Becoming Carter (The Carter Series) (Volume 2) (5 page)

“Don’t worry about a thing, baby. I got you.”

I opened my eyes and found Kelvin standing in the hallway. There were no lights on, and his naked body was surrounded by darkness as he stood there staring at me. As I marveled at the perfectly proportioned muscles and tattoos that covered his body—not to mention his astonishing package—I was distracted when I noticed he was holding a gun at his side. The look on his face was one of passion, but also one of pain and worry.

I didn’t know what was going on, so I smiled at him, trying to gauge the situation and see if he’d smile back. He did, and it was still the best smile I’d ever seen, even in total darkness. He waved at me, telling me to follow him as he turned around and walked into the living room, but he didn’t turn on any lights.

“Kelvin, wait up,” I said, my voice echoing loudly through the penthouse.

I felt my heart starting to beat faster with every step I took. I didn’t want to lose him. I didn’t want to be without him in this darkness, so I started running down the hallway and turned into the black living room.

The only problem was that when I got there, there was no living room, and Kelvin was gone. The only thing in the room was a man. A man whose face I couldn’t see. All I could make out were the tattoos on his hand. The same hand that was pointing the gun at my face.

My eyes bulged, and I tried to scream for Kelvin, but no sound came out of my mouth. Instead, it was another sound I heard—the sound of a trigger being squeezed and the gun going off…

The loud
bang
of the gun knocked me out of my nightmare and I woke up sweating and out of breath. I was still terrified as I looked over and saw that Kelvin wasn’t in the bed with me. My heart was pounding and the last thing I wanted to do was get out of the bed and find Kelvin standing in the hallway naked, holding a gun. So, I stayed in the bed and looked over at the clock. It was eight in the morning. Waking up in such a panic must’ve kept me from noticing that the sun was up and it wasn’t even dark in the room. I took a deep breath, steadied myself, and threw my legs over the side of the bed so I could sit up.

I ran my hand across my face as the memory of the nightmare played again in my head. Was that some sort of premonition? Was it a sign from up above that I shouldn’t be following Kelvin? Should I really be taking this dream to mean something? I told myself that it was just a dream, but it felt so real.

I sat on the edge of the bed, consumed by thoughts of what I was going to do about everything that had just taken place over the past twenty-four hours. I’d woken up yesterday morning feeling wonderful. Kelvin had fucked me until I came three times the night before, and I actually had fallen asleep by accident—from exhaustion. So, when I woke up, I felt wonderful, even though I was still naked. Kelvin and I had spent the entire day together here in his penthouse, until it was time to head out to Red Lobster. It was the perfect day, and we’d had the perfect dinner with our awesome friends.

Then, the fucking limo exploded, Kelvin Senior acted like he hated me, and I learned that I was now in danger and needed to be protected from a Russian mob boss who wanted to kill my boyfriend, and didn’t care if I died in the process. That was quite the turnaround, and it was just too fucking much for me to handle.

Things had been going so well for us that I’d forgotten that Kelvin was actually in the
mob
. The fucking mob! His entire family was also involved, and each of them conducted illegal activities in their respective clubs and casinos, although I wasn’t aware of exactly what activities they were involved in. Yet, here I was, sitting on the edge of his bed as if he was a regular guy. Was I crazy?

Even without being affiliated with his mob family, Kelvin had never been a regular guy to me. He was strong, passionate, spontaneous, caring, and a fucking bad ass. He was every woman’s dream, and I had him. The way he treated me was nothing short of perfect, and I loved him more than I thought I’d ever love anyone. But, what about the danger? Was I supposed to accept the danger because I was in love with him? I didn’t know what I was supposed to do, and the confusion was so frustrating.

I exhaled, just as Kelvin walked into the room. He was wearing red and white basketball shorts and a white Michael Jordan jersey. He smiled at me when he came in, then he walked over to where I was sitting, lowered himself onto his knees, and laid his head in my lap, wrapping his arms around my waist.

“I love you, Baby,” he said quietly.

See what I mean? Perfect.

I placed my hands on the back of his neck and gently rubbed his smooth skin. How the hell could I even contemplate leaving this behind?

