Between the Sheets (9781476775807) (5 page)

“That fool.” I wave Shayla on. “I can't with her.”

She looks at me inquisitively. “I take it you know her?”

I nod, wondering why she hadn't called me on my cell. “Unfortunately, yes. And, you're right. She
is
a nut.”

She shakes her head, then says as I walk away, “Good luck with that.”

I chuckle, quickly making my way down the corridor, passing walls lined with framed book covers, autographed author headshots, plaques, and awards. Reaching the end of the corridor, I swipe my laminated ID through the silver card slot, wait for another set of glass doors to slide open, then walk through.

The doors hiss shut behind me.

I turn down another corridor, passing a nest of sleek glass cubicles, then step into my spacious, 1,250 square-foot office with a huge window, Calacatta marble flooring, built-in bookshelves, and a marble-and-steel wet bar over in the far-right corner. On the other side of my office near the window overlooking the New York skyline, there's a plush white leather sofa and two matching chairs and a French vintage gold leaf coffee table.

I smile taking in my sophisticated, yet chic, office. Many years ago, I was a girl with a dream and a plan armed with a degree. Now here I stand. A woman with the kind of life and career most can only dare dream about. And I have a husband, a partner, who loves and supports me in everything I do. Sometimes I feel like I'm living in a fairytale. It feels so surreal.

I have to pinch myself to make sure I'm still breathing, and that everything around me is real.

It is.

My smile widens as I walk around my large, centered desk and stow my Hermès handbag in the bottom drawer. Just as I'm preparing to sit, Shayla buzzes me and tells me Lenora Samuels of LS Literary Agency is on the line. Lenora is the head of one of the top literary agencies in the publishing world.

“Good morning, Lenora. How've you been?”

“I'm fabulous, darling.”

“That's great. To what do I owe the pleasure of this call?”

“I have a manuscript I'd like
you
to personally take a look at.”

“I—”

“Let me stop you, my dear,” she cuts in not giving me a chance to protest. “Before you tell me you're too busy and try to send me chasing one of your lovely editors. Know this. This book is sure to cause a bidding war. Trust me on this. It's so hot and juicy. Flooded with drama and lots of steamy sex.”

My ears perk up. “Okay. I'm listening.”

“Well, it's titled
Prison Snatch
…”

I blink.

She says it's written under a pen name. Heaven. By a woman who spent several years in state prison after she tried killing her lover. She tells me it's fiction. Erotica. But that it's based loosely on her freaky sexapades during her incarceration.

My mouth waters at the thought of some burly stud-boo salaciously dishing out all her dirty prison deeds. I bite into my bottom lip, imagining a tight-bodied stud
boi
with a twelve-inch dick jutting out of a spiked harness, fucking the shit out of me while a soft, feminine, lipstick and stiletto doll squats over my face and lowers her sweet pussy on my mouth. I lick the drool gathering at the corner of my mouth.

“Have I gotten your attention yet, my darling?” Lenora questions. I can practically feel her beaming over the phone.

I swallow. “Oh, yes, yes…you have. Send it over.”

She laughs. “See. I knew you'd see it my way. I'll have it in your inbox by the time our call ends.”

I smile, powering up my desktop. “Great. Give me a week or so to get to it.”

“Darling, because I'm giving you first dibs at the next
New York Times
bestseller. I'll give you three before I start shopping it.”

I thank her before hanging up. And sure enough, before the receiver hits the cradle, there's a new message with an attachment from her.

Shayla calls again. Tells me
Miss Lipz
is on the line.

I laugh, then quickly compose myself as I pick up the phone. “This is Marika Kennedy speaking,” I say, trying to maintain every ounce of professionalism while feigning ignorance.

“Yaaass,
bitch
,” Jasmine says in her horrible attempt at sounding ratchet. She pops what sounds like chewing gum in my ear. “This is Lollipop. But you can call me Miss Lipz 'cause they real big ‘n' juicy. And I know you had better be ready to publish my book. I wanna see
Cum Stains
in everyone's hands 'cause you know like I know, cum is good for the soul.”

I crack up laughing. “Jasmine, girl, I can't with you. Your ass is every bit of a damn fool.”

