Candy Licker (8 page)

I was breathing hard, trying to calm myself as we walked over to our table. I glanced around the room and somebody caught my eye. He was looking good in a high-powered designer suit. He wasn't as tall as Hurricane, but he wasn't short neither. Wasn't nothing really special about him except the way he stood apart from the crowd. Like he was in this club but not of it.

“Who's that?” I whispered to Vonnie and pointed. He wasn't dressed like a hustler, but these days you couldn't be sure.

Vonnie laughed real loud. “No fuckin’ body. His name is Knowledge. He's an investment baller. Hurricane's lawyer. I tried to give him some pussy one time and his stupid ass wouldn't even take it. Don't even waste your time. He's just some analytical sherm who would rather count coochies than fuck em.”

I wondered if that was true. When I was just a freshman in high school I had this senior liking me. He looked so much like
this guy Knowledge that they could have passed for twins. Dude had been a star in our school, captain of the football team and all that. But then he got in trouble hanging with the wrong crowd and ended up getting kicked off the team for the rest of the season. Even chilling at the game as a regular spectator he was still fine and popular. He was a straight clown and made me laugh all the time. I knew how much he liked me but Mama was clocking my shit hard around boys, so that kept us apart a lot. One time I ran into him at one of our home games, and during the halftime show that crazy boy got behind me and took his dick out, then slid that shit under my skirt and between my naked pussy lips. He kept trying to push it up into me, but I wouldn't let him. I'd cock my ass back so the head of his dick slid straight across my clit, sending thick juices squirting out of me and wetting us both up. He slid his hands under my skirt and held me by the hips, then rocked me just like that. Rubbing the length of his dick against the slit between my legs. Like a hot dog sliding between a split bun. The cheerleaders were swinging, the band was bringing it hot, and his dick felt so good I screamed right along with the rest of the crowd, but my screams were for a better reason.

Vonnie touched my arm and I blinked real fast a few times. “Something's fittin’ to go down,” she said.

The spotlight was shining on the pit and somebody had passed Hurricane a mic. Every eye in the House was on him, but even across the room, I could tell that Hurricane's eyes were all over me.

“C'mere, you,” he said, pointing and motioning me over. He walked up the steps and sat on the raised stage that overlooked
the pit and the spotlight followed him. “Yeah you, Red. Bring your fine ass up here.”

The noise died down as I switched my ass down into the pit and came out at the bottom of the steps on the other side. I couldn't believe that out of all of the sistahs in the house Hurricane was taking notes on little old me, but the look on his face as he watched me moving toward him said it all.

He stood up to meet me and somebody put a bottle of Cristal in his hand. The DJ gave him some beats and he broke out in a little freestyle rap:

They raised the roof up off that mutha. You woulda thought Hurricane was the resurrected Tupac or somebody the way the crowd gave up the props. I thought his rap was all right. Nothing spectacular, just all right. But I ain't gonna lie. I gave it up for him too. After all, he was Big Money Cane, and he held all the cards and all the strings. Anything he did, even in a small way, was gonna be considered grand.

It was just me and him in the pit and I could feel all kinds of vibes in the air. “Damn baby,” he tucked the mic behind his back and whispered in my ear. “Look like you was getting your shit off out there, shawty.”

“Speak up!” somebody yelled from the crowd. “Say that shit out loud!”

The dawgs started barking. Every brother in the House wanted to be just like Hurricane, and most of the females were sipping haterade from their beer bottles and wishing they were wearing my shorts.

Hurricane started clowning under all that attention. He threw down a few more sexy lyrics directed at me, then told the DJ to stop the music as he grabbed my hand and made everybody shut up.

Every ear was perked.

“Aaight, y'all,” Hurricane hollered into the mic. “I'm looking for me a wifey tonight, but she gotta be all the way real. Y'all know females are always trying to fake a brother out. Ain't that right, dawgs? You slide into a Mercedes and climb out of a Hyundai!” His boys were clapping and dapping each other out like,
Hell yeah! That shit happened to me before!

“Or, or, or”—Hurricane hushed them—“you chilling with a Maine lobster and wake up next to some nasty tuna fish!”

Then he made a bold move by sticking his finger in my waistband. He stretched the front of my shorts toward him and took a quick peek at my naked mound.

“She's live,” he hollered, jumping up and down and waving his arm. “She's all the way live! This one's for real, y'all! That ain't no weave on her head, fellas! She's a for-real, nat-ur-al, bona fide redhead!” He dropped to his knees. “C'mon, baby girl. Don't you wanna be my wifey?”

I could hear Vonnie and Dom screaming, “Hell yeah! Hell yeah!”

I looked down into his pretty eyes and couldn't believe my luck.

“Hell yeah!” I repeated after my girls. “Hell yeah!”

He was on his feet again. “Y'all heard that, right?”

More screams and whistles.

“All right, then. It's official. Candy and Cane. Just remember: Whatever gets hooked in the House of Homicide, can't nothing but death fuck it up!”

I laughed along with the crowd, feeling too damn special standing there beside him as the music kicked up again and the whole house broke live. It didn't bother me a bit that he had just claimed me without even knowing me or that he'd looked down my clothes like he had it like that. I had what every other chick in the house wanted: Hurricane Jackson's eye and his attention. And as far as I was concerned there was nothing else in the world that I needed.

W
hen the auditions were over Hurricane invited us to party upstairs in the VIP lounge with his crew, and we almost screamed we felt so lucky. Rappers like Nas, 50 Cent, and other high profilers were rolling through the house the whole night.

“Girl, he's gone sign us,” Vonzelle kept saying over and over as we held our laminates and walked up to the main lounge. “That niggah is gone sign us! His fine ass is ready to put us down on paper right NOW!”

