Beverly Jenkins - Rhythms of Love - You Sang to Me / Beats of My Heart

“She’s all for it, of course. When I told her about meeting you, she called me Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz, and said it was time for me to put on my ruby-red slippers and start walking down the yellow brick road.”

“I like your grandmother.”

“She liked you, too.”

“But you don’t agree with her?”

“I do, but it’s hard to know what’s right. I have a job and prospects for a better one if I can keep saving up and finish school.”

“Okay, tell you what. I’m going to leave you alone for a few days. I’ll fly back to L.A., and then call you to see if you’ve made a decision.” He was not going to let the best voice he’d discovered in nearly a decade slip away. “You still have my card, right?”

She looked embarrassed. “No. I tossed it after you left.”

“You’re a mess, you know that?”

Holding his humor-filled gaze, Reggie wondered what it might be like to have him in her life for real.

“Do you believe in fate?” he asked her.

She shrugged. “Not really.”

“Well, I do and I believe that I was supposed to run into you at the hotel.”

“Why?”

“To hear you singing.”

She didn’t respond.

“The music gods have sent me to show you the way to the mountaintop, and I’m not coming back empty-handed, so know that.”

“Now who’s a mess?”

He shot her a dazzling smile before glancing down at his watch. “I should get moving so you can go to bed.”

Reggie hadn’t expected to have such a nice time. “Thanks for understanding where I’m at.”

“No problem, but like I said, this ain’t over.”

She got the sense that he was enjoying the challenge. “If you say so.”

“I do.” He drained the last of his coffee and took out his phone to call his driver.

Jamal wasn’t anxious to end the evening. Watching her, he wanted to sit in her cozy little kitchen with his pie and coffee and talk to her until sunrise. He’d learned a bit more about her tonight, so he supposed he’d have to be content with that.

While he made his call, Reggie checked him out. Instead of the usual black he was wearing gray. On his wrist was an elaborately carved silver bracelet with a huge blue sapphire in its center. The handsome face hadn’t changed, though. The thin razor cuts that ran from his jaws down to the well-groomed hair on his chin gave his dark face just a hint of danger. Everything about him was enough to make a woman pant.

When he ended the call and put the phone back in his pocket, she got to her feet. “I’ll get your coat.”

“Thanks.”

More aware of his presence than she’d ever been of any man, she didn’t have to turn and look to know that he was following; she could feel his heat. She wondered if he could feel hers.

She suspected he could.

Opening the small closet by the front door, she withdrew his coat, a black wool topper, and handed it over.

He voiced his thanks as he put it on and did up some of the buttons. Once he was done, he stood silently for a moment watching her. That drowning sensation rolled over her again, but this time she didn’t look away. “Thanks for not pressuring me. It was nice meeting you.” The thought of him leaving for L.A. tomorrow and maybe never seeing him again left her with a strange sense of longing.

“Even nicer meeting you.”

A car horn blew outside.

“That’s my driver.”

She opened the door. Wind-whipped snow could be seen through the frosty panes of the storm door. “Have a safe trip back.”

He handed her another one of his cards. “Keep this one, okay? No trashing allowed.”

She gave him an embarrassed smile. “Okay.”

For a long moment they fed visually on each other, then he leaned down and pressed a soft parting kiss against her forehead. “Stay sweet,” he whispered. “I’ll be in touch.”

Before she could recover, he was gone. Dazed, she closed the door and leaned back against it. Her fingers touched the sweet sting left by his kiss. Her whole body felt warm, opened. If just that brief brush of his lips could deliver such a wallop, she couldn’t imagine what kind of fireworks his hands must set off. Good Lord. She was so stunned she was still standing that way when her grandmother came down the stairs a few minutes later.

“Are you okay?”

Reggie shook herself free and felt her brain come back to life. “I think so.”

“You look a little rocked.”

“Does it show?”

Her grandmother chuckled. “He is nice, isn’t he?”

“Yes, he is.”

“A girl could do worse.”

“Yeah, but not a girl like me. He’s probably got a harem full of women back home.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, Cinderella. I saw the way he was watching you at the table. He’s interested.”

“Yeah, but in what? Probably just wants to put my mop on his wall with the rest of his bedroom trophies.”

Her grandmother laughed.

“I’m going to bed,” Reggie declared.

“And I’m coming down to watch some TV.”

They met at the bottom of the steps and shared a hug.

Crystal whispered, “I love you, baby. Think about what he’s offering.”

“I love you more. I told him I would and I will. I promise.”

The embrace ended.

Reggie gave her grandmother a mock warning. “And don’t stay up too late, missy. You need your beauty sleep.”

“I’ll be up right after the late-night, dirty movie on Skinamax.”

A chuckling Reggie climbed the stairs shaking her head.

Sleep was long in coming. Jamal Reynolds filled Reggie’s mind. When she finally did drift off, his whispery voice telling her to “stay sweet” was the last thing she remembered.

In the dream, Reggie and Trina were climbing a mountain in a swirling, blinding snowstorm. Trina was above her on the mountain and Reggie knew she’d be left behind if she didn’t keep up. They were both perfectly outfitted for the weather, with parkas, backpacks and spiked boots, but the treacherous conditions made the struggling Reggie barely able to see Trina above her in the heavy snow. She kept yelling for Trina to stop so she could catch her breath, but Trina kept getting farther and farther away until the only thing Reggie could make out were the Day-Glo numbers 404 on the back of Trina’s pack. Cold and exhausted, Reggie called again, only to have her voice snatched away by the howling, screaming wind, and then she was alone.

Next thing she knew she was in a dark cave illuminated by a fire. Soft jazz could be heard. Jamal was sitting in the corner, and when their eyes met he stood. Dressed in all black, he came toward her. With each step he took, her clothes magically melted away. When he finally reached her side she was nude.

Then the scene changed and they were on a bed and his mouth was slowly worshipping the peaks, hollows and curves of her body. His fiery lips blazed slowly over the base of her throat and the crooning points of her breasts. While he lingered there, his hand played between her legs, doing such magnificent things her hips were rising and she was moaning in the jazz-hushed silence. He was nude, too, now—dark, hard and sleek. “Are you ready to be loved?”

The scandalous pleasure of his lips and hands had her so breathless, she had to fight to find the voice to reply, “Yes…”

So he took her and she came with a long strangled scream, then bolted awake.

Breathing hard, heart racing like a hydroplane on the Detroit River, she wildly looked around in the darkness. She was in her bedroom. Thank goodness! Her nipples were hard. The secret place between her thighs was throbbing and her whole body felt ripe with need. It was as if he’d slipped into her room, made love to her and slipped away again. She fell back onto the mattress. Mercy!