“Yeah, girl?” His deep voice held a question.
He never took my acquiescence for granted, even after twelve years of marriage. Even when I was clinging to his neck, a trembling mass of need for his big, sleek, ebony cock.
“Yes,” I pleaded, lovingly massaging the hard muscles of his rump. “Oh, yes, lover. Yes.”
“Yeah, Tasha, girl.” He settled his hips firmly on mine, slowly sliding the big head of his dick into my waiting, wet body. I shuddered and nearly came. There was nothing in the world half as exquisite as the first electric touch of his big honeyed cock. Moaning in anticipation of the pleasure I knew was coming, I thrust my hips upward, greedily enveloping his sweet meat in my clenching body. I knew he loved to have me wrap my legs around his waist and undulate my body against his like a wave breaking against the shore as he pumped his hard, pulsating length deep inside my quivering pussy.
Sex that night was particularly hot and explosive. I lost track of how many times we pushed and pumped and pounded each other into sweet, searing bliss. He came in me again and again. When we finally parted, I felt his sticky cum leak out of my sated pussy and drip down my thigh.
“Damn, girl, that was good!”
“It was de-licious, Detective Long,” I countered.
He was gone when I woke the next morning. I sat up and looked at my night table. When Steve left for work before I woke, he often left a note.
“Last night was the bomb, girl. Keep that tight wet pussy of yours ready for me.”
Smiling, I sank back against the pillow and continued reading. “Jake and I will be part of an undercover sting, so I probably won’t see you until tomorrow. But don’t worry. Jake’s got my back. Love you, girl. Steve.”
I lay there smiling as I remembered our early morning lovemaking, until I heard JR’s bedroom door open. “Mom! Mom, you awake?” JR was a healthy ten year old with an excellent pair of lungs.
I glanced at my bedside clock and groaned. It was barely seven o’clock. Steve and I almost needed a crane to get JR out of bed at seven on school mornings.
“Be there in a sec,” I called and scrambled out of bed. Later that morning when JR was heading to the Poconos on a trip with his Scout troop, I was in the living room ironing with the radio tuned to the local news station when I heard the beeping sound that signaled a special bulletin.
“This just in,” the newscaster announced. “A police officer was seriously wounded this afternoon in a shootout in the East Park section of the city. The officer’s name is being withheld until his next of kin can be notified.”
With a pounding heart, I set the iron down and looked around for the cordless phone. It was on the sideboard. During the ten years Steve had been on the force, we’d developed a system. Whenever he heard about a police officer getting hurt or killed, either he or Jake would call me ASAP to let me know they were okay. They’d never taken more than an hour to call, even when they were on a stakeout.
Two hours later, as I was getting really scared, the doorbell rang. He’d come instead of calling. “Thank you, Lord,” I whispered and ran through the house and threw open the door. “Steve! I—”
But it was Steve’s partner, Jake Diamond. One look at his pale face and I started shaking. “Jake! I heard about the shooting. Steve was shot, wasn’t he?”
He swallowed several times and nodded.
I grabbed his shirt. “Oh, God, Jake! How bad is he? What hospital have they taken him to?”
“Honey, I—”
I looked past him and saw his car, a dark sedan, parked haphazardly at the curb.
“I’ll just get my purse and we can go to him. Please, God, let him be okay.”
Feeling more afraid than I’d ever felt before, I started away. I’d only reached the living room door before Jake grabbed me and turned me to face him. “Honey, I don’t know how to say this, but—”
I tried to pull away. “Jake, we can talk later! I just need to get to him now.”
His grip on my arms tightened and part of me died as I saw the tears welling in his eyes. “Honey, honey he didn’t make it.”
“What!”
“I’m so sorry, but he…he died at the scene.”
“No! You liar!” I tore myself away from him and began hitting his face with my fists. “You lying bastard! He’s not dead! He can’t be! He said you had his back! Why are you still alive when he’s dead? Why are you still alive? You bastard!”
