Who's That Lady? (5 page)

She was so engrossed in the pleasure of suckling him that it was moments before she became aware of the commotion swirling around and under her. Key’s entire body bucked and shuddered beneath her. His hands were everywhere on her, ripping at her clothes, squeezing her skin, all the while tugging her even tighter against him. His strained voice babbled, pleaded and demanded without words.

His excitement abruptly pushed her over the edge. Crystal shattered right there on his lap, shuddering and screaming and digging her nails into his naked shoulders. When awareness returned, she saw him staring at her open-mouthed. She could only stare back as her breath hitched and her heartbeat slammed so loudly he must hear it.

He gave a shout of laughter and squeezed both hands on her buttocks to lift her closer against him, grinding on her wet center. Crystal spread her thighs wider, ravenous with need for him. They both went into a frenzy to get each other’s clothes off.

The shock of skin to skin brought a gasp of sheer exhilaration. She felt herself falling, falling through clouds of psychic chaos. She tightened her arms around his shoulders. He was the only thing real in the universe of swirling mayhem.

Oh, yes!
The abrasion of his chest against her breasts and the slickness of his mouth trailing across her face combined to propel her to a second orgasm while he molded her body to fit with his. Somebody was moaning. Or maybe the universe was moaning with jealousy, she decided, when his hands cupped her buttocks through the fabric of her panties, kneading, rubbing and pressing.

His hands were big and strong, yet gentle. She loved what they were doing to her. Oh, God, how long had it been since she’d had a man’s hands on her butt like that? She let her head fall back and moaned with the sheer ecstasy of it.

“Oh, yeah, oh baby,” he whispered. His hands scrambled to get inside her panties, where he stroked the wet vee of her femininity and almost drove her to distraction. The world tilted and she found herself on her back, being eased to the floor in front of the couch. His big body hovered over her. His mouth alternated kisses on her throat, her breasts and her shoulders, while his fingers searched for and found the core of her pleasure. She was hot, wet and swollen, ready. So very ready for him. And still he tortured her with his touch.

She plunged her hands between their bodies to capture the prize she sought. With his shaft throbbing in her trembling hands, she let her fingertips barely brush the fine hairs on the swelling below it. His hips heaved, as if he were holding himself in check only with colossal effort. She watched his face contort into lip-biting torment. She closed her hands on his shaft with a gentle pressure and his entire body shuddered.

His kisses burned their way down the side of her neck with little nips of his teeth and lips. As last he fastened his teeth on one nipple while his fingers massaged the other. Air whistled in and out of her lungs in tortured gasps, and her legs pushed apart to find the most comfortable position to take his weight. She was vaguely aware he was using his hands to protect her from the floor even as he thrust his body against hers in near demented movement.

Crystal bowed her head, awed by the sleek power of those hips and thighs held in check over her. She caressed his muscular back and his firm buttocks to urge him on. Her reward came when he buried himself inside her with one plunge. Sweet, hot waves of rapture drove through her as she took him in, gripped his length in a velvet casing of pure delight.

She no longer knew which of them the sobs were coming from and she didn’t care. All she knew was that this was perfect, even better than she had ever imagined it could be.

“Crystal,” he gasped. “Oh, Crystal, I can’t stop. So good.”

He drove into her time and again until she spasmed in climax, burrowing her mouth into his chest to muffle her cries of pleasure. With a shout, Key spewed his seed into her.

When he immediately slid free of her, she whimpered in protest, grabbing him in reflex. Only then did her brain finally transmit that the sharp noises he was making now weren’t exactly happy.

He was groaning something like, “Woo, woo, woo, knees, leg, cramp, hurts. Owwww!”

Alarmed, she tried to ease out of the complicated entanglement of their bodies. Now she was aware of not only his jerky movements, but also of her discomforts: the heaviness of his body on hers, his elbow jabbing her rib, the awkward angle of her head jammed up against the side of the couch and the scratchiness of the carpet under her. Her brain clanged with half-registered alarms. Awkwardly, they helped one another to their feet.

