1.
Footsteps echoed along the hallway in the Police Administration Building as a guard escorted twenty-three-year-old Karima Thomas out of the female unit.
Even in the nondescript gray sweatsuit she had been issued for her departure, Karima’s voluptuous form showed through. An ample bosom tapering down to a tiny waist. Round hips giving way to delicately muscled thighs. Gracefulness marking her every movement.
Her face, absent of makeup as it had been throughout her six-month prison stint, was radiant. But beneath her beauty was a smoldering anger that had grown stronger with each day she’d spent behind bars.
A buzzer sounded, and the steel door slid open. Karima turned to the guard, who nodded. And then she walked out into the gray October morning. She looked toward the cloudy sky and the first raindrop she’d felt in six months fell against her face.
She smiled for a moment. Then she caught sight of the man who was waiting for her, and her smile became a grimace. He was sitting in a cherry-red Mercedes, leaning back in the cream-colored leather driver’s seat with his lips fixed in a grin.
His eyes were as she remembered them. Intense. Strong. Observant. With those eyes, he could see into her soul, where desire burned bright as the blood that rushed to her cheeks.
Those were the eyes that had captured her heart two years before, when he’d watched her from his car as she crossed at a red light on her way to Temple University’s Annenberg Hall.
She still remembered the way his gaze had followed her every movement. She remembered staring back at him, then losing her concentration and dropping her books in the middle of the street.
He’d gotten out of his car to help her. And as they both reached out to gather the books, their hands touched and a jolt went through her. She knew even then that he was dangerous. So dangerous that she had to have him.
In the months that followed, she allowed him to show her the streets surrounding the campus, the places she’d never bothered to see. He showed her his town house in Society Hill, and a nightlife she’d never known.
Before long, she’d given him her virginity, and along with it, she’d given him her heart. College became an afterthought. So did her family, her friends, and her life. By the time she learned he was a dealer, she no longer cared about anything but his touch. And she was willing to do anything to have it.
She learned the rules of the streets while shuttling drugs, hiding guns, telling lies, and moving cash. She learned to ride or die. So much so that when a narcotics task force investigation threatened Duane’s drug enterprise, she offered herself as a sacrifice and took the fall in his place.
Now she was face-to-face with him again. Watching him as he sat in his car looking much the same as he did when they’d first met.
Duane Faison. He was six feet two inches of trouble wrapped in ebony skin. As usual, his mouth was fixed in a scowl. But as he watched Karima’s face betray her innermost thoughts, his dark demeanor brightened.
And while Karima stood there, trying to figure out whether to go with him or walk away, Duane did something he hadn’t done since he’d last seen her. He smiled.
But while the white of his teeth against his chocolate skin looked like sunshine to Karima’s weary eyes, she didn’t return the gesture.
That didn’t matter to Duane. The instincts he’d developed on North Philly’s streets said that she would give in to him. He was her weakness. And Karima—the woman he’d come to know as Cream—was his weakness as well.
That was why he was determined to make it all up to her. Because somewhere deep down, in a place he rarely showed, his feelings were even stronger than her own.
He was about to get out of the car and go to her when she tore her eyes away from his and walked quickly toward the corner in an effort to get away from him. As she did, the drizzling rain began to fall faster.
Duane put the car in gear and coasted beside her as she walked toward the Broad Street subway.
“Can I give you a ride?” he asked from the car’s open window.
“No thanks,” she answered without looking at him.
“Where you goin’?” he asked with a sly grin.
“Away from you.”
As she spoke, the rain began to fall in thick white sheets.
Duane stopped the car, got out, and jogged over to her.
She tried to walk around him, but he wouldn’t allow her to get by.
Finally, he took her hand in his. “I don’t want you to catch a cold,” he said, placing his other hand against her face.
At his touch, a chill ran through her, just as it always did. And when she looked up into his face, the rain that fell down between them washed away the months of bitterness.
“Okay.”
She said it hesitantly, telling herself that she would use him. That she would get what she wanted and walk away.
“Take me home,” she said, looking down to avoid his eyes.
A second later, she allowed Duane to lead her to his car. And then, as the rain stretched out across the morning sky, she allowed him to lead her to paradise.
* * *
He touched her secret place as soon as he’d closed the door to his Society Hill town house. And from that moment on, Karima was his once again.
Hours later, as the storm poured down and thunder marked evening’s arrival, Karima was still pouring herself against him.
As their bodies joined once more, she shut her eyes and listened to the sounds that fell between the raindrops. The hiss of their skin as sweat dripped down between them. The smack of her thighs as she met his downward thrusts. The sigh of his voice as he breathed against her ear.
Copyright © 2006 by Sola Productions