One Night: A BWWM Interracial Romance (5 page)

“It was a long time ago,” he assured her. It had been 2 years ago but he still had occasional vivid dreams about it. She didn’t seem reassured at all from the look on her face. Perhaps a good purge would abate the temperature drop in the room.
 

“I wasn’t always a writer,” he began. Her eyes shot back up toward him, interested.
 

“My field was…let’s just call it a special division unit,” he fudged. It was actually pretty close to the truth, though there wasn’t much “special” about it.
 
In reality he was a the glorified heavy lifting for the C.I.A. When they needed men to make a move in enemy territory his group was the crew who drove the cars, cleared the area, kept the locals at bay, and, if necessary, got a little more aggressive. More often than not, it was necessary.

“We were in…,” he paused. This was where it got tricky. He had sat through God knew how many exit interviews and signed his life away when he left the service. He knew what he could and couldn’t reveal.
 
They had nearly had a conniption when his book was up for publication. His publisher had nearly dropped him. But the book sold, and sold well…and turned out to be a nice, shiny, little piece of glowing propaganda for the current War on Terror. They came to an agreement that he could continue in his new career as long as he never mentioned specifics. Fine by him.
 

“…The Middle East.
 
I can’t give details, you understand?”

Natalie’s eyes glowed as she nodded. Espionage and war games in foreign countries always got civilians excited. They had glamorous ideas about Jason Bourne leaping across rooftops and leading police cars in chases through the streets of Europe. Perhaps this night could be salvaged after all.
 

“It was a rescue mission. There were five of us sent in to…rescue…someone.” Jake was beginning to realize that telling this story on half a bottle of whiskey was troublesome. Why did he have to meet this girl tonight of all nights?
 

“George—that’s Black Mamba. Well, he was black,” he explained, realizing how stupid he sounded.
 

Natalie rolled her eyes and nodded, encouraging him to go on.

“But we called him that because he was quick…and, yes because he was black,” Jake actually laughed a little. Natalie smiled and the atmosphere in the room warmed up.
 

It was good to purge like this.
 
Other than his sister, to whom he gave a far more succinct and stoic narrative, he hadn’t told anyone the story behind the tattoo.
 
Any woman he’d been with—and most of them had been too ready for action at the time to even bother asking—had simply got a lie about a dare he had lost. He wanted to blame the whiskey, but something about this woman made him comfortable telling all that he could.
 

“The Black Mamba is one of the quickest snakes in the world…and deadly,” he sobered a bit a the last part. “George was…brilliant at what he did.
 
We could be in and out in a second with him leading the way.” Jake’s eyes stared off into the distance as he recalled fond memories of George. “He had a slick wit too, always quick with the comebacks to any smart-assed comment thrown in his direction.

“Well, we were on a mission and…he went in first as usual.
 
The entire place was booby trapped. Four of us survived, one of us didn’t. I got the tattoo in his honor.
 
Then I left the service.” Jake left it at that. It explained everything Natalie needed to know.
 

The reality was, they had gone in to collect one of the wives of Numero 18 on the C.I.A’s most wanted list.
 
She claimed to have “important info” about a threat to more than a few western countries, not the least of which was the good old U.S. of A. She wanted a new, safe, life for her and her four children, ages 2 to 9. Yeah, he remembered that last part pretty damn well. It was a tricky op, but then that’s what Jake’s team specialized in.
 

The place had been booby trapped, and George had been, as usual, the lead to go in. It hadn’t been just George’s body parts that splattered Jake and the rest of his team.
 
The sick bastard who was married to the woman had somehow learned of the operation and decided to send a message…and kill four of his own children while he was at it.
 

It was Jake’s last mission.
 
Therapy had been strongly suggested.
 
He used his laptop instead, punching out his baggage a word at a time. Surprisingly, it worked fairly well. It didn’t hurt that it also made him very well off financially.
 

“So that’s the story,” Jake said, staring into Natalie’s eyes.
 

She reached her hand up to his face, dramatically pulled his head toward hers and kissed him hard on the mouth.
 

NATALIE

Natalie couldn’t help it. Everything about him as he told his story made him so much more…human. Before this he had been some strange man that maybe she could get a nice rebound quickie with.
 
Now he was a man with some depth to him.
 

There was definitely more to the story, even beyond the ‘“I can’t give specifics.” She didn’t need details. She just wanted to be closer to him, feel him, the heat radiating off of his body.
 

Her hand crept down his shirt to the hem. He followed her lead and reached down to grab the bottom, pulling it up over his stomach.
 
Their lips broke apart as he lifted the shirt across his chest and over his head.
 

Natalie pulled back to look at it. The part she had seen peeking underneath his arm sleeve had been the head of the mamba in an open-mouthed attack. The rippling of his shoulder muscle made it look as though the fangs peeking out were actually ready to strike. The body of the snake slithered across his chest and coiled on his right pectoral.

“Whoever created it did a spectacular job,” she said with awe. “It looks so real.”
 

She traced the serpent across his upper body, admiring the detail.
 
Her eyes admired the firm roundness of his chest and shoulders as well. Everything about him was just so…
masculine
.
 

“You say that like someone who would know,” he said, his words heavy with implication.
 

The way she bit her lip and frowned gave her away.

Jake chuckled. “Ok, let’s see it,” he pressured.
 

Natalie’s own tattoo story wasn’t nearly as profound and she felt rather silly telling it.
 
Not to mention, it was in a place that was far too close to revealing more of her body than she was ready to.
 

“It’s stupid,” she said, hoping to lead him off the scent. “And it’s soooo cliché.”
 

“Oh, no, no, no,” he said with mock seriousness. “I showed you mine, now you show me yours.”
 