“I love
you
,” I replied.

Kelvin lifted his head off of my legs and looked up at me. His dark brown eyes connected with mine and made my heart pick up speed. I ran my index finger over his perfectly trimmed beard, tracing the hair around his mouth. When my finger got close to his lip, he took my finger into his mouth and started sucking on it.

“You’re about to start something serious, Baby,” I said with a smile.

“Well,” he replied, removing my finger from his mouth, “that’s what happens when you put any of your sexy ass body parts near my mouth.”

Kelvin unleashed his flawless smile on me as he rose from his knees and sat on the bed next to me. He leaned over and kissed me on the shoulder as he took my hand in his.

“So, how are you feeling this morning?” he asked.

I let out a loud sigh. “As long as you’re here, everything’s perfect. But, I can’t act like I’m not a little worried about this whole thing. Someone tried to blow us up last night. I don’t know how to react to that. I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel.”

“You’re not supposed to feel any particular way. It’s fucked up, and I know you’re scared. I’m also not sure what we’re gonna do about it. I mean, The Family seems pretty convinced that it’s the Baskovs who did it, but we don’t know for sure, so it’s hard to try to figure out what to do next.”

“See, that’s the other part that I’m worried about. Let’s just assume that it was the Baskovs. What will your family do to them? Would they try to kill them? Blow up one of their cars?”

Kelvin put his head down and exhaled. I could tell that he didn’t want to say the real answer to the question. “I have to be honest with you’re here, Lilliana. If it was the Baskovs and we find that out for sure, it’s gonna be a serious problem. There’s no way in hell my family would let that kind of thing slide. My father would never allow it.”

“Has your dad killed people, Kelvin?”

Kelvin took a second to clear his throat. I knew the question was probably inappropriate, but I needed to know the answer. I needed to know what to expect from here on out.

“My dad’s been doing what he’s been doing for a long time—since he was in his late teens. He’s done a lot of things that I’m not proud of. Things that I’m ashamed of, and even though I love you more than anything in this world, there’s things about my dad that I can’t tell you. But, it’s not because I don’t love you or because I don’t want to share everything with you, because I do. But the less you know about him, the safer you’ll be. You just have to trust me on that, okay?”

I pretty much took that as a
yes
, and it scared the hell out of me. “This isn’t good, Kelvin. I’m not sure I can handle all of this.”

Kelvin wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me closer to him. “Hey, I know you’re scared. I know it’s fucked up and it’s a lot of craziness in a short period of time. But think about how great everything has been since we got together. This shit just came out of nowhere. We didn’t expect it, and certainly didn’t plan for it. But, I assure you, I’ll take care of you. No matter what happens, I’ll take care of you. I promise you, Lilliana. I got you.”

I couldn’t help but smile at how comforting his words were. “I know you do, Baby. But what about you? Aren’t you scared?”

Kelvin smiled at me with an assured confidence. “All I’m focusing on is keeping you safe. I don’t have time for scared.”

Just then, Kelvin leaned over and kissed me. The second our skin touched, my worries were neutralized by my love and desire for him. It was true that we were in a mess, but no mess would ever dissolve our love.

I felt the heat rising within me as our bodies touched. Kelvin had a way of kissing me that seemed to instantly turn me on and make me forget about everything going on around me. But, just as my hand was lifting up his jersey, my phone rang.

I let out an exasperated sigh as we stopped kissing so I could lean over and look at the caller ID. It was Lexy.

“Shit, it’s Lexy,” I mumbled, accompanied by a frown. Kelvin smiled at me and then scooted back onto the bed and laid down with his hands behind his head, basically telling me he’d be waiting for me to get off the phone. I smiled back as I answered my cell.

“Hey, Lex. What’s up?”

“Did you hear about what happened at Red Lobster last night?” Lexy yelled in my ear. Apparently the news about the explosion was beginning to travel.

“Yeah, I definitely heard about it,” I replied, hoping she couldn’t hear the sarcasm in my voice.

“That was, like, right after me and Mike left. Were you guys still there when it happened?”

