Glorious Sunset (18 page)

And why should she care? That was simple. Because he was her responsibility. Sure, he was a genie and all, but somebody had to look out for the guy. If he showed up with an STD or something, the Big Kahuna would be plenty pissed with her, and if she wasn't looking after her immortal soul, who would? The king was just too innocent to understand women of today. Why, if she were a single woman walking around the market and saw a magnificent-looking being such as Taka walking around, being gentleman-like, buying fresh fish in order to cook for some woman waiting at home, she would do everything in her power to change his priorities. She would make it her goal to conquer that particular natural wonder in record time. And by nightfall, she would have him demonstrating those wonderful manual dexterity skills all over her satin sheets. If she were single, that is. And if he was a man and not a make-believe character.

It seemed to take forever but finally he returned.

“Done already?” she asked as he got in, a triumphant look on his face, putting his bags in back.

“I am. Shall we go home?”

Home. Violet liked the sound of that. She smiled as he started the motor and pulled out of the lot.

Skeeter sat on a lawn chair behind his Uncle Euclid's ranch home and looked at the elderly man who had stopped midsentence. He couldn't tell if the old man had paused to think or simply fallen asleep again with his eyes open, but just as he reached up to poke him the octogenarian gave him a rheumy-eyed glare.

“Don't you be poking me with those sharp fingers of yours, boy. Make me have to go upside your behind.”

Skeeter was sixty-eight but, to 102-year-old Euclid, he was still an upstart whippersnapper.

“I'm just trying to get you to go on with what you was saying, Uncle.”

“Sayin'? Who was saying what?”

“You was! About the village that disappeared, remember ?”

“Oh, yeah. Stop interrupting me, boy! Listen. That town was run by that king what's-his-name. Tanya, something like that. And my daddy told me that king was some kind of mean. Oh, people were super scared of him 'cause he killed folks without a care. Lopped off one man's head just for saying hi!” He drew one shaky finger across his neck and displayed a comical look of horror to contribute to the story telling. “So my daddy's daddy's daddy, well, he helped take care a him. Went to the village one night to kill that king and free the people and what you think he found? The king done killed all his own people! 'Cept for his wife. The wife killed herself out of horror at the kinda evil man she married. Couldn't take it!”

“Uhn uhn uhn.” Skeeter shook his head with the shame of it. “And what then, Uncle Euclid?”

“Well, then God was so mad at him, so disgusted, He was gonna send him straight down to the devil and be done with him but He got sidetracked. Tanya spits in his eye, laughs, and says, ‘You can't do nothin' to me, everybody's dead.' So's God says”—at this point Uncle Euclid adopted an evil squinty-eyed glare and raised that finger again to point at the air in front of him in his best improvised version of the Almighty admonishing the king—“‘I sent all these good men from these other towns to come in here and save your people and you done already killed them! Ooooh, I'm so mad at you, Tanya, I'm so mad I could spit! I got somethin' I can do to you, boy. I'll take care a you real good. I'ma go upside your behind!' He said it just like that there.”

Skeeter listened to the same story he'd been told all his life but had never paid attention to. It was a tale of a lost village passed down through generations, a tale he had never believed until that day and the man built like a mountain came into his store with an eye on a bowl. It looked like the same pattern of a cup Skeeter had seen in his great-grandfather's hands as a young boy. The cup was part of the tale of their African ancestors. Skeeter had always just thought it was a made-up story about a thrift shop item, until the big man had come into the store today and picked up what could have been a matching piece with memory and intensity in his eyes. A big man with a heavy accent and the assumption that Skeeter was a thief.

“You listening to me, boy? I oughta rap you over your head, disrespecting your elders. Why I oughta—”

“See you later, Uncle Euclid.” Skeeter had already risen, kissed the old man on the head, and planned his next move. He knew some people in New York who knew some people in Africa. He'd gotten all he was going to get from the old man. Surely his historian friend could give him a little more than tall tales.

An hour later Taka sat at the kitchen table, polishing off what had been the best meal he'd had in 400 years. The fish had baked to tender perfection, the shrimp had baked in garlic, butter, lemon, and parsley, and the vegetables had been steamed in a handy device Violet called a “bamboo steamer” and tossed with butter and more lemon. For dessert, he'd found some cheesecake and fresh berries. And for Violet, he'd stopped by a stand and purchased a slab of barbecued pork ribs, with extra sauce on the side, after seeing what she'd had for dinner the night before. Even now she was licking her last bone clean.

“I love these ribs,” she said, washing down the meal with a mouthful of wine he'd chosen. She didn't know much about wine but this wine went perfectly with ribs. “Best ribs in Columbus.”

“I saw how much you seemed to enjoy the pork yesterday and when I passed the stand the smell reached out to me. It smells almost like the fragrant stew of my village. I would have made the stew for myself had my stomach not already been twisting with torturous hunger pains; the stew takes several hours to simmer and I had no time. So you like the pork ribcage? I was afraid since you had them last night at the restaurant you would be tired of them.”

“Uhn uhn. Never tired of ribs,” she said over her last good chew. She stretched and sighed as he carried their plates to the trash can, scraping them. She then loaded them into another machine, added liquid soap, and turned it on.

