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)
Oh dear.
He was growling.
“It really isn’t that big of a deal,” I lied.
“You’re lying,” he called me on it.
I bit my lip.
He jerked his head to my phone. “What’s her text say?”
“That we need to get together and plan.”
“And what’s that gonna mean to you?”
I tried to dodge. “Maybe we should get on the road.”
“We got time.”
We did, dang it.
“Okay, again, it’s not that big of a deal, but last year, they took me to their favorite restaurant for my birthday dinner and gave me a five-hundred-dollar check. But they took Easton to a place he’d been dying to go. A place where the meal starts at several hundred dollars a head and they did all the add-ons like foie gras and wine-pairings, and on top of that, they gave him a trip to the Caribbean.”
Javi’s eyes started glowing malevolently.
Glowing malevolently!
Eek!
“They let me bring Jessie to my dinner,” I added.
“So, you not only gotta eat that shit, she drags you in to help plan it.”
I stretched out my lips but decided not to confirm.
“Tell her you’re busy and to let you know where to be when she figures it out,” he commanded.
“It’s really just easier to go along with it.”
“Easier on who?”
His question felt like a punch to the stomach, because it was one I should have asked myself years ago.
Because the answer was…it was easier on Mom.
Not me.
Every single time, it hurt me.
He pulled me out of this revelation by sliding his fingers along my jaw in order to cup it and said, “I’m still committed to the goal of staying true to our roll, so we’re gonna let this sit until tonight when we get into the heavy.”
Oh boy.
Here we go.
I decided to start with the easy part.
“I have the Oasis meeting tonight,” I reminded him.
“We’ll talk when we get back here after.”
All right, Javi wasn’t reading into the easy part.
“I think maybe we need to get over a small bump in our roll in order to discuss the amount of stuff in my suitcases and how I think they should be unpacked at my place,” I suggested.
He grinned.
I had to fight swooning again.
He then decreed, “We’ll talk about it later.”
“Javi.”
He slid his thumb over my bottom lip.
My hoo-ha tingled.
“Later, Lolita,” he whispered.
Okay.
Shoot.
Evidence was suggesting all Javi had to do was whisper and call me Lolita and he’d get his way.
The thumb swipe was overkill. A fabulous overkill, but overkill.
And I was putty in his hands (or against his thumb).
Therefore, without another word, he took my hand, led me out of his house and into his truck, and I didn’t make that first peep.
“Hey,” he called.
I came back to him in his truck to see we were idling outside the back door to The Surf Club.
I turned to him. “Hey.”
“You good?” he asked.
I was sitting in Javi’s truck with Javi, he was really into me, he was a great kisser, he was overprotective (and I didn’t think that was at all a bad thing), and he could toast a mean bagel.
I was definitely good.
“I’m good,” I said.
The sweet look on his face told me he heard all the things I did not say, and I didn’t think that was a bad thing either.
For some reason, I wasn’t nervous anymore. Not at all.
“What’d you pick to take to this thing tonight?” he asked.
“Pigs in a blanket,” I told him.
“When you gonna make that shit if the meeting is half an hour after you get off work?”
Wow.
He really knew a lot about me and my schedule.
Then again, I’d been paying extremely close attention to him too. I didn’t know his every move, but the ones I did know, I paid a whole load of attention to.
“I was going to ask Raye or Luna to run to the store for me, and I was going to use the SC ovens.”
“Text me what you need. I’ll get it and drop it by.”
How nice!
It was then I realized it was ten to eleven, and he was not at work.
“Why aren’t you at work?”
“Because I’m with you.”
“Don’t you have to work?”
“Yes, and my work this morning includes looking after you.”
What?
“Like, as my bodyguard, or something?” I inquired.
“No, like, as the guy who wants to spend time with you, also the guy who wants to see you naked, when you’re ready for that, so obviously the guy who wants you to survive long enough for me to do both. But, yeah. Like your bodyguard.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Do all the Angels have bodyguards?”
“Raye, obviously Cap. Jessie, obviously Eric. Luna is getting Liam. Willow is getting Gabe. And Shanti is getting Brady.”
Whoa!
“You guys are going to, like—?”
“Make sure your throats don’t get slit and your apartments don’t get tossed? Yeah.”
I peered beyond him to The Surf Club. “Are they in there now?”
“No. Because Tex is in there. And we have cameras in there.”