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Play It Safe(62)



He shook his head, grinning, dimple out then he lifted it and touched his mouth to mine.

Then he rolled me to my back and did it again.

Then he lifted his head, looked me in the eyes and muttered, “I gotta do this or I won’t.”

I knew it. I knew by his words that it wasn’t easy leaving and it was getting harder.

I loved that just about as much as I hated it.

And I knew it because it wasn’t easy letting him go and it was getting harder.

“Okay, honey,” I whispered.

He lifted up, kissed my forehead then slid out of the bed making sure the covers never left me but still, once out, he pulled them to my shoulder. I slid my hands under my cheek and watched him dress. When he was done, he got close and smoothed my hair back, leaned deep and kissed my temple.

I turned my head, lifted a hand and caught the side of his neck before he pulled away.

“Thanks for tonight, honey,” I said quietly.

“Anything for my girl,” Gray returned quietly. “See you tomorrow. I’ll talk to Audie, see if I can get him to take an extra night.”

I knew that wasn’t going to happen because Gray did this daily. But I was glad he wanted to try.

I nodded. “That’d be good.”

“Say you love me, Ivey.”

“I love you, Gray.”

He grinned, gave me the dimple then whispered, “Love you too, baby.” He bent again, touched my lips with his then whispered against them, “’Night.”

“’Night,” I whispered back.

Then he was gone, using his key to lock the door behind him.

I closed my eyes, sighed then threw back the covers, got out of bed, pulled on undies and a nightie, put away my pretty new dress, my pretty high heels, dumped my hose in the hamper, washed my face, brushed my teeth, turned out the lights and went to bed.

And I did all of this not knowing the path to beautiful I was on was going to veer crazily under my feet.

* * * * *

Five hours fifteen minutes later…

“Ivey!”

I woke with a start, my heart racing and a hand shaking me.

“Ivey!”

I scooted across the bed, terrified.

“Ivey, sis, it’s me,” Casey whispered.

I blinked at the shadow in the dark.

What on earth? How did he get in?

“How’d you get in?” I asked.

“Doesn’t matter, Ivey, I don’t have much time. I don’t…I don’t have much time, honey, they’re after me.”

Oh God.

“Who?” I asked, moving toward the lamp by my bed.

“Don’t turn on the light!” Casey hissed and I stopped dead.

“Who’s after you, Casey and why can’t I turn on the light?”

“’Cause I’m worried they’re close and I don’t want them to know where you live.”

Oh God!

I shoved up to sitting and demanded to know, “What’s going on?”

“I ran into some of our history.”

Oh God!

No.

What we’d always feared.

Always.

“Casey,” I whispered.

“Worked me over,” he whispered back. “Bad dudes. Serious bad dudes. Wanted to finish me off. Don’t even know how I got away. Just know I did and they followed me. You turn on that light, you’d see. It’s bad, sis. They’re pissed, they wanna do me and while they were workin’ me over they asked for me to give up you.”

I closed my eyes.

Then I opened them. “Right, I’ll get dressed, we’ll go to Gray.”

“Are you crazy?” he hissed. “There are five of them, Ivey, they are on a mission and they got hardware. You want your cowboy steppin’ up for you and gettin’ his denim shirt filled with holes?”

My heart started beating wildly.

No, I didn’t want that.

“We’ll go to the police,” I told him.

Something filled the room. Something I forgot seeing as Casey had been out of my life awhile. Something that was not good. And it was something that told me Casey messed up big.

“When I left you, Ivey, I was hurtin’. Did somethin’, we go to the cops, they might put two and two together and know it was me.”

God!

My stupid, stupid, STUPID brother.

“What’d you do?”

“What I did, they nail me, I’ll do five to ten in the local penitentiary.”

Yes, my stupid, stupid brother.

“Get up, pack a bag, we gotta go,” Casey ordered.

At that, my heart clenched.

“Go?” I whispered.

“Go, honey, go. We gotta go.”

“But I can’t. I have a job, rent to pay…”

Gray.

“They followed me, they’ll find you. Won’t be hard, Ivey and all these folks, someone shields you, they’ll buy it. You cannot do what you’re doin’. You and me, we gotta evaporate, sis, to stay alive and to keep these folks safe.”