A Test of Love: Interracial Erotic Romance (Chasing Love) (7 page)

“What’s a dragnet?” Chase asked.

“I have no idea, but I will one day. And it’s sprinkled with rare chocolate truffles and tiny drops of caviar. Even the serving dish is gold, with a real 18k gold spoon—”

“Jasmine!” Vivian hit the table. It wasn’t a major slam or boom. The dishes didn’t lift up like in cartoons, but my wine did swish in my glass. No humor showed in her face, just annoyance.

“Yes?”

“Did my father get rid of a body for you and Troy?” she asked.

This wasn’t fair. The secret was supposed to remain hidden forever. Troy and I promised as much to Benny. He’d done a lot for us that night. My mom was passed out on the couch as she usually did. Her latest boyfriend of the time enjoyed catching me in the hallway after my showers and making me feel uneasy with sexual comments no man should say to a young girl. I’d told Troy. By that summer, all our brothers resided in juvie. It was just Troy and I, against my mother and her men. For some reason, he took protecting me as his number one goal, so he began sleeping under my bed. And the punk in me let him. I’d been scared enough to allow it.

“Yes. Benny got rid of a body for Troy and me,” I whispered. “But Benny didn’t kill the man. Troy did.”

Chase knitted his fingers together. “My investigators never uncovered this when they looked through Jasmine’s background.”

“Benny took care of it.” Troy took the bottle to the head, his Adam’s apple jumping up and down in his throat as he finished it all.

Vivian raked her fingers through her hair. “What did this man do to you both where you all had to kill him?”

“He tried to rape me.” I grabbed the bottle from Troy, noticed it was empty, and handed it back. “Troy had been sleeping under my bed with a steak knife, just in case the man tried to sneak into my room. The guy did and. . .Troy being young and on edge, stabbed him in his throat and then in his heart.”

“You should probably stop with this story before your boyfriend gets scared and fires me.” Troy burped.

“No way. I’m glad a man like that is gone.” Anger creased the corners of Chase’s eyes, pure anger. It was raw and uncontrolled. I inched back a little in my chair, happy that he wasn’t pissed at me and hopefully anybody else in the room. “You did what you had to do. It was good that Jasmine had you there. I know a whole lot about having to do something bad to save another person.”

He does?

“How did my dad get involved?” Vivian asked.

“I called him,” I said. “He rushed over and like Troy said. He took care of it all. A bunch of men rushed in, cleaned up, took the body, and put everything back the way it was. I have no idea if Benny even told my mom or not. Much later, somebody found the dead body in an alley. The police chalked it up to gang violence. No one pursued the murder. All of that being said, I don’t think Benny has anything to do with my getting shot or these other women’s deaths.”

“I’ve always suspected him of killing my mom, but I had no proof,” Chase said.

What the fuck?

I sat there with my mouth open.

“And then there’s the fact that Vivian’s ex-boyfriend is still missing after he hit her,” Troy said. “That can’t be a coincidence.”

Vivian covered her eyes. “For the hundredth time, my dad didn’t hurt Noc.”

“We don’t know if he didn’t,” Troy said.

“Let’s get off of this. It’s all a bunch of unfounded accusations about a man who I know for sure loves us all.” I looked at Chase. “Well, most of us. A woman shot me. I say it was Lucy, but I’m suspecting Dawn and Wendy too. Let’s stay off of Benny.”

We finished our meals and drinks in silence, each of us probably pondering some dark memory or realization that we’d desperately tried to forget. By the end of the hour, the stewardess had served more wine. Each of us alone may have consumed a bottle. Once I started singing “Yesterday” by the Beatles, Chase decided to pick me up and carry my drunken body to bed.

I lay on his chest as he wrapped his big arms around me. But for some reason, as he held me in the shadows of the jet’s master bedroom, I could swear his fingers shivered against my skin and his heart boomed erratically in my ears.

Chapter 8

TROY

The lights were dim in the cabin. Viv lay in the seat next to me, her head leaning against the window. Any other time, her being so close to me would be unsafe, but the stewardess sat in the row in front of me and guards sat farther up front. I was never the type of person to fall into public displays of affection. I always hated to see it. I’d grown up in a house where we kept our business behind closed doors. We never told anyone what went on inside unless they were the most trusted friends of the family. That meant shutting our mouths around counselors and teachers.

