Heat Wave Page 16

  Love leaned back in his embrace and looked up at him. “I do feel it,” she admitted, her eyes shifting around his face quickly before landing on his mouth and then moving back up to his eyes.

  A current seemed to fill his body, and he wondered if he had ever wanted a woman so much in his life.

  Chapter 8

  “Long Hot Summer Night” —Jimi Hendrix

  Love took a deep breath to steady herself and inadvertently inhaled the heat and spiciness of Maleek’s cologne. She licked suddenly dry lips as her heart raced dangerously fast.

  Yes, he was right. He did have her wide open.

  He must have seen that blatant hunger in her face because the look on his face changed just seconds before he grabbed her face with his sizzling hands. She gasped from the feel of him. Her whole soul was shaken from his touch. She shivered as she closed her eyes.

  She didn’t know he was bending his handsome head to kiss her until she felt the very first touch of his soft lips against her own. She moaned in sweet release as she brought her hands up to lightly grasp his and press their bodies together.

  She shivered as her aching and hard nipples pressed against his chest just as he deepened the kiss with a moan. The feel of his tongue circling her own made everything around them seem to fade to black.

  Finally, finally, here was the passion she craved and dreamed about for what seemed like forever.

  As his lips moved down her cheek to sweetly suckle the base of her throat, Love let out a strangled cry that came from deep within her soul.

  “Damn right,” he whispered against her ear as he placed gentle kisses from her chin up to her forehead. “Don’t hold back. Let it out.”

  Love shivered as she felt the bud between her legs throb. “Maleek,” she whispered into the heat between them.

  He touched his forehead down upon hers and their eyes met. “I know we are as different as night and day, but this feels real. And I’ve never felt like this before,” he admitted in a heated rush as she lowered her hands to his narrow waist.

  “God knows . . . me either.” Love sought his lips with her own and initiated a kiss that shook them both to their feet.

  Love took his hand and guided him into her bedroom. As soon as the door closed, Maleek used his strong hands to lift her up by her waist and carry her to the bed. She instinctively spread her legs wider to wrap around his waist. Strong and hot hands pressed to her shoulders until she lay back on the bed before him. She arched her back like a feline being stroked as he brought his hands up to massage and caress her hard nipples.

  Love said not one word as he ground his hips against hers, causing the long and hard length of his erection to press against her moist and swollen bud. She locked her eyes with his as she brought her hands up to cover his. She moved them to her pajama top, and as if he read her thoughts, he grabbed the front and snatched it open. She cried out and circled her hips against him as the buttons flew and hit odd spots against the walls.

  His eyes flamed with intensity.

  Love swallowed over a lump in her throat as she thrust her naked breasts higher. Her aching nipples lightly rubbed against warm skin as they poked through his fingers. She squirmed beneath his stare and his touch.

  Maleek cupped her breasts, lightly tweaking her nipples with his thumbs. As he bent low, guiding his open and anxious mouth to the dark chocolate peak, Love arched her back higher. He was just about to stroke his fleshy tongue against the tip when the sudden jarring ring of his cell phone caused them both to freeze.

  “Forget it,” he whispered against her hot skin.

  “Uhm . . . you really should lock your phone . . .”

  Love pressed her face into his neck as she nearly died from shame at the sound of Ayannah’s voice echoing through his cell’s speakerphone. “Oh my God . . . ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod,” she said like a chant.

  Maleek kissed her cheek before his shoulders began to shake.

  Love popped one eye open and pulled back a bit to look up at him. He was laughing or at least failing at trying not to laugh. She playfully swatted his shoulder. “Oh, what if we had . . . you know . . . ?”

  Maleek laughed even harder as he rose to take his phone from the pocket of his shorts and turn it off. Maleek stood there with his strong and capable hands now on his hips as his hardness strained against the confines of his shorts, seeking to be free and deeply implanted within her walls.