She joins in my laughter. “Girl, I couldn't help myself. I was on Amazon this morning looking for a few good books to one-click on this Kindle and my mouth dropped at some of the ridiculous titles. I saw some really crazy shit titled
Gorilla Pussy
and one called
Ratchet Bitch Riding It Raw.
Oh and some mess called
Miss Shitty.
Like, really? What the hell is the reading world coming to?”

I laugh. “Ohmigod, no. But I'm not surprised. You should see some of the manuscripts titled with ridiculousness that come across some of my editors' desks. All I can say is: welcome to the digital world, where everyone wants to be in print, hoping to be the next Zane or E.L James.”

She grunts. “Mmph. Well, good luck with that. It'll never happen. Not with garbage like that. Anyway, I need something good to read for this flight to San Francisco. Please give me some titles of some books that I can actually stomach. Please and thank you.”

I chuckle, then give her the names of a few titles from some of my imprints
(Sweet & Juicy, Drop It Like It's Hot, Lick it Slow, Fire & Desire, and Wet Heat)
. Then I rattle off a few titles I'm familiar with from off the list of other publishing houses.

She thanks me. Then asks me if I'm familiar with the author Allison Hobbs. “Girl, who isn't,” I say in a tone full of admiration of one of the hottest female authors of erotic fiction. “We've been trying to steal her from her current publisher since the release of her book
Pure Paradise
. And that's been some years ago.”

“Well, honey, I just finished reading her book
Munch.
And, girrrrl, let me tell you. My kitty throbbed the whole time. Mmph. That's all I'm going to say. Stevie didn't read the book, but baaaaaaaby…he sure reaped the benefits. I wore that man out. By the time I finished draining him, cock dust was the only thing shooting out of that man.”

I crack up laughing. “Omigod! Not cock dust! I've heard it all now. Jasmine, your behind is crazy, girl.”

She chuckles. “Honey, that man loves it when I have a book in my hand. First thing he wants to know is, ‘is that one of your freaky books?' A nod of the head and by the end of the night he's sitting up in bed with his erection in his hand, smiling.”

“Hahahahahahaha. Girl, I can't with y'all.” I open a drawer and retrieve some tissue from a box to dab under my eyes. Laughing at Jasmine has my eyes tearing. “So what's been going on? How are the twins?”

“Ugh!” she grunts. “Hormonal. I swear they're going to drive me to drink syrup and pop mollies.”

I laugh. She has fifteen-year-old twin daughters who give her a run for her money. Jasmine's a jewelry designer and her husband, Stevie, is a multimillionaire entertainment attorney for some pretty high-profile celebrities here in New York and L.A. So her daughters, Amina and Amira, are afforded a fabulous life. Yet they're fascinated with the street life and thugs.

“Girrrrl, I'm serious.” She sighs heavily into the phone. “Amina was arrested for underage drinking two weekends ago. And last weekend I spent my entire night in the emergency room with Amira's ass.”

I gasp. “Oh, no. What happened? Is she okay?”

She sucks her teeth. “Well, she will be after her jaw heals and the stitches come out of her face.” My eyes almost pop out of my head as she tells me Amira and some boy she met on Facebook was caught having sex in his bed by his girlfriend.

“Whaaat? Omigod, no!”

“Girl, yes. Some crazy little ghetto-trash named Clitina—or some damn project mess like that—and some other hood-rat girl she was with, hit her in the face with a wrench, then sliced her face open.” I'm speechless. “We live way up here in Mendham Township, okay? But this little Grown Ass finds some way to trek her fast-ass into the slums of Irvington. I'm too through.” I ask what happened to the girls who assaulted her. “Oh, honey, we pressed charges on those two little trifling bitches.”

I shake my head.

“Anyway, girl. I didn't call you with my family drama.”

“Oh, it's no bother. That's what girls are for. If there's anything I can do, let me know.”

“Yeah, direct me to the nearest drug dealer.”

I laugh.

“Anyway, I'm going to be in the city one day next week. Hopefully we can meet for lunch or an early dinner.”

I smile. Tell her I'd love that. I glance at the time. It's already a quarter to eleven. I tell Jasmine I have to get ready for a meeting. We exchange a few more words before hanging up.

