Glorious Sunset (19 page)

He was a strong man but even he had his limits. Taka groaned as he pressed his lips to Violet's, feeling her hand stray to its favorite place behind his neck. It settled there as if it were its right, and it was. All parts of him had always been and would forevermore belong to this woman, this spirit, this being who claimed him lifetime and again.

He kissed her as if her lips were air to breathe, practically broke his neck bending to her because he was more than willing to put himself through all sorts of contortions if it brought him to her. Soon his hands were in her hair, testing this new texture, again, feeling and moving around in it so he could remember. He pulled his lips away from hers so he could plunge his nose into her hair and trail it along the side of her neck where the scent of her perfume mixed with the ever-present but faint note of shea butter. Always with the shea butter. Always driving him crazy with shea.

The skin of her neck seemed to glow with gold dust and he bent to taste that too, nibbling, licking, and sucking all around on both sides and around the front until the sound of her moan of pleasure graced his ears. It was different coming from Violet, but it still meant the same. He knew what Zahara liked but wondered if he could find the right way to please Violet, wondered if her body would arch when he licked her just so.

Her cry of desire made his head swim with need. All he wanted at that moment was to pull them both to the ground and love her like he'd longed to love her, like she deserved to be loved. Cherished like she deserved to be cherished. Worshipped by his tongue because she was his queen and he was her servant in all the ways that mattered, man or king.

He reached for the tail of her shirt to pull it upward, suddenly clumsy in his need. And in that millisecond of separation he felt the wall come down between them before he even looked into her eyes. Worse than seeing hesitation in them, he saw closed lids instead. She shook her head silently, eyes squeezed tight as if looking at him were painful to her.

“What are we doing? This is crazy, I'm engaged. We can't.”

His hands shook from the effort but he released her shirt, placing his lips against the pulse in her neck once again, hopeful that her body would remember what her head had forgotten.

“You do not want him,” he groaned against her perfumed skin, agonizing with need. Her skin in his hands felt so right he was certain it would be a sin to separate.

“I'm committed to”—she hesitated—“my life as it is. Please.” She pulled his greedy lips away from her and finally opened her eyes to him.

He wanted to cry from the torture of being parted with her again when his body and soul knew they were made to be cleaved. But in her eyes he saw regret, pain, and doubt were killing the desire.

“I'm sorry for what I started,” she said. “I may be a lot of things, Taka, but I've never been a cheat. I'm committed to a relationship with Jerome. That means something to me.”

“But you do not love him and he does not love you,” he ground out. “When he touches you do you go aflame for him? When he presses his lips against yours do you part them for kisses as sweet as honey? Does your heart pound like galloping horses when he trails his fingers along your skin? Do you moan like you will die from pleasure with him? Has he, or any man, made you feel the way you feel when I touch you?” He was pleased at the flush that made her blush uncomfortably at his words. He already knew the answer but wanted to hear it from her; anything but what she said:

“That's not fair, Taka. You're a king and a genie. You're magic. He's just a man.”

Her words were like ice water. She thought the sparks were some sort of spell.

“Fine,” he tried. “If I am magic, then let's make magic together. If it is only one night then at least you will have known one night of ecstasy.”

“And let you ruin me for any other lover? I mean, Jerome? I'd be crazy to have genie lovin' and then try to go back to a regular man. That'd be torture. Why would I do that to myself? I'd have to be a flaming idiot.”

No, he was the idiot for thinking this would work. For two days he'd been preaching to her to do the right thing, banging his head against the wall, and when she finally decided to follow his advice it resulted in denying him access to her. Of all times to listen to his inane advice. It would be funny if it weren't so ridiculously tragic.

He pulled on his forgotten shirt and then poured himself a glass of wine.

“You all right?” she asked.

He heard her behind him but swallowed an entire glassful of Merlot and proceeded to pour a second. “I'm fine. Just fine.” Second glass down and he looked at her sideways. It hurt to look at her now. It hurt to know how close he was to loving her and losing her; it could easily go either way and he didn't have a clue what to do.

“Ouch,” she said.

He stopped pouring the third glass to look at her. “What is the matter?”

“I don't know, but it's not right.” Violet placed a hand on her stomach where the spasm had come from. “I don't know what it is. It's like, a j . . . Oh, wow, there it is again.” She stood stock still as another odd flash made its way through her. Then a familiar feeling: kind of like after she ate a couple dozen buffalo wings doused in volcano hot sauce, only magnified.

“Ah,” Taka said calmly, filling the rest of his glass. “Does it burn? Pierce? Pulsate? Grind?”

Violet's eyes widened as the spasms changed to pain that was doing precisely the things he was describing. She didn't even get out the question before he said with a sad shake of his head, “It is your wish. It is working.”

“Wish?” Violet croaked. “I didn't wish for my body to feel like someone was shoving a hot poker up my butt all the way through my intestines and straight through my belly! What wi . . . ?” Then she remembered and smiled long enough for another spasm to wash it away. “Well, I'm happy it's happening, if that's what's happening, but I really don't feel right.”

“It is painful work dropping several sizes in a matter of hours,” Taka said.

“If you don't go easy on that wine you're going to have a killer headache in the morning,” Violet warned, sitting down at the table opposite while he stared morosely at the half-empty bottle.

“I would have to be a man to have a day-after headache.”

Violet realized she'd managed to hurt his feelings. She didn't know why he was upset, she was the one who denied herself mystical loving. And now she was just happy she wasn't in the middle of something when the stomach cramps started.

“The spasms will calm eventually. I am certain you will have what you want then: a tiny little body for your little boy of a friend, because he obviously can't handle a magnificent full-grown woman. No, little boys who want to be friends have very little egos and usually little body parts to match.”

