by Dale Cadeau
Lounging on the other side wasn’t James, it was her next door neighbor. “Well, well, home at this time of day? I guess it’s just my luck.” Looking around the small apartment, he added, “Doesn’t look like you are doing anything. I have lots of ideas how we can amuse ourselves.”
Danny had been bothering her since she had moved in. She usually saw him before he saw her so she could escape into her apartment before he could reach her. Would she never learn that some guys couldn’t take no for an answer? Avery tried to close the door as soon as she realized who was on the other side, but Danny put his foot out and stopped it half way.
“Now Avery, you don’t want it to look like you’re unfriendly?” He smirked back at his pals behind him. Pals that Avery had failed to notice at first glance out the door.
“What do you want Danny? I’m in a hurry this morning. I don’t have time for this.” Avery put everything into trying to sound gruff and unfriendly, but her voice came out as a squeak. She wasn’t a brave person and she was afraid of Danny and his group. They seemed to run the neighborhood and people, while she couldn’t say they respected them, they always gave his gang a lot of space.
Danny stood up from his slouched position beside the door and pushed it completely open, waving to his friends at the same time.” I smell coffee. Isn’t it nice that she made some for us? Always knew you were the friendly type.” Pushing Avery to the side with his hand, Danny and his group walked into Avery’s small apartment. As the last one cleared the door, Avery made a move to escape, but the guy grabbed the back of her t-shirt and pulled her back inside and slammed the door.
Avery looked at Danny and his pals. They all looked like they needed a bath and the smell of marijuana was heavy in the air around them. They had probably just smoked a joint the smell was so strong. Avery looked at them, leery as Danny grabbed the coffee pot and poured some coffee into the cup she had left beside the pot. Waving the coffee cup around, he told his friend to make themselves comfortable. Pointing at Avery, Danny waved her over to him.
“Aren’t you going to pour some coffee for the rest of my friends? We’ve had a long night and sure could use some.” With that he winked at his friend and laughed at a joke only he knew. Two of his friends had flopped down on the couch and were proceeding to unpack the box on the coffee table in front of them filled with her merger CD collection. As they pulled her CDs out, they made a pile between them, throwing any CDs they didn’t like on the floor. One of his others friends started to open the boxes around her bed. Dirty clothes that she had packed up last night were being pulled and thrown on the floor, even her underwear was out for everyone to see. Avery didn’t know if she was mad or embarrassed.
Walking into the kitchen area, Avery poured out more cups of coffee for Danny’s so-called friends. “I think you might want to cut your visit short. I’m expecting someone shortly to move me. I don’t think he will appreciate you drinking his coffee.”
Danny laughed at her and grabbed a kitchen chair and sat down. “Big words, but I watch you and you don’t know anyone. You don’t have any friends around here. So tell me another one.” Danny turned toward his pals and kicked a box at his feet. “We have plenty of time, doll. Let us drink our coffee, and we will get to the good stuff shortly.”
James was just about to knock on Avery’s door when he heard the discussion on the other side of the door.
The door had not completely latched when the last guy had slammed it, letting James get a glimpse of the group inside Avery’s apartment. He couldn’t see her, but these individuals didn’t seem to be the type that Avery would hang out with. Four large unkempt men were in her apartment going through her packed boxes. James stepped back from the door and quickly made his was back down to the second floor. He wanted to rush right in and save Avery from having to deal with the vermin, but knew in this neighborhood that they were probably armed and also dangerous. Pulling out his cell, James called Clay back at the office and gave him the scoop.
Clay picked up on the serious situation right away. “We’ll be right there. Angel just arrived and the others are in the kitchen. ETA five minutes.”
The call was abruptly dropped. James knew Clay was probably gathering the others and making their way to Avery’s apartment.
Clay, Angel, and the others quietly climbed to the third floor where they found James in front of Avery’s apartment door.
“Anything new?” Clay asked James under his breath when he reached him.
“No. They are just razzing her and drinking coffee.”
“Ready?” James knocked on the door.
“Avery, are you there? It’s James and the others from Taylor Investments. You ready to go?”
Avery signed a deep breath of relief. Danny looked at her. “Are these your friends you were talking about? Well, let them in. We don’t want to seem unfriendly, now do we?” Danny put his hand under his hooded jacket to his belt and waved at Avery to open the door. He wasn’t expecting much. Investment brokers usually were pencil pushers and not much of a threat to Danny and his gang by his way of thinking.
Avery opened the door as wide as it would go, in the hall stood James at six feet, Clay at six three and Angel that had to be six five. The other two were large shadows behind them. Avery could just barely make them out over the large muscular frames of the three already filling the open door.
Danny stood up swiftly, his chair falling to the floor behind him. The others seemed to come to a halt at the same time. All reached under their hoodies that they wore.
James stepped fully into the apartment and looked over the group with his steely blue eyes. Clay’s gray ones were a stormy slate and Angel’s were black as they took in the group of men that had invaded Avery’s apartment. James’s group wanted their menacing stance to tell the punks that maybe they should rethink what investment brokers looked like. They looked like avenging warriors, their smiles telling the punks that they had a winner-take-all attitude.