He made no effort to stop me from hitting him and I continued pummeling his face until I collapsed, sobbing hysterically. Then he was on his knees beside me, crying with me and trying to hold me in his arms.
“Take your hands off me!” I screamed. “How could you let him get killed? Where were you when he needed you?”
He stared at me, tears mixing with the blood I’d drawn on his face. “Honey, honey, please—”
“Don’t you ‘honey’ me! Don’t you ever call me that again! You get out! I never want to see your white behind again!”
“You don’t mean that! You can’t mean that!”
“I do! I do! Get out! Now!”
The following days passed in a blur. The house was filled with family, friends, and police officers offering condolences and just sitting with me and JR. I couldn’t feel anything. I’d seen Steve’s body, but I couldn’t accept that he really was dead until I saw Jake again. Then it all came back. I felt a wave of hate wash over me that he was alive while my lover was dead.
“Get out of here!”
He spread his hands helplessly. “Honey, please, I would have died to save him. You know that!”
“Then why aren’t you dead, too?”
I heard the gasps of the others gathered and knew they were shocked, but I couldn’t help hating the sight of Jake.
“Tasha, baby, you don’t mean that.” Mom squeezed my shoulders and looked at Jake. “She’s upset. She doesn’t mean—”
“I do mean it!” I pulled away from Mom and stormed over to stare up at Jake.
His face still bore the traces of bruising from where I’d battered him. I had to clench my hands into fists to keep from clawing my nails down his face. “Get out and don’t come back! JR and I don’t ever want to see you again.”
“Mom!” JR grabbed my hand in protest. “Mom, we need Uncle Jake.”
“He’s not your uncle, JR. He’s the man who let your father get killed!”
Jake blanched, then turned and walked out of the house. I didn’t see him again until the funeral. I allowed him to be a pallbearer because I knew that’s what Steve would have wanted, but I refused to allow him to come back to the house afterward.
The months following Steve’s funeral were horrible. I fell asleep every night reliving our last night together. I savored the memory of the feel of his thick, heated cock repeatedly torpedoing into my slick, pulsing pussy, sending delicious chills and shivers of bliss and lust through every nerve ending in my body. Knowing I’d never experience that joy again was almost more than I could bear.
Jake called often, but I couldn’t talk to him.
“Girl, you know that man would have died for Steve,” my best friend Tia said one night after I’d again refused to take Jake’s call.
“Because of that man, my Steve is dead!” I said bitterly.
“You know Steve trusted him with his life.”
“And look where it got him! I don’t want him anywhere near me or JR ever again.”
She gave me an angry pat. “Oh, so it’s all about what you want. Well, what about what JR wants and needs?”
“JR doesn’t want to see him either.”
“Girl, you are talking foolish and you know it. You know how JR feels about him and you know how Steve felt about him. I’m not going to sit here listening to this. You know in your heart that if there was anything that man could have done to save Steve, he would have. Or have you conveniently forgotten that he got shot three years ago because he jumped in front of a bullet meant for Steve?”
“So wh
at? It was just a scratch.”
“He was in the hospital a week!”
I stared at her with angry tears streaming down my cheeks. “Fine! But this time he let him get killed!”
“Girl, get a grip! Remember he and Steve were friends since high school. How do you think he’s feeling?”
I knew she was right, but I needed someone to hate. And at six-two and roughly 190 pounds, Jake made a nice-sized target. “So?”
She hugged me. “So? You know you and JR are all he has. He needs to be with you.”
I shook my head. “No.”
“Yes.” She gripped my hands. “You’ve kept him away for over four months. You think that’s what Steve would have wanted?”
That shook me because I knew it wasn’t. Steve had often told me that Jake was like the brother he’d never had. “I don’t know.”
“Tash, do the right thing.” Tia sighed, shaking her head. “If you’d talked to him just now, you would have heard how…I’m afraid for him. Call him to make sure he’s all right.”
“So now I’m supposed to be his keeper?”
“No. Just a friend. As he’s been yours and Steve’s for years. Don’t you think he needs a friend?”
“He has other friends.”