She watched him down wine like water until the groan of her protesting belly sounded loudly again. “He's not that little and this will all be worth it when we're married. One day I'll laugh at the crazy things I did when I was engaged.”

“You are not engaged. You wear no ring.”

“It's coming.”

“The only way it is coming, woman, is if you go to the jewelry store yourself and buy it. That half-wit you call a fiancé is no more committed to tying himself in marriage to you than a worm is committed to a particular spot in the muck.”

“Let's just not talk about Jerome for a little while. Why don't you watch TV while I sit over here and think of my last wish so you can get out of here and torment someone else? Oww.” She didn't mean it, of course.

“You don't mean that,” he said, maddeningly. He swallowed more wine. “I was bred to be a leader, not a follower; a doer, not a watcher. But I'm being forced to watch a catastrophe. What is it about this man that appeals to you so? If I were to treat you with the casual inattention of a boar would you then allow me into your bed? Perhaps I should start eating soft-man gruel and speaking like an imbecile; would that make you desire me?”

“Oh, Lord, you're drunk. Just what I need, a drunk genie. Some girls have all the luck.”

“I am not drunk, I tell you! What I am is mistimed and misplaced. A man without a home, a king without a kingdom!”

Her stomach howled in agreement and Violet grimaced until the wave of pain passed. She then gasped, wiped her brow, reached for the bottle only to pull back with the thought of what her angry stomach would do if she added wine to it.

“There is always a place for a good man.”

“And what would you consider a good man? Do you consider the rat dropping a good man? If it takes becoming like him to be considered a man in these times . . .” He shook his head and punctuated his disgust with another glass of wine.

“You're a good man, you're just not real,” Violet said, trying to ignore the protest of her esophagus. “King, let's put this subject to bed, shall we? You're a good-looking man and you're an all-round good guy. You have your quirks, but you wouldn't have a problem getting women if you were a man. Now, stop scrounging for compliments.”

“And what of my other qualities?”

Violet looked at him hard. “Are you trying to win an award or something?”

“I have always been a hard worker and a good provider. I would need to do that again, for sure, if I were living in this place today. What else is there?”

Violet thought about that. She thought he was already the best man she knew, but what man couldn't afford to improve just a little bit? Where to start? “How about compassion? Understanding? How about the ability to communicate? How about selflessness? And a sense of humor? And affinity with children? How about those things?”

“What about them? I have all those things.”

“Well then, king, I'd say you were darned near perfect.”

“No, I am missing something. Tell me what is wrong. Tell me the bad things. Please, Violet, you do not need to spare my feelings.”

Violet pinched her lips. Rarely had someone asked her to cut them lower than a two dollar dog. She didn't know if she could do it under these circumstances.

“You're arrogant and stubborn, but you already know that,” she said, using her fingers to tick off the points. “You treat women like they are second-class citizens. You have no patience, you're always in a bad mood, and you can't stand being wrong. You believe you are better than everyone else and that, somehow, you know what's best for everyone. Oh, and you eat a lot.”

“
I
eat a lot?” He snorted.

“Oh, and you're judgmental and you can't stand not to have the last word. And you're a smart aleck.”

“
I'm
a smart aleck?”

“Oh, and sometimes you don't know how to be kind to a lady.”

“A lady?”

“Enough!” Violet said, pointing at him. “It's exactly that smart mouth of yours I'm talking about.”

“Forgive me,” he said, not looking as if he wanted forgiveness at all. “You know, back in my day no one would dare speak to me the way you just did. They would find themselves looking up at their shoulders once I'd lobbed off their head.”

“Ooooh, scary!” Violet wiggled her hands in mock terror. Her stomach gurgled in protest. “I bet you got plenty of women talking like that.”

“How did your friend of a boy talk to get you?”

“Jerome? He didn't get me, I got him.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means, I saw him across a crowded club and I decided I wanted him and so I took him.”

“I see. That explains it,” Taka said knowingly.

“Explains what?”

“Explains why it seems you are the pursuer. Because you are. Why would you want a man you had to chase? A true man, once he has found a woman he wants, will do the chasing, not the other way around. It is the woman's place to allow, or disallow, herself from being caught. You have turned the tables and he is running like a female who has no intention of allowing herself to be contained. Just like a woman, if you find one who does not want you she will never want you, ten or a hundred years from now. You as much as admitted he repulses you and fails miserably in lovemaking; it is ludicrous. When compared to what it could be, surely you see you cheat yourself out of true pleasure?”

Violet slapped the table lightly with her palm. “I have never admitted any such thing. And see there, that's the judgmental part I was talking about.”

“I'm supposed to condone the way you shovel garbage into your temple?”

“He's no more garbage than any other man. You just hate Jerome.”

“You are right. He is a bug.”

“And you're vindictive,” she continued.

“Me? I am not vindictive. You are mistaken.”

“You are in denial.”

“You presume to know me so well after one day?” he said, turning the tables on her.

“You are not all that deep, genie. You're moody and for some reason you hate modern men.”

For some reason.
“Hate is a strong word.”

“Okay, modern men disgust you.”

“That is accurate. Am I wrong to be disgusted? Look at them. Where is the dignity, the honor? They skulk around as if they have a right to be lackadaisical. Even the African men I have run into in the last century or so bear no resemblance to my people. The world over, men are becoming more and more shiftless. I say, it is amazing how fast a hard stone will turn a lazy man into a productive citizen. But I suppose that discipline is frowned upon today, if the condition of your men is any indication.”

Violet couldn't help but smile at that. But the humor was short-lived as her stomach let out a loud groan and she clenched her middle. “I'm starting to think I should go to the hospital. I don't think I could walk if I tried. Why do I feel so weak?”