Page 2 of Sinful Restraint

Two, even pissed, she was still so goddamn beautiful I couldn’t keep my eyes off her despite the fact that I shouldn’t have been looking at her that way.

And three, unbeknownst to us, Rev had told Santari about what he did on the side, and if that was the case, she didn’t just know we were hitmen … She knew about The Paradox.

chapter one

Five Months Later…

“Come on,girl. Put on your big girl panties and fuck these dudes up seven ways to Sunday.”

The words felt foreign to my ears, but I had been telling myself those same words for the past hour, trying to channel one of my best friends, Gina, and hype myself up. However, despite my best efforts, I was still sitting in my parked little silver Mercedes that I kept running to soak in the air conditioning, while sipping tequila out of my discreet flask, wondering how life had managed to get so fucked up.

I took another large sip before I turned off my air conditioning, pressed the button to lower my window, and poured the rest out onto the pavement in honor of my fallen brother. “Miss you, Rev.”

Some siblings weren’t that close, but my brother and I were thick as thieves growing up, and that didn’t change after we became adults. Which was why neither me nor my parents were surprised when Rev’s lawyer had divulged in his will that he left a lot of his possessions to me, including his stake in the home he shared with his frat brothers and best friends, Cruz, Storm, and Titan.

“What kind of grown ass men in their thirties stay in the same place any damn way?” I asked to myself as I stared out at nothing in particular.

Rev used to go on and on about how much he loved The Omega House that he shared with his friends. And now, I was parked a block away from the house, trying to get up the courage to march up to that door and tell them how the next few days were going to go. It was early evening, and although I wasn’t even sure if they were all home, at least one of them probably was.

I was still giving myself a mental pep-talk when there was a knock on my passenger door, causing me to yelp and hiccup at the same time.

It’s him.I swallowed back my nerves at the state he’d found me in.Shit.I rarely got tipsy in the middle of the day, and on the off occasion when I did drink, it was best for me to not be upset. If I was, I wasn’t responsible for the mess that flew out of my mouth.

Reluctantly, I pressed the button to lower my passenger window instead of just having him walk around.

Cruz Crowne.One of Rev’s oldest friends and a constant pain in my side. When we were younger, Cruz and I used to be close. Then we reached our teenage years and everything changed.

“You good?” he asked, in that familiar blunt, bold, and slow drawl that embodied the twang of a man born of cracked pavement on the ruthless streets of Chicago, forged in the resilience needed to survive the South, and as loud as the pulsing Miami atmosphere.

To me, Cruz was a chameleon, everything about him a mix cultures that couldn’t be boxed in. He talked similar to how he walked. Unhurried, but hastily in a way that made him always seem like he was moving fast and had a purpose for where he was going, yet simultaneously, he wasn’t rushing to get there.

Every time I listened to Cruz speak, I found myself hypnotized by the way his mouth moved, which was often since homeboy didn’t know how to shut up sometimes.

“You good?” he asked again, leaning down to the car this time, his body so close that I hiccupped.

Shit.I wasdoing my best to appear less intoxicated, which was difficult when his six-foot-five frame filled my car with all his masculinity.

Cruz had always been attractive, but nothing compared to the grown man swag he currently had going on. Ever since I realized that the opposite sex didn’t have cooties, this mocha cinnamon man had been the childhood crush I was happy as hell to grow out of.

He kept his hair faded on the sides, and his shoulder-length locs were often pulled back like they were now. I knew from my friend, Gina, who was Cruz’s hairstylist, that his hair grew fast, but he liked to keep his locs at a manageable length. Yet, he let his beard grow nice and thick.

And while he often wore black and navy name brand suits to work, ink coiled his skin with tattoos creeping up his throat,taunting the shit out of me because I wanted to know if other parts of his body were just as tattooed.

“You plan on gettin’ out of the car anytime soon, or do you want to just sit here and get shitfaced?” he asked, his eyes and crooked grin dripping with playful recklessness and bad decisions.

“Um, no.” I lifted my purse and started pushing the contents that I’d dumped on my passenger seat back into my bag. “I’m getting out.”

“Good.” He leaned up from the car. “Then come on. It’s hot as hell out here.”

When he stretched, I momentarily got distracted but managed to press the buttons to roll up both windows and cut off my car before meeting Cruz on the sidewalk.

“I didn’t even hear you approach me,” I admitted, falling into step beside him.

“You shoulda been paying betta attention to what’s going on around you,” he chastised.

I hiccupped again. “It’s because you’re light on your feet,” I corrected, keeping my eyes forward on the sidewalk and ignoring the strong desire I had to tilt my head back and glance at his ass. Because why would I do that? I didn’t crush on Cruz anymore. That was young Santari. Not grown woman Santari.

Get yourself together, girl.I was an emotional mess. It wasn’t that I even wanted to look at his ass right now. I just wanted to … forget about everything.

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