All Hail the Queen Read online

  “BeckySusanMeghan is lucky she got a ride and not an ass whipping,” she muttered as she jogged up the stairs.

  The loud blare of someone laying on their car horn caused her to stop and look over her shoulder. A white Cadillac did a slow roll up the street as its driver, a light-skinned dude with cornrows, leaned out the window showing off a mouthful of gold grills.

  Naeema glanced down at the sports bra and leggings that served no real purpose in covering her. She met his leer and he finally faced forward with a shake of his head meant to compliment her and then accelerated forward. She wasn’t embarrassed by her body or the attention. She was well aware she had the kind of body selfies and bathroom pics on Instagram were made for. First J-Lo and then Beyoncé made fat asses popular for mainstream America but brothas, Latinos, and country white boys been down.

  She shifted her eyes over to the apartment building where Mya lived. Both the porch and the window were empty. Last night, in between dodging a hundred and one questions from the nosy teen, Naeema had quizzed her to push forward memories of the burglar. She had felt relief and guilt after finally urging her back across the street to her own place. The relief? Mya talked too damn much and asked way too many questions. The guilt? She wasn’t blind to the sadness the girl carried. It was there in her eyes, in the way she carried herself, and in the way she so instantly clung to Naeema.

  In her life she knew that kind of sadness her damn self all too well.

  With one last look she turned her head and continued up the stairs. She opened the metal mailbox attached to the brick wall and removed her mail.

  “Shit,” Naeema swore as she reached for the doorknob. Her keys and her cell phone were back at the gym.

  So busy trying to fuck Tank that I fucked myself.

  She hit her knuckles against the door.

  Knock-knock.

  She shook her head, knowing it was a complete waste of time. Sarge would never hear her down in the basement and the doorbell was just one of a gazillion things on her list to have repaired.

  Shit.

  Naeema rattled the keys in her hand as she jogged back down the stairs with her mind set on knocking on the back door until Jesus carried her home or Sarge was able to hear her over his loud television playing in the basement. She was halfway down the stairs when she turned the keys over in her hand and looked at them.

  How could I forget?

  She smiled as she recalled a clear memory of her pushing the silver key across the kitchen table with the pointed tip of her acrylic nail to Tank sitting next to her as they ate breakfast before heading out to work. He had eyed her in surprise before nodding and then leaning over to press a kiss to the back of her neck. Her invite. His acceptance. Their compromise to his request for them to live together again.

  The concession didn’t last very long.

  But there, nestled between the keys to his Harley Davidson and the Sprinter were three house keys. She turned and headed back up the steps to the front door, trying first one key and then another.

  Click.

  The relief felt good as she turned the knob and lifted the door before pushing it open with a nudge from her bare shoulder. Going from the outdoors inside offered her body no relief. Even the house seemed to sweat, letting off the smell of old wood. The heat pressed back against her body as she walked through it to turn on the portable air-conditioning unit. The battle between a lower light bill and coming home to a cool house was nonstop.

  She flipped through the stack of envelopes as she stayed posted up in front of the AC. “The fuck?” she said, holding up a bright red envelope addressed to Ezra Manigault.

  She had no idea who or what Ezra was.

  Setting what looked to be an envelope containing a card onto the mantelpiece, Naeema continued shuffling through the bills and mailers as she crossed the scuffed, faded hardwood floor to the kitchen. Pushing the door opened she sat the stack on the counter along with Tank’s keys. The door leading down into the basement was slightly ajar. “Sarge,” she called out, washing her hands at the sink before she opened the fridge.

  She wasn’t much of a cook and never claimed to be. And without AC in the kitchen the last thing she planned on doing was turning on a stove to kick the temperature up to the level of pure hell. “Sarge,” she called again, looking over at the open door.

  It was quiet. Too damn quiet.

  Naeema shut the fridge and left the kitchen to retrieve her gun from its hiding place in the ash trap of the fireplace. Her adrenaline kicked in like a motherfucker as she checked to make sure it was loaded with a full clip. She held it at her side in her right hand as she walked back into the kitchen. Quickly she checked the back door. The lock was intact and none of the glass was broken.

  She opened the door leading into the basement wider and started down the stairs. The second step from the top lightly creaked under her weight but she didn’t stop. Her heart pounded as she said a silent prayer that Sarge wasn’t hurt again and that the robber had returned. She wanted to trap his no-good ass in that basement and wear him the fuck out for violating her home.

  But first things first.

  She wished she had turned on the light at the top of the stairs. She hadn’t been in the basement since she first moved in. There was just enough light coming from the small windows along the top of the walls to make out a figure lying on the floor next to the twin bed pushed against the wall. She paused at the foot of the steps and looked around the entire area for possible hiding spots.

  When she was sure no one would jump out and grab her from behind she made her way over to him. “Sarge,” she said, gently pushing his shoulder to ease him onto his back.

  “What?” he snapped suddenly, his gruff voice irritated because she awakened him.

  Naeema yelped and jumped in shock, falling back onto her ass, her hand hitting the concrete. She accidentally pulled the trigger. A spark of fire lit up the dimness.

  POW!

