and Roach stood in the doorway.

The man, who at the moment
more
resembled a weasel than a cockroach, smiled at Nailah's
nudity then said with glee,

"Having
fun kiddies?"

Dele leaped
from
the bed
, the
evening air
from
the opened door
hitt
i
ng
the sweat on
his
naked
body
. Roach
remained
in the doorway
,
the sick leer plastered
on his face
as he looked over Dele's shoulder toward Nailah
. Dele
balled a fist, ready
t
o smash the
smile off
the idiot's
face
but t
he sudden
click
of a knife stopped him in his tracks.

"Now you don't want to start some shit you can't fi
nish bro," the gang member s
aid, his tone serious despite the residual grin
. "Especially when you ain't got
no
drawers
on
.
Hey, it's all good
, bro
. You needed to get one last piece of that fine black ass. Well,
since we're all saying our goodbyes
here
, I think I'll
just
get
in my ta ta's
, too.
"

Dele heard a
n
i
ntake of breath behind him. He'd
miscalculated Rez's seeming trust in him and had sent the roach after them to make sure that Dele got the deed done. And the money he'd promised.

Roach seemed to remember that the door was o
pened and without turning, shut it behind him with his left hand, the knife steady in his right hand
.

"Now we don't want
nosy
eyes peeking
in
on
our private party
do we?
," he said, the grin back in full force.

Dele knew he was hardly in a position to go aga
inst a knife, not while he was
naked. But he was damned if he was going to let the piece of shit get at Nailah.

He had to play
a Hail Mary
.

"Now bro, you can't blame me for forgetting the time. Like you said, I
had to get in my goodbye
.
"

A gasp from behind
.
He ignored it as he continued.

"Rez didn't need to set the dogs on me, or in your case,
a no-
ball mutt."

"Fucking ass
hole
!" he heard Nailah spit
a
t
him
, rage
and betrayal
in her voice
. He couldn't
afford to
worry about her feelings right now.
He had a roach to squash. And since
he suspected
the verm
in was the one who'd set him up for the missing heroin,
this was a long time coming.

Dele
stood between the gang member and Nailah,
calculating his next move,
estima
ting how fast Roach could
lunge
the knife, how quickly he could evade
its blade
, especially
with
no clothes to buffer
any
puncture.

"So why're you still standing in my way
,
playing
some damn
Sir Galahad?
" Roach asked.
"
Step aside and let me show you how
it's done
."

"Where's the smack Roach?"
Dele asked
out of the blue
, hoping the question would throw Roach off.

It did
,
as Dele
watched
Roach blink
rapidly
in
sudden fear
.
The reaction simply confirmed Dele's suspicions.

"What're
…what're
you talking about? I didn'
t take those
kilos
, man
. And you got no proof that I did,"
Roach
ad
d
ed
belligerently.

"I don't
need any proof. I may go down for
the
smack
, but I'm going to make sure you go down with me
you piece of shit
."

Dele watched as Roach's expression morphed from f
ear into
blazing
anger wit
hin a matter of
second
s
and Dele knew he would have to make his move soon.

"Everybody knows you've got a nose problem
, Roach
,
and you should know by now that
Rez
doesn't have
loyalty to either one of us.
In the end, h
e's
simply
going to kill us both. Can you feel the blade in your back
, Roach?
Feel the steel going through your flesh?
"

Roach stiffened as though he did
indeed
feel
a
blade
at his back
.
Rez's
Bowie
knife
ready to plunge deep.

Thrustin
g his own blade closer to Dele's chest,
mere
inches away from his heart, Roach's face distorted wit
h anger.

"You think Rez gonna believe anything you say? I've been with
the crew for years. He trusts me, not you
. You can't even follow simple orders like taking care of this bitch. Rez figured you might punk out, so he sent me…"

"Sent you to do what? What
're
you going to do Roach? Kill her? You've got to get through me first."

"You really think you can stop me?"

In the months
he'd
gone undercover
with the Demons, he had made a mental assessment of
each of
the gang members, their hierarchy, their strengths and weaknesses.
He'd sized up Roach almost immediately
. Not so much for the drugs and drinking, although that
was obvious from the beginning
b
ut for his sycophantic knee-buckling
whenever
Rez
was present
.
H
e hoped his ingratiating ways would
somehow
protect him.

Roach was not a warrior
in any
sense.
During the usual gunplay that went on among the
gang
, the knife feints, the one-upma
nship bullshit games, Roach rarely participated and when he was forced to play, he rarely won.

The two or three times he might have gotten the upper h
and, he was straight-
out stoned. Powder courage.
Sometimes the courage came in
a
18
0-
proof bottle
.

H
e hadn't stocked on
enough
courage today, at least not so it was obvious. It showed in the way the hand holding the knife trembled just a bit. It was enough of a pass for Dele to get his Hail Mary.

With lightning speed, Dele
shot out his hand and grabbe
d Roach's wrist and wrenched in an unforgiving twist
until he heard an audible snap.
The
knife clattered to the wooden floor as the
man
yelped
in agony
, his good hand grabbing for his broken wrist.

"Aw shit, aw shit
, you broke it
!
" Roach
cried out
in anguish as he dropped helplessly
to his knees
, tears streaming down his face.

Dele looked down at the man, knowing at that moment that Rez would never have sent Roach.

Roach had simply followed
them
o
n his own, hoping to catch something
on Dele to take back to Re
z. A
brown nose
attempt so he could
later pers
uade Rez that he was useful and
gain an upper hand when it came time for Rez to parcel out punishment for the missing drugs.

Too bad for him he'd overplayed his hand.

A sound
from behind made Dele turn around. His first thought was to comfort her.

The sight of the gun in her hand aimed at his chest pushed that thought out of his mind.
The sound had been her cocking it, safety off. It was ready to blow a hole into him.

"What the hell Nailah…?"

"Fuck you Dele! You played me
for
some fool…"