Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 73716 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 369(@200wpm)___ 295(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73716 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 369(@200wpm)___ 295(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
She grinned at me. “Okay, wish me luck.”
Then she was off.
“I feel like a proud mama bear watching her go off into the world,” I said absently to the man standing beside me.
He started to chuckle.
“You’re good at this,” he said.
I blushed at the feeling of encouragement that roared through me.
He made me better. He didn’t know it, but just his presence at my back was enough for me to do things I normally wouldn’t have been able to do. Especially not with the room full of men.
“You give me a lot of confidence,” I said. “It must be the strong, silent aggression wafting off of you at my back.”
His eyebrows rose in question.
“I don’t normally get out like I did today,” I said absently when Leida went up to the man who’d tried to flag me down. “I get nervous in large crowds, and if the majority of the crowd are male, I freak out a little bit.”
Before he could reply to that, somebody caught his attention.
I turned to find a large, mocha-skinned black man who was one of the sexiest beings I’d ever had the privilege of laying eyes on barreling down on us.
Without thinking about it, I shifted to put myself in a better position to gawk while still allowing me to move if I needed to.
The move didn’t go unnoticed, either.
Not by the yummy man I’d never met before and not by the other beautiful man who was already at my side.
In response to my move, Tobias moved until he was standing slightly in front of me.
“Hey, Hail. You going on the cruise?”
I turned to eye the man, who was keeping his distance from me.
“It was offered to me.” I heard him say. “But I don’t have anyone to go with.”
Nelson, according to the name stitched along his left breast pocket, glanced at me over Tobias’ shoulder.
“Is that right?”
Tobias grunted. “Audrey, this man is Nelson. Nelson, this is Audrey Morrison. Ghost’s sister.”
Nelson paused and looked at me in a new light.
“You’re Ghost’s sister?”
I nodded questioningly. “Yeah, why?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. You’re so small and pretty compared to that big, ugly bastard.”
Before I could get aggravated, Big Papa also entered the conversation. “Watch it. Audrey loves her big brother and won’t have a problem telling you like it is.”
Nelson winked at me.
“Are you going?”
I held up a finger to my chest.
“Me?”
He nodded. “I’m…no. I’m not going.”
“Do you want to go?”
That was from Tobias.
My gaze jumped to his. “You want me to go?”
He shrugged. “I wasn’t going to go because I didn’t want to be the only loser on the cruise without someone with me. But if you go, I wouldn’t feel like I’m the third wheel.”
I opened and closed my mouth a couple of times, surprised that he would even ask me to go with him.
He barely knew me!
“I have to…” I started to say.
His grin had my back straightening.
“You’re scared of boats, aren’t you?”
I started to deny it, and then I shrugged.
“Honestly?” I asked.
He nodded.
“I’ve never been on a boat. Or a plane, for that matter,” I admitted. “So I have no frame of reference. That doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t do damn well on a cruise if I set my mind to it.”
He snorted, as did the other two men.
“Then it’s settled,” Nelson said. “You’ll take this little lady right here with you, and I’ll tell Carla to get you booked. You got the cake?”
Tobias nodded.
“Yeah.”
I started to tell them that I wasn’t going to go, but Leida ran up to me with an empty wagon trailing behind her.
“I did it!” she shrieked.
I grinned and held out my hand, which she promptly slapped so hard that my hand stung.
“Geez, girl,” I said, rubbing my hands on my pants. “You broke my hand!”
She grinned. “Uncle Tobias!”
She trailed off.
I looked at her.
“What?”
She pointed behind me, and I backed up just as a kicking and screaming man was being yanked through the door.
“Well, I think that’s our cue to leave,” Tobias said. “I’ll call Carla in the morning.”
I grinned as I made my way down the steps toward the truck that Tobias had parked illegally at the curb.
“Alrighty, girl,” Tobias lifted the wagon and placed it in the bed of his truck. “Time to get home and get that homework done. Your daddy made me promise that you’d do your schoolwork today. Don’t think I’ve forgotten.”
Leida did the cutest ‘sir, yes sir’ gesture with her hand and climbed through the door I was now holding open for her.
Once she was settled, I pushed the door closed and turned, only to come to an abrupt stop when I found Tobias there, just a few inches away from me.
“Jesus,” I slammed my hand over my chest, surprised at his sudden nearness.
He stared at me with an intense gaze that let me know that what he was about to say was big.