  “Shit,” she and Sarge both swore.

  Bits of sheetrock burst from the bullet hole.

  Naeema carefully set the gun on the floor. “Oops,” she said.

  Sarge glared at her the entire time as he struggled first to his knees and then to his feet as he held on to the mattress on the bed for support. “Oops my ass,” he snapped. “Me and you and that”—he pointed to the gun—“ain’t gon’ make it.”

  Naeema rose to her sneaker-covered feet before she bent down to pick up the gun to make sure the safety was on. “I thought we got robbed and you were hurt again,” she said, reaching up to drag her fingers across the ceiling as she felt for the light fixture and then pulled the string dangling from it. “Why were you on the floor?”

  “I gotta pay rent to have some business you’re not in?”

  Naeema’s hand hit the bulb. It felt loose in the socket. She turned it tighter and the basement lit up with light. “Yup,” she said, completely joking.

  Sarge grunted.

  She bit back a smile as she looked around the basement and sniffed the air. She had always assumed that with as much time as Sarge spent down below that it would smell like feet and ass, but there was a slight tinge of pine scent in the air. She’d also assumed it would be a pigsty. It wasn’t.

  The twin bed was made with the covers pulled tight across it and a flat pillow perfectly square with the red-and-blue-painted headboard obviously meant for a toddler’s room and not an old man’s domain. It was all her money could buy back then and she hated to think of him sleeping on the floor on a bundle of old blankets that she had to beg him to let her wash.

  The same blankets on the floor beside the bed she now knew he never slept in.

  Just like he refused her offer to use the kitchen upstairs to cook the cases of canned food against the wall. She eyed the small grill in the corner by the stairs.

  As she took in the small bathroom missing the door he used upstairs to divide the kitchen from the living room, she said a prayer he at least used the toilet and not a fu
cking bucket or some shit.

  Even his clothes—either military or work uniforms—were stacked inside a large plastic bag sitting on the secondhand dresser and not inside the drawers. She rolled her eyes and threw her hands up in the air when he didn’t open the door to the fridge but instead bent to open a dingy cooler and pulled out a can of beer. She shook her head.

  “Sarge, why are you still living like you’re on the street?” Naeema asked, as he leisurely scratched at his raggedy silver beard before repeating the action on his ass.

  “Me and mines,” he said.

  In the corner was a small tent. A fucking tent.

  “What’s that, your guest room?” she snapped.

  “You and yours,” he said, pointing upward before he opened the can and took a deep sip.

  She fought the urge to fire a bullet dead through the middle of the can. Her aim was that damn good.

  As he released a satisfying sigh and a small belch, Naeema turned and crossed the basement and stomped up the stairs. “I can put you out, old man,” she said over her shoulder.

  Sarge just chuckled, knowing she didn’t mean it.

  His cell phone rang.

  She paused on the stairs.

  “Looking right at her,” Sarge said.

  Tank.

  “She did what now?” Sarge exclaimed before he released a howl of laughter. “No shittin’?”

  Naeema continued up the stairs.

  “What we gon’ do wit’ her?”

  “Not a damn thing,” she called down the stairs before she smiled as she entered the kitchen and closed the door.

  Naeema heard the roar of her motorcycle as she sat inside the rear of the Sprinter. She knew it well. Just like a mother knew her baby’s cry.

  She arched her brow and lowly slid the robe she wore from her body, as she looked straight through the tinted windshield at Tank turning onto her drive. His face was lined with annoyance.

  She moved her nude body to the front just long enough to flash the headlights of the vehicle against his body. He just sat there with the motor still running and stared straight into the windshield.

  Can he see me? Can anyone see me?

  Naeema moved back deeper into the van as she glanced up and down the street.

  Shit. I don’t care.

  Tank climbed his big sexy ass off the bike and continued to stare into the Sprinter as he walked up the drive and along the side to open the passenger door and climb inside. His eyes widened a bit at her sitting there naked as all get out with one foot propped up on the back of the plush leather seat to the left of her. His view dead up the middle aisle of the seats was clear.

  And so was hers.

  Anger still creased his fine-ass face. Humph.

  She propped her other foot up onto the seat to the right of her and eased her hands down her legs to gently press her knees wider apart before she shifted them down to spread her lips and free her clit.

  Tank averted his eyes.

  She arched her back, pushing her breasts forward as she watched him through half-closed lids with a moan.

  “Where’s my fucking keys, Naeema?” he asked, ignoring her and climbing over into the driver’s seat.

  She knew this man that she spent the last eight years of her life loving—maybe not consistently living with—but always loving. Just as surely as she knew he was the man to call to bury a body and get rid of a gun, she knew he would bring her motorcycle back; she knew he was not as mad as he put on; and she knew he would not deny her anything—including his dick. Especially that.

  “That’s fucked up what you did, Na,” he said, rising up out of the seat just enough to pull another set of keys from his pocket.

  Naeema stiffened. “Are you mad about this van or your bitch?” she asked.

  He started the engine. “Man, fuck her. You don’t fucking want me but you don’t want nobody else to have me. That shit’s childish as fuck, Na.”

