Black Queen, Dark Knight II Read online

  I wish we could do this entire couple of days all over again. A time loop would be nice. I wouldn’t change a thing, except embracing the sex club sooner. We spent over an hour watching others while I psyched myself out.

  I open my door, and Jagger scoops me up into his arms. My pussy is against his waist as a straddle him and wrap my arms around him. We’ve settled into a content silence as he leads us inside and up to the bedroom. My body sags into the body-molding mattress.

  “Can we start over? This entire week together, let’s do it again beginning tomorrow.” I moan, a relaxed daze slurring my words.

  Jagger kneels on the floor, looking me over intently. There’s a curious look on his face, like the one earlier. I swear he thinks I’m a martian on occasion.

  Biting my lip, I settle into a seated position, maneuvering his chest on either side of my open thighs. Eye to eye, with him on the floor, I touch a tendril of long, blond hair away from Jagger’s eyes. He has this habit of allowing his hair to fly any which way the wind blows it.

  “You tell me what you’re thinking, Jag, I’ll tell you what I’m thinking.”

  “I know what you’re thinking.” His deep voice sends ripples down my spine.

  “What’s that?”

  He gestures around us. “Letting this become our reality.”

  “Tsk, okay, so tell me what you’re contemplating then,” I grumble. We haven’t quite had the talk about tomorrow, and what will occur, or the dynamics of our relationship. Yeah, we made promises, which Jagger will remind me of while we’re fucking, but we didn’t determine the day-to-day stuff. The stuff that ensures that we indeed . . . make it.

  “What’s on your mind?” I lick my lips. He’s entirely too quiet for me.

  Jagger extends his massive forearms, rubbing his hands on my hips. “Guess I’m considering the shit that normal guys would when they fall in love.”

  “Hmmm, normal guys? What are you?” I arch a brow, though it comes to mind that he truly is not a normal man. “Actually, thank you for today—and by today, I mean during the daytime, we did just about the most normal thing a guy and girl could do. Just the two of us.”

  “You’re welcome.” He leaves me trembling beneath his stare, and dammit, I’m sitting on a throne while he’s kneeling before me.

  “Tell me more about these invasive normal-boy-falls-in-love-with-girl deliberations that are torturing you?” I grin.

  His gaze zooms in on my collarbone, and he pushes my short hair away. It tickles that spot. “Just wanted to kiss you there, is all, Mikayla.”

  I snigger. “Okay, you bite my ass and kiss me everywhere else, big bully.”

  He grips my hips, and my ass is teetering off the edge of the bed in a nanosecond. He growls in my ear. “You’ll always be mine, Kayla.”

  I belong to Jagger Johansson. My gaze prickles with happy tears. I love this man more than my next breath of air. That weird voice that had wormed its toxic way into my mind does not respond. “I will always be yours.”

  11

  Jagger

  Her short hair was caressing her collarbone. My gaze zoomed in. A desire to leave a trail of kisses in that exact spot almost consumed me. I hadn’t fathomed that falling in love would be like this. Not just determining that you’re a tit or an ass man but craving every single inch of your woman’s body.

  I was about to kiss her until she mentioned wishing that this weekend could be reversed. This time that we’ve had is almost over. Earlier it was about me proving that we could do other things than fuck all day and night. Sure we hung out with Trick all weekend, but just the two of us, having conversations, laughing, no screwing. It’s all new to me—new and welcomed.

  When she asked what I was thinking, I was tempted to pull the covers over her curvaceous frame . . . over those full lips, and that ever innocent gaze. Even with her body scent salted by arousal, those pretty brown eyes tempt me to delve into her purity. I’m tempted to screw her mouth as a response to her inquiry.

  But I tell her the truth, the truth about normal guys. Now, I’m gripping her hips and yanking her closer to me. “You’ll always be mine, Kayla.”

  There’s no hesitation in her response, not like there was that one time in London. I keep telling myself to chalk it up to Mikayla being sleepy on that one occasion. Eyes glistening, she declares, “I’ll always be yours. Okay, big bully. It’s almost crunch time, Jag. We have to discuss how we’ll transition into two monogamous lovers from vastly different worlds.”

