He yanked the covers up and this time he wound himself up in me, front to front.

“I don’t think, ever in my life, I’ve initiated sex,” I admitted.

“Time for me to buy a diary. Though, no heart stickers, but definitely a thick black Sharpie to record how fuckin’ thrilled I am I was your first.”

I started giggling.

He touched his mouth to mine while I did it, again when I was done, then tucked my face in his throat.

“Go to sleep, Hattie.”

“Okay, Axl.”

“Thanks for the fantastic head and the ride of a lifetime.”

I was giggling again.

Through it I said, “I can’t go to sleep if you’re being sweet and funny.”

“I’ll shut up.”

I didn’t want him to, but I did want him to sleep. He’d had a trying day.

So I didn’t say anything.

Not much time passed before a certain feline made her way up our bodies.

Cleo stopped with a pair of paws on me at my upper arm, and the way I felt them, the other pair was on Axl.

I felt her censure through the dark as she stared down at us.

She then jumped clear and I suspected she was done with us and had gone to sulk somewhere free of the humans until Axl said super quietly, “She’s at my feet.”

“She still loves her daddy.”

He gave me a squeeze.

And with the gang all there, settled in and safe, finally, I fell asleep.

Chapter Twenty

Tripped

Axl

It wasn’t the time.

He wasn’t ready for it.

He wasn’t sure Hattie was ready for it.

But it happened.

The next morning.

After a quick fuck, a quick shower, and Hattie launching into getting ready for Lottie’s brunch bridal shower at Jet Chavez’s, Axl made some calls.

First, they had to hit Hattie’s place to get her present, then he was going to drop her at the party, and with all the women there, the men were going to meet.

It was time to go, but when he went to the bathroom to hustle her ass up, she wasn’t there.

She wasn’t in the bedroom either.

He used that door to the living room to see if somehow she got past him and went to the deck, when he saw her in the living room, the handle of a cat toy with a feather on the end of it in her hand.

Cleo was nowhere to be seen, and he was about to tease Hattie about her ongoing efforts to steal his cat’s affections when he noticed why Cleo wasn’t playing (if there was one thing his cat loved, she loved to play).

Hattie had lost focus on the toy and was staring with not a small amount of interest at the piece on the chest in his front window.

He felt a clutch in his chest, and it wasn’t the first time.

He shouldn’t have bought it.

He should sell it.

He just couldn’t.