Between the Sheets (9781476775807) (39 page)

“Tell them how much you love me,” she pants into the phone.

I swallow back the vomit rising in the back of my throat. My jaw tightens. My nostrils flare and I suck in deep, steadying breaths, tryna keep my shit in control. “I…love you.” I croak back a groan. “I love you, aiight?” I feel like acid is burning the back of my throat. “Now let Marika go. Please.”

“See, bitch!” she yells. “I told you! He loves me! You hear that! Say it again, Mar
Sell
. Let this bitch hear it!” I say it again. “He loves
me
! Not you, you ass fucker! You hear that, Alex! Fuc—
bleep
you! I got me a real man now who loves me! Not some big-dick dog like you! I'm over you, Alex Maples!”

I frown, tryna figure out who the fuck she's babbling about.

“No man ever made me come the way you did, Mar
Sell
. Your dic—
bleep
is so big…”

I cringe, but let her keep talking.

“And you ate my pus—
bleep
—sy better than any man I've ever been with. Better than any dike bitch I let eat me when I was locked up. I never had a tongue make my whole body shake. But, you, baby…you gave it to me so good…”

I groan inwardly.
Yeah, too muthafuckin' good!

“My last lover was good in bed, too. Damn good. But all he was good for was fuc—
bleep
—ing and sucking and using women. I thought he loved me, but that tall, black, chocolate niggah never meant me any good. All he did was use me. Run through my money. Played emotional games. He liked to mind fuc—
bleep
women. And that's why I shot his ass. Left him for dead…”

I blink.
Oh, fuck!

Nina slides me another note. Tells me the police are at my building. I sigh, relieved, hoping they get to her before it escalates.

“But, you, baby…I'm not gonna shoot you. I'm gonna—”

“Listen to me,” I quickly say. “I don't know who this dude is who screwed you over. And it's none of my business. But, obviously dude didn't deserve someone like you. All I care about is you not doing anything stupid ‘n' crazy, yo.”

“I'm NOT fuc—
bleep
—ing
crazy!
Stop calling me that shit.”

“I'm not calling you crazy. I said I don't want you doing anything cray—”

“Don't say
that
word! Or I swear I'll do something you'll regret. Don't make me do it, baby. Okay?”

I can feel Nina staring into me as she hands me another note. I glance at it. The police want me to keep this broad calm. Want me to not saying anything that's going to push her to the edge.

These muhfuckas actin' like I don't already know this shit.

I nod my head, and keep talking. I tell this broad whatever it is she wants to hear. I start asking her shit that I don't give a fuck about. Like, where she was born.
Nuthouse.
What her favorite color is.
Institutional gray.
What her zodiac sign is.
Crazy.

“I wanna get to know you,” I lie, straining to keep my composure. “If we're gonna be together, baby, then we have to trust each other.”

My stomach twists in knots. I feel like I'ma shit on myself fuckin' with this broad. But I know it's what I have to do. So I tell her whatever she wants to hear. Then I tell her I wanna speak to Marika.

“Why? What the hell you want to speak to this bitch for?”

“To tell her that it's me and you now, that it's over between us. But I want her to hear it from me.”

“I promise you,
papi
. Don't cross me.”

“I won't.”

A few excruciating seconds go by before I hear Marika's strained voice.

My heart is pounding so hard that I can barely think straight. I do all I can do to keep from breaking down.

“Marika, baby…I love you.”

Sniffles.
“I love you, too. Always.”

“I know, baby. Listen. I need you to hold on, aiight? I'm gonna get you outta this shit, aiight?”

“S-s-she has a—”

Pop!

A shot is fired.

Nina shrieks, every ounce of blood draining from her face.

“MARIKA!” I cry out, my voice choking off in a sob. Fear slashing through my heart as I leap from my seat, cupping my hands tightly over my headphones.

My blood freezes.

The gun goes off twice more. Then there's a deadly, crippling silence over the airwaves.

Six months later

Margarita Island, Venezuela…

Dead. Everything inside of me, everything I am, died the night Marika was found in a river of blood.

Shot in the head.

Dead.

