Total pages in book: 153
Estimated words: 148704 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 744(@200wpm)___ 595(@250wpm)___ 496(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 148704 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 744(@200wpm)___ 595(@250wpm)___ 496(@300wpm)
Why is he here?
How does he know Memphis?
God, what do I do?
A few minutes go by before the shadow of feet beneath my door disappear, and I pull in a deep breath, but the reprieve only lasts a few moments as shouting begins, the rattle of my doorknob following.
Saying nothing, I quickly dig for the bat my dad always taught me to keep hidden at my bedside. I’ve only reached the tip of the barrel when my door is forced open and a body shoves through.
I scream, my eyes slicing upward, widening instantly.
“Jess!” My heart rate spikes.
“Davis! Are you okay? Are you hurt?” His eyes fly across me, and when he reaches out, I stumble into his open arms.
My head shakes, his eyes holding mine as he blindly yanks a blanket from my bed and drapes it over my shoulders.
“Come on.” He guides me into the living room, my brother now seemingly passed out in the same spot I left him, his head hanging to his chest.
“Where you think you’re goin’?” Black Hat Guy shouts, and footsteps stomp behind us.
“Hey!”
I go to look, but Jess traps my head, so I can’t, his steps picking up.
It’s no use though, the big guy is faster, even in his state, and then our exit is halted.
The man puffs his chest out, his hands in fists at his sides, blood dried in long strips down his cheek and neck. His lips curled. “The fuck you think you’re doing, huh?”
My heart ceases, my nails digging into Jess’s skin, making him flex.
“Just move out of the way, man.” Jess lifts his left hand into the air. “We don’t want any trouble.”
A dry chuckle leaves the guy, and he inches closer. “I can’t let you walk out of here and send the cops.”
“It’s not the cops you have to worry about.”
My head snaps up, relief flooding me instantly, but it only lasts a moment, because when I look up and over the shoulder of the man blocking Crew from me, the look in Crew’s eyes is animalistic.
Truly.
His pupils are hiding the hazel completely, his body radiating with rage and taking my breath away.
“C—”
“Get her out of here.” My plea is silenced before being freed.
Jess doesn’t have to be told twice, but he does have to pick me up and carry me as my feet refuse to leave the man I love with these men my brother brought home.
My home.
Mine and Crew’s home.
Jess carries me all the way back to a bedroom—his or a spare, I don’t know—and closes us inside, slowly lowering me onto an armchair in the corner.
He crouches down in front of me. “Davis—”
“Don’t let him kill him.” My head snaps to Jess.
His eyes bulge instantly, worry weighted in his words. “Will he?”
“He might.”
Somehow, his gaze seems to grow even wider, and I lift a shoulder.
“Fuck.” Jess runs his hands through his hair. “Do I call the cops?”
“No cops.”
Jess shoots to his feet, both our heads flying toward the door to find Julius.
I jump up, running to him, and he wraps me in his arms.
“Oh my god!” I cry. “Willie?”
“Yeah, mama, he’s in there.” He squeezes me. “He’ll stop him just before it’s too late.”
He doesn’t have to say the rest, we both know what he means.
He’ll stop him only seconds before it’s “too late” and not a one before then.
“That guy, the skinny one, it’s the guy from the diner. He’s been coming in for weeks and asking for me. He … he’s asked about Crew, I—” I start shaking harder.
Julius cuts me off with a shush, whispering words I can’t focus on in my ear as he rubs his hand up and down my back.
Time seems to slow, Julius keeping my body folded into his chest. With every shout and crash reaching us, he adjusts a bit, attempting to conceal the sound with the rustle of his shirt against my ear, or the clearing of his throat.
Each second passing has my body growing heavier, and just before my feet give way, heat warms me from behind, the gentle palm pressed there, the one that belongs to the man who belongs to me.
My body falls into him, and I’m scooped up in an instant, tucked into his embrace, my face burying into his chest. His chest rises and falls rapidly, his muscles rigid, but as my palm falls to his left pec, my lips meeting his neck as I breathe him in, dragging him into my senses, my eyes close at the same moment his entire being seems to settle.
“I’ve got you, baby. I’ve got you.”
That’s the last thing I remember before my adrenaline crashes, and exhaustion wins out.
I couldn’t wager on the time if my life depended on it, and the closely drawn curtains of the foreign room are no help. Slowly, I attempt to lift onto an elbow, but Crew’s soft voice envelops me from behind.