“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 publically, 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.