Mom would always say, “Don’t have those white people at my damn house.”

As a kid, I trusted her on that statement. It was the only thing I knew she meant.

So I sat next to Viv with the urge to touch her bubbling inside of me, but my mind on board with holding it all in.

“What are you thinking about?” Viv’s voice was art, her words, paint coloring an empty canvas. It was a no brainer that she would become an artist one day. No one was shocked, except Benny. Her whole style sang of creativity. Even right after leaving the hospital, she managed to clean up and toss on a pair of aqua blue shorts, a white tank top splattered with various shades of blue, and these pretty little earrings that curved into a swirly shape that kept turning and turning. The cabin’s dim lighting would flash off the earrings’ edges as it moved.

“Troy?”

I miss her saying that.

“What’s up?”

“What are you thinking about?”

“Nothing.” I gripped the arm rest and inhaled her for just a few seconds. Viv did odd things like buy up tons of perfume and mix them into a bowl until she believed it was the right scent. Because of that, I could never peg her fragrance. She just smelled sweet and lush, reminding me of better days, something like a vacation.
That’s what Viv’s scent was— a damn vacation from everything else.
And like fun trips, they never lasted. At some point, I had to leave and go back to whatever was waiting for me.

“I’m scared for Jasmine,” she whispered.

I’m scared for us. Right now, I want to kiss you, and that’s so sick I can’t even deal with myself.

“I don’t think she should be around this Chase,” Viv continued.

“Me, neither.”

“Then why don’t you do something.”

“Like what? I’ve never been able to change Jazz’s mind. When she wants something, she goes after it. If I had it my way, she would be with Gabe. He’s nice, not a player, and I can beat his ass with no problem if he messes up. Instead, she falls in love with some guy that possesses women and could hire an army if he wanted it.”

“But, you guys are twins. Doesn’t that mean you both have special powers or something?”

I squinted at her. “I think it’s time to stop smoking the ganja.”

“Never that.” She laughed. “I’m actually wondering how I’ll get some in Italy.”

“Ask Chase. He’ll do anything right now.”

“Hmmm.” She rolled her eyes. “I still don’t like him. I don’t think he’s changed. He’s just going to have Jasmine as girlfriend number one and start grabbing more females to fill that pretentious house of his.”

I barely computed all her words as I focused on those lips. She had a way of twisting them after she made a point. If I told her, I was sure she would deny it. She was stubborn that way, just like Jazz. She placed her finger in her mouth and starting biting the nail. That was another one of her nervous habits that she denied. Once she spotted the chewed nail, she would be all shocked and amazed that it had gotten that way.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

I turned away and leaned my head on my seat. “No reason.”

“None at all?”

“Naw.”

“I think you’re lying.”

“Does it matter?”

She leaned in. “Always.”

Those full breasts pressed against my arm. Shivering, I moved it off the arm rest and shifted away from her. She laughed. “What? Was I too close?”

“No. I’m just relaxing.”

“Sure.” She twisted around and muttered several things under her breath.

Ignore her. Don’t go there. She’s just going to start some stuff that I can’t take.

But I was never good at listening to myself. I turned to her. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“You’re mad,” I said.

“Of course I am. You’re treating me like I have some contagious disease! I’m your sister, not a freak.”

“I never called you a freak.”

I’m the fucking freak.

She pointed her finger at me. “You don’t want me touching you?”

“Hell, no.”

She opened her mouth. Her bottom lip quivered.
Fuck. Please don’t cry. Come on. I didn’t mean it that way.
Her eyes watered.
Great job, Troy.
She moved her face out of my view and wiped at her eyes.

“Viv, I didn’t mean it like that.”

“That’s cool.” That beautiful voice shifted to a hoarse and broken tone.

“No, it’s not. I just need a minute to come to grips with the fact that you’re my sister.”

“You think this is easy for me?”

“No.”

“I miss you.”

