Total pages in book: 131
Estimated words: 131387 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131387 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
And we gave it a go.
One couldn’t say I was sleeping.
I was too stressed out to sleep.
My dog was sleeping, draped over my feet.
Although the sister-sister introduction went well, as in, we hadn’t endured a chase scene, a single hiss or anything even resembling a growl, I was still anxious.
After some circling and sniffing, Tonks didn’t seem to have much interest in Moxie. And Moxie only had interest in reacquainting herself with the house.
But now was now.
I couldn’t keep an eye when I was asleep.
I should have put Moxie back in the bathroom.
On this thought, shit got real when I felt that distinctive sensation a bed had when a cat jumped on it.
I tensed.
I felt Tonks’s head come up.
I turned mine to the side and saw through the moonlight Moxie standing statue still, one paw up, staring at Tonks.
Tonks stared at Moxie.
I held my breath and braced to move.
After a while, Moxie looked to me and back to Tonks.
She then inched her way to Tonks.
I gulped in some oxygen then held my breath so hard, my lungs started hurting.
A quick sniff, that kind cats did where whatever touched their sensitive noses before they even got close made them jerk back before they went in.
Tonks didn’t move.
I didn’t move.
Moxie moved.
She curled against the fur on Tonks’s chest.
Tonks let her head drop with a plop.
I heard Moxie start purring.
I smiled into the dark.
Okay, maybe sometimes—rarely, but sometimes—life worked out for me.
I was glad, for all three of us, this was one of those times.
I listened to purrs for a while.
Then I closed my eyes and fell asleep.
ELEVEN
Teething
Hutch
“Keep going,” Hutch ordered Mabel. “Keep going.”
Mabel took another step back.
She was a good twenty feet away from Tonks, who was sitting like a good girl and watching her momma retreat without even twitching.
“Okay, release her,” Hutch instructed.
Mabel clapped her hands and bent toward Tonks, chanting, “Come here, Tonks. Good girl. Such a good girl.”
Tonks raced to Mabel, and she gave the dog a full rub as Tonks shimmied against her legs.
Hutch watched, knowing two things.
She worked with the dog when he wasn’t there.
It was Friday. Tonks had now had four sessions with him. But she had “stay” down.
On Monday, they could add “heel.”
The second thing he knew was that Mabel Adams was the single most fuckable woman he’d ever met.
He knew that the first moment he saw her, that was why he’d fucked her.
However, that thought only strengthened with every time he was with her.
He had to fight getting hard when he watched the loving and enthusiastic way she worked with her dog. He had to fight getting hard when she was throwing sass at him, and that was the fuck of it, because she threw sass all the time. He had to be a grouch so he could fight getting hard when she called him grouchy.
And she was not only beautiful, she had great style.
He hadn’t seen her in anything but jeans, wide leather belts, attractive, feminine button-downs or collarless three-quarter buttoned shirts with silver necklaces stacked around her neck, sometimes complemented with long strands of beads. That was if she wasn’t wearing sweaters that hugged her full tits coaxing Hutch’s hands to touch them.
She always wore low-heeled boots, and if he had to make the call, he’d say she’d been a mountain girl since she came out screaming.
And she almost always wore her thick, long, dark hair down so it got in her eyes, stuck to her lips, swayed when she walked, did it more so when she jogged, or it just caught the wind.
He’d seen her workshop. She worked with her hands, which, until then, Hutch didn’t know was a turn on for him when it came to women.
Now, he knew.
And he never showed when she didn’t have something making her house smell insanely good. A candle burning. A cake in the oven. Something in the slow cooker.
This was not good.
He was a man who didn’t struggle with getting himself some if he wanted it.
But that was all it was ever going to be.
He’d learned, since birth.
That didn’t mean he didn’t give it a shot.
He had.
Three times.
Three spectacularly dramatic outs.
He’d hung up his bat two years ago.
Reminding himself of that, he looked at his watch and said, “That’s time.”
She didn’t stop bending or petting her dog as she lifted her healthy, honey-gold tanned face to his, her hazel eyes shining, her pretty mouth smiling.
And yeah.
Hutch was fighting getting hard.
“Okay, but can I ask you something?” she requested.
“If you’re quick about it,” he replied.
She heaved out a big breath and caught herself before doing the full eye roll.
Then she and Tonks came to him.
Tonks snuffled his hand, so he idly petted her as Mabel started talking.
“The paper mill is opening tomorrow.”
He stiffened.
Fuck, she was going to ask him out.
As noted, he was attracted to her. He wanted to go out with her.