  Her question leaves me stumped. I assumed the current daily grind would stay the same for each of us. Doesn’t she know that this relationship is not only new for us, but the entire mechanics of it is rocket science to me. Intuition warns me that the new normal we jumped head first into is far from what she had in mind. I palm those soft cheeks of hers and endeavor to make it sound just that simple. “Just like we are now, Mikayla. More holidays. Short, tiny ones. While you work, I work.”

  Mikayla’s eyes close, and she stifles a deep breath. “Should we have this chat tomorrow?”

  “We’re having it now.” The growl rumbles out of my mouth before I can censor myself.

  “Because I don’t want to ruin tonight. Seriously, Jagger, I work, you work? You’re not considering a change in career?” She scoffs, folding her arms over. The tapered blazer that she’d huddled into while on the way home opens, and my eyes lock on her breasts, and my mind goes dark. A second later, she’s arguing, “We came back together a few short days ago. We made promises. To my understanding, you were quitting X Member.”

  Rising to my feet, I laugh in amusement. “Fuck that. I’m not a quitter.”

  Her eyelids flutter as she rolls them. “You’re sitting on a gold mine, Jag. Is the extreme lifestyle still necessary?”

  Not prepared for our last night to end with Mikayla isolating herself on one side of the large bed, I glare at her, stopping myself from asking if she’d prefer I take a fucking desk job. A few beats later, I’m calm enough to respond, “Alright, we won’t pretend that I need the money. The job is secure—”

  “Secure? You could die at a moment’s notice.”

  Then that is what shall be! Fuck, by boldly proclaiming that, I’ll add kindling to the fire. “I’m not resigning. Mikayla, you gave me your word. You’re mine.” I grip her wrist, pulling her up against my chest. “Our happy medium is both of us being productive. This is new. Let’s figure it out as we go.”

  I fist her hair, claiming her mouth in a kiss. She murmurs, “Alright, promise me something?”

  “What?”

  “You complete an assignment, you tip the scales of your karma back with a nice gesture.”

  “Good shit to offset the bad?” I ask, brushing her forehead with my lips.

  “Yes. Also, only sniper assignments, Jag. I agree, flexibility and figuring things out on the fly might facilitate a better outlook for our scenario, given both our lives are not normal. But no up-close, personal missions.” Mikayla holds her hand out democratically.

  Moments pass as we stare at each other. Sniper hits offer a level of shelter that no other type of mission has. The shit gets boring after a while. I bypass her outstretched hand, claiming the small of Mikayla’s back instead. I bring her body to me. “As you wish,” I groan against her mouth. I make the promise, though there’s only one of her contingencies that I’m capable of abiding by—leveling out my karma—I’ll attempt to. I place my possession on the center of the bed, kissing her fiercely. “Now that we’re on the same page, Kayla. Where were we?”

  * * *

  On our last morning, my internal clock goes off at six a.m. as it has done for the better part of my life. Usually, I watch Mikayla until she wakes up. Her body has become my new favorite pastime. I remember mornings under the hood of one of my rides, oil coating my hands, a cold beer, and altering my machine for the better while mentally working out another mission. I’d stop and mumble how nothing could beat this life. Mikayla has humanized me. She’s domest
icated me to the point where I can just lay here, lazily watching.

  Her thick lips crease softly at the edges. I steal this single moment, banking on never forgetting it once Mikayla is in Nivean and I’m elsewhere around the world.

  Two hours later, Trick’s voice snaps through a speaker in the ceiling. “Wake the fuck up!”

  Mikayla’s body hitches next to mine. She was just asleep, her breasts rising and falling slowly, and my fingertips played softly at the brown-sugar crest of them. She yanks the covers up over her body, and I sit up, gun at the ready.

  But he’s not here in the room of his safe house.

  “Trick, if you can fucking see us, you are dead. Do you hear me?” Why didn’t I think of a camera, this bastard has watched us.

  “Tosh!” he responds through the speaker. “I disabled the cameras in the bedroom out of respect for my friend—and we know just whom between the two of you I value, mate. I do have the infrared lights activated.”