“Oh, sweetie, I’m sorry!” she cried, reaching for his leg. Pained remorse edged out her satisfaction, while some bigger dismay churned around the edges of her consciousness. Something big was not right about all this. If she could have a single minute to get her head together she might be able to think, but all she could focus on right now, with foggy tenacity, was getting Key off his bad leg.

She wrapped her arms around his sweat-slickened chest, trying to support him as he hopped and skipped about her.

“What should I—?” she began, when his kiss cut her off. Her mouth opened to take all of his tongue and her head swirled with reawakened desires.

“Bed,” he mouthed against her teeth.

CHAPTER 5

Crystal awakened to the velvety steel shaft of manhood pressing against the back of her thighs. Even before she came fully awake, her body recognized Key at some elemental level: the texture of his skin, the smell of his body, the rhythm of his heartbeat. She gasped with the realization that this was no erotic dream. She was in Key’s bed and he was plastered against her body in a sweaty, sticky, gloppy joining. And they were both stark naked without even a sheet over them. It should have been nasty. But it wasn’t. Oh, God, it wasn’t.

Crystal lay in rigid denial, trying to come to grips with what must have happened. The room was dark and silent, except for the whish, whish of the ceiling fan cooling them. Key’s arm lay across her chest while one knee was drawn up over her hip. She tried not to even breathe, afraid of waking Key. But his breathing continued in a regular gentle rattle and his body was completely limp—except for
that
part. Could he
sleep
like that? She suppressed a hysterical urge to giggle.

She struggled to contain it, but the giggle shook her body. She made a furtive move to ease away from Key. He growled sleepily and held her tighter.

What was she supposed to do now? She squeezed her eyes shut in panic.
This isn’t happening!
No way, not to bland, predictable Crystal Taylor.
This had to be some kind of wild dream. This was insane.

She eased her eyes open again. Maybe she was dreaming. Hesitantly, she wiggled her toes against his leg. He drew it back with a little grunt. She froze, terrified he would wake up and ask her what she was doing here. And hell if she knew the answer to that. Key was her friend, not her lover. How had they ended up in bed together after all these years? There had been nothing remotely sexual in their relationship since high school.

She was still contemplating that when he sighed. Her heart almost leapt out of her chest when he moved, half covering her with his long, powerful body, his mouth nuzzling into her neck. Crystal melted in near mindless delight, biting her lip to keep from crying out. But when his hand cupped her breast and gave the nipple a gentle caress between thumb and forefinger, she was incapable of speech anyway. His tongue flicked her ear.

Crystal moaned softly. She turned toward him and used her free arm to clasp his body to hers. This was too good a fantasy to pass up.

She spread her knees wide in wordless invitation. Their bodies merged together like wax melting under a flame. The world and time ceased to exist. They were two mindless forces of nature pounding and grinding into one another in a wild rhythm of passion. Over and over again, she came to the peak of ecstasy, felt herself fall, only to be carried higher by his slow, rhythmic driving. She struggled to keep quiet in some crazy compulsion not to interrupt whatever sleep-induced fantasy he pursued.

She urged with gasps and stroking hands. At last he tottered on the brink of his own climax, and then shuddered into a frenzy of release. She held on to him tightly, her ankles crossed behind his hips. His explosion brought on her own final release. She floated back to earth, spent and dazed by the experience.

They lay still in one another’s arms, letting their breathing return to normal, their sweat-soaked bodies cool under the gentle whishing of the overhead fan.

“Oh, yeah, oh yeah,” he whispered and rolled off her onto his back.

Crystal, though awake now, remained immobile until she heard a gentle snore. After a pause, she lifted up to peer at him, helped by the dim light coming through the half-open bedroom door. Key was in complete repose with a wide smile on his half-open mouth and his eyes closed.

Oh my God! That was incredible
.
For a moment Crystal tried to convince herself she had imagined it all. But no, the soreness of her arms and legs, along with the tenderness of her sex, were too real. Her memories of the past night weren’t clear, but there was enough to make her feel simultaneously mortified and titillated.

A thousand questions swirled through her head. What had happened? Had they both lost their minds? Had she somehow given away to him how much she cared about him? Men could sense when a woman was available. They sniffed it in the air or something, like the predatory animals they were.

