Keep My Heart (Top Shelf Romance Book 7)

by Lex Martin

  He catches my elbow and bends to whisper in my ear, “Meet me on the basketball court once they start playing games.”

  I shake my head and scoot away as quickly as I can because that’s the smart thing to do, but I already know I’ll find a way.

  We’re cleaning up after lunch while the kids play games when Torrie broaches the subject I have no desire to discuss.

  “So, you and August West,” she says, pulling a bag from the trash can. “You know each other?”

  I don’t glance up from the sink of suds and the few dishes there were to wash.

  “Not really.” I give her my most innocent smile. “I mean, the way everyone else knows him. That he’s a great player.”

  “You two should get on the same page.” She laughs and shakes her head. “’Cause he’s not even trying to fake it, and you’re not very good at it.”

  My hands go still over the steamy water.

  “I don’t know what you mean.” I look at her, clear-eyed, before I pick up a dish towel to dry the dishes.

  “Oh, don’t feel bad,” she says “Not with his fine ass. His nose is wide open for you, girl. Stevie Wonder could see that.”

  “Wow. That’s not exactly politically correct.” I feel guilty for the giggle that slips past my lips despite the inappropriateness of her humor.

  “I’m not very good at beating around the bush,” she says, her expression going from uncertain to defiant to don’t give a damn. “Get yours, Iris, because Caleb is definitely getting his.”

  The mere mention of Caleb’s name runs my blood cold. He won’t be back from China until next week, but I still feel the specter of him like an ill-intentioned ghost haunting me, dogging my every step.

  “Look, guys talk.” She grimaces. “At least, mine does—to me he does. He’s not exactly your fiancé’s biggest fan.”

  Neither am I.

  I don’t volunteer a word or even a breath that might stop her.

  “He says people have no idea who Caleb really is.” Torrie lays a hand over mine, and the smile she offers me is kind. Her fingers brush the very wrist that only a few weeks ago Caleb fractured. I’ve had so little kindness, so few gentle touches lately, that hers pricks tears behind my eyes.

  “Don’t feel guilty if you and August West have a . . . a moment this week.” She gives me a direct look before going on. “At first, I thought you might be a little bougey, but you’re alright. If it was me, I’d want someone to tell me so I’m telling you. He cheats on you left and right. Sticks his dick in anything that moves.”

  I know Caleb cheats, but for him to be so blatant that even the other girlfriends know is galling. It’s not enough he humiliates me in private. He has to make a laughing stock of me publicly, too. I don’t give a damn if he cheats, but I’m nauseated over how he’s exposed me. He rapes me at gunpoint and won’t even use a condom. God, what might I have? An STD? Worse? Resentment and hatred boil under my skin.

  “Excuse me.” I toss the dish towel onto the linoleum counter and turn to leave. At the door, I look back over my shoulder to meet the sympathy in her eyes. “Thanks, Torrie.”

  She nods and turns away to finish dumping the trash. Rage and bitterness descend like a haze over me, and I’m stumbling down the hall. I tell myself I don’t mean to wander into the gym, but that’s a lie.

  August shoots from several feet beyond the three-point line. He releases the ball, and it falls through the net.

  “Show-off,” I say softly from the gym door, but with only the two of us present, he hears.

  A smile spreads slowly over his full lips and calm eyes the color of storm clouds.

  “If I’m such a show-off . . .” He bounces the ball to me, and I catch it on reflex. “. . . come show me you can do better.”

  I dribble the ball to the center of the court, turning my back on him to release it. It swooshes through the net, and I face him, wearing a braggart’s grin.

  “Luck,” he says, catching the ball when I bounce-pass it back to him. “You ever played HORSE?”

  A disdainful breath is my only answer.

  “Alright then.” He laughs and tosses the ball back to me. “Ladies first.”

  For the next twenty minutes, he kicks my ass at HORSE so bad that by the end, I’m waving my arms in front of him when it’s his turn to shoot. Anything so he won’t keep making the shots.

