Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 121755 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 487(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121755 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 487(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
That last bit was because he tossed me over his shoulder.
When I bounced on the bed because he threw me there, and when I became mesmerized after he took off his shirt, he said, “There’ll come a time when I can’t carry you, so might as well do it now.”
I dragged my eyes from his chest to his face. “What time will that be?”
He shrugged a broad shoulder. “Forty, fifty years from now.”
Forty or fifty years.
Of him and me.
I smiled.
He grinned.
Then he pounced.
So my man was going to carry me to bed every time he intended to fuck me there, and that was going to last forty or fifty years.
I wasn’t going to complain.
No way.
Not ever.
Parents Part One happened in the Arizona mountains.
It was mid-afternoon.
Mom and I were in cardies, wool socks, with throw blankets over our legs and hot cocoa cocooned in our hands. Robbie and Mom’s mut, aptly but not creatively named Mutt, was snoozing on the deck by Mom’s chair.
We were all cozied up, enjoying a breathtaking show.
Then it got even better.
It was cold, but Gabe was getting hot, I knew, when he pulled off his shirt before he went back to chopping the wood at the end of the yard (if you could call it a yard, it was mostly a vast space cleared of trees so Robbie could do things like chop wood in it, drive his ATV through it, or start a fire safely in their massive, rock-edged firepit in it).
“Oh my,” Mom whispered when Gabe bared his chest.
“Mm-hmm,” I hummed.
We sipped cocoa.
“It’s good Robbie is all in to promote fire safety by dragging all the downed trees on your property here so he can chop them up,” I observed.
Robbie and Gabe chopped.
“Oh yeah. It sure is good my man does that,” Mom agreed.
We sipped more cocoa.
Robbie said something that made Gabe smile.
Robbie returned his smile.
“Oh my,” I whispered.
“Mm-hmm,” Mom hummed.
We took another sip.
The men chopped wood.
A soft wind swayed the pines.
Mutt snorted in his sleep.
And two women who had been put through it by men, sat watching two men chop wood who would die before putting a woman through it.
The tuition to pay for life’s lessons didn’t come cheap.
But let me tell you, that was a bill worth paying.
Absolutely.
Parents Part Two happened that evening.
It was after dinner, I was curled on their couch, and Robbie was folding in next to me.
He did the man spread with his legs, reached both his arms along the back of the couch, which put in him into position to catch my shoulder and tuck me to his side.
I put my head on his shoulder.
Seriously, my dad of the heart was the greatest.
Gabe had gone out to keep an eye on Mutt while he did his evening’s business so he didn’t have an unsuspecting and unwanted visit with a coyote, mountain lion or javelina.
Mom was in the kitchen, futzing for no reason.
“Build you two a cabin,” Robbie muttered to the fire in the fireplace. “Not close to this one, but an easy walk.”
I froze then, due to what he said being so important, and so beautiful, but I forced my way through the ice to lift my head and look at him.
“Got fifteen acres,” he stated, turning to me. “Plenty of space to build on. Make a family compound.”
My heart warmed so much, I thought it would melt.
But my mouth said, “You’re not envisioning enlisting Gabe in creating a militia or something, are you?”
Robbie laughed (and I loved making him do that too).
“Would that be so wrong?” he teased.
“I have a life goal of never being interviewed for a true crime documentary,” I replied.
He busted out laughing.
“What’s so funny?” Mom came in with a cup of tea for her, and one she passed to me, just as the front door opened and Gabe and Mutt joined the party.
Mutt raced directly to sniff and lick my hand before he got between his daddy’s legs, sat, leaned against Robbie’s calf and put his head on Robbie’s knee.
As a reward, Robbie buried his fingers in his dog’s ruff.
Hmm…
My thoughts were on the fact that Gabe needed a dog.
But my mouth said, “Robbie’s thinking about building a compound and forming a militia using Gabe’s and my offspring.”
Gabe’s brows went up, and so did the edges of his lips, but his ass went down in an armchair.
“They’d be badass,” Robbie said.
God, I loved how much he approved of Gabe.
“We’re not forming a militia, Robert,” Mom, in another armchair, said with such conviction, I wondered briefly if Robbie was actually joking.
Robbie ignored her and did not set my mind at ease when he asked Gabe, “Wanna go out target shooting tomorrow?”
“Sure,” Gabe replied, also not setting my mind at ease.
“You ever heard the one where—?” Robbie began, an intro Mom and I had heard frequently over the years, this meaning it was an intro to Robbie telling what was probably going to be an absurdly filthy joke.