Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 94630 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 379(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94630 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 379(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
Could she love him any more? Probably not, but she wanted to spend the rest of her life trying.
Jo turned her head in the direction of approaching footsteps. The alleyway sheathed the person in darkness. The closer the steps came, the tighter Cam’s hand wrapped around hers. He subtly positioned himself in front of her.
The streetlight carved the person’s features out of the dark until he was fully revealed. A man about their age or younger, wearing a Charlotte Bobcats jersey—Jo wasn’t sure which player’s—under a leather jacket. His jeans slouched dangerously low around his hips, the belt barely earning its keep. The brim of a Bobcats hat partially obscured his brown face.
“Whassup.” He flipped his chin at Cam, but his eyes inspected Jo’s curves in the skinny jeans and cropped hoodie. “Damn, girl. You ever want some dark meat, let me know.”
He reached out and touched her hair, which had been blown loose during the motorcycle ride.
Jo gripped Cam’s hand, stopping him from lunging at the man.
“And if you ever want your balls in a jar,” Cam said, the words barely making it through his clenched teeth, “touch her again.”
Jo had never heard Cam’s voice so low and deadly. Only moments before he had philosophized on the futility of war and violence but now looked ready to snap the stranger’s neck like a fistful of spaghetti.
“And who you s’posed to be?” Bobcats took a step even closer to them, setting off hydraulics in Jo’s heart.
Menace circled them for the first time that night. Had it been this close all along? Just around the corner, one word, one encounter away?
Before either she or Cam could respond, another man walked into the light.
“We got a problem?”
The man’s slow drawl was at odds with the energy crackling around him like a magnetic field. His golden brown skin lay taut over sharp, high cheekbones. His eyelids seemed to droop a little, and Jo couldn’t help but think of that as a trick of nature, a defense mechanism to deceive his enemies into believing there was anything slow or lax about this man. Dreadlocks hung past the bulging muscles of his arms, like living things snaking around him every time he moved his head. His tawny eyes made a rapid assessment of the scene.
Bobcats shattered the brittle silence with a chuckle.
“I was just about to—”
“Cam?” The new stranger’s eyes narrowed and then widened, a younger man’s smile splitting his lips to reveal a white smile, studded with one gold tooth. “Well I’ll be damned.”
Cam watched the man for an extra second before an almost identical smile took over his face.
“Deuce.” Cam moved forward, grabbing the other man’s hand in that guy handshake Jo never quite got. “Man, it’s been a minute.”
Deuce looked Cam in the eye, and something passed between the two men, an understanding. A mystery that Jo immediately wanted to solve. He pulled Cam into a tight embrace. This man, who carried himself like the top of the food chain, held Cam like a brother. He pulled away, eyes straying over Cam’s shoulder to rest on Jo. His stare like a radioactive wave. Like she might need a hazmat suit to emerge uncontaminated.
“This yours?” He nodded to Jo.
He might remind her of a scorpion, poised to sting, but nobody talked to her—or about her—like that. Jo raised oh hell no eyebrows, waiting for Cam’s response.
“She’s standing right there.” Cam caught her eyes, his smile telling her he already knew what she was thinking. “Ask her.”
Deuce turned to her. “You his?”
Jo swung her eyes back to Cam, and even in this dark alley, where danger felt like breath on her neck, she couldn’t help but smile at him.
“Why don’t you ask him if he’s mine?” Jo didn’t look away from Cam even though she directed the question to Deuce.
“Ho ho ho!” Deuce stomped his foot three times and slapped Cam’s shoulder. “I heard that. So you hers, Cam?”
Cam’s good-natured grin held, but his eyes narrowed on her.
“Yeah, I’m hers.”
Jo smiled and pulled the hoodie up over her hair to ward off the dropping temperature. “Then I’m his.”
“Aw, she’s a keeper, man.”
“Don’t I know it.” Cam grinned at her, his eyes promising complete and total possession later tonight.
“This fool giving you trouble?” Deuce jerked his head toward the other man, who had watched everything unfold without saying another word.
“See, what happened was…well, I didn’t know you knew him, Deuce.” Bobcat’s tongue tangled with the words.
“Cam’s like family.” Deuced hooked an elbow around Cam’s neck. “Go check the corner off Third and Boulevard.”
Cam was like family? He’d never mentioned anyone named Deuce. He’d never spoken about anyone from Barfield with the affection his eyes held as he and Deuce continued their conversation.
“I haven’t been back much,” Cam said. “Sorry ’bout that.”
“I’m not sorry.” Deuce’s tawny eyes darkened, hard as bars of gold, shielding emotions and thoughts Jo knew she’d never uncover. “That was the point of you getting out, right?”