I gripped my seat and squeezed. My dick hardened. My heart sped up. Just those three words could cause damage to my whole body. She had no idea how much power she had over me. She had no clue that I was seconds from saying fuck it and going after what I’d been yearning to taste since she decided to bring her sweet self over to my row.

You’re killing me, Viv.

“Do you even miss me or was I only just-gotout-of-jail sex? Was I just some fling?”

“I miss you more than you could ever understand, girl.” I slid my thumb along the edge of the seat. “I think about you all the time. Everything from the past. All the things I’ve said to you. Little stuff that would make you laugh. Sometimes that’s all I can think about.”

“I think about the first night we made love.”

Sighing, I rubbed my face with both hands. “Come on, Viv.”

“We can’t even talk about that?”

“Hell, no, and you know why.”

“I just don’t see why we just can’t—”

“No.”

“There’ve been couples all over the world that were brother and sister or cousins or even, I don’t know, aunts and uncles.”

“Aunts have married their uncles?”

“Sure. I guess. I’m just saying. This can’t be the first time in history where siblings have been together. And we’re not even full sister and brother. I mean full would be disgusting. We didn’t grow up in the same house or anything.”

Bile rose in my throat, not from what she was saying, but from my very stiff dick trying to burst through my jeans. “This topic is disgusting. I’m done with it.”

“There’s countries where this is perfectly okay.”

“Where?”

She searched the darkened cabin as if the answer was somewhere floating in the air. “I don’t know. I can’t remember. It’s not like I spent all my life researching incest. Not that what we would be doing is incest.”

“It would be incest. We’ve already committed it.”

“And what happened?” Her hands shook as she raised them. “God didn’t send a bolt of lightning down from the heavens to kill us. We’re alive and walking. My love for you, our love for each other, is still pumping away in our chests. We were good together. We didn’t hurt anybody. Why can’t we just be together?”

The stewardess in the other row cleared her throat, rushed to get up, and scurried away to the bathroom. Her magazine lay on the floor with a spilled drink.

I bet she heard.

“Because that’s not what people do, Viv. You don’t just marry your sister. I’ve done things in my life, but that takes the cake of stupidity and it’s wrong.”

She pointed at me and jabbed the air with each word. “We. Are. Not. Wrong. The people who think we are wrong are really the idiots. Benny was wrong. Your mom was wrong. We are good. We loved and cared for each other and everything that came from that was beautiful and right.”

“We could never have kids. Don’t they have birth defects?”

“Fine. We can adopt.”

“No, I’m not saying that as something to consider. I’m saying that as a reason for why the shit just shouldn’t happen. Good doesn’t come from us having sex and creating life.”

“Prove it.”

I opened my empty hands. “We’re on a plane. I don’t have a computer or set of books around me. And don’t try to play me. You’ have to have heard about inbreeding.”

“The only thing I can remember about inbreeding is this one romance where these siblings were shut away in an attic and the older brother and sister fell in love. They had kids and those children were just fine.”

“An attic? What are you talking about? It’s a book. This is our lives.”

“And we only have one. I don’t know about you, but I’m going after everything I want. I want to die and know that I did my best to be happy.”

“You really think that you’ll lay on your death bed happy that you fucked your brother?”

“Yes. If that brother is you.”

She’s lost her mind and my dick is still hard. I gotta get out of here.

“I’ll be right back.” I rose and hoped there was another bathroom on the plane. I needed to hide until we landed. What she was saying was making sense in a strange way. Sure we could do that, but people didn’t just do what the fuck they wanted to do. The world judged stuff like this cruelly. Plus, no one would be happy to see Viv and me walking hand-in-hand to anybody’s house. People would be vomiting before we could knock on the door and ask to come in.

Adjusting myself in my jeans, I headed down the passageway. Music lingered from where Chase and Jasmine slept at the end of the hallway. I was sure that man couldn’t wait to get Jazz all alone. He’d gaped at her the whole dinner. Cats like that scared the shit out of me. They loved too hard. If Jazz ever wanted to leave him, I could see a problem on his end, and I wasn’t sure he had many limits. This plane ride to Italy was a prime example. Lucky for him I thought Jazz should be out of the states too, and if rich boy wanted to do it, then fine.