And what would he expect from her now? For that matter, what did she expect from him? What would they talk about if they were lovers? Would they start to make demands on each other? Take each other for granted? The thought panicked her.

Losing Key would be like stepping into a roaring void. Panic set her muscles quivering, jumping to pull her up from the bed. She couldn’t think when she was this close to Key’s scrumptious body. Her flight instinct kicked into gear.

Easing from the bed, she stood still and waited until the missiles finished exploding inside her head. Then she tiptoed from the bedroom, closing the door after her.

Reaching the living room, she paused to analyze her physical condition. Could she make it home, or would it be easier to simply lie down here on the floor and die? A quick look around the room made her shudder. Not here
.
She couldn’t die here amidst the evidence of her disgrace. Articles of clothing were scattered haphazardly across the furnishings. She found one of her socks hanging from a lampshade. The snaps closing the waist of her jeans had been ripped. Her sweater was turned inside out and tangled up with Key’s shirt. Her bra, found in between the couch cushions, had been torn open at the clasps in back. What was even more mortifying was the realization that both her bra and panties were the kind Shonté
deemed “grandmomma drawers” —serviceable, double-thick, stretchy cotton. Boring beige. Her only consolation was in knowing Key had never actually seen them, thank God. She shoved the underwear into her pocket and grabbed her purse.

The sight of Key’s sneakers tumbled near the bedroom door almost brought her to tears. They had been so pristine and white when he picked her up. Key’s only concession to vanity was his unending supply of white athletic shoes. He never wore a pair more than a few times, giving them away when the first scuff marred them. These were totally ruined. The soles showed black scrapes and cuts, as well as several noxious looking stains on white leather.

Well, the next stop for these shoes was the trash can. Would her friendship with Key be trashed along with them?

She tore her attention from the shoes and dialed a cab on her cell phone, then waited for it outside in the cold pre-dawn darkness.

At home, she tried to sneak quietly into the house and get to her room, but when she opened the front door, Shonté rushed out of the kitchen in the camisole and boxer shorts she slept in. Her long hair floated in an unkempt cloud and her small eyes were wide, her nose shiny.

“Where have you been?” Shonté’s voice shrilled like a nagging wife.

Crystal winced. The sound hit her like the shattering explosion of automatic weapons. “Please, not so loud,” she begged.

“Are you all right?” Shonté asked, instantly concerned.

“Yes, yes. I just need to lie down in a dark room for a little while,” Crystal muttered.

Shonté’s brows rose toward her hairline and her mouth fell open. “You’re hung over!”

Crystal clutched her ears. “Is that what this is? It feels like death by inches.”

“You got drunk and spent the night with someone? Crystal! How could you?” Shont
é’s expression struggled between shock and disbelief.

Crystal grimaced and started toward the stairs. Shonté followed.

“Who is he?”

“It doesn’t matter. It will never happen again.” She couldn’t bear the questions her friend would ask if she knew Crystal had been with Key.

“
A one night stand?”
Shonté’s screech set off the bombs in Crystal’s head again. “You spent the night with some man you don’t care about?”

Ooh, that hurt. Which was more humiliating: letting her think she didn’t know her bed partner or confessing a ‘hit-it-and-quit-it’ with her brother? Crystal’s brain twisted away from the attempt to think rationally. “I know, I know,” she muttered. “But I really need to sleep now, Shonté.”

“But Crystal, you’ve been lecturing me about Trevor all this time. Now you turn around and sleep with some man you don’t even know? I hope you at least used a condom!”

Crystal plowed to a halt at the bottom of the staircase. She managed to remain nearly upright by bracing herself with a hand on the step at waist level. She groaned. Had they used any? She didn’t even carry them with her! This episode was getting more and more nightmarish.

And Shonté wasn’t letting up either. “Crystal? Do you hear me? Answer me! Who was this man you slept with?”

“You’re not my mother, Shonté,” she mumbled, pulling herself up the stairs on all fours.

“Maybe not, but I think I deserve to know why it’s okay for you and not for me to stay out all night. Is this supposed to be payback?”

“It was an accident,” she said, gritting her teeth.

Shonté stood at the bottom of the steps. “All right, go to bed for now. But when you wake up, I’m going to know the name of that man, or else!”