Murdered.

Thirty-six years old.

By some unstable broad who had fuckin' delusions that she was in love with me. That she and I were meant to be together. When all
we
—Marika and I—did was fuck her. Love? Fuck outta here! That broad fell in love with the dick, real and silicone. Not me. But somehow she got it stuck in her raggedy-ass head that I was hers. And fucked my whole world up.

She shot Marika twice, then turned the gun on herself.

One night of a hard dick, and all-night fucking cost me the love of my life.

My soul mate.

My lover.

My best friend.

The woman I loved getting freaky with. Loved baring my naked soul to.

Gone.

I swallow back a wave of emotions, glancing out into the Caribbean Sea.

Burying Marika was probably the hardest thing besides having to identify her body that I've ever had to do. I'm still shaken by it.

Still haunted by it.

Still fucked up over it.

All I've felt is emptiness, nothing but overwhelming numbness.

That broad, Ramona Ramirez—with all of her fuckin' aliases: Marisol Rodriguez, Alexandria Maples, and whoever the fuck else—had done this shit before. Stalk a muhfucka. Get the dick ‘n' get nutty over it. That Alexander Maples cat, the one she kept rattling on about over the radio. She'd shot him several times and left dude for dead, all because he wasn't checkin' for her romantically. Fuckin' craziness, yo. She was on the run for over three months before they snatched her ass up in Arizona, where she was stalking some other muhfucka. So how the fuck she only served three years for that shit is beyond me. Good behavior or some other shit.

I sigh, reaching over for my drink and taking a sip. I swallow, then lick my lips, setting the cool drink back up on the small table. I reach over and grab the coconut oil and slather the front of my body with it, stretching my hand over my limp dick, oiling it up. Here I am stretched out one of the world's most beautiful nude beaches in Venezuela…alone.

This shit's not a good feeling. But I needed to get away from the media, from the paparazzi, from the memories. I needed to get from under the scrutiny, and the gossip, and the speculation about Marika and my sex life.

“Were the two of you in an open marriage?”

“Is it true your wife was bisexual?”

“Did the two of you engage in the swingers' lifestyle?”

“Rumors have been floating around for years that you are also bisexual. Care to comment?”

Fuck outta here.

Like I'd told one reporter, “Marika and I loved each other, unconditionally. We held no secrets. And we had no inhibitions. Our public life is open for the public to pull apart. But our private life, how we got down behind closed doors, is not open for discussion. Never has been. And it never will be. Now respect the fact that I'm grieving the loss of my wife, and fall the fuck back.”

And that ended that.

Will I ever publicly disclose being bisexual? Nah. For what? That shit's no one's business unless I'm tryna build a life with you. Otherwise that shit is on a need-to-know basis.

I close my eyes. Allow the blazing sun to beat across my naked body.

I miss you so fuckin' much, baby…

“Excuse me?
Hablas español?
”

I raise my head and slowly lift my shades up over my head, and use my hand to shield my eyes from the sun. My breath catches. There's a curvaceous beauty standing in front of me.

Her bronze skin glitters under the rays.

“Nah, I don't.”

“Oh, okay. You mind if I take this chair?” she says, pointing to the beach chair beside me.

I allow my eyes to rake up and down her body. Butt-ass naked, titties melon-ripe ‘n' juicy, hips real thick, waist nice ‘n' tight…she's bad as fuck!

There's a mischievous glint in her eyes.

“Nah, you good. Do you.”

I drop my shades back down over my eyes, then lean back allowing the sun to bake into my skin.

Where was I? Oh, right…my life. I know at some point I gotta get back to the States, back to my life. I now not only have my label to run, I've inherited Marika's publishing house. Yeah, I held shares in the company, but it was her baby. One I'll die trying to keep alive. For her.

Right now, thinking about that shit makes my heart ache. Since Marika's death—nah, murder, I've left the radio station. Although I enjoyed kicking it live on the radio, that night—with my whole world unraveling for all to hear—crushed me. The love and support from my million-plus listeners and from around the globe has been real heartfelt, but still too overwhelming. I'm not ready to hit the airwaves, maybe never.

