LOVING HER SOUL MATE (21 page)

“Yes,” he
said,
a big smile on his face.
 
“You like?”

“Is it brand new?”

“Not new,
no
.
 
I purchased it a couple years ago.”

“I see.
 
It’s certainly sporty,” she said as she let
him in.
 
That car, for some reason,
didn’t help lift her mood.
 
It was a
player’s car straight up.

“What’s the matter?” John asked
her as he walked in.

“Nothing’s the matter,” she said
as she closed the door.
 
“I hadn’t heard
from you, so I didn’t know if our date was still on.”

“Sorry about that,” he said.
 
“Every time I thought to phone you I was
getting pulled one way or another.
 
But
I’m here now.
 
Ready to
cook for you.
 
Show me to your
kitchen.”

She smiled as she showed him to
her kitchen.
 
And just like that she felt
her mood lightened.
 
John, she was
beginning to realize, had a way of doing that for her: easing her load, her
burden, her mood.
 
Although, she also
knew, they still had the matter of his ex-wife, and specifically his
relationship with that ex-wife, to discuss.

As he washed his hands and
prepared to cook a pasta dish, she went into the master bath and showered and
changed into her own pair of jeans and a UAB jersey.
 
Every time she entered her room now she
thought about John stretched out on her bed, completely naked, and the way he
kissed her and held her all night.
 
Seeing him again brought it all back.

“Whatever you’re cooking,” she
said as she reentered the kitchen, “it smells great.”

“Thank-you my dear,” John said and
glanced her way.
 
Only he did a second
take when he saw how youthful she looked in those jeans and jersey.
 
He’d never bothered with women more than a few
years younger than he was, and it was a startling thought to him now.
 
But Shay was a mature young woman, far more
advanced than many of the older women he often fooled with, so he felt
reasonably comfortable with their age difference.
 

“I saw you today,” she said.

He smiled.
 
“I would have thought you did.”

“After you left, Ed put me back as
primary on the Dodge murders.”

John nodded, tasted his
pasta.
 
“Good.
 
He should have.”

“You threatened to withhold future
intel
from him.”

“Something
like
that.”

“Why, John?”

John looked at her.
 
“Why do you think?
 
I wasn’t going to sit back and let that
asshole walk all over you like that.
 
He
was wrong and he knew it.
 
Giving your
hard work to some damn Ronnie Burk!
 
That
wasn’t happening.
 
But that’s how they do
it, Shay.
 
You’re a young, black woman in
an old white man’s game, and they look out for their own.
 
But not this time,” he added, and turned back
to his pots.

Shay stared at him as he attended
to his food.
 
She wasn’t accustomed to
being taken care of like this.
 
When an
injustice at work was done to her in the past, she either had to fight it all
alone, often coming across like a bitch, or just
forget
about it.
 
Mostly she forgot about it, or
complained quietly to her boss, except when they left her no choice.
 

She couldn’t take her eyes off of
this new man in her life, this big man as he turned around in her small
kitchen.
 
He had on a brown pullover knit
shirt and well-worn blue jeans, and everything about him screamed power and
prowess.
 
In truth, she couldn’t stop
thinking about his power and prowess, especially in bed.
 
She’d never been with a man quite like him
before.
 
Lonnie Resden was good in bed,
but his idea of experimentation consisted of spanking her with some new-age
belt that left her bruised and battered.
 

John didn’t need any gadgets or
aids.
 
His dick was his accessory and
man, she thought, did he know how to use it.
 
She never cared to give oral or get oral until John did it to her.
 
She never liked it rough until John gave it
to her rough.
 
It was as if he was
opening her up to a different world and, with him, it was exhilarating.
 

And just the thought of his dick
inside of her made her vagina tingle.
 
And when he turned her way, as he plated the food, she even looked down,
at his package, and couldn’t stop thinking about how warmly it made her feel.

John smiled when he saw Shay’s
gorgeously big eyes trail down to his bundle.
 
He’d had enough satisfied women in his bed to be accustomed to that
reaction.
 
But it was different seeing
Shay react.
 
He was pleased to know that
she was pleased with his performance last night.
 
Because, in truth, he had
an encore performance in store for her tonight.
   

She certainly pleased him, he
thought, as he remembered her pliable body, from the sweet smell to the sweet
taste to the beautifulness of her entire being.
  
And it was times like these when he hated
that he had a bad reputation, and that Shay, by virtue of the fact that she was
now hooked to him, would be tarnished with that rep too.
 
To the townspeople she would be just another
one of John Malone’s ladies.
 
Although
nothing, John thought as he took the plated food to the table, could be further
from the truth.

“Come on, let’s eat,” he said as
he and Shay sat down at the small table at the small kitchen window.
 

They ate slowly and small-talked
most of the time.
  
An elephant was in
the room, clogging up Shay’s thoughts, but John seemed oblivious.
 
Until Shay decided to just come out and ask
him.
 

