Page 28

The next morning, Brax woke up to find Roni already up and showered and putting on a pair of what he could only describe as lime-green panties. Lying on his back looking at her, he was smiling. Spending the night with her always put a smile on his face. And waking up to her wonderfully sculptured body always got him in that mood again.

But those panties caught his attention. They were the prettiest color he thought he’d ever seen. “Where did you get those from?”

Roni didn’t realize he had awakened as she finished putting on those panties and began walking over to the nightstand on his side of the bed. “Where did I get what from?” She stooped down at the nightstand drawer.

Brax leaned over, reached inside her panties, and gave the seam a flick. “These,” he said.

“From some store, I don’t know where. Move.”

He was leaned over the bed and thereby blocking her ability to open the nightstand drawer. “Why are you on my side?” he asked as he moved his body out of her way.

“Because it’s my side.”

Brax was surprised. “You sleep on this side of the bed?”

Roni looked at him. “Uh-hun,” she said as she searched for the matching bra.

“Why did you put me on your side?”

“You put your own ass on my side,” Roni said and he laughed as she pulled a matching bra out of the nightstand drawer.

Then he looked at that bra. “Who keeps their underwear in a nightstand?”

“I do.”

“Might I ask why?”

“My lingerie drawer is full.” She sat on the side of the bed and began to put on her bra.

Brax removed the covers off his body, revealing his nakedness, and then pulled her into his arms and then half across his chest. She laughed as she was turned sideways cuddled in his arms. Then she looked into his piercing green eyes and she could see how serious he was.

“Why do you always smell so good?” he asked her.

She continued to smile. “I bathe?”

“You do more than that,” he said as looked at her sultry lips, leaned in, and kissed her. When he realized that wasn’t going to be enough, he snatched that bra from her hand and tossed it onto the nightstand. Then he began kissing her harder. So hard that she could hardly breathe. So hard that she didn’t want to breathe. She just wanted to feel that great feeling he gave to her from just kissing her alone. And when he moved down, to her breasts, and began kissing her and sucking her, her eyes closed with that fluttering feeling of floating; of being one with him once again.

Then he pulled her all the way on top of him, with her naked chest against his naked chest, and he removed her panties all the way off and tossed them on the nightstand too. He kissed her on her lips for a long, passionate time.

But when he laid her on her back, and went between her legs, her entire body began twisting and squirming from the intensity it felt. She’d never felt it the way Brax made her feel it, and she was on the verge of cumming almost immediately.

And then he moved back up, wrapped her into his arms, and entered her. And they were in a deep dive of passion once again.

They made love with a crescendo effect that neither one of them were able to achieve with anybody else. From a slowness to a moderateness to fast and faster, they were in a groove that kept them on the verge. And then they’d go slow again. Prolonging it. Stretching it out. Forgetting jobs and responsibilities and all of that craziness last night. When they were in that zone, nothing else mattered.

Brax held her tight as they moaned and grunted their way through. The bed was shaking almost to the point of collapse whenever they went hard, and then it calmed back down, too, when they slowed. It was a rhythm that was masterful. It was a joining that was as if they were built for each other.

But they knew they couldn’t last much longer.

Roni came first, but Brax wasn’t that far behind her. And the grunts from both of them highlighted just how wonderful they made each other feel. And how badly they needed that feeling.

When they finally stopped pulsating and were able to come back down to earth, Brax remained inside of Roni and they continued to embrace each other. They still didn’t want it to end.

But the reality of life, including what happened last night at that apartment building, set back in. And Roni moved out of his grasp, he pulled out of her, and she moved off of him. She sat on the edge of the bed.

“You know what’s weird to me?”

Brax looked at her. “What?”

“Is how you never ask me if I’m on birth control.” She looked over at him. “Why is that?”

Brax was well aware that he never brought up the subject. The main reason was that a part of him wanted her, above any other woman, to have his baby, and he knew that. He was forty-three years old. Like his brothers, he wasn’t getting any younger and none of them had given their parents grandkids yet. Not one of them. They were all still out there playing the field until they dropped. And their parents were pissed about it. But if anybody was going to carry Brax’s baby, it was going to be Veronica. There was no doubt in his mind about that. Even though he knew he wasn’t ready to be anybody’s daddy.

And practical Roni knew it too. That was the other reason why he never asked her about birth control. “I know your ass,” he said. “There’s no way you’re going to let me get you pregnant. Not with so many unanswered questions about our relationship.”

He was right. Roni was on birth control.

She stared at him with a stare that seemed sad and poignant at the same time. “What’s the matter?” he asked her.

Everything was the matter to Roni. Her job was in shambles again. Yes, they kept her out of the mess, but that didn’t erase the mess and her part in it. And every single time she made love to Brax, she wanted him more. But he wasn’t ready for her. And she knew, deep down, she wasn’t ready for him. Both of their asses were stubborn, already set in their ways, and perhaps neither one of them were marriage material. That was the sadness to Roni. Because Brax was too larger than life in her eyes, and too controlling, and she was never going to get herself lost in somebody else’s shadow. Not ever. That was the saddest part for her.

She grabbed her bra and panties off the nightstand and was about to stand up.

But Brax stopped her. “After last night at that apartment, why don’t you take the day off?”

“Why should I? I wasn’t even there, according to you guys.”

Brax turned her face toward his face. “Still pissed with me?”

Her look was sincere. “With you? No. But I wish I could just do my job without all the bullshit.”

“I wish that, too, sweetie, but bullshit comes with the territory in your line of work. I told you that.”

“Yeah, you told me. Ma told me. Everybody tells me. I just never thought . . .” Then her look turned into a fuck it look and she stood up and began heading to the bathroom. “Get up,” she said. “My car is still at the precinct. You’ve got to take me to work.”

“What if I wanted to sleep in, Miss Bossy Lady?”

“Tough,” she said as she entered the bathroom.

She smiled as she could hear Brax getting out of bed. But she was so full of him and drippy that she knew she had to take another shower. She turned on the shower tap as he came into the bathroom. He went over to her, kissed her neck, and then stood at the toilet and began peeing.

“You heard from Dean?” he asked her as he peed.

“I called him this morning to check on him. He says he’s on paid leave pending the outcome of the investigation, which he says they assured him is just a formality. And it is standard procedure whenever there’s an officer-involved incident resulting in a death.”

“How’s he taking the scapegoat role?”

Roni grabbed her shower cap from the towel rack and began putting it on. “He’s okay with it. I’m not, but he is. He says he’s glad to get a few days off.”

Brax, still peeing, looked over at her. “It’ll be okay, Roni. Alright?”

“Think so?”

“I know so. Why wouldn’t it be?”

“I don’t like coverups, Brax. They always blow up in your face.”

“This one won’t. You have the top of the top brass on your side. Stop worrying about that.”

Roni exhaled. “But I am careful when I’m talking on the phone to Dean or with anybody else for that matter.”

“Why would you be careful with Dean?”

“Because his phone might be bugged.”

Brax found that an odd thing to say. “Bugged? Why on earth would anybody bug his phone when we all agreed to the facts?”

“I just don’t put anything past folks, that’s all.”

“But don’t be irrational about it either, Veronica.”

“Uh-hun,” she said as if she wasn’t at all convinced. She got into the shower. “And damn,” she said, looking back at him. “You’re still peeing? How much water you got in that big body of yours?”

Brax laughed. “More than what’s in that little body of yours, that’s how much,” he said, as his peeing finally began to slow. And then it stopped. Once he shook his penis for the final trickle, he then washed his hands and went over to the shower. He got in with Roni.

He entered her again. There was no way either one of them could resist. But mostly they bathe.