I thought for a second about what I should say in response. I hadn’t told Lexy that Kelvin was in the mob, and certainly didn’t plan on it, so I didn’t know exactly how much information I should give her about last night.

“Umm, no. We’d just left, too. So, it must’ve been right after we left,” I said. I didn’t like lying to my best friend, but what was going on with Kelvin and I was only our business. Not to mention the feeling I had that the more Lexy
didn’t
know about this, the better off she’d be in the long run. I wasn’t exactly sure what that meant.

“That would’ve been crazy if you guys would’ve seen that,” Lexy chirped. “The news said that some guy died in the explosion, and that the cops think there may have been foul play. But they’re withholding any other information about the investigation. That’s fucking crazy, right? I mean, we’d just been there.”

I immediately thought about Tony. From what I knew about him, he was only a twenty year old black kid who’d just started working at the Royal Flush for Senior only a couple of weeks ago. The memory of his hairless face jumped to the front of my mind, and brought a whole truckload of emotion with it.

“It’s really sad,” I said, my voice full of obvious sorrow.

“Yeah, it is,” Lexy replied. She seemed to pause for a second like we were giving the young man a moment of silence. After a few seconds she spoke again. “Umm. So, anyway, what are you two lovebirds getting into today?”

“I’m not sure, actually. We usually just hang out on Sundays, before I go back to my place to get ready for work the next day. We haven’t really talked about it yet. What’s on the agenda for you and Mike?”

“I don’t think we’re doing anything either. Mike’s on the couch screaming at the TV because the Bulls are losing. Plus I have a bunch of papers to grade for tomorrow.”

“Me too, actually. I need to try to get home a little earlier so I can get started on that. I don’t want to be up all night because of it, which is usually what ends up happening because I can’t pry myself away from this man.” I looked over my shoulder at Kelvin who was still lying in the same position. My eyes automatically went to his larger-than-life biceps as his arms rested behind his head. He was so unbelievably sexy. “But, I doubt today will be any different.”

I heard Lexy giggle. “Ugh, you guys are too cute,” she said. “I better let you go before you start fucking while you have me on the phone and I have to sit here and listen to it.”

“Even if we did start doing that, you could just hang up.”

“What? Why would I want to do that? I’d
have
to listen because I’m sure that would be hot. But it would probably piss Mike off, so I better go.”

I chuckled at my friend’s craziness, then we said our goodbyes and hung up. I placed the phone back on the nightstand and turned my attention to Kelvin, who was still staring at me.

“So, you’ve got papers to grade?” he said.

“Yeah, and as much as I want to spend all of my time with you, I really should try to get home a little earlier so I can get that stuff done earlier. My inability to pull myself away from you always seems to leave me in a rush on Monday morning.”

“I guess I understand,” Kelvin chuckled. “Okay, well, what do you say we go out to breakfast first? Then, I’ll take you to your house so you can get ready for work. I’ll talk to James and see if my dad gave him any instructions for the day.”

“Wait. Breakfast? You sure that’s a good idea after what happened last night?” I was still thinking about the explosion, yet Kelvin was ready to go out to eat again. His confidence that we would be safe was certainly comforting, but I was still terrified of what might happen if we went out again. After seeing the limo explode with Tony still inside of it, I didn’t know if I’d ever be ready to go out to dinner again.

“Nothing is gonna happen to us, Babe. James will be there, and there isn’t another guy that I’d want protecting us. Tony was new and didn’t think to make sure we weren’t being followed. James knows better, and I’ve known him since I was a kid, so I trust him. You don’t have to worry…”

Kelvin was interrupted by his cell phone ringing on the nightstand. He stood up and started walking towards the phone, but when he got halfway, he stopped and came back over to me.

“Aren’t you going to answer it?” I asked, just as Kelvin leaned over and kissed me again. When he pulled away, his naturally sexy scent was still lingering in my nose. After a quick smile, he ran over to his side of the bed and picked up the phone. When he saw the caller ID, his facial expression changed.

“Yeah, what’s up?” he said upon answering.

I couldn’t hear what was being said on the other line, but I could tell that Kelvin wasn’t happy about it. His jaw was clenched like he was trying to hold back saying something, so I assumed it was someone from The Family.