“Are you still sleeping with your
ex-wife?” she asked him.

John’s fork stalled just after it
had picked up a hefty pile of pasta.
 
He
sat it back down and looked at her.
 
“What made you ask a question like that?”

“Are you, John?”
 
Shay wasn’t backing down.
 
Her fork was playing around with her food,
but it was clear where her attention was.

John swallowed hard.
 
“I don’t get why you would ask that.”

“Did you sleep with her this
morning?”

“Hell no!” he said with a frown.

“But after you left me this
morning you went over there?”

He hesitated this time, which
didn’t help Shay at all.
 
“Yes,” he
finally said.

“Why?”

“What do you mean why?”

“Because that’s what I mean.
 
Why, John?
 
Why did you go over there as soon as you left me?
 
Are you still in love with that woman?”
 

John exhaled and ran his hand
through his hair.
 
“I had my cell phone
off last night.
 
If I don’t turn it off
I’ll never get any rest.
 
She had left me
several messages.
 
I went over there to
make sure she was okay.”

Shay stared at him.
 
“Why should you care if she’s okay?”

Again he attempted to smile.
 
Again he failed.
 
“Because she’s my ex-wife, that’s why.
 
We were married for six years.
 
I loved her once.
 
I can’t just pretend that it never happened.
 
She’s the mother. . . She was once the mother
of my child, Shay, surely you understand that.”

Shay didn’t understand it at all,
if truth be told.
 
When she was done with
a relationship, she was done.
 
She truly
didn’t care if the guy was dead or alive.
 
And she knew it was probably different in a marriage that lasted longer
than a minute, but still.
 
John seemed to
still have that female in his system big time.
 

“You do understand,” he asked
again.
 
“Don’t you, Shay?”

“Not really, no,” she replied
honestly.

“I don’t love her.
 
I’m not fucking her.
 
You have nothing to worry about in that
department, I assure you.
 
Don’t believe
anybody who tells you I’m doing anything like that with Blair, because I’m
not.
 
I check on her, yes, I do.
 
But that’s it.
 
All right?”

Shay looked at him.
 
He looked so concerned that she felt a sense
of obligation.
 
And she knew she had to
believe him over some gossip Ronnie Burk had heard.
 
She nodded her head.
 
“All right,” she said, and John’s relaxed
look returned.
 

This was all so new to him.
 
He’d never been in a relationship like this,
where he was the one stressing about the future of the affair.
 
He was seriously worried there for a moment
that she was going to decide he was too much trouble, and
dump
him.
 
And if she had made such a
decision, he wasn’t quite sure how he would have handled it.
 
Or if he could.
And
that, without question, would be a serious first for him.

He grinned.
 
“You were giving me a heart attack there for
a minute,” he said.

“I didn’t mean to give you any
grief.
 
I just don’t want any surprises.”

John took her hand.
 
“You won’t get any, not from me.
 
I’m in this.”

Shay stared at him.
 
“All the way?”

He sandwiched her hand between
both of his.
 
“All the way,” he said.

It was Shay’s time to exhale.
 
“Good,” she said, and they released
hands.
   

“So,” John asked, looking at her
almost clean plate of food, “how do you like my crab
alfredo
?
 
Thumbs up or thumbs down?”

“Up,” she said.
 
“With snaps.”

John laughed.
 
And then his cell phone began ringing.

“Ah, geez!” he yelled.
 

Shay smiled.
 
“Turn it off,” she said.

He pulled it out, looked at his
Caller ID.
 
“It’s the station.”
 
And was compelled to
answer.
“Malone,” he said into the phone.
 
And then he listened.
 
It was obvious, by the look on his face, that
it wasn’t good news.
 
“Get those witness
statements before they have a chance to compare notes.
 
I’m on my way,” he said, and killed the call.

“Oh, I’m disappointed,” Shay said.

“You don’t know how much I am,” he
replied.
 
“You go on and finish your
dinner.
 
Put mine in the microwave.”

The idea that he would be coming
back to her tonight warmed her heart.
 
Then she thought about something.
 
“It’s not another murder in Dodge, is it?” she asked him.

“No, no, thank God.
 
A drive-by on Stockton.
 
They need a senior officer on the scene.”

“You?”

“Me.
 
Dammit.”
 
Then he stood up.

“Duty calls,” Shay said as she
stood up too and walked with him to the front door.

When they arrived at the door,
John looked at Shay, at the outline of her breasts within her jersey, and then
into her eyes.
 
He pulled her into his
arms.
 
“I’ll be back,” he said.
 
“Are you going to wait for me?”

Shay smiled snidely.
 
“No, John, I’m going to leave my home and go
dancing.
 
I never leave my home and go
dancing, but I figure I’ll do it tonight because you might come back.”

He laughed.
 
“You have a smart mouth, you know that?”
 
He gave her behind a swift slap.
 
Then he looked at that mouth.
 
“A gorgeously gorgeous smart mouth,” he
added.