“Is this your first time on Margarita Island?” the silky voice says, floating over to me.

I turn my head in her direction. “Nah. My second time.”

Her gaze slides from my face to my chest, then down to my abs, before lowering to my dick. Her tongue glides over her lips.

“Are you here alone?”

“Yeah,” I say, staring at those beautiful milk wagons of hers. My mind starts wandering, imagining sucking her nipples into my mouth, and gently grazing my teeth over them. And a part of me feels guilty for lusting. “You?”

“No. With my husband and another couple.”

“Oh, aiight.” I reach for my drink, and take two long sips, swallowing back my dirty thoughts. I haven't fucked in six months. Haven't had the desire, or the energy to. Fuck, I haven't even sucked my own dick, or jacked off. And the last time I tried it, my shit went limp.

This whole shit has left me impotent. Turned me into one big-ass noodle-dick muhfucka.

“I don't mean to be straightforward,” Beautiful says. “But…”

I don't wanna straight up ig her. But all I wanna do is bake under the sun and be alone in my thoughts. I inhale. Then slowly turn my head back in her direction. I exhale. “Speak ya mind.”

“You have a beautiful body, and are exceptionally well-endowed. How many inches is that beautiful piece of man meat?”

“Thirteen, hard.”
Yeah, when the muhfucka could get hard.

She gasps, sliding a hand along the column of her neck, then over her breast.

“Where are you from?” she wants to know.

Why the fuck I didn't I bring my iPad and earphones?

I tell her New York. She tells me she's originally from Atlanta, but has lived in Germany with her husband—who's British, for the past five years.

“Oh, aiight.”

I take another sip of my drink, then set the glass back down. I feel the alcohol slowly heating my insides. It's been a minute since I've tossed back a drink. With all that's popped off, I was afraid I'd end up becoming a full-fledged drunk if I'd taken to the bottle like I'd wanted and drank my sorrows away.

I choke back my emotions, turning my head so that this beauty eyeing me doesn't see that I'm on the verge of tears. It's so fuckin' hard to live life knowing the one you thought you'd spend the rest of your life living, loving and enjoying it with is gone.

Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night, gasping for air, feeling as if I'm being suffocated, as if the life is being sucked out of me.

Then there are times when I get so overwhelmed with grief that I break down and start crying, balling like a fuckin' baby, because I'm fuckin' hurting. Other times, I'm consumed with guilt. Replaying that night over and over in my head. Blaming myself for Marika's death. Wondering if there was something I could have done, or said—or maybe something I did or said that I shouldn't have—that would have saved her life.

Sixteen years, gone! I wish those bullets would have been for me, then I wouldn't be here suffering in loneliness and filled with so much pain.
Why'd she have to leave me here on this earth without the love of my life?

Marika fuckin' loved me. All of me. Every fuckin' stretch of my naked flaws, she loved, and accepted…unconditionally. And she allowed me to be me. No judgment. No ridicule. She simply got it. She understood the kind of man I am.

We had no secrets.

We were able to express ourselves freely. Explore our sexualities openly. She delighted in keeping the heat turned up in the sheets. There were no inhibitions. That shit didn't exist for us.

Now what?

I don't know if I will ever find that kind of love again. Or ever have the kind of openness Marika and I shared with another woman. Not that I'm looking. It's too soon for me to even consider it. I'm still too broken. Still…

I stare out into the Caribbean Sea. Reflect on my life, with and without Marika.

For the first time in my life, I'm so fuckin' lonely.

Yeah, I can get pussy. Yeah, I can get neck. But I can't ever get back the one thing that has always mattered the most—Marika's love.

I take several deep breaths, then exhale. Somehow, I have to accept life as it is, trusting that everything happens for a reason; that this is where I'm supposed to be…today.

I close my eyes briefly, and when I reopen them, I can feel her eyes on me. I turn to her, catching the lust in her stare as her eyes roam my body. Something else flickers in her eyes, when she smiles, and says, “My husband and I saw you earlier laying out on the beach.” Her voice is low and sexy. “And we've been eyeing you all week.”