“None as close as you and Steve. You know that. Tash, the man sounded as if…you’d better call him. Tonight. Now.”
I shook my head. “I wouldn’t know what to say to him. The breach between us is too wide now.”
“Narrow it. Go see him.”
I thought of the things I’d said to him. Things I couldn’t take back. Things I didn’t want to take back. “I can’t leave JR alone.”
“Alone? So I’m nobody now?” She pulled me up from the sofa. “Go see him. Stay the night if you have to. I’ll stay with JR.”
Jake had a small rancher on the other side of town. I knew he was home when I arrived because his car was in the driveway and his house lights were on. But he didn’t respond to the bell.
I wanted to go home, but deep in my heart, I knew I’d treated him badly. And I did miss him. During the past six years, he’d had dinner with us at least twice a week. He’d stood in for Steve at any father-son event with JR that Steve couldn’t make. He’d sent me a dozen red roses on my birthday and sometimes for no reason at all. And he’d always provided a shoulder to cry on whenever Steve and I were fighting.
In fact, I’d once told Steve that when I needed to hear an endearment, I went to Jake. Steve’s idea of an endearment had been to call me “girl” in that deep, honeyed voice of his that I’d loved so much. Steve had often joked that Jake called me “honey” so often, he must think it’s my name.
I rang the bell again. When he still didn’t answer the door, I walked around the house and peeked in the window of his living room and nearly screamed. Jake was sprawled in a recliner with his gun in his hand, pointing toward his body.
With a pounding heart, I ran back around to the front of the house, digging in my handbag for the key to his front door. I was shaking so hard, I couldn’t get the key in the lock. “God, please! Help me!” I prayed, then stepped back from the door and took several deep breaths. When my hand was steadier, I opened the door and ran down the hall to the living room.
“Jake! Oh, God, Jake, what are you doing?!”
He didn’t answer, but lifted the gun higher.
“No!” I screamed and ran across the room to his chair. “No!” I grabbed his arm and tried to wrestle the gun away.
He resisted and lifted his free hand to push me away. I stumbled back and nearly lost my balance. “Jake! Jake, what are you doing?”
When he turned to look at me, the anguished look in his eyes made me realize how badly I’d hurt him. He’d loved Steve like a brother and I’d treated him like dirt and kicked him to the curb and beat him down. Tia had been right. He needed comforting, too. “Jake…what are you doing?”
“Cleaning my gun.”
I’d never heard him sound so miserable and defeated. I glanced wildly around. I saw none of the paraphernalia I knew was necessary for gun cleaning. “Jake…” I bit my lip and inched forward. “What are you doing?”
He pointed a finger at me. “I’m thinking of taking care of your little problem.”
“What…what problem?”
He shrugged and took a deep sobbing breath that made me ache for him. “Of my being alive when Steve is dead.”
My eyes filled with tears and terror filled me as I realized that I’d driven him to the brink of despair. “No! No! I didn’t mean that, Jake!”
He shook a fist at me. “Oh, yes you did! Don’t you stand there lying to me! We both know you meant it! You want me dead! Well, damn you, if that’s what it takes to get your forgiveness, I’ll give you what you want!”
“No! No!” I stumbled over to the chair, grabbing his arm. “No! You selfish bastard! You put that gun down! How much grief do you think JR and I can bear? We can’t lose you, too! You put that gun down now!”
He pushed me away again and I scrambled to my knees, fear clutching at my heart. When I realized how close he was to shooting himself, I think that’s the first time I realized how much he meant to me. How much emptier I’d feel if he were dead.
“No! No! God, Jake, no! No! Oh, God, don’t!”
He stared at me, his eyes filling with tears. “Damn you, Tasha! How could you shut me out of your life? How could you think for a single moment that I wouldn’t have died to protect Steve? You think I would have allowed anyone to take him from you and JR if I could have prevented it? I tried, damn it, but I couldn’t reach him in time! It happened so fast. I heard the shot and when I got there…he was lying on the ground. When I picked him up and knew he was dead, part of me died, too!”