  “Oh I want you,” she said.

  Tank looked into the rearview mirror. “I’m going home. Put your clothes on and get out, Na,” he said, turning his head to look out the driver-side window. To avoid the sight of her. The temptation.

  Naeema was selfish and she knew it. She clung to it like a shield, refusing to go back to a time when she put everyone and everything before herself. To the point of being used as a cum bucket by horny little boys and perverted older men. To being thrown out on the street while pregnant by her baby’s father and still living every day waiting for the no-good motherfucker to call her and say come home. Following her friends’ actions because she was afraid to lose them.

  She was selfish as hell. Now. She had been through some shit and the love she had for Tank scared her. She meant to keep him near but not too close. Dangling on a string. And it wasn’t right. It was fucked up. But she loved him too much to let him go for forever but was afraid to love him any more than she already did.

  And in that moment she knew he’d want promises she couldn’t make and she wanted the kind of explosive, back-breaking, sore-pussy-making sex only he had the power to lay down.

  “I’m pulling the fuck off, Naeema,” he warned, allowing himself one quick glance back at her.

  Her horniness trumped his hurt feelings. She was wrong but in that moment she didn’t give a fuck and a half about being right.

  Just selfish as hell.

  Fuck it.

  He accelerated the van forward and steered to the left of her bike before checking for oncoming traffic and turning to drive up the street. “I’m headed to a job, Naeema,” he said, his eyes on the road as he drove.

  She shifted her body to the edge of the seat and moaned loudly as she slid her middle finger inside her pussy as she lightly gripped one of her full breasts to shift up high enough for her to lick her brown, taut nipple.

  She felt the vehicle jerk and she pressed her feet against the back of the seat to keep from rolling forward. Tank’s eyes were on her in the rearview mirror and she knew her move had made him hit the brake.

  “Naeema!” he said sharply.

  She rolled her hips as she slowly pulled her finger out to stroke her clit and then suck her own juices from her finger. “Hmmmmmm. Good,” she said, the slight scent of her soap still clinging to her fingers from the shower she took after leaving the basement.

  She knew his eyes were on her in the rearview mirror just as much as they were on the road ahead as he drove. Her heart pounded fast as hell. Her nipples were hard. She was wet. Her clit was swollen in heat against her fingers. The idea of him watching her as she played with herself kicked shit up a notch.

  If he waited much longer to give in to temptation she wouldn’t need him at all.

  She pressed two fingers against her clit and licked her lips hotly as she moved her fingers in circles with just the right amount of pressure. She released a tiny cry of passion as she shivered. The anticipation was building like a motherfucker and she felt that thrill of the moments just before a climax exploded. “I’m gon’ cum,” she purred, gently stroking one of her nipples with her thumb as she squeezed the soft flesh of her breast.

  Tank looked over his shoulder.

  Her thick thighs shivered as she arched her back.

  “Stop,” he said, bringing the van to a stop in the middle of a side street before he rose and came toward her. His hard dick pressed against his shorts leading the way.

  She released a breath through pursed lips and held her hands up like he was robbing her. “Come get the best pussy you ever had,” she told him, watching as he jerked down his shorts and fell to his knees between her open thighs. “The best you will ever have.”

  Tank held his thick, long dick in his hand, stroking the base of it with his thumb as he looked down at her spread before him. Waiting for him. “You want this dick? You gon’ get this motherfuckin’ dick,” he told her, anger still edging his words. “Turn the fuck around.”

  Eager like crazy Naeema twisted on the seat and got on her knees with her titties
pressed against the cool leather as she looked out the tinted rear window. Tank filled her with his dick in one strong thrust. She gasped and closed her eyes. “Yes,” she whispered hotly, fighting the urge to bite into the leather headrest.

  Tank climbed up onto the seat behind her putting his knees on either side of hers as he wrapped his arms around her body to stroke her clit with one hand and palm one of her breasts with the other as he fucked her deeply. Roughly. Swiftly.

  The sound of each stroke smacked loudly.

  Bap-bap-bap-bap-bap.

  The soft hairs surrounding his dick tickled her ass.

  Bap-bap-bap-bap-bap.

  Naeema cried out. He wouldn’t let up.

  Bap-bap-bap-bap-bap.

  “You want this dick?” he asked thickly before sucking and then lightly biting her shoulder.

  She nodded.

  “Uh-uh. No. No. No,” he said, stopping mid-stroke.

  Bap-bap—

  “You want this fucking dick?” Tank asked, pressing his lips against the side of her face as he stroked her clit.

  The sound of someone laying on a horn sounded off.

  They both looked out the rearview mirror at a line of cars behind them.

  “I want that dick. Give me that fucking dick,” she said, in between deep pants as she worked her pussy walls to grip and then release his dick.

  Bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap.

  Her body jerked forward against the seat with each hard thrust as she watched through glazed eyes as the cars began to go around them.

  Bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap.

  “FUCK YOU!” someone yelled as they passed.

  “Too late,” Naeema said with a smile as she closed her eyes.

  “Damn right ’cause I’m fucking the shit out of your hardheaded ass right now,” he said before licking the corner of her mouth.