She hid her face into her arm and smiled, shaking her head.
 

“Well I’m going to find it eventually,” he teased. “Hell, it might be fun playing find-the-tattoo with you.”
 

That made her laugh, finally and she conceded. “Okay fine!”
 

There was no top-secret mission to keep hidden from Jake, simply a megaton of embarrassment. She spilled the entire thing in two sentences.

“When I graduated college my friends and I got drunk and ended up at a tattoo parlor. I wanted to celebrate finally ‘being free’ ” she raised two fingers to make quotes in the air, “and got two wings on my…back,” she spilled. “It’s a tramp stamp, okay?”
 

Jake threw his head back and laughed.
 

“I told you it was cliché!” Natalie protested. “We were 22 years old!

“Unfortunately they look like angel wings. Then Victoria’s Secret came out with that whole Angel line and…now the whole thing just looks even more trampy. Have you ever just wanted to go back in time and slap some sense into the younger you?” She babbled on in a liquor infused ramble.

Jake gave her a thoughtful look.
 
There was still a trace of a smile on his face, but she immediately thought about what she had just said. Her hands
 
flew to her mouth.
 

“Oh Jake, I’m so sorr—”
 

He pulled her hands away from her mouth and kissed her fiercely on the lips.
 

JAKE

Jake felt refreshed.
 

Everything about this woman was refreshing. The silly tattoo story. The way she kept apologizing for things he had given himself a break for a long time ago. The way she kept denying what she so obviously wanted.
 

She was fun.
 

And he was having fun being with her.
 

In that moment he wanted her to shut up and kiss him. She responded to his mouth hesitantly at first, surprised by the interruption. Then she brought her hands around his neck and pulled herself in closer.
 

His tongue explored her lips, tasting the remnants of milk and whiskey. She was right, it tasted delicious;
she
tasted delicious. He wanted more.
 

She opened the door by parting her lips and accepting him in. They tasted each other, her tongue darting into his mouth and his into hers accordingly. You let me taste yours, and I’ll let you taste mine.
 

He no longer cared about the tattoo.
 
At that moment, he knew he would eventually see it, and yes, he would have fun trying to find it.
 

Natalie brought her body closer to his, pulling herself up onto his lap to straddle him. As she slid her open legs down around his groin, he felt himself responding. She pushed her pelvis into his to let him know she felt his desire…and wanted him just as bad.
 

“I still haven’t seen your tattoo,” he mumbled underneath her lips.

She pulled away and looked down at him.
 
He watched while she came to some sort of internal decision as she held his face in her hands. She searched his eyes and a tiny, but sincere smile crept to her lips.

“Why don’t we take this to the bedroom and you can find it,” she said, leaving no further doubt in either of their minds.
 

He used his strength to pick her up and lift both of them off the sofa. She reached behind and grabbed the bottle of whiskey.
 

“Just in case,” she said with a wink.

She brought her lips down to his again as her legs wrapped around his waist and he carried her into the bedroom.
 

NATALIE

Jake carried her past the threshold into the bedroom, letting go only momentarily to switch the light on. He walked her all the way in until his progress was halted by the edge of the bed.
 

Natalie untangled her legs and slid them down his sides. As her body was lowered to the floor his hand ran under her sweatshirt.
 
She tossed the bottle onto the bed then did the rest of the work pulling the top over her head.
 

The buzz she was feeling from so much alcohol eased the nervousness that crept in. This was the first time she’d been with another man in over 2 years…being that
she
had actually been faithful to Malcolm.
 
She shook her head, eliminating all thoughts of him from her mind.
 

“What?” Jake asked, looking at her uncertainly.
 

“Nothing,” she said, smiling. Tonight was about her…and Jake.

She looked over his muscled torso, eyes lingering on the snake that wound its way around his shoulder.
 
So. Fucking. Sexy.
 

Natalie reached up behind her back and unhooked her bra. She bit her lip as it slipped down her shoulders and off her arms, falling to the floor by the bed.
 

Jake came in closer to her until his chest was lightly brushing the tips of her nipples. They responded by hardening into firm peaks against his skin. She lifted her eyes from his chin as he looked down at her.
 

“Lie down,” he said.
 

She sat on the edge of the bed and fell back, her breasts bouncing merrily at the act.
 
She looked up at him, nervousness overtaking the whiskey-induced confidence. He leaned down over her, his body resting on his hands.
 

“Scoot back,” he instructed.
 

She did as he said, snaking her way back toward the head of the bed.
 
He crawled between her legs, following her every move with his.
 
His eyes stayed on hers as he went. She reached the bump where the pillows rested under the neatly made bedspread and stopped.
 

Jake rested on his knees as his hands slid up the fabric of her stretch pants.
 
They stopped at the edge of her waistband, hooking the fingers into the elastic. He peeled them slowly down her hips as she lifted them to help him along. They were pulled inside-out as they trailed down her legs and off her feet.
 

Natalie realized that she was spread-eagle with him between her legs and left with only her panties—white, bikini, completely non-sexy panties—and brought her arms across her chest self-consciously.
 

Jake smiled at her shyness and and trailed a finger up one brown thigh to the underwear.
 
Her skin prickled at the ticklish feeling of it and she squirmed.
 

“Stop,” she said in mild protest. “It tickles.”

He chuckled but stopped all the same. He let the finger creep under the elastic of the band where her inner thigh met the panties.
 
He slid the finger back and forth, causing her to tense at the sensation of it as it glided over the lips underneath the fabric.
 
She could feel the wetness developing as his fingers trailed a line up and down, deeper and deeper. His smile grew as she let out an inadvertent moan of pleasure.