  Love bit her bottom lip as she covered her exposed breasts with her slender forearm. In those few heated moments she shared with Maleek, nothing at all had mattered but being in that moment . . . and enjoying every single bit of it. Her cheeks warmed as she remembered guiding his hands to tear her pajama top. She knew it would be that good with him. She knew it.

  Love felt that now familiar hum of awareness as he walked back to lay beside her on the bed. At the feel of his hands on her forearms, she trembled. He began to massage deep circles in her flesh, and she moaned in the back of her throat as her body involuntarily reacted to his strength and his heat.

  What to do, Love?

  Enjoy myself.

  The thought made Love float on air.

  Maleek bent his head down closer to hers so that their eyes were level and locked. He took her hand and pressed it to his chest. Love’s mouth gaped at the hard and pounding beat of his heart. She wanted to feel passion. She wanted to feel more alive than ever. She wanted to feel like she was free-falling through air. With one tiny lick of her lips, Love tilted her head up to press her lips to his.

  He was right. There was something between them and it was much bigger than all of the things that made her afraid to live with love.

  Maleek deepened the kiss and Love brought her hands up to clutch desperately at his back as she kissed him back. As Maleek placed one arm around her waist, it was her who brought her hands around to his chest and pushed him roughly back against the bed, straddling his hips. She saw the look of surprise and desire in his face as she broke the kiss to look down at him.

  Love backed off him and the bed and stepped out of her pajama bottoms, naked and exposed before him without a care. She arched a brow as she pulled him to his feet to grab the bottom of his shirt to roughly jerk upward. Maleek paused for a second before his face filled with understanding . . . and agreement. “Yes?” he asked.

  Love nodded urgently as she began to unbutton his pants.

  “Now?” he asked.

  She needed this.

  She wanted this.

  She was going to have this.

  Love reached up on the tips of her toes just as his pants fell around his ankles with a whoosh. “Now,” she ordered in a whisper against his lips.

  He captured her lips in another kiss. Inhibitions were lost. Pure unbridled passion was found.

  Love gasped in pleasure as his hands found and massaged places on her body that she had forgotten existed. She couldn’t believe she was doing it. She was putting passion before logic . . . and it felt damn good. She had no regrets. Not now. This was the stuff romance books were written about.

  Her eyes rolled up into her head and she bit his shoulder as he roughly turned and pushed her back against the wall. Her hair had loosened from its ponytail and flowed up around her head on the wall. He lowered his open mouth just above hers, and they breathed in each other’s essence for a few fiery seconds as pure electricity crackled around them like a thunderous lightning storm.

  Maleek kissed her lips briefly and roughly before he turned their bodies again to back her against the edge of her bed. They fell onto it, locked, and their limbs entangled. She kicked her feet to the sky as he used his hand to press the tip of his sheathed hardness between the lips of her core.

  With one thrust of his narrow hips, Maleek entered her quickly and deeply. Completely. Love bit her bottom lip to keep from releasing a guttural cry. Even as he moved within her tightness with force, she held back the part of her that wanted to really be free. They mated fast and furious as if this was thei
r last day on earth.

  As if they would never see each other again.

  As if they had found a passion that made anything and everything outside of their physical union insignificant.

  As if they were meant to be this way with each other.

  Everything about their sex seemed to move in a flash.

  Bodies pressed.

  Hearts racing.

  Sweat pouring.

  Limbs tightly clutching.

  Hips thrusting.

  Moans.

  Kisses.

  Bites.

  Suckles.

  Love pulled Maleek’s body down above her and she bit his shoulder to keep from crying out as she felt her body fill with small quivers. So this is what it feels like, she thought, so desperately craving that feeling . . . that explosion from deep within her soul. Tears fell from her eyes, and she felt Maleek’s muscled arms snake around her waist to hold her tightly. Securely. Protectively. Passionately.

  Maleek pressed his mouth down upon hers and suckled her tongue deeply as his face twisted and contorted with each explosive spasm of his seemingly infinite release.