“If you’re smart, you will take your hand away from whatever weapon you are hiding and get out of here as fast as you can.” James’s voice sounded brittle as if he didn’t have any patience with Danny’s group.
Danny took his hand from under his hoodie.
“Well, you must be the brains behind this gang.” James kept his eyes on Danny as he spoke to the group with steel in his voice.
One of the guys who had stopped in the midst of throwing Avery’s clothes around tried to make himself look taller and yelled, “What are you going to do? Yous don’t look that scary to me.”
In the blink of an eye, Angel threw his knife from behind Clay and James. The knife was accurate. It hit the guy in his left shoulder and knocked him to the bed behind him. Grabbing his shoulder he cried out.
Danny seemed to shrink when he took in his friend withering in pain on Avery’s bed.
Holding his hands palm up toward them, Danny turned and went to his friend to help him up off the bed.
“We know the lady. She asks us in for coffee. No need to get so jumpy. We weren’t doing anything,” Danny told them with a friendly smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
James looked over at Avery. “I thought you had better friends than this? Did you invite them in for coffee?”
Clay and Angel didn’t take their eyes off the men now gathering in the middle of the room.
Avery gasped at James. How could the man be so stupid? With her feet planted firmly on the kitchen floor, Avery put her hand on her hips and glared at James. “No, I did not invite them in for coffee. What do you think I am, stupid?” Avery was going to go on, but James raised his hand, stopping her.
Looking back to the others in the room, he addressed Danny. “I guess you got the invite wrong? This lady is moving and any coffee she made was for us. I’m very pissed that you drank it all. If you don’t want to see us mad, you’ll leave right now and apologize to the lady.”
Danny looked over all the large men standing at the door. He was holding up his buddy, but also thinking ove
r their odds. He knew it was a lose-lose situation. With one guy down they could never take them.
Stepping forward, balancing his friend up, Danny turned to Avery and leered at her. “Sorry, I guess I mistook your invite.”
At the door, he waited for James, Clay, and Angel to move. On the other side in the hallway, he could see two other large men. They both had guns hidden under their crossed arms with the barrels pointed in his direction. Danny’s eyes darted to James.
“You don’t play fair.”
James and the others stepped to the side and allowed Danny’s gang to pass. When Danny passed him, Angel put a hand out to stop him, gripping the knife still embedded in his friend’s shoulder, he pulled it out by its handle.
“Hey, that hurt,” the guy yelled at Angel.
Angel just stepped back and wiped the blood off the knife on the guy’s hoodie. Snapping it closed, he put it back in his pant pocket. “Next time you’ll remember to see if you’re welcome or not before entering a lady’s apartment.”
“You and your gang don’t play fair,” James mocked back at him. “You don’t like to play when the odds are not in your favor. Next time, pick on someone your same size and gender, so we know that you don’t make a habit of only going after defenseless women. You could ruin your reputation that way.”
Danny looked back. James could tell by his purple face that he wouldn’t take the insults. He was already scheming and would be back at another time. Pushing his friends ahead of him, they left by the stairs.
James bit off anything else he was going to say when he noticed that Avery stood in her kitchen, her head hanging down. He couldn’t see her face, her long blonde hair covered most of it, but he could hear her sobs.
With two giant strides, James enfolded her in his arms, pushing her hair away from her face. Feeling her this close for the first time was like heaven. James felt her soft curves melt into his harder body. She smelled like lemons and something that was uniquely Avery.
Looking over her head, he nodded at Clay and Angel. Each of the men hurriedly grabbed the nearest boxes and slowly closed the door behind them, leaving them alone.
Even as they left, James knew he didn’t have to worry. None of the men would be far away until he got Avery safely away from this apartment.
Gently James put a hand under her chin that was nestled tightly up to his neck, and raised her tearstained face up to his. He couldn’t resist her soft quivering lips. Slowly as not to startle her, he lowered his head, his intent clear. She could stop him at any time. She didn’t and James took her lips in their first kiss. God, his first taste of her was sweet. She hesitated for a moment, then eagerly put her arms around his neck and returned his kiss with a passion that surprised him.
James felt every socket in his body spark to life. It was like an electrical charge went through him. James leaned his lower body slightly away from her. He knew his cock couldn’t wait to say hello to her. It had been hard to talk to Danny and his gang with the boner he had as soon as he stepped through her door. Well that part of his anatomy would just have to wait until the right moment. He knew it wasn’t the time to introduce them. James untangled her arms from around his neck, stepped back, and held her in his outstretched arms.
Avery looked up at him with her large green eyes glossed with tears and wonder. She raised a hand to her now red lips. Did she feel the current the same as he did when they touched? God she was sexy in an innocent and appealing way.
James reined himself in, he just wanted to back her up to her small bed and show her how much she affected him. Knowing what she had just gone through, James cursed at himself and let his arms fall away.
“Sorry about that.” Needing a minute to think, James turned his back toward her and ran a shaky hand through his hair. Taking a strong breath into his lungs, he reached down to the other boxes still scattered around and began repacking them.