I get up from my desk as my private line rings.

“Hello, this is Marika.”

“Yo, what's up sexy?”

I smile, sitting back in my chair. “You.” I lick my lips. “You miss me already?”

“Always, baby. You already know.” His voice vibrates through me. I press my legs together, feeling a sweet throb slowly pulsing in my pussy.

“Mmm. I love the sound of that. And as bad as I'd love to have dirty phone sex with you, I spent the last twenty minutes on the phone with Jasmine. And I have a meeting in”—I glance at the time in the upper-right corner of my desktop—“less than ten minutes.”

He chuckles. “Nah, we good, baby. It's a lil' hectic here for all that right now, anyway. I just wanna make sure you don't have anything planned for us this weekend.”

I swivel in my chair, glancing out the huge window, taking in the spectacular view of Times Square. “No. Nothing's planned. Why, what's up?”

“I just got off the phone with our pilot. We're going to L.A.,” he says coolly. But there's a hint of wicked amusement in his tone.

“Oh, is that so,” I say coyly, running a hand through my curls. “And what kind of devilish fun is happening in the City of Angels this weekend?”

“An invite-only party in Beverly Hills. It just came via courier. I'll give you all the details later.”

I grin, sliding my warm tongue over my glossed lips as a slow heat rolls up into the center of my pussy. An invitation-only party only meant one thing: a weekend of scandalous seduction. One full of hot, dirty fucking. And
whatever
happens in L.A. stays in L.A.

I ask what time we leave. He tells me our flight is tonight.

8:30 p.m.

“Mmm. I can't wait.”

“Me, either, baby.”

Marcel

“Yo, what's good, pussy,” my boy Carlos says, knocking on the door as I'm hanging up the phone with Marika. I could almost smell my baby's pussy juices percolating when I told her we'd be leaving tonight for this mansion freak party out in Beverly Hills.

Carlos steps into my office wearing a black leather biker jacket over a black mesh pullover with a pair of ripped, faded jeans and black riding boots. Swag on ten, his whole getup is from the Ralph Lauren Black Label collection. That's all this muhfucka rocks, that or the Purple Label.

He's a straight-up pretty boy. A mix of Native American, Italian, and African, his exotic looks have always had chicks falling at his big-ass feet. And I'm not gonna front on his dick game 'cause dude stays baggin' mad pussy with his green eyes and all that coal-black, wavy hair, which he wears in his signature ponytail.

We've been boys since junior high. But all through high school we were thick as thieves, hugging the block, turning up at all the hot parties, and fucking all the baddest chicks. Then we graduated. He went off to Morehouse on a track and academic scholarship. And I went to Howard to play for the Bison on a basketball scholarship.

Aside from pledging the same frat and having the same taste in women, we are polar opposites. His family's caked up. Mine lived check to check. He graduated summa cum laude with a degree in biology and a minor in neuroscience. I graduated magna cum laude with a degree in communications and radio broadcasting.

Yet, I'm the one actually doing something with my degree. This niggah decided in his second year at Harvard to drop out of medical school to pursue a career singing and modeling. Garnered by the gossip rags around the globe as an international playboy, he's been linked to several Hollywood starlets, a few R&B songstresses, and several supermodels in Paris and New York. Still, I keep telling his ass chicks ain't checkin' for his kind like that anymore. But the muhfucka still thinks red-skinned niggahs are on top.

Still, I gotta say, he's jet-setting and doing big things. And, although his pops was pissed at him for not becoming a surgeon, like himself and his grandfather, he's finally come around. I gotta give it to dude. He stepped out on faith and followed his dreams. Now, two R&B albums in, several appearances in commercials and film, and a six-figure modeling contract with a major fashion designer, he's posted up on large billboards in his drawz and his face stays plastered on the cover of one magazine or another.

“Oh, shit, ugly muhfucka.” I laugh, getting up from my desk, smiling. He's been over in Europe touring and doing some modeling gig for the last six months so it's been a minute since we've linked up. We give each other dap, then embrace in a brotherly hug. The scent of his expensive cologne floats around the space between us. “What up? When'd ya stinkin'-ass get back in the States?”