  Long after, they lay with their intimacies still joined and their hearts slowed from a thunderous roar. They both were completely and totally moved by it all.

  Love kissed his shoulder as she stroked his back. “Wow,” she whispered.

  Maleek leaned up a bit to look down at her face. He smiled broadly before his head dipped to briefly taste her lips again. “Wow is right.”

  Love looked into his eyes and allowed herself to get lost. “I needed that,” she admitted shyly.

  “Oh, you did?”

  She nodded and then they laughed together softly.

  Maleek nuzzled his nose against her chin. “So what do we do now, Miss Lovely?” he asked in a husky voice.

  “What do you suggest, Mr. Trenton?” she asked softly. Her tone was as relaxed and content as her body.

  “How ’bout putting the cart back behind the horse?”

  Love’s face became a mask of confusion. “Meaning?”

  “Meaning we skipped all around the bases and headed straight to home base.” Maleek eyes took in her fine facial features, which were a complete contrast to the current wildness of her unrestrained hair. “You hungry?”

  Love looked up at him, her eyes filling with alarm. “I’ll cook something. I’m not looking for our date to be all over the blogs and shit tomorrow. Superstar athlete dating ex-wife of R & B icon. Nada.”

  Maleek nuzzled her cheek. “So you wanna stay in?”

  She nodded. “I’ll cook you a good down-home southern meal like my grandmamma taught me, and we’ll go up on the rooftop and listen to the sounds of Harlem. Just talk. Just chill. Just me and you.”

  Maleek kissed a trail from one shoulder to the next before he rose to his feet. “You know what? That does sound better than flying my private plane to Turks and Caicos for paella and margaritas.”

  Love felt no regrets at the change of plans. She lived the jet-set life before. She wasn’t impressed. “Intrigue me with your thoughts. Seduce me with your words. Spoil me with your attention. Your money is no good here,” she told him huskily, reciting a verse from a poem she wrote ages ago after her divorce.

  Maleek nodded before he licked his lips and kissed her deeply, passionately, like there was nothing else in the world he’d rather do.

  Chapter 9

  “Picnic in the Summertime”—Deee-Lite

  Six Weeks Later

  July

  Love adjusted the bright orange bikini she wore, untying the straps to be sure not to mar her smooth tan. “If the summer sun were my lover,” she began, stretching her long limbs on the beach blanket stretched out across one of her dark wicker chaises.

  She couldn’t recite her ode to summer because her lover was real now and his name was Maleek. His touch was more heated and amazing than the rays of the sun. She shivered in memory of him making fierce love to her atop her piano after serenading her with the piano keys. His musical talent was both a surprise and yet another layer to the man that deepened her feelings for him.

  He was a true Renaissance man. An athlete. A musician. An artist in the bedroom. A thinker. A giver. Maleek Trenton continued to amaze her in a million different ways every day.

  He insisted that she still plan his end-of-summer event, but most times the decisions that needed to be made were set aside when he stroked her thigh or commented on the scent of her intimacy.

  The last six weeks had been a true whirlwind courtship. Maleek was pulling out all the stops, and Love knew if she had the time available that his surprises would have no bounds. Her weekends were booked, but the weeknights and some days were filled with adventures. Lounging on the beach. Picnics in the parks. Playing in the pools. Fulfilling their own little summer bucket list. Enjoying the heat of the sun and creating even more fire between the sheets.

  More and more he was urging her to join him at some of the events he attended around town, but Love declined. She was more than satisfied to have Yuri drop him off at her home as soon as he was able to slip away from the events. Even his promises that she didn’t have to walk the red carpet with him didn’t ease her concerns.

  Everything was so amazing between them, but what future did they have beyond the summer when he would leave New York to begin the basketball season and she would be left with nothing but memories? She didn’t like to think about the end of summer.

