Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 74383 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 372(@200wpm)___ 298(@250wpm)___ 248(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74383 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 372(@200wpm)___ 298(@250wpm)___ 248(@300wpm)
My palms dragged down her bare flesh, cupping, massaging, claiming what was mine for tonight. And deep in my gut? That damn word stung. Once. Not ready to let go of this silk-wrapped in temptation, I said, “Journey—”
“Stop calling me J—” She cut us both off with a kiss.
I worked my way down the hollow of her throat, and her heart kicked against my lips, pounding fast. I smirked against her skin, thinking I’d done that. She was trembling for me.
Then her entire body went still.
Her fingers pressed flat against my chest. Not shoving. Not teasing. Bracing.
“Bébé?” I murmured, but she wasn’t looking at me anymore.
Her eyes slid past my shoulder.
Something in the way they went wide—quiet, controlled, but terrified—dropped the air in my restaurant twenty degrees.
“Montana,” she whispered. Not that breathy, sexy way she’d called my name seconds ago. This one had an edge. A tremor that didn’t belong nowhere near us.
The corner of my eye caught movement.
Journey clung to me, every muscle quivering for the wrong reason, as I turned.
Four dudes in black slid through the front entrance of my restaurant, quiet as death. Hoodies drawn tight, faces half hidden.
My stomach hardened into stone.
I didn’t wear a chain tonight. But that didn’t stop them from clocking me for their payday.
Journey had me in a chokehold that could win medals. I pried her away, tugged her to her feet.
zuri
. . .
My eyes locked onto a man strolling into our empty restaurant. Shadows danced across his eyes, the rest of him concealed beneath a tightened hoodie. Then another and another until I counted four. How could Montana fight them all?
I’d caused this! Rushing into the restaurant because I couldn’t wait to get home. Then a lapse in judgment had me ready to strip Montana bare. Bare inside these beautiful, exposed brick walls of the Hot Chicken & Peach Pit Maison! Never mind the classy Creole aesthetic! A sistah had needs. The New Year’s resolution (I’d just made up), to have fun once every decade, played double Dutch in my mind until my eyes landed on the man.
Now, Montana unlocked my clinging hold. “Get in the kitchen. Lock the door.”
Sinister chuckles followed me across the herringbone wood floors as I took off.
Inside the chrome room, after a few tries, the emerald-green door remained flush without swinging. My hand hesitated at the lock. Shouldn’t I help? I never learned to fight. Didn’t have a pop or an uncle to teach me.
Body plastered against the door, I twisted the deadbolt and glanced through the tiny circular glass.
Here I was, trembling behind a closed door, watching Montana fight through the glass panel. Like some kickboxing ESPN reel.
He moved fast. Efficient. A jab made me wince. A hook sent another man flying over a table.
But four men kept advancing on one Big Country.
“Ugh, why didn’t I bring my pepper spray? Why did I sneak an HC&PP pen into my purse and not my taser, grrrr!” I did love this pen, though. The brand was—
Does it matter, Zuri?
I bolted to the steel table, yanked open a drawer, and shoved past a meat tenderizer. Literally no one uses those. I grabbed the biggest kitchen knife the Babineauxs owned. Practically a machete. My hands quivered. I almost dropped it. Almost cut myself while trying to open the swinging door. Note to an Awkward Black Chick, a.k.a. myself: use one hand. Preferably not the weaponized hand.
Montana was holding his own. Ducking a punch. Weaving in and out.
“Hey!” I screamed, charging forward with the don’t-try-me face Taraji P. Henson incorporated into her movies. Oscar worthy.
Crap. I should’ve kicked off my heels in the kitchen. If I tripped, I’d need to give myself twenty-five stitches. I snarled, “Back up. Back the hell up!”
Before I could process it, Montana jumped back, dodging my knife. Ugh. This was for his protection.
He grabbed my wrist. Took the knife.
One man advanced. Montana thrust the knife upward. He meant business—and I mean CEO in a boardroom to my mom-and-pop show.
The guy jumped back, tripping over a fallen velvet chair.
Sniggering, they took off.
Montana’s massive chest expanded with an explosive exhale. “Welcome to the hood, Journey …” He shook his head and muttered about having a Glock in the car.
I stared at him. Pushed his chest. Good thing he gripped that machete expertly.
“Journey, hell was that for?”
“This isn’t funny.” This was … this was …
I grabbed the knife as two years ago flashed before my eyes. Since New York, I’d blown off one location after another. Last time Darius and I moved? A couple of months ago. Hell, my college friend who created new licenses had offered a punch-loyalty card. Get every tenth alias for free.
These past couple of moves? I was spooked.
Each time someone glanced at me funny, our lives in New York swung hard, full force, slapping me right in the face. Instincts had awakened when a man reached into Darius’s crib …