But there was no mistaking the tall, good-looking man whowas right then openly pissed as all fuck and fully up in his woman’s shit.
Like…
Physically.
He had six inches on her but there was less than an inchbetween their faces, and Jagger couldn’t hear what he was saying, but therewasn’t a centimeter of his body that did not share he was all kinds of furious.
Instinct guided Jagger’s next moves, which were to getbehind Archie, curl his fingers in the back of her jeans, pull her away fromher brother and step between them.
“What the—?”Elijah started angrily.
“Maintain space or I won’t, and you won’t like how I won’t,”Jagger growled.
“Jagger, baby,” Archie murmured, and he felt her hand falllight between his shoulder blades.
He also felt Dutch get close and watched Elijah’s eyes dartto him.
And he noted something he didn’t when he walked in and sawwhat he saw.
The storage space wasn’t only taken up by the fruits ofArchie’s day (since he knew she was hitting some flea market as well as twoauctions to bulk up stock), Joany was standing there and she was pissed as allfuck too.
“You gonna stand down?”Jagger asked and got Elijah’sattention again.
“So you finally made a move,” he sneered.
And he was Arby’s Guy to Elijah too.
Not a surprise.
“That isn’t an answer to my question,” Jag noted.
“This is between Arch and me, so beat it,” Elijah replied.
“And you can have a conversation with your sister.What youcan’t do is be up in her shit when you do.”
“This is none of your business,” Elijah returned.
“You’re right and you’re wrong.Whatever you’re talkingabout is none of my business.But I’ll repeat, youdo notget upinyour sister’s shitwhen you’re conversing with her.Andthatisabsolutely my business.”
They scowled at each other way too fucking long beforeElijah took a step back, stabbed a finger at his sister and stated, “We’re notdone but I’m not talking about this with your dog in the room.You’ll hear fromme.”
“Elij—”
Archie didn’t get her brother’s full name out.
Without looking at anyone, he stormed to the door, which hada push bar and a sturdy hinge at the top to avoid the heavy door slamming.
Elijah still put the effort into slamming it.
Jag turned to Archie.
“Let me guess, you told him he was paying his half of thehandyman,” he deduced.
She’d looked mildly freaked, and equally mildly put out, butwhen he said that she smiled that almost-smug, totally-hot smile of hers.
“And then some,” she shared.
“Okay, I need some assistance here,” Joany stated inArchie’s direction, bellying up to them, “’Cause,see, I gothellamindfuck going on becausesimultaneously I don’t know whether to touch my contacts to see if I can ordera hit on that crazy-ass brother of yours.This along with beating back aninappropriate orgasm with the repeatgoin’ on in theback of my brain of your boy here sharing what isabsolutely his businessand how he did that.And last, tamping down my jubilation that his semi-twinhas shown up and he’s not wearing a ring.”
