Page 80 of Finding Hope

“You’re all very violent people, you know that?”

“We do know that, Bambie.”

Jumping when a sweaty arm slams down over my shoulders, I look up into the goofy smile on Jimmy Kincaid’s face, but then a solid thump and a falling body has my eyes snapping back to the ring.

Jack stands solitary, a victor standing over his squashed enemy. His chest heaves, and his eyes bore into mine.

“Well that’s different,” Jim muses smugly.

Kit smiles. “It’s been a while since we’ve seen that happen.”

“What just happened?”

“It would appear you just gave our boy a testosterone boost,” Jim explains on a gentle laugh. “Good job. Steph used to do that, too.”

Well… umm…

His eyes snap to mine. “You know about Steph, right?”

I nod. “How do you know I know?”

“He told us.”

“He tells us most everything,” Kit adds.

Well shit. I don’t know if I like that.

“Bambie?” Jack’s chest continues to heave. Pulling a white – tinged red with blood – mouthguard from his mouth, he tucks it into the waistband of his shorts and rips open the Velcro on his fingerless gloves. Tossing them to the floor, he looks back to his opponent and helps pull him to his feet.

Jumping over the ropes without a backward glance, he stalks toward us with a silent inferno raging in his blue eyes.

The sweaty arm slung over my shoulder begins to feel like a five-hundred-ton anvil, and as Jack’s eyes burn into it, Jimmy’s smug chuckling tickles my ear as he turns into me and tries to hide his amusement.

Looking me up and down slowly,appreciatively, Jack has me fighting the insane urge to squirm. I don’t squirm. I’m not a squirmer.

But I haven’t seen him in days, not since he kissed me on the hood of his Mustang.

Without saying another word, he helped me back into his car, drove usback to town, dropped a second – just as sweet – kiss on my lips, then he patted my ass and sent me away.

That was three days ago.

Three days of deafening silence.

He stops so close in front of me, the heat pushing off his body hits me in waves. “What are you doing here?”

“Umm.” Glancing around him, I swallow down a ridiculous case of nerves as Jon and Bobby grin.

The anvil on my shoulder weighs heavier for every second our group stands here and everyone stares at me.

Finally catching on, Jack scowls and looks up at his overbearing family. “Can you all get lost? And you,” he pushes Jim’s arm off me. “Get off her.”

“But, Jacky–”

Taking my hand in his, Jack tugs me away and leads me down a long echoing hall. Trotting behind us with a grin similar to Jim’s, Annie’s nails tap the floor, and the sounds of Jack’s family’s heckling follow us until Jack huffs out an impatient breath.

Pushing open the fourth door on the left, Jack steps back and allows me to walk ahead, and as soon as Annie sashays in, he slams the door and locks everyone out.

I look around at the scarred and nicked desk, at the shitty chair on wheels behind his desk, then the even shittier set of chairs in front of it. One of them looks so flimsy, and the material so thin, I worry that it will turn to dust the second I sit down.

---