He smiled a bit, squeezed her. “Bullet’s out now.” He gazed guardedly into her face, bringing the back of a folded finger to graze a sensitive bump at her forehead. “Look at this boo-boo,” he said.
Her eyes filled with tears, and her chest with love, with gratitude that he hadn’t married some pretty police officer, that amnesia or no, he had not forgotten Paige when he could have.
She leaned into that broad chest, gloried in the strength of that arm around her, while every lost memory danced across her mind. “I know what I thought that day,” she whispered, a tear streaking down her cheek, “when I first saw you.”
He swiped it with his thumb. “You do.”
“I do. I do. I thought, ‘God, if he’s in my class, I’m going to flunk.’ ”
He smiled faintly, preoccupied by wiping the tears again. She tucked her wet cheek into his chest and rubbed it dry with his shirt. “Did you mean what you told me? About wanting to marry me?”
“God, yes, will you?”
She could not speak, her throat was locked, her vision blurred, but quickly she nodded against him. Yes yes yes. She was in a hospital bed. Her head banging. Dizzied by the continual beeps.
And yet . . . “I’m so happy.”
His arm firmed around her body. “Christ, Paige, don’t ever leave me.”
“No no no, never.” She grasped his face between her hands, and it was a beloved face. “You just found me.”
He made a sound— the kind he did that made him sound tormented— and covered her lips with his, kissing her with all the love and passion and tenderness in the world, and she kissed him back with everything she had, ignoring the wild sound of her excited heartbeats.
Beepbeepbeepbeep . . .
Her name was Paige.
TEMPT ME
Alexis Grant
CHAPTER 1
ATLANTIC CITY, NEW JERSEY
“GET OUT!” THE crystal vase left her hand at the same time the high-pitched shriek left her mouth, crashing against the wall.
“What’s wrong with you, ’Nita?” Antwan leaped from his bed dragging the sheets and his two angry bedmates with him.
“You better tell your crazy sister something!” one tall, cinnamon-hued groupie said, scowling at Anita.
“And you’d better tell this heifer that your sister can fight— goes to the gym and works out eight hours a damned day to make it look easy onstage!” Anita shouted, advancing on the woman who’d wisely jumped behind her brother. “That’s right! And she needs to know that I’m not too Hollywood to punch her in her plastic face and then pay the fine . . . I’m from Philly. Got it?”
The other beauty clung to Antwan with a scowl, finger-combing her long, blonde tresses. “All of this drama is unnecessary.”
“You do not speak— because you don’t pay any bills here, I do. Now get out!” Anita rubbed her moist palms against her back jeans pockets and then balled up her fists. She placed her feet in a boxer’s stance, her Chuck sneakers holding firm against the carpet.
“They’re right,” Antwan said, pushing the naked women behind him as he took a stance against his sister. “I’ma tell you something real important— all of this is totally unnecessary this morning!”
“Tell me something?” Anita said quietly, coming deeper into the room and taking out her diamond earrings to shove them into her pockets. Oh, it was so on! Fury-induced perspiration made her tank top cling to her body. Her ears were ringing and she was sure that insanity was glittering in her eyes; it was the way her brother stopped advancing for a moment and backed up. “Unnecessary?” She yanked the envelopes out of her back jeans pocket and thrust the stack of hotel bills toward Antwan, and then threw them at him when he refused to take them from her hand. “Get these video hoes out of my suite!”
“Who you calling a—”
“Chill!” Antwan said, whirling on the women for a second and gathering up his sheet to follow his sister. He slammed the bedroom door behind him and crossed the room to grab her arm. “What was all that back there, huh? Why you trippin’?”
Anita shook off her brother’s grip, now so angry that she feared passing out. “No more, Antwan! You, Derrick, Dad, your boys— I’m done!”
“Whatdoyou mean, you’re done? We family!” Antwan shouted back. “Listen, you can run that Queen B mess for the public, but I’m your brother, so is Derrick, and Pops—”