As curious as he was about the machine, Taka was thinking more about Violet. Earlier in the day when she had found out about the contract she'd won over her friend, he could not help but question how it came about, even though part of him warned him to keep his mouth shut. It wasn't that he wanted to dash her pride, it was only that he wanted her to know what he had learned the hard way: sometimes when it seems we are overly talented it is only because the Almighty has paved the way for us. But perhaps it hadn't been his place to try to force his own lessons upon her.

He watched as she wiped down the kitchenette and frowned in his effort to choose the right words. “I feel I may have . . . I think earlier when I questioned the source of your good fortune, I might have . . . I may have made you feel badly. I am sorry I did that.”

Violet leaned against the counter, a knowing smile on her face. “Are you apologizing to me, King?”

“You call me ‘King' or ‘genie' when I annoy you. Can you call me Taka again? It is preferable to me.”

“Well, that depends. Are you apologizing to me, King?”

His lips tugged upward on their own. She was an extremely stubborn woman. “I fed you, didn't I? I made you groan with pleasure over the saucy pig carcass and the sweet wine. I even tried to clean.”

“And?” She smiled beguilingly and he had a difficult time not chuckling at her brash arrogance, enchanted by the way her smooth cheeks rose when she smiled making her eyes sparkle even more. Oh, she was a wonder when she was not caught up in the mundane. She was beautiful and fun.

“All right! Yes. I apologize.”

“Mhmm? And?” she prompted.

Ah, but she was a cocky female. “I was rude and I was wrong. There. Are you happy now?”

Violet clapped her hands and laughed. She pitched forward and clasped him around his waist. “Yes! You should admit to being wrong more often, Taka, it would do wonders for our relationship.”

Taka froze. Violet was holding him, her arms barely able to make it around his solid mass, but she was grasping him all the same. Every fiber of his being told him to grasp her back. A beautiful woman in his arms. His body was stirring again after 400 years of abstinence. If he did not do something soon, the decision would be made for him. But he couldn't simply pounce on the woman. What woman would want a man who would jump on her simply because he desired to do so? He wanted her to want him as much or it was no good to him.

His stillness finally transmitted its way to Violet. She was holding but there was no holding reciprocated. She was actually itching to feel him up a little. But he apparently hadn't learned the cardinal rule of “hug and be hugged” because he was as tense as a tree. Now she was standing there looking stupid. She raised her head slowly, and was immediately captured by the look on Taka's face. It held no cockiness or arrogance. Only bald desire.

She should be a lady and step away, but the desire to wiggle just a little, to press her womanly assets against him in wanton abandon, just to see what he'd do, was overwhelming. He made the decision for them, stepping back, holding her arms loosely in his hands. She swallowed her disappointment and let him change the subject.

“In my day, a celebration always included dancing. Would you like to dance?”

Dance?
They
had
been dancing. The oldest, best dance known to man. Violet looked at him in confusion. She didn't understand this man. She knew she'd felt the telltale sign of desire for a flicker of a blink before he'd pulled away. She'd never had an aroused man voluntarily pull away from her before, never in her life.

Taka took her hands and clasped them waiting, it seemed, for her to accept or decline. And she would do one or the other as soon as she figured out what was going on.

He'd stepped away from her. Even though he wanted her. And it wasn't like he had any options to get it anywhere else. It didn't make any sense. Men just didn't do that kind of thing. Men didn't have that kind of self-control. It was almost like he was one of those things that used to be that thing they don't have anymore, something gone the way of the bison and the . . . what was it called? A gentle . . . gentle something.
Oh yeah, a gentleman.

In that moment, she didn't know how or why, but a feeling swept over her so intensely she blinked. In that moment she felt something she'd never felt in any relationship. Valued. It made her give him a shaky smile. It made her knees wobble. It made her feel helpless with desire and powerful with the knowledge that he desired her just as much but was man enough to deny himself in order to be respectful of her. Gary would never have done that. Jerome would have bedded her last night, vomiting and all. But this man, this man, was different. She wanted to giggle like a schoolgirl.

Taka seemed a little shaky himself but summoned up a little smile. The effort, a strange-looking smile on one side, made Violet finally give a breathless, nervous laugh.

“I have a better idea,” she said. “Why don't you show me how you danced way back in your time?”

He nodded. “I will do our victory dance. For when we won in battle.”

Victory dance?
Violet thought. When he stripped off his shirt and tossed it onto a chair, moving the small table and chairs out of the way, she should have been prepared for something special. She stepped back to give him room and her eyes widened when he jumped in the air. She almost put her hands up to prevent being body slammed, but his entire body, over 200 pounds of muscle, landed in front of her in a crouch, as deftly as a ballerina. His hands rested on his knees as he gave her a look that made her want to go running for the hills. Then, from his throat, a sound started out low and then some tongue quivering made it into a yell. Then he raised one leg and stomped it down. He raised the other and did the same. These repeated, increasing in frequency while his yell blended into a semblance of rhythm. Then he straightened slightly, bowed at the waist and bounced his torso up and down in rhythm, alternately bending his knees or moving this way or that, his hand up to shield his eyes from the imaginary sun or to cup over his ear for an imaginary sound. And then his arm would sweep before him and she could almost envision a lush expanse of land before him.