  “You don’t guard in HORSE,” he reminds me with a one-sided grin that has my heart double-dutching in my chest. “There’s no defense.”

  “No defense, huh?” I ask. “No wonder you’re so good at it.”

  “Ohhhh.” He sticks an imaginary dagger in his heart. “Still busting my balls about playing D. I’ve gotten better. At least gimme that.”

  “There’s always room for improvement.” I laugh at the look on his face. He was the Rookie of the Year. His ego can withstand a little ball-busting.

  He goes to shoot, and I grab his arm, making the ball fly wildly across the gym. I’m laughing, feeling freer than I have in months, maybe since before Sarai was born, when his hands land at my hips and he pulls me into him.

  My smile vanishes. So does his. His broad palms burn through the thin material of my pants. My lungs feel shrunken because my breaths are so shallow; quick, urgent pulls that lift my breasts against his broad chest. The air around us heats and caramelizes until it’s thick and rich and sweet and dark—until I can almost taste it.

  “I’ve been wearing this cast a long time,” he whispers, inching his fingers up my neck and into my hair. “There’s this one spot that itches so bad, but it’s in a place that I can never quite reach.”

  With his eyes, he follows the line his thumb strokes down my neck, and every breath I draw tastes like him. The scent of him this close is inescapable, infiltrating. His body, hardened and towering over me, is all I can see. He bends to press our foreheads together.

  “Have you ever had an itch you couldn’t scratch?” he asks. The question hovers over my lips, and I shudder. His hands tighten on me, and our breaths clash between our open mouths.

  I shake my head no, my eyes so heavy with desire, I want to close them, but I can’t look away.

  “It itches so bad, it starts to burn.” His fingers spread over me, his hands so big he covers the space just under my breasts to my hips.

  “That itch becomes the center of everything,” August continues. “You can’t focus on anything except the way it burns and that you can’t reach it, can’t touch it.”

  I lean into him, limp and seduced by his words, by the scorching intensity of this moment.

  “You’re my itch, Iris,” he confesses. His breath labored, he tips up my chin, so I see the desperation in his eyes. “And if you don’t step back right now, I have to scratch.”

  Do it.

  The dare bounces around inside my head like the ball I’m supposed to be chasing. I want it—want his kiss hard against my lips, and his hands gentle and persuasive on my body, but I have too much to lose.

  Sarai.

  My life.

  Everything.

  And as alive as I feel, as on fire as I am for what his eyes promise, I can’t risk it all. I can’t risk any of it.

  Wordlessly, I step back, staring at him for a few seconds before I turn to retrieve the ball, breaking the heated current flowing from me to him.

  When I return, he’s massaging his knee. Guilt stabs me. As if I haven’t cost him enough already, I was this close to jeopardizing him even more. I dribble back to the center of the floor where he stands, watching me unsmilingly. I toss him the ball, which he catches, palms with one hand, and tucks under his arm.

  “I should go,” I say, but I don’t head for the gym exit.

  He steps closer, leaving a few inches between us.

  “You probably should,” he agrees, taking my wrist between his fingers and pulling me closer. “But you won’t. Not yet. You have another twenty minutes before you have to pick up Sarai.”

  I don’t speak, but remain
quiet while we study one another. He brushes hair behind my ear, and it reminds me of how Caleb likes to do that with his pistol. I shiver at the memory of Caleb’s cruelty. I shiver with the pleasure of August’s touch.

  “So how’s Lotus?” he finally asks, attempting a segue to some kind of safe conversation. “Your cousin?”

  I turn surprised eyes up to meet his. “You remember me telling you about her?”

  His eyes caress my face. There’s no other way to describe it, really. It’s a look that kisses my cheeks and makes my lips tingle.

  “Iris, I remember everything about the night we met.”

  I’ve had to barricade my spirit against Caleb’s harshness. My only soft spot has been Sarai. I’ve reserved tenderness only for her, but August keeps . . . softening me. He keeps knocking on doors I want to keep locked. His words jangle on a ring of keys that persist in opening me up.