Avery stood there for a second in a daze. He kissed her. Wow, would he do it again? He sure packed a punch into his kisses. What would it feel like if he really let himself go? Avery knew that James must have tempered his kiss and held himself back. Avery wanted everything he had to give. She wanted him out of control with no holding back. That was the most powerful kiss she had ever received in her life. All of her body parts had taken notice. Avery glanced down. Her breasts were swollen and perky and down below, her panties were wet. She could almost smell her arousal.
Stepping to the kitchen counter, she grabbed the coffee pot and filled it with water for another pot. She didn’t know if he even liked coffee, but she sure needed some after this morning. It also gave her time to collect her thoughts, plus something to do with her hands.
James was acting like nothing unusual had gone on. He was just packing the boxes on the floor. Did James think she was too forward when she had deepened the kiss and tried to devour him? After all she had just really met and talked to him yesterday. The meetings at the diner didn’t count. After all only taking money over the counter didn’t really give a person time to know someone.
Avery turned around just in time to see James bending down and gathering her underwear to pack.
Oh God, no! Avery leaped across the room at James and grabbed the underwear from his hands. She could just feel the heat in her face as she took the offending underwear and threw them into the closest box she spotted. “I can do that. Why don’t you pack up the CDs that are all over the couch? I’ve got this covered.”
James looked at her like she was crazy. Then he really looked at her red face and it dawned on him that while he didn’t think anything of picking up her underwear, she might not appreciate a strange man, and that’s what James was at this moment, touching such personal items. James stood up straight and widened his hands.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to upset you, just trying to help.”
Moving to the couch, he started gathering the CDs laying on it and the table in front. Glancing back he could see Avery scrambling to gather the other items of clothing as fast as she could and stuff them in boxes. Her face was still red and she did not meet his eyes when he had spoken to her.
* * * *
Leaving James and Avery alone in the apartment, Clay glanced back at Angel as they both carried boxes down the sidewalk to the office. Angel had his balanced on his shoulder.
“We’ll have to keep a close watch on her. It wasn’t enough that we had the Feds and a drug lord after her. Now we have to add these punks into the mix.”
Angel just shrugged his shoulders, the box not moving.
“We’ve dealt with worse. More fun for us,” Angel replied as he walked around Clay, who had stopped as he spoke in thought. “Let’s get this done and get to the good part of this job.”
Clay followed Angel and thought of the job ahead. “Yes, it might be fun taking out a drug lord, keeping the FBI off of Avery’s (and their own) back and cleaning up the neighborhood at the same time.” Clay grinned at Angel’s broad back and followed him through the front door of their temporary office and up to Avery’s new apartment.
Chapter Seven
Back at the apartment with Avery, James was having a heated discussion with her about not carrying boxes that were giving her a hard time down the stairs. “Why don’t you go ahead and leave all this to me. I can get this to the office faster…” James caught himself when Avery turned on the stairs in a snit and nearly unbalanced herself in the process.
“What are you trying to say? That I’m slowing you down? Well listen here, this is my stuff and I can just manage by myself. If you’re in such a rush you go ahead and I will manage just fine.”
James could see this would be a losing battle and tried to choose his words carefully. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded, I just though you could go ahead and start unpacking while I moved the rest of the box—”
“You think because I’m a girl that I can’t keep up with you. I’ll have you know that it was me that brought all the stuff up the first time with no help and I can sur
e take it back down.” Turning, Avery continued down the stairs, brushing off his words. The box she was holding swayed back and forth as she tried to balance it and look at the steps at the same time.
“I don’t think that. I just meant that you have me to help so why not take advantage and let me do this. I’m here to help you and you don’t have to do everything yourself this time.” God she was frustrating.
Avery glanced back at James and stumbled down a step. “I don’t take advantage of anyone if I can help it. Now let’s get this done, see if you can keep up.”
Avery heard James sigh behind her.
Well maybe she was being unreasonable, but this morning when she realized that her choices had been taken away she had felt helpless. She had had to put up with Danny and his gang. Making her own decisions, even if it was only moving boxes, in some small way to her, would show she was made of sterner stuff and could stand on her own two feet. Telling herself that, she proceeded to the sidewalk and finally laid the box down. It was heavy, but she could do this. Picking the box back up, she started walking the sidewalk before James could comment on its weight.
James watched her curvy rear sway in front of him. Well, he’d been told. He would allow her the last word this time, and a bit of freedom. After all, she didn’t know the rules—yet. He would just have to teach her. Something he was very much looking forward to.
Avery was proud of herself as she took her first steps into the new apartment above the office. She had won their first argument. Maybe she could handle this job and these men as long as she didn’t let them intimidate her. She noticed that the guys were coming up the steps behind her with more of her boxes.
“Well that’s the last of it.” Clay sat down his box in the middle of the living room and was moving toward the stairs back down to the office.
How did they move all the boxes? She didn’t notice them passing her by on the sidewalk as she walked with James. Yet all of her boxes were piled in the living room.