Dominica shushed her. “Calm your ass down. Don't be acting all desperate, Vonnie. You might make him think we just some regular groupies.”

We were sure enough giving him groupie stares. Hurricane was so big he coulda been on steroids. Arms, chest, nothing but
meat. Muscle meat. I felt myself getting warm just looking at him and I could tell Dominica and Vonzelle were turned on too.

“Damn, that niggah is so much finer in person than he is on TV,” Vonnie whispered. She fanned herself with her hand, then pushed past me and Dominica to get closer to the booth he was sitting in.

“Wait, bitch.” Dominica grabbed her arm. “He already stepped to Candy, remember? Sit your freaky ass down!”

Vonnie just shrugged. “Then Candy betta hook him before I jook him!”

I knew what Dom meant about acting too desperate. I deliberately turned my back when I caught Hurricane looking at me. Then I rolled my ass over to the bar and ordered a cup of orange juice with ice.

I was crunching on the ice when I felt a big hand on my waist. I turned around and got a good whiff of his cologne and dollar signs chinged in my eyes. Everything about him was fresh and expensive and the way he smelled was no exception.

“C'mon, sexy,” Hurricane whispered, nuzzling my neck. “Let's go get busy.”

He grabbed my hand and took me out on the dance floor. All the way out there he was using his thumb to rub small circles in my palm. Just his touch was erotic as hell, and by the time he pulled me close to him the crotch of my shorts was getting wet.

The DJ was kicking a hard rap cut, and while everybody else danced fast and furious, Hurricane had me on lock. He pressed his hard body against mine and moved like we were in the bed. I had my arms around his neck as I rubbed my big titties
against his chest, scraping my nipples back and forth on him and enjoying the electric tingles that shot down to my damp pussy.

“I ain't never seen a sistah like you,” he whispered, sucking on my neck and holding me by my tight waist. “Everything about you is different. Fine and different.”

His tongue pushed into my mouth and spread heat. I tried to suck it down my throat. My hands were all over him. He massaged my ass like he loved its thickness. People were dancing all around us but we carried on like we were alone. I spread my legs until his thigh was between them then moved up and down, crushing my clit against him so deliciously that I came. Hurricane held me up as my orgasm rushed through me, kissing my neck and lips and winding his fingers in my hair.

A moment later he surprised me by slipping his hand down the front of my shorts and sliding his fingers through my tangled pussy hairs. He touched my clit, and I arched my back and moaned, then thrust my hips toward him as he slid one thick finger into my tight, wet pussy and moved it slowly back and forth as I bent my knees and bounced gently up and down.

I came again as he brushed his thumb lightly across my clit, and he massaged my pussy with the handful of juices he'd collected, then pulled his hand out my shorts and licked his fingers.

“Damn.” He grinned, kissing my cheek. “You look good. You feel good. You taste good. Who's your man? Wait. Don't tell me. I might have to kill that niggah!”

I laughed and leaned against his chest as the music thumped. Hurricane let go of me and started fast dancing, so I did the same, shaking my ass all over the floor. My moves were wild
and hot, and people were starting to notice. I enjoyed the stares as me and Hurricane worked it out to “P.I.M.P” by 50 Cent.

I was amazed at what had just went down between us, but I didn't feel bad about it though. Things were falling in place for me and it was turning out to be the best night of my life. My group had performed for the baddest label out there, and its owner had just let me know with his fingers how much he liked me. I had turned around to give him a couple of views of me from the back when someone caught my eye. It was the same guy I'd checked out earlier. Knowledge. Everybody else was moving and he was holding still. He busted me eyeing him and turned and walked away.

H
urricane got distracted by one of his boys and disappeared somewhere, leaving me standing by myself on the dance floor. I worked my way back over to my table with people stopping me every few feet to tell me how hot our audition had been.

I was chilling in a booth with my girls and sipping another glass of icy orange juice when my cell phone vibrated. I slipped it off my waist and looked at the caller ID. Mama. The last thing I'd told her was to call me after she made the drop in Seattle, but I hadn't heard shit from her in over eight hours and I'd been waiting on anxious for her call the whole night.

I grabbed my purse. “Let me out, y'all,” I yelled, practically pushing Vonnie and Dominica out of the booth. “I gotta go to the bathroom.”

Mama had been calling from her house, and I ran into the ladies’ room to call her back. Females were all up in that mug doing everything except peeing. One chick had her curling iron plugged in over the sink and was frying her weave, two others were bent over a fifty-dollar bill, sharing a couple of lines of hit,
and three older sisters were checking their shit out in the floor-length mirrors, sucking in their stomachs and stuffing tissue in the bottom of their bras to make their titties sit up higher.

One of the stalls had an
OUT OF ORDER
sign taped to it, so I stepped past the crowd and went into the other one and locked the door. I pressed Mama's number on speed dial and breathed a sigh of relief when Caramel answered on the first ring.

“Put Mama on the goddamn phone!” I said. I'd been so scared she'd gotten knocked that now that she was back all I wanted to do was curse her out real good.

Caramel sniffed. “She ain't here.”

“What you mean she ain't there, Caramel? She just called my cell phone a minute ago!”

“That was me, Candy,” my sister said, and that's when I heard the tears in her voice. “I called you 'cause Mama still ain't made it back yet.”

My heart sank. This was not good news, and I didn't even want to think about the possibilities that were trying to creep into my mind.

I spoke calmly 'cause I could tell my sister was already scared. “Okay, Caramel. Did Mama call to say she made the drop? Did Nicky come by the house? What about that niggah Greasy she be with? Do you know if he heard from her yet?”

Caramel sucked her teeth into the phone. “Candy, you don't even know. You think Mama been on the real with you, but she hasn't. You know how she usually calls both of us every day as soon as she gets to work?”