  “Yeah. It was a great night.” I blink and drop my eyes to the scuffed court floor. “It felt like I’d known you for years.”

  His finger under my chin tips my face back up so I have to look at him. “For me, too.” He smiles and lowers his hand from my face, taking warmth and comfort with it. “So Lotus. How is she?”

  “Well, I haven’t really, um . . .” I stumble to talk about the person who’s always been closer to me than any other. “That is to say, we haven’t spoken in a long time.”

  “For real?” He frowns and studies my face. “I’m surprised. You talked about her so much that night. It sounded like you guys were inseparable.”

  “We were.” I clear my throat. “We are, or at least I hope we will be again. We had a falling out. Disagreed about something. You know how it is.”

  I hope my shrug seems careless, but I care so much that there’s a huge void in my heart where Lotus belongs. I can’t wait until it’s safe enough to bring her back into my space. Right now, my life isn’t a safe place.

  “We’ll get back,” I say. “It’s not our first time being separated.”

  “Yeah, you said she lived with your great-grandmother when you moved to Atlanta, right?”

  Even though he said he remembers everything from that night, I’m still surprised.

  “Yeah, she stayed with MiMi.”

  I take the ball from him and shoot, doing a little victory dance when it goes in and tossing it back to him.

  “Now who’s showing off?” he asks with a grin. “So your MiMi. What’s she like?”

  “Well she’s in her nineties.” I pause, considering what I know, debating what to share and deciding I want to shock him. “She was a voodoo high priestess.”

  He freezes, the ball poised over his head to shoot, and gives me a disbelieving look. “A what? Did you say voodoo?”

  I laugh at his dumbfounded expression.

  “It’s not like in the movies or anything. They were the most respected people in the community back in the day. Politicians and powerful people from all over the state came to them for advice and guidance.” I shoot him a wry grin. “By the time I was born, she just made healing potions and did cleansing ceremonies, made gris-gris.”

  “What’s a gris-gris? Or do I want to know?”

  “It’s like a talisman for protection.” I twist Caleb’s ring on my finger. “She gave Lotus and me rings years ago that were supposed to protect us.”

  He studies the engagement ring. “And where’s yours?” he asks softly.

  “Lost.” I swallow the emotion burning my throat, the tears threatening to fall at the sudden sense of loss overtaking me. I’ve lost Lotus. I haven’t spoken to my mother in months. My self-respect, my dignity, my independence—all stolen from me before I’d even realized Caleb was a thief. If I keep standing here thinking about all I’ve lost, I’ll cry, so I change the subject and hope August lets me get away with it.

  “I get my name from the bayou,” I say with a slight smile. “Well, Mama told me that once. Who knows if it’s true. She said MiMi’s house is off the bayou, not far from the water, and all along the water’s edge these flowers called Louisiana irises grow.”

  “She told you?” he asks. “You’ve never seen for yourself?”

  I frown, feeling loss again, but for something I’ve never really had. “I haven’t been. Not that I remember, at least.” I grimace. “Mama took me when I was a baby so MiMi could see me, but that was it. MiMi visited us a few times in the city. Lotus knows her a lot better, since she lived with her.”

  “Iris, Lotus,” he says with a smile. “I see a flower theme. Are you two a lot alike?”

  My laugh is self-deprecating, scoffing at my own weakness compared to Lotus’s fearlessness. “I wish.” I take the ball and step behind the three-point line. “I’m nowhere near as strong as Lotus.”

  “You’re probably stronger than you think.” He raises a dark brow at the ball in my hands. “But not strong enough to make that three.”

  “Oh yeah? You think you’re the only one who can make a long shot?”

  I turn to the goal and train every bit of strength and focus I have into the ball in my hands and its trajectory to the goal. When I release it, I close my eyes and don’t open them until I hear the “swoosh” of the net.

  “I made it?” I ask with an incredulous laugh.

  “You didn’t even look? Yeah, you made it. How can you not look?”

  “Woohooo!” I lift my arms Rocky-style and face him. “Am I ready for the pros?”

