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)
“And this matters now, how?” Jessie demanded. “Javi’s made his decision and anything else from your dad is only adding insult to injury.”
“He knows that now, I guess,” Julia mumbled.
“So you think Harlow should share this tale of woe with Javi?” Raye asked.
And, man, the girls were giving no quarter. They totally had Javi’s back.
Gah!
I loved them so much!
“I just…I just…” Julia drew in a breath and released it. “I guess I just wanted someone to know.”
“Now she knows,” Ally stated. “Are you done?”
Julia nodded.
“Let’s roll,” Stella said.
“Wait, are you…? Holy cow. You’re Stella Gunn,” Julia breathed, staring wide-eyed at Stella.
And there it was. Such was the darkness of the vibe, it took that long for her to notice she was keeping company with Rock ’n’ Roll Royalty.
“In the flesh,” Stella replied, and then she jerked her head at the Angels and the Rock Chicks.
We moved to our cars.
And we rolled.
“I’m getting your concern with the pink nutribullet. All this pink I’m sure is making my dick shrink.”
Late that night, lying crashed out, naked, post sex, on Javi’s big, strong body on my bed at the Oasis, I lifted up only enough to smack his pectoral.
“It is not. Trust me, I’d notice,” I replied.
He grinned roguishly.
I rolled my eyes.
His grin died and he threaded his fingers into the side of my hair.
“You good?”
I smiled brightly at him. “Did you not hear me mention your boy parts are healthy and functioning, something I very recently tested out?”
His lips twitched but his voice lowered. “They’re celebrating your brother’s birthday right now.”
Ugh.
I did a face plant in his chest.
As I did, he allowed his fingers to sift through my hair to cup the back of my head.
“You’re not good,” he muttered.
I turned so my cheek was to his chest and said, “I’d be lying if I told you I haven’t been thinking about it all evening.” I switched positions again to rest my chin on the back of my stacked hands so I could catch his eyes. “But I made my decision. If cutting the toxicity out of your life was easy, people would do it without thinking about it. The thing is, it’s not. You just have to stay the course.”
“Yeah, you do,” he said softly, then he did fabulous things to my girl parts (and my heart) when his deep voice veritably crooned, “My good girl with a spine of steel, staying the course.”
“Stop making me want to cry,” I demanded. Or orgasm, I did not say.
“Okay, then, how’d it go when you, your girls and my boys went to confront my father?”
I couldn’t stop my eyes from going really, really big.
But of course, he’d figure it out.
I was in the midst of trying to decide if I should lie to him (for now) or come clean (I had to schedule my How to Deal with an Alpha classes, tout de suite), when he wrapped his arms around me and rolled us so I was on my back and he was mostly on me, just down my side.
“I knew it was going to happen the minute I lost it after I shut the door on them this morning,” he said.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I know I promised not to do it, but I just…you were just…”
“Babe, I had a word with your dad yesterday. I get what you were just.”
So, he did do it.
Yikes.
And.
Yay!
He was so totally falling for me too!
“How’d that go?” I asked.
“You first,” he countered.
Ugh again.
“Julia was there,” I started.
I said no more.
Javi stared at me.
Gosh, he was so incredibly gorgeous.
I mean, really, my big, muscular, handsome, very manly man in my pink and green and velvet bedroom?
Seriously a turn on.
“Harlow,” he growled.
Ugh!
With no choice, I ran it down for him.
The worst part about doing that?
Javi listened with such intensity, it was like my words were feeding him. Like his dad and sister wanting him in their life was nourishment to him.
I skipped the part about how Austin looked at his daughter and how determined he was for his son to have a relationship with his girls. I also skipped a lot of what Julia said about Austin’s growing-up years, though I did tell him Tiffany gave Austin an unthinkable ultimatum, and I left it at that.
When I finished talking, Javi didn’t start.
So I smoothed my hand over his hair, ending it at his neck so I could stroke his jaw with my thumb.
“You okay?” I asked.
“I never knew.”
“Never knew what?”
“When she’d talk about him. Ma. Sometimes, she’d say he was the love of her life. Sometimes she’d say he was an assclown. When I was a kid, I’d have trouble knowing if she was lucid or not. So I never knew which way it really was. And then the illness took her, she stopped talking about him and barely made sense at all.”