  Her cell phone vibrated on the ground and she instantly reached down for it. She was disappointed not to see Maleek’s number. He’d attended church with his family—another invite she had politely refused.

  “Hey, Tashi.”

  “You home? I was going to come over and hang with you, stranger.”

  “Actually, Maleek is headed straight over after church,” Love said, making a face because she knew once Maleek took residence in her world, she had put some restrictions on Tashi and her other friends.

  “I ain’t mad at you. I’m just glad you’re enjoying yourself.”

  Love smiled, lifting one leg high into the air to inspect her neatly manicured toes. “I am, girl. It’s really nice. You know. But he wants to take it a little more public and I’m nervous. You know that.”

  “Listen, I am all over the celeb press, and I haven’t heard a bleep about you two, so whatever you two are doing is working,” she advised.

  Love squinted her eyes. “I know, but I understand him wanting me at his side . . . and hell, if he didn’t, I would think he was up to no good, you know?”

  “Hey, last week I tried to drop off the shoes I borrowed from you, but your spare keys aren’t in the pot anymore.”

  “No offense, but there’s a lot of things going on in here that you don’t need to walk in on. O-kay?” Love teased.

  “Point made,” Tashi drawled.

  They laughed.

  “Okay, I got to find something for me to get into since you’re all boo’ed up.”

  “Let’s meet for lunch sometime this week,” Love offered, standing when she heard footsteps behind her. “My treat.”

  “I don’t turn down nothing that’s free. Call me.”

  Love barely heard her as Maleek strolled up to her looking so good in his gray and white pin-striped suit with a double-knotted yellow paisley tie. Whether casual in shorts or decked out in a suit, her man looked hella fine.

  My man, she thought with an inner smile as she stood up.

  “Damn, I shouldn’t be thinking what I’m thinking since I just left church,” he said, wrapping his arm around her to lightly grasp her buttocks and pull her close for a kiss.

  “Hey, you,” she breathed into his mouth.

  The spare keys she used to hide on the porch were comfortably in his hand like a man coming home.

  As he broke the kiss, Love could tell something was troubling him. She hated the bit of alarm she felt. Had their summer together come to an early end? She turned and bent down to retrieve her oversiz
ed shades, quickly sliding them on her face like a shield.

  “These last two months have been everything I hoped for,” he began, loosening his tie as he squinted his feline-shaped eyes against the glaring sun.

  Love tightened the strings of her bikini around her neck, saying nothing.

  “Sitting up talking. Playing chess. Banging out music together. Able to talk about anything. Everything.”

  Love licked her lips as she turned to peer up at him as he strode to the edge of the rooftop and looked down on the city.

  “But . . .”

  Love’s gut clenched.

  “If we are going to survive beyond this summer, then we can’t keep playing like the rest of the world doesn’t exist,” he said, turning his head to look over at her.

  Love took a sip of her peach tea to stall for time.

  “What am I to you, Love?” he asked. “Because, straight up? You are everything to me.”

  Love gasped a little and her hand tightened on her glass.

  “Who am I to you, Love?” Maleek asked again, walking over to take the glass from her hand and lift her face up.

  “Everything that you feel, I feel. You know that,” she admitted.

  Maleek nodded and licked his lips before he released her face and turned away from her. “Do you think we can’t survive out there?”

  “Out where, Maleek?” she asked.

  “Outside of Harlem. In my world,” he said, raising his voice as he stretched his arm out.

  Love shook her head. “Why can’t things stay the way they are?”

  “Because being hidden in your house and only doing things together in Harlem or wherever there is no press is not gonna last,” Maleek said, coming over to stand beside her. “So when the summer ends, it’s over and we just pretend like none of this happened? Like we didn’t happen, Love?”

  That could never be. She could never forget him. Never.

  “I am sorry that you went through all that bullshit with your ex, but that’s not me.”

  Love looked over at him.

  “I’m doing time for his crime.”

  Love shifted her eyes away.