  “Oh, sheesh,” Mikayla murmurs.

  “If you two banged like rabbits anywhere but the bedroom and the bathroom, I shall enjoy it later—”

  I cut into his cryptically giddy tone and hiss, “What the fuck do you want, Trick?”

  “I told you that wanker was taking photos of us. Turn on the telly, mate.”

  “What television?” Mikayla chews on her bottom lip. Just as she utters the keyword, a television descends from the ceiling before us at the far corner. The massive screen pops on to a channel displaying a blue screen.

  “The news, My Kayla. Doesn’t matter which channel. They all love you right about now.”

  Her eyebrows kneed together, and I speak up. “Turn to the news.”

  The channel starts flipping through stations, each of them showing or promising to offer a segment on the South African Queen of Nivean once the commercial break is over. How is it that a handful of channels are all on or transitioning to meaningless commercials at the same time?

  “Stop,” Mikayla breathes, eyes watering. The screen stops flashing, stopping on a news station with a predominately red logo. A blonde and a Japanese man are seated before a European backdrop.

  “This just in . . . in the wake of recent talk of a possible engagement between Queen Mikayla Mthembu Rakoto of the South African Nivean kingdom and the South African Prince of the Zihula nation, Queen Mikayla has been seen in the most intimate of encounters with not one but two other males.” The female news reporter divulges.

  “And I’ll tell you,” the male speaks up, “this does not look so good for Queen Mikayla whose recent coronation was just two months ago. Her uncle, King Regent Qaaim Mthembu, was stripped of all royal rights in Nivean. An allegiance between Queen Mikayla and Prince Fari would have assisted with the crop shortage and water crisis in her kingdom.”

  The blonde smiles. “Yes, the South African Government talks of their alliance seemed more for Nivean’s benefit.”

  Clearing his throat, the reporter adds, “Sources have been able to identify one of the two males as none other than Dr. Harry Firth, a prestigious scientist, who headed up a team, which was most notably praised for the 2013 advancements in technological warfare through Zager Manufacturing.”

  “Fuck!” I snap. There are photos from the three of us during our first morning in London and at the pub where Trick slammed that slimy bastard.

  While the broadcaster states that I haven’t been readily identified as of yet, I’m painted as the worst choice of all—a grungy, long haired, stranger. Fari’s top dog due to wealth and location, and nobody knocks a doctor who has created counter warfare technology and is friends with billionaire, Lincoln Zager. Trick was a golden boy brainiac prior to having a taste for blood.

  I turn to my woman, lips thin and ask, “Mikayla, what do they mean by possible engagement?”

  My body stills. I blink as she rubs a hand over my jaw. “It’s nothing, Jag. The talk about a union between Fari and I was tossed around at the South African Government meeting we had a few weeks back. It was considered along with a bunch of different policies and ideas.”

  “Jag, don’t be barmy. It’s a lie,” Trick cuts in. “I’ll have the whereabouts of that little sniveling, arsehole shortly. The pilot has been ordered to wait at the tarmac until whenever you are ready.” He hangs up.

  Another photo of Mikayla and Prince Fari show up on the screen. It was the same day that I had tried to reach out to her when we’d broken up. They were planting seeds in Nivean. As the news reporter slaps on another reason why they should end up together, I shout, “What is this impending engagement!”

  Mikayla’s shoulders jump. “You believe everything you hear on the news, Jag?”

  I can’t take my eyes off the screen, which is now displaying a soup recall. The image of them together is fresh, and I’ll never get that shit out of my mind. “Are you and Fari becoming close?”

  “Yes—no.” She shakes her head. “No, hell no. We have resources that each other needs, Jag. His nation is coastal; mine is—”

  “Inland. I don’t need a fucking geography lesson.”

  “And I don’t need an attitude right now. Or have you forgotten how bad I just looked. Very bad, Jagger.” She presses her knees to her chest, mumbling to herself that her reign has started off on a bad foot already, then locks her arms around herself.