She realized the sounds from his throat were both music and words, his yells blending into shouts in some foreign language, every other word punctuated by a stomp or a clap. She'd heard some Africans speak before but she'd never heard this tongue. She'd even seen some African dance, but never anything like this. He began to move in a circle, his head bobbing, his hands gestured to the sides, then before and behind, holding an imaginary weapon with a grip so tight and purposeful the muscles and tendons in his arm and shoulder bulged and flexed with the movement. Everything was done with such intensity that a trickle of perspiration made its way down his face and a light sheen of moisture began to develop on his satiny dark skin so that she noticed things she hadn't before: the many little scars that were sprinkled over his torso. It was easy to miss them next to the beauty of the dark mahogany velvet skin, but perhaps his form in motion brought things to light.

Violet watched, eyes wide. This was some crazy stuff she was seeing. Crazy good. As she watched, amazed, she felt herself getting warmer. There was something about his strength and intensity, something about the primal energy from his movement and the seriousness of his task, something about the way he used his words to convey his meaning. She could see him in battle, leading his men, riding off to victory, with a voice that could be heard for hundreds of miles, and a bearing that could be felt far beyond.

It wasn't right that a modern woman should get so hot over a brute, macho man such as him, but getting hot she was. Taka was so into his dance that by the time he gave his final whoop, jumping into the air to end again in his crouch, chest heaving with the exertion and sweat streaming, he didn't notice Violet was no longer watching. She was, instead, leaning on the sink, having poured herself a glass of water, dipping her fingers into it to pat it along her forehead.

“You all right?” Taka asked between breaths as he straightened.

“I'm fine,” Violet said in a voice too high, refusing to look at him. What kind of stupid question was that? No, she was not all right. She was all horny was what she was. For a man who lived in a rock! It would take her days to get the image of him out of her head. Now if he would just keep his distance, she would be fine, she thought, patting more water on her fevered cheeks.

“That is a good idea,” Taka said, coming up beside her to pour himself a glass. Violet nearly groaned when she felt his heated body beside her. What was the man trying to do, drive her crazy? He didn't know how close he was to having the rest of his clothes ripped right from his body.

Taka gulped the water and breathed in relief. “Ah, I did not remember how good it felt to celebrate.”

Violet cracked a glance at him, and asked grudgingly, knowing she was only making things harder for herself, “What were you saying, in that other language?”

He finished his water and set the glass down turning to her. “I was saying that our kingdom was victorious, that we were the best and fiercest in the land. That no army to the east, west, north, or south could defeat us because our greatest weapon is our honor.” He took a breath, thinking. “It is an arrogance dance, but in our times, arrogance was needed. If another army felt you were weak in any way they would attack. We kept them at bay because they feared us.”

Finally, Violet's skin was back at room temperature. “Well, what happened then? Where did your people go? Why haven't I heard of them before? Why haven't I heard that language before?”

He paused so long before answering Violet looked up at him and then regretted the question because of the raw pain on his face.

“I'm sorry, Taka. I didn't mean to be so tactless.”

“You have no need to apologize. It is odd. As a king I could not allow myself to feel emotion often. But now, it is so close to the surface the slightest prick brings it screaming forth.” He gave a small, wry smile. “Your question is fair. You have already gleaned that I let my wife down all those years ago. The full truth is that I let my village down, too. They are all gone. They died because of me, and yet I am here. That is all I can tell you and all there is in the world to tell. So you see, I do not deserve to speak the name of my forgotten village or its people. I should not have spoken our tongue. I am now ashamed to even have danced. Celebration without just cause is sacrilege. Though, I have no doubt they will serve a great celebration for me down below when I come blazing down to my fiery throne, for I have truly earned a place by the side of the evil one.”

His eyes were filled with pain and his large shoulders almost bowed under the weight of whatever invisible pressure rested there. Violet had never seen a man so tortured, never known a man with a larger conscience or heart. Such a magnificent person, torn with internal anguish over something, she was certain, could not have been his fault. This man would never act out of malice. She'd never known anyone like him. That fact alone changed what was a solemn moment into one that sparked an unexpected response.

Violet dropped her eyes as her breathing thinned, but raised them again quickly feeling the heat of his stare on her. The dark intensity of his eyes drew her in and she shuddered air into her lungs. He'd been a gentleman with her earlier but she wasn't so sure she could be a lady. She wasn't so sure she wanted to.

She reached up tentatively and touched him softly with the tips of her fingers lightly on the side of his jaw. She trailed slowly down the front of him and heard his intake of breath in response, saw the sudden rise of his chest as he quickly took in air.

Her head told her to slow down, but her little voice had multiplied and was doing
fire it up, Violet, fire it up!
cheers in a round. Her head told her she shouldn't take advantage. And her head was right, right? She didn't want him to think she was forward. She didn't want God to be mad at her. She didn't want to lose Taka's respect. She didn't want—

Violet gasped as he pulled her to him, taking her lips in a kiss that made all wonders cease.