He put his free hand over his face and sobs shook his body. I was used to Jake being strong. Strong for Steve, strong for me, and strong for JR. To see him sobbing like that was more than I could stand.
“Don’t! Please!” I rushed to him and wrapped my arms around him. “I’m sorry, Jake! So sorry!” I reached for the gun and this time he allowed me to remove it from his hand. I put the safety on, placed it on the table out of his reach, and wrapped my arms around him. “Oh, Jake! Jake, I’m so sorry for hurting you.”
His arms went around me and he buried his face against my breasts. “Oh, God, I can’t stand the pain anymore! I failed you and JR. I let Steve get killed!”
“No! No!” I pulled away and cupped his face in my hands. “No! You didn’t fail us. You’ve never failed us! It wasn’t your fault, Jake! I know that. Part of me has always known that. I was just hurting so badly…I needed someone to blame.”
He stared up at me. “I feel empty. I have nothing and no one.”
“That’s not true.” I stroked his damp cheeks. “You have me and JR. We need you, Jake.”
“I would have died to protect him. If I could, I would have taken that bullet. I just couldn’t get there in time.”
“I know that. I always have.” I stroked my fingers through his dark, silky hair. It was longer than he usually wore it and he looked as if he hadn’t shaved in days. I sighed. “I’m just so…sorry I made this so much harder for you. Forgive me, Jake.”
He stared up at me, his eyes filled with sorrow. “I’m the one who needs to be forgiven.” He pulled me down onto his lap and pressed his cheek against mine. “I thought I’d die when you wouldn’t let me be there for you and JR. I need to be with you both.” His arms tightened around my waist. “Oh, honey, I’ve missed you!”
“We’ve missed you too, Jake!” When I turned to face him, he leaned forward and devoured my lips with his mouth. At the contact, a series of electric charges sizzled through my body, making my pussy clench and throb.
It wasn’t the first time he’d kissed me on the mouth. When Jake’s parents had been killed in a plane crash two years earlier, he’d been so distraught that Steve had asked me to spend the weekend with him. “He needs a woman’s touch, and right now, girl
, you’re the only woman in his life.”
The first night, I’d held him in my arms, kissing his hair and rocking him. When he lifted his head, his blue eyes wide, looking like a little lost boy, I’d done what I did when JR looked like that: I leaned down and kissed him gently. He’d responded by kissing me back. We’d traded a few gentle, healing kisses that had no trace of passion. And although I’d been vaguely aware that he was slightly aroused, he’d made no move on me.
So it was strange to feel the rush of desire that surged through me when he kissed me now. Maybe it was sitting in his lap while he held on to me like he’d never let me go again. Or maybe I’d missed him so much. I don’t know. I just know one moment, I wanted to comfort him, the next, I’d wrapped by arms around his neck and I was eagerly returning his kiss, conscious of a mounting need to feel his cock inside me.
His lips were warm and sweet against mine. He kissed me slowly, as if savoring the taste and feel of my mouth. With a gentle tenderness that took my breath away, he encouraged me to part my lips. When I did, I felt his tongue, warm and moist, searching for mine.
I leaned into him and he deepened the kiss. Within moments, I could feel him hardening under my buns. When I felt his big hands brushing against my breasts, I shivered and dragged my mouth away from his. I pressed my face against his shoulder, aware I’d already reached the point where I was ready to slam my pussy down onto his hard dick.
Just as Steve always did, he lifted my face and looked up at me, asking for permission to continue. “Honey…?”
My mind screamed that I needed to stop this now, but I felt limp and needy. I wanted, I needed to be made love to. I needed to feel a cock inside my aching, empty pussy. And who better to fill that need than Jake, the man who’d always been sweet and gentle and who’d called me “honey” from day one?
“Yes,” I whispered and lowered my face for his kiss.
He lifted me in his arms and carried me upstairs to his bedroom. Once there, he undressed me slowly, kissing each part of my dark body he exposed. He lingered a long time over my breasts, sucking and licking me until I felt my pussy dripping and my body shaking with cock lust.