Page 7 of H E R

I barely notice the man possessively close to her, his hand draped over the back of her chair. She doesn’t seem to notice him, though. Not how I’m sure she would melt if I pressed against her like that. She would succumb to my heat, molding to my flesh like it’s just one body.

My phone vibrates, and I have to force my eyes on the screen.

Shit, Lloyd is here.

I take one last look ather,then saunter to the front.

The shoddy excuse of a man looks angry that I made it all the way inside without him. Not my fault he’s so fucking slow. He looks me up and down, as if he’s finally seeing me for the first time, and I smile devilishly as he cowards back.

He glances at a clipboard instead of me. “They’re in the back. Come on.”

I nod and let him lead,for now.

My heart drops to my stomach and stays there. I swear it pulses in my fucking gut and is ready to pass through all the channels of my digestive tract.No fucking way.

Lloyd clears his throat as he approaches the table with four people. The one with my woman. “Nikoletta Justice Fox.”

And the black rose of a woman I was salivating for turns around and gapes at us.

My throat tightens, and I want to fucking hurl.She’s fifteen?

My thoughts spiral and I’m shouting in my head. An angry man growls at me and thrashes on the ground. She doesn’t look like a child. Everything about her is sensual, and my senses are permanently fucked because I still don’t see how she can be younger than twenty.

Fuck.

3

Justice

Iexpected Jasmin and Jule to be waiting for me, but I hadn’t anticipated them to be dressed up like gangsters about to dash the streets in some poetic justice rampage.

“There were sirens,” Jule explains. “Sirens.”

Jasmin crosses the room and hugs me. “I didn’t even know they would still respond to a call.” She lets me go and takes a seat on one of the beds. The window is still open and the rain trickles in.

“Word on the street is they saw a gun in the hands of Justice.” Noah’s voice rings through the rain as he drops his feet to the ground with a loud thump. He’d climbed in through the window and is soaking, his gray t-shirt drenched.

Fuck, gossip in this city spreads faster than a forest fire. I grimace and my brother smiles unrepentantly. I cross my hands over my chest and Noah comes toward me.

My eyes are still shooting daggers at Jule from across the room when Noah pulls me into his arms. “I heard a lady say she didn’t see a gun, she saw hope, and called the cops.”

My brother chortles. “There, you see? You owe me, Nik.”

“You shut up, Julius. Do you have any idea how dangerous that thing is? I don’t kill people… Ireport.”

Noah takes hold of my shoulders, which are trembling with pent-up rage. More than anything, I wonder how Jule got his hands on a weapon at all. Oh, God, I hope he didn’t steal it!

“That gun saved your life, Justice.”

“No,” I scoff. “The siren did.”

“Actually,” Jule pipes in. “It was the gun that caused the sirens to be called.”

“Whatever.” Jasmin raises her hands, exasperated, then glances out the window. She squeezes Jule’s shoulder, a sisterly warning to shut up already. “The point is, she’s alive. Now, what happened out there?”

Noah kisses my temple lightly as he lets go and moves to hug my back against his chest. He holds on to my waist, one hand on my hip, and crushes me tighter to him. I feel the heat of his breath near my ear and can’t help but wonder if this is how it would feel if that rookie cop were holding on to me.

Noah is three years older than me; he’s tall, strong, quick on his feet, and even quicker with a weapon at hand. He keeps his chestnut-colored hair at chin’s length, and I rarely ever see him without facial hair. I know he shaves though, like today his beard is more or less a shadow across his cheeks, upper lip, and chin.

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