LITMIR.BIZ

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feel like.

      She noticed him swallowing too. Is he imagining the same thing?

      She looked him up and down taking in every inch of his muscular physique. She’d never found herself so attracted to a man before. The lean, hard frame in front of her, wearing jeans, sneakers and a white T-shirt was just too sexy and too aggravating for words…And certainly too fine to be a cop…

      Why was the first adult male to make her pulse quicken and her heart race a member of the police force?

      “Don’t you have anything better to do than to harass people who aren’t doing anything wrong? Or is that what cops are getting paid for these days?”

      “You need to—”

      “Hey, bro, we’ve been looking all over for you. You need to get back over there so we can finish celebrating. You know I’m going to be heading out to make it home to my wife and Joel can barely wait to get back to his new fiancée…” The voice of the man who interrupted them trailed off when he noticed her standing there. He was a younger version of the detective and she got a cop vibe from him, as well.

      “You need some help here, bro?” The younger one gave her the once-over. He had that penetrating gaze thing down and she wondered if it was a cop thing or a family trait.

      They were certainly related. She could tell because they both shared the same ruggedly handsome looks and tall, fine, muscular frames. If that wasn’t enough, they had the same bold brown eyes. But the younger one had a light in his eyes that hinted at immense happiness whereas her detective…

      My detective? Oh, brother…The annoying, mean and irritating detective had a hard, impenetrable glare in his eyes. She couldn’t see any happiness there.

      “I’m cool, Jason. I was just trying to warn Miss Samuels here about the company she keeps. But you know what they say…you can’t save ’em if they don’t want to be saved.” He shrugged in a nonchalant manner. “So, I’ll just leave you with this. Stay out of trouble or it will be my pleasure to show you what cops get paid for.” He turned and walked away.

      The younger one stared at her for a moment and shrugged. “I suggest you take heed and watch the company you keep. We’re not soft on crime around here. And the fact that my brother warned you gives you a lot more than most folks get. Consider yourself lucky.” The younger one spouted off his added warning with a slight smirk and headed off behind his brother.

      Lucky? Yeah, right!

      She leaned back against the wall to steady herself. Because no matter how cool and calm she might have appeared, just two interactions with Detective Hightower had her heart pounding in her chest and her knees weak. She had to catch her breath as she replayed the exchange. But most important, she had to get out of there and as far away from Detective Hightower as she possibly could.

      The man screamed loud and clear without having to say a word: he could be her undoing…

      “Why the hell, did you tell him her name?” Timmy glared at his twin in disgust.

      “Because…Damn…It’s not like it’s her real name anyway. And you know what a pain in the ass Hightower can be. The man is like a bad penny. He just keeps showing up. And since we’re trying to go straight now, we don’t need to give him any reason to keep sniffing around.”

      “He doesn’t need a reason. That’s just his annoying way. And since we’re going straight, he wouldn’t find anything. And we are going straight.” Timmy kept the threatening edge in his voice because he knew his brother had a weak will.

      “I know that. But there is the issue of that jacket baby girl brought with her…” Tommy hedged.

      “I got rid of it.”

      “You did what? Are you out of your mind? Aww dayyum.”

      “Now is not the time or the place. Baby girl shouldn’t have been traveling with that stuff—no way. Calvin would have…man I don’t even want to think about what Calvin would do if he was alive right now.”

      “Well, she brought it…I mean…” Tommy shrugged.

      “She had no idea what she was holding.”

      As far as Timmy was concerned, she was still the same innocent kid he remembered from their days in California. One look at her told him that. He considered himself to be a pretty good judge of character.

      “How do you know that? We haven’t seen baby girl in a long time. She could have changed a lot from the kid we knew.” Even though his twin argued the point, he could tell that Tommy didn’t believe it, either.

      Timmy shook his head. “She’s still innocent and gullible and without Calvin, she’s gonna need a whole lot more than us to protect her.”

      Tommy laughed. “Oh, I don’t know. She seemed to handle Detective Hightower pretty well.”

      “Quiet. She’s coming back.” Timmy didn’t say anything else because if what he suspected was true, they had a lot of trouble on their hands.

      Tommy nodded. They both turned to her when she walked up. It was hard to believe the petite bombshell with the flashing, doelike brown eyes, flirty pouting smile and dimples was the same nerdy kid sister of their best friend from their youth in South Central. It was even harder to believe that Calvin was dead. Timmy knew they would do the best they could to protect her or they’d die trying. Some bonds, like the ones they shared with a friend and Crip brother like Calvin, went beyond the grave.

      Lawrence returned to the table where two of his brothers, Joel and Patrick were waiting. All Hightower men shared the same trademark, Hightower good looks. They were tall, had skin in varying shades of mahogany, and rugged good looks that had been known to drive women wild.

      “Dang, bro. You look like you’re just waiting for one of the McKnights to so much as drop a piece of paper on the floor,” Joel said, chuckling.

      Lawrence glared at Joel.

      Joel was the joker in the family. And he had finally regained his sense of humor after suffering a career-ending back injury, meeting and getting the love of his life to agree to marry him, and starting a new career in the family business, Hightower Security.

      Lawrence tried to decide if he liked his brother better when he had lost his annoying I’ve-got-jokes personality. Between Joel and his woman Samantha, who also had a tendency to come up with the witty, smart-mouthed commentary, the family now had two wise-crackers in the mix.

      “Just jokes, man. Lighten up. You’re off duty and the McKnight twins look like they’re on their best behavior tonight.” Joel smiled and Lawrence knew without a doubt that his brother had been much more bearable when he had been sulking.

      “What’s up with the girl?” Patrick took a sip of his brew and then tilted his glass toward the table where the McKnight twins were sitting. Since his bitter divorce, Patrick was the lone member and president of the He-Man-Woman-Haters-Club. Catching his ex-wife in bed with another man had made him pretty much distrustful of the female population in general. The breakup of his marriage and an ugly divorce had left Patrick cold.

      Lawrence shrugged. He didn’t know. He had no clue why he couldn’t take his eyes off her, either. She had a sassy mouth and looked like trouble waiting to happen. She also had the cutest face with darling dimples and a sweet, petite, and sexy body that gave her an aura of the perfect mix of innocence and sin. And she smelled like fresh-cut flowers. He wondered if it was a perfume or her natural scent.

      He felt the overwhelming need to save her by getting her away from the McKnights and to lock her up and throw away the key.

      She was hardly the type of woman he normally went for. He liked them tall, shapely and pliable. So why couldn’t he stop staring?

      His younger brother, Jason, came back and Lawrence wondered what had taken him so long. Had he gotten any more information about Minnie Samuels?

      Jason’s

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