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)
No, it was because he had a finely honed sense of right and wrong, and the drive to do something about it, he loved his mom a whole lot, and he treated his men like brothers and grieved the ones he lost like he’d lost his own blood…
And again, as mentioned, the very first time we met, sparks flew. So many of them, I was singed, and the burn felt awesome.
Since then…nothing.
He made no moves.
He made no plays.
None of either, even if he’d had ample opportunity. He was a member of our group. So I couldn’t say I saw Javi every day, but we all hung out together a lot.
Maybe I was wrong. Maybe those sparks weren’t what I thought they were, firing from us both.
Maybe they only fired from me.
Or at least, all evidence was suggesting that.
But now, he was there, messing up our carefully crafted plan to put a stop to Kev’s (and now Trev’s) shenanigans, and that was not okay.
I was also not okay being in this classy, romantically lit restaurant with the most gorgeous man I’d ever laid eyes on sitting across the table from where I stood, looking like he was my guy.
My man.
My soulmate.
Therefore, I snatched up my bag and started to flounce away.
And yes, I flounced when I was angry. It came naturally. It was how I moved. I’d tried not to flounce, and it was like trying not to breathe.
I was just a girl who flounced.
I got five feet before my hand was seized in one much larger and stronger than mine, and I wasn’t flouncing anymore.
I was being dragged, discreetly, but being dragged nonetheless.
“Holy shit.” (Luna)
“Oh my God.” (Raye)
“What the fuck?” (Jessie)
“Okay, he’s being an asshole. But it’s still hot.” (Shanti)
In order not to make a scene, I decided to let Javi pull me out of the restaurant and continue to do it even as he nodded to the valet outside who tossed him a set of keys, and then Javi walked us to a big, shiny, granite Toyota Tundra that was parked close to the front doors.
But, let’s face it, I allowed this mostly because he was holding my hand.
It was the first time he’d touched me in that kind of way.
So I wanted it to be about me not making a scene, but it wasn’t.
It was because his hand felt good wrapped around mine. It was big. Warm. I could feel the callouses, so it spoke about him. It said he was a man who worked. He was a man who didn’t put on airs. He wasn’t soft. He got stuff done.
And it was so big, my hand got lost in his, and that felt so…danged…good.
Like he could shelter me. Protect me. Wrap me up in him so the hurts of the world could never get to me.
And…
Yeah.
That was mostly what was on my mind as he towed me to his truck.
He opened the passenger side, and I wished I hadn’t released the surprised squeak that came when he reached under my hair, plucked the earpiece out of my ear (how did he know it was there?!), shoved it in his jeans pocket, picked me up…
Yes, picked me up!
…and dumped me in the passenger seat.
I was stunned immobile by these moves. So much so, he’d closed my door, rounded the grill and pulled himself up beside me before I had a reaction.
But it was too late.
He’d fired up his truck, there was an incessant beep, and over it he demanded, “Belt up.”
I had no choice but to do so since we were moving.
After I accomplished that, even though my fingers were fumbling due to being both extremely ticked off and feeling something else, something deeper, scarier, the beeping went away, I turned to him and shared irately, “My car is there.”
“We’ll send Cody to get it.”
Cody was another former Shadow Soldier, current NI&S Hottie Squad member.
“Cody doesn’t have my fob.”
Javi didn’t reply.
I’d been around these men enough I translated his silence. “He doesn’t need my fob to start my car.”
“We have fobs for all you women’s cars,” Javi stated.
Although this was insane (I mean, how did they do that?), it shouldn’t surprise me. Raye with Cap, Jessie with Eric, we knew the Hottie Squad looked after us. They’d hacked into the cameras trained on the Oasis parking lot (Oasis Square was the apartment complex where we lived). They had the code to the gate to the courtyard. They also had other things to keep tabs to keep us safe.
But it surprised me.
Actual duplicate car fobs?
“You have actual car fobs?” I asked as he turned onto Goldwater.
“We have actual car fobs,” he answered. “But, just sayin’, for fifty bucks, he’ll get your fob from the valet.”
I really didn’t want to think that fifty dollars would earn the key to my car handed over to a stranger, but since my car wasn’t all that much to write home about, and cost of living wasn’t either, I suspected fifty bucks would get someone the key from the valet.