Like hell you will!
That, at least, was clear in Crystal’s mind. There was no way she was ever telling Shonté who she’d slept with last night. She didn’t know how she was going to shut Key up yet, but she had to keep this from Shonté.

She finally reached the hallway at the top of the stairs. Holding onto the banister, she mustered her most shriveling glare to freeze Shonté. “Look, let’s just both admit we’re sluts and be done with it.”

She turned her back, lurched into her bedroom and slammed the door. For a minute, she leaned up against it, waiting for the room and her stomach to stop spinning.

Great. She was about to lose both her friends because of one wild night of uncharacteristic debauchery. Shont
é was furious with her, and who knew what Key was going to think when he woke up? She had to figure out what to say to him and how to keep Shonté off her back. Then everything could go back to the way it had been. She hoped.

But right now all she wanted was sleep.

* * *

The furtive opening and closing of her bedroom door dragged her from merciful oblivion. She could hear Shonté in the hallway, saying, “No, she’s still asleep.” She went on talking in a way that suggested she was on the telephone. Her voice faded into the distance.

Crystal rolled over and looked at the clock on the nightstand through one blurred eye. It was late afternoon now. She wanted food and a shower. She guessed the shower should come first.

She dragged herself out of bed, hurting in places she hadn’t known had muscles. While the warm spray of the shower brought back feelings of humanity, it also brought back memories. Tiny vignettes kept popping through the alcohol-induced amnesia.

Sucking on Key’s muscled thigh and moving higher. Key behind her while she was on her hands and knees. Howling? Geez. And as if the sex wasn’t bad enough, there were other appalling moments floating around inside her head. Had she thrown up on Key’s shoes while they stood in the street outside the club? And had she really almost fought with some ghetto girl? Funny, all she could remember of this rival was her beautiful manicure, which made her nails look like a tiny tropical beach scene, complete with palm trees and little dots of boats on the blue water.

After awhile Crystal leaned against the wall of the shower, biting her lips and shaking her head against the memories. It took awhile but she pulled herself together. She had to get through it, that’s all there was to it.

The night seemed more and more like a hallucination anyway. They’d both been drinking. Maybe, if she was lucky, Key wouldn’t even remember what happened. Or maybe she could pretend she didn’t remember.

She turned off the shower and walked to her bedroom wrapped in a towel.

There was a knock on her bedroom door.

“Yeah?”

“Key called,” said Shonté. “He’s bringing someone over he wants you to meet.”

Crystal’s heart thudded against her ribs. Looked like she’d have to deal with Key sooner rather than later.

She grabbed some clothes to put on, then armed herself with a blow dryer and went to the mirror. Oh,
hell!
She looked like she’d just climbed out of a morgue. Dark patches splotched her ashen skin, and her eyelids were red and puffy. She grabbed some moisturizing lotion and slathered it on her face, neck and arms.

My hair!
Smothering a groan, she gave it a cursory drying and secured it with an elastic band at her nape.

All the time, her brain was moving on fast forward speed. Why was he coming over here now? What kind of mood would he be in? Who was he bringing with him? Was this person connected with last night somehow? A shrink? A preacher? An exorcist? Someone planning to sue her?

The sound of the doorbell made her drop the hairbrush to the dresser top with a clatter. Motionless, her heart hammering, she concentrated on taking deep, calming breaths.
Be cool. Stay calm
.

After a minute, she wiped her sweaty palms on her pants legs, moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue and walked out to face her ordeal.

She was on the stairs when she heard Shonté open the door with a greeting. Crystal’s heart did a little skip at the sound of Key’s voice when he responded. She plastered on a smile and kept moving steadily down the stairs as Key came through the door, then half turned to extend his hand to someone outside.

A young girl allowed herself to be drawn inside. Flashing Shonté a nervous smile, she ducked her head shyly. The girl couldn’t have been more than seventeen or so. Tall, slender, with a mass of long coppery braids hanging down her back, she wore a pair of tight, low-slung jeans. When she slipped off her jacket, a strapless top bared her shoulders. She would have been narrow-waisted except for the bulge of early pregnancy pushing between her top and her jeans. One fine-boned hand spread protectively over her protruding belly.