  Unable to stomach her jaded response, I snap. “You’re a queen, Mikayla. It might be a new inconceivable notion for you, uthando lwami, but cut off a few fucking heads and people will pledge their allegiance.”

  She starts out of the bed, yanking the sheet and wrapping it hastily around her curves. “Let’s just go home, Jagger.”

  “No.” I command, anger rising. Our homes are in two vastly different places. That dead man who sold photos of Mikayla and I will be the reason I keep her by my side for a little while longer. “Trick just told us that we will have the information of the photographer shortly, Mikayla. Let’s right this wrong.”

  She scoffs. “Then it looks like we’ve retaliated?”

  “No. We may be men who think with an insatiable lust for blood, Kayla, but we have safeguards in place. When he sends us the photographer’s location, he will also send us information on anyone that fuckoff has ever pissed off.”

  “So murder and point the finger?”

  Grabbing the hair at my crown, I sit back against the padded headboard. This conversation has taken a turn for the worse. “Mikayla, we must find out who sent that man to follow us. Someone is attempting to undermine your royal authority.”

  “Let’s not turn this into a conspiracy. That idiot may have watched the Address of State with the South African Government two months ago and recognized who I was then made a quick buck. Money is as good a reason to act as any,” she grumbles. “Damn, I . . . shit! Chumi and I have removed all of Qaaim’s followers from Nivean.”

  I glare into those optimistic brown eyes, but they’re not as bright as usual. “We confirm the dead man’s intention before we leave this continent, Mikayla. The only ‘no’ you get today is if it’s me or you who expires that fuck.”

  12

  Mikayla

  We did end up using Trick’s private jet, but instead of heading home, we’ve returned to London. This world of assassination is rather easy to navigate when an unmarked luxury car is waiting for you at a private runway—and with goodies—though Trick thought it best for us not to go Jagger’s route and simply put a bullet in Frank Haskin’s head.

  Lucky for us, Frank has no family in the one bedroom flat he owns—no additional casualties. There would be no guilt of murdering a husband or a father. Just a forty-two-year-old man who lives alone and pees himself when scared.

  With the cloak of a crisp, cold night on our side, Jagger and I move with determined steps up the stairs of an old apartment building. He holds a duffle bag of Trick’s favorite treats, opening the door for me to enter first. There are caps slung low over our heads, and as expected, we’re dressed in all black.

&
nbsp; Sounds of laughter, television shows, and music come through the walls of each space as we move toward cement stairs. I shake in my boots, wringing my fingers together.

  “I won’t do anything. I’ve told you, Jag. Should’ve just left me in the damn car.”

  “Kayla, we are in a different country. Have you left my sight since we left for our holiday?”

  I huff at his rhetorical question and climb up the last few steps to the third floor.

  Flat 31C. I stop at the door, forcing air into my lungs.

  Jagger’s gloved hand comes up. There’s a tiny gleam of a silver object, sort of the same shape and size of tweezers. Before I can pray that we don’t get in, the door slides ajar. We enter, and the door shuts. My eyes widen, not yet adjusted to the dark. I press up against Jagger when it’s clear that he isn’t going to turn on a light.

  “I can’t see a thing,” I mumble.

  “I can. Shh.” He whispers the demand.

  In the bedroom, Jagger flicks on the light. The man who pissed himself at the pub in Borough Market startles awake.

  “Scream, you die.” Jagger holds out a silenced .9 millimeter.

  “Wh . . . who are you?” He sounds like an owl. I glance down. My pupils have adjusted, and I note the pool of liquid seeping between his legs.

  “A measly 20,000 euro. Was it worth your life?” Jagger comes around the bed, fisting his hand at Frank’s throat whose white skin grows ruddy as he attempts to breathe. He’s a bit on the chubby side, no muscle definition whatsoever. Jagger brings him up and slams him to the ground.

  “I will find out who wired the funds to you soon.” Jagger’s voice is a low growl, enough to strike fear in my heart.

  We’re on the same team, we’re on the same team. I mentally relay the motto. The jackhammer that has become my heart dwindles down to a natural rate.

  “But being that I’m an impatient man, Haskins, let’s just say, I’ll finish you off quickly for telling me now.”