  The look he gives me alternates between affection and indulgence. “You can be on my team.”

  “Oh.” I lob a smile up at him, much too close to flirting. “And what position will I play on your team?”

  His smile melts a little around the edges, and his eyes lose some of their humor. “At the five-spot,” he says softly.

  The five-spot? His position is the point guard, or the one-spot. Shooting guard is the two. The three is small forward, and the four is power forward. The five is . . .

  “Center,” he says, linking our fingers and toying with the hair hanging on my shoulder. “If you were mine, Iris, there would be no doubt what position you’d hold in my life. You’d be center. I’d play you at the five.”

  I want to laugh. I want to cry. I want to sing hallelujah that a man like this exists and that I know him. A deep-seeded longing springs up inside of me, and I’m not sure when I’ll be able to give in to it. I long to let him hold me. To let myself hold him, have him. I drop my forehead to his chest and take in his scent and the intoxicating nearness of him. He strokes my hair, and I feel his lips ghost the top of my head.

  The door swinging open startles us apart. Sylvia stands at the gym entrance, looking between us before settling on me.

  “Sorry to, um, interrupt,” she says. “But there’s a man looking for you, Iris. Quite insistently actually. He—”

  She stops when Ramone appears at her side, as unyielding and intimidating as a brick wall. Panic rushes the air from my body and pounds the blood in my ears.

  “I have to go.” I take two steps toward the door, but August’s hand gently restrains me.

  “Who is that guy?” he demands.

  I can practically feel Ramone’s narrow gaze lasered in on August’s hand touching me. Damning information for his report to Caleb, no doubt. This is only making things worse. What an idiot I’ve been, playing games in here with August and forgetting that I live in a war zone. That I’m fighting for my life, and Sarai’s.

  “He’s my driver, August.” I jerk my arm away and walk swiftly across the gym floor, not looking back.

  When I reach the door, Ramone stares at August for a few seconds before following me into the hall. I run to the daycare to get Sarai.

  I’m pushing the stroller to the exit when August appears. His confusion, displeasure, and concern are all soldered together into one stare that burns holes in my back. I don’t acknowledge him, but walk past with my baby and my watchdog. I walk past with indifference, as if we didn’t just share the best afternoon I’ve had in as lo
ng as I can remember—as if he hadn’t gotten past the guard I’d erected around my heart for my own protection.

  I don’t even say goodbye.

  August

  It doesn’t make sense. Yesterday was like the first night Iris and I met all over again—laughing, teasing, opening up. The attraction sometimes lurking just beneath the skin of our conversation, sometimes shivering across its surface. And then Muscle Head showed up, and she shut down and rushed from the building without a word.

  And today? Still no words. She hasn’t looked at me. Hasn’t spoken or even acknowledged that I exist.

  By all rights, I shouldn’t even be here for the community center beautification project. Sylvia told me I wasn’t needed. The students are painting the rec room, and Torrie, Shelia, and Iris are helping. Iris paints a wall across the room and wears dark denim overalls and Chuck Taylors. Her hair is in a messy bun, and the work lends a glow to the soft curve of her cheeks. She looks like a little girl.

  She bends, stretching the denim across the fullness of her ass.

  Maybe not a little girl.

  I’m a guy. I can’t be expected to ignore how good her ass looks in those jeans. But it’s not the most important thing. We only have two days left, and after spending even the little time with her that I’ve had, I know things can’t go back to the way they were. Us having no contact. Her living with Caleb, sleeping with Caleb. Her staying with Caleb is not an option anymore, and I need to hear her say that, promise that. I need her to explain what the problem is, so I can fix it.

  How hard can it be to leave him? How complicated can it be to choose me over him? To throw his damn ring in his face and walk away?

  She said she wasn’t with him for the money. Or not the way I might think, whatever the hell that means.

  And I believe that. I may not know everything about her, but she’s no gold digger.

  I know she sees him clearly. She said herself it was a dirty play.

  She says she’s not marrying him, but she’s wearing his ring.