Iron Mike Read Free Page A

as she curled against him. Her hand stroked gently, and she felt another arm – not his, but one smooth and slender like her own. Puzzled, Kari picked her head up, looking across Malik’s fine body and seeing … oh, yeah. What was her name? She frowned, trying to remember the girl’s name as she took in her lovely café au lait skin and pretty face. Deonda? Delronda? Something like that. Kari remembered slow dancing with her the night before, remembered the appreciative murmurs and catcalls of the guys as they’d moved their bodies together sinuously, but she didn't remember Malik bringing her into their bed.
    She dropped her head back, too tired and wasted to think about it right now. Her eyes moved over Malik’s body to the nightstand, and the alarm clock. She was instantly wide awake.
    “Fuck!” she screamed, pushing Malik’s arm away and jumping out of the bed. “Fuck! Goddamn it, Malik, I told you my dad’s retirement thing is today!”
    Their bedroom door was wide open, and there were disgruntled voices coming from the hallway and living room as she began frantically digging through the mess in the bedroom looking for her clothes. She had a dress here somewhere – she’d made sure to bring it, knowing she would be heading to Fort Knox straight from Malik’s.
    “Get UP!” she shouted, slapping Malik hard on the thigh. His eyes opened blearily.
    “Mal, you don’t shut that cracker ‘ho up, I’mma kill you,” someone grumbled from the hallway.
    “Fuck off!” Kari snapped back at the voice, finally finding her overnight bag. Someone had dug through it, and her little black dress was nowhere to be seen.
    Deonda/Delronda got up groggily, heading into the bathroom, not bothering to close the door. Kari found her bra and quickly shrugged into it, looking about feverishly for panties and her dress. Where was her goddamned dress?
    “Hey, sweet thing, whassa matter?” Malik asked, finally sitting up in the bed.
    “Get up, now!” Kari snapped, finding the dress at last and pulling it over her head. “You have to drive me to the post – my dad’s ceremony starts in forty minutes.”
    Delronda came back out of the bathroom and settled onto the bed behind Malik, draping both arms possessively around him. “He ain’t goin’ nowhere, gash,” she drawled, sensuously nuzzling Malik’s neck. “We still got us some partyin’ left to do.”
    Kari stopped dead, her eyes narrowing into dangerous slits.
    In two steps, she was around the side of the bed and had the other woman’s throat in one hand, using her hip and arm to leverage the girl’s hand up high behind her back and holding the thumb tightly with her other hand. Delronda’s eyes widened in shock, then in fear as Kari did not loosen the pressure around her throat.
    “You like breathing, bitch?” Kari asked, her voice quietly lethal.
    Malik didn’t move, watching in stunned fascination. After a moment, Delronda nodded, and Kari loosened her hold slightly.
    “Then you better never call me a gash again, sistah, and you better haul your skank ass out of my man’s bed! NOW!”
    Delronda backed away quickly when Kari released her. “She a crazy bitch!” she gasped indignantly to Malik. Malik laughed at her and shrugged, unable to hide his approving grin. And then he crumpled back onto the bed.
    Kari looked at him, beyond pissed. She couldn’t believe he had the fucking nerve! Just as she started to reach for him, she heard several sonic booms go off, shaking the walls of the house and rattling the bones inside her chest. There was a strange, cut-off scream from out in the living room and some odd thumping sounds. Kari looked over in puzzlement at the pretty girl with café au lait skin, lying dead on the floor. Malik blinked up at her a few times and tried to speak, but his eyes lost focus and locked open.
    “What --?” Kari whispered. She looked from the man to the woman, and back again. This was no joke. There was no faking ‘dead,’ and