Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 121887 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121887 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
But it wasn’t what did me in.
What did me in was the fact that his gaze was on me wearing his tee. It was traveling up and down my body from hair to feet, and there was such a smug, self-satisfied, possessive/branding look on his gorgeous face, I knew I’d been claimed from all the way across a room, and I was all the way down with it.
So down, I almost went down, since I stumbled on the stairs.
Javi’s big body jolted, and he made to move toward me, but I righted myself, waved at him and said, “I’m okay.”
For self-preservation, I turned my attention to who else was in the room.
Jessie was looking at me, as was Shanti.
My guess was, all the Angels would have been there, except Raye, Luna and Willow had the first shift at SC, so they couldn’t be.
Shanti smiled.
Jessie gawped.
She then explained her gawp. “You have sex hair.”
I lifted a hand to my hair.
“Babe, right here,” Javi grunted.
He was pointing to the floor by his side.
Hmm.
Conundrum.
See, on the face of it, this seemed like a man who was calling his woman like a dog.
However, I was learning, in Javi World things had a different meaning.
This particular meaning was that he wanted me right at his side so he could more easily butt into my conversation with Jessie if she said or did something that displeased him, the displeasing part of this would be if it was something that harmed me.
Which also, on the face of it, didn’t seem all that great.
But considering he thought he was protecting me and keeping me safe, it was.
It was all that great.
All of it.
So I went “right there,” this being right at his side.
He wrapped an arm around my shoulders and then hauled me right into his side.
I didn’t protest.
Jessie’s gawp turned into a goggle.
“How…how…how…” she stammered. “How in the fuck were you two ‘never gonna be a thing’ one day, and the next, she’s in your tee in your house with sex hair?”
“If Harlow wants to tell you, she can tell you. Later. Now, you two are gonna leave so I can make my Lolita breakfast.”
It seemed that Lolita thing was going to stick, and I was not at all mad about it.
Shanti’s smile widened.
Jessie started blinking rapidly.
However, I was confused at the breakfast mention, considering not long ago, we were eating something up that was super delicious, but it was not food.
“She’s not answering her phone,” Jessie pointed out.
Oh yeah.
Where did that go?
I took off my crossbody sometime between nuking Thai food and settling into the sofa, but I forgot where I put it.
“Take a hint,” Javi answered Jessie.
“We have things to discuss,” Jessie kept at it, though she said this to Javi.
“And you can discuss them when Harlow’s ready to discuss them,” Javi retorted.
“I don’t know about Lolo,” Shanti entered the conversation at this juncture. “But if you two were talking about me with me being right there, not getting a word in, we can just say that wouldn’t make me all that happy.”
Shanti was right.
I should wade in.
“We’re okay, Jess,” I told her. “We can hash it out at work.”
“I was a bitch,” she replied.
I wouldn’t take it that far.
“It wasn’t cool,” I allowed.
She tossed up a hand to indicate me and Javi. “I liked the idea of you two together. It bummed me out that you weren’t going for it. Now it’s freaking me out that you were going at a pace that would make a snail look like Sha’Carri Richardson, and now you’re Mach 3.”
“You and Turner take your time with a lot of getting-to-know you shit before you decided to live together even if you both have different houses?” Javi asked.
Just my eyeballs shifted to the side, because they did not. I wasn’t sure, but it could have been only a couple of days before Eric was either sleeping in Jessie’s bed at the Oasis, or Jess was sleeping in Eric’s at his house, one or the other every night.
Both of them had doubled up on toiletries and had made room in each other’s closets before a month was out, I knew that.
“I said I was a bitch,” Jess reminded him. “Totally out of line.”
I turned and tipped my head back to look at Javi.
“She did say that, Javi,” I said softly. “Now, twice.”
He looked down at me and seemed to relax even though his arm curled tighter, bringing me closer.
“You’re cool with her, I’m cool with her,” he murmured.
“Oh my God, they’re so cute, now I’m pissed they took so long to get it together,” Shanti bitched.
Jessie was watching me closely. “Are you good?”
“I’m upset someone broke my mushroom.”
Neither Jessie nor Shanti said anything.
“The one on my coffee table,” I explained.
“Yeah, babe, we know what you’re talking about,” Jessie replied, her eyes going up to Javi, back to me, and she raised her brows.