And that was the last text he sent.
I kept staring at that one, specifically the “I want to see you, Hattie” and the “You’re driving me crazy” parts.
Liking the first, not liking the second (but still kinda liking it, in a very feminine, stupid, maybe even mean way that still gave me a hint of a powerful thrill), wondering how that fit in with him having a woman in his life.
I continued to do that until the phone was slipped from my fingers.
I watched Brett, wearing striped pajama bottoms, and nothing else, sit back in the turquoise Adirondack chair that was angled across from mine.
The minute he was settled, he scrolled my texts.
Important note: I was right. Brett had a great body.
Another important note: Brett took that “whip your ass” phone call more seriously than I did. Case in point, he’d slept on my couch last night and the night before.
Semi-important note: He was a big guy, and my couch was comfy and deep-seated, but it wasn’t huge. And he didn’t complain. He also refused to switch places and take my bed while I slept on the couch, seeing as he was the one doing me a favor, so I shared I thought that was only fair. He’d still declined. Which I thought was incredibly sweet.
Last important note: He made great coffee. But as we sat outside on my cute, square deck that led from a fabulous glass door in my kitchen, a deck that had high walls around it so there was privacy, but there were vertical openings with crisscross slats on them so you could see out, I kinda wished he’d put on a t-shirt. There was an intimacy to this that Brett seemed totally okay with in a big-brother way.
I’d never had a big brother, a little one, or ever been around a man with that good of a body that was that exposed outside a beach or a pool, definitely not on my deck, so I was not at one with it.
That said, after that weird phone call, I thought it was totally nice that Brett was all in to make me safe.
To the point he was hanging with me on my deck for coffee.
(Still wished he’d do it with a tee on.)
Though, it wasn’t nice that he was helping himself to my texts.
“Um …” I began my effort to share this thought with him.
He stopped scrolling and looked over my phone at me.
“Can I ask why you don’t go there?”
It was careful and gentle, the way this question came.
But I couldn’t tell him why because I didn’t know why.
I also couldn’t tell him there wasn’t a “there” I could go to any longer, not after the way Axl threw down with me.
I’d blown it.
It was over.
And now all that was left was to torture myself with how huge a fuckup I’d perpetrated.
I grabbed my coffee cup off the lime green ceramic stool that sat between us and served as a table, looked out the slats toward the street and took a sip.
“Message received, sweetheart, but seriously, this guy is into you,” Brett stated.
I turned my gaze to him.
“He wants to be friends,” I shared.
“No, he’s into you.”
“He has a woman.”
Brett made no reply to that.
“So, again, he wants to be friends,” I repeated.
“And you got a problem with that?”
“He’s gorgeous. He seems really nice. I had a shot at him, I blew it. But in a perfect world, he’d be mine and now it can only be friends. Can you understand how that might be hard?”
Brett put my phone on the stool but did this with his eyes moving over me in my sleep set that was shorts and a short-sleeved pajama shirt that was pink with big, bright blue and green flowers on it. I was curled up, heels to the seat, knees to my chest.
But still, there was a lot of me to be seen.
And as he did this, he said, “I get the gist.”
Oh no.
“Brett,” I whispered.
His eyes came to mine. “It’s okay, baby, ’cause, see, the thing is, you give a shit about someone, you take what you can get.”
Oh man.
Maybe it was me who shouldn’t be out on the deck in my jammies.
Maybe I should find a turtleneck and some jeans.
Bulky ones.
“You’re incredibly sweet,” I said softly.
“Right, the other thing is, I’m not,” he stated matter-of-factly. “I’m really not, Hattie. But that’s what you’ll get from me. And sweet is all you’ll ever get from me. But the reason I don’t blow through Pantera and take what I want from you is because you don’t need that in your life. So you get the sweet. And only that. But you do knowing that there’s more. And the rest, well,” he lifted his broad (bare!) shoulders, “I’ll find a woman who can deal.”
“I’m sure she’s out there,” I informed him.
“I need to find a Daisy. Or better, an Anya,” he muttered. “I’m seein’ I like the quiet ones, not the ballsy ones.”
“Pardon?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Nothin’.” He then pushed out of his chair. “Gonna get a refill. Check the cupboards. See what you got. Makin’ you breakfast then I got shit to do.”
He was making me breakfast.
Yesterday, he had one of his henchmen bring doughnuts.
I was always in for a doughnut.
I was more in for someone (not me) making breakfast.
I seriously had to scan my friend memory banks (which weren’t all that hearty, sadly) and see if I knew someone who could “deal” who might make Brett happy.
I didn’t share these thoughts with him.
I nodded.
He held out his hand.
I gave him my cup for a refill.
Yup.
He was sweet.
He went inside and I watched the muscles of his back (and, okay, the movement of his ass) when he did.
He was bigger than Axl, not taller, and I’d regrettably never seen Axl bare-chested.
But I’d imagined it.
Repeatedly.
And other things bared.
Those repeatedly too.
On these thoughts, I let out a heavy sigh and looked out the slats so I wouldn’t grab my phone again and torture myself with the various ways I’d screwed up with Axl.
And it seemed I was really good at this, considering as I did it, I conjured up the image of Axl walking along the sidewalk in front of my house.
Though, the truth of it was, Axl was walking along the sidewalk in front of my house.
I sat up straight in my chair.
My movement must have caught his attention because he stopped, and his eyes caught mine through the slats.
Oh boy.
He shifted direction. No longer heading to the front walk, he was striding up the grass to the gate of my deck.
And then I lost sight of him because he was at the gate to my deck.
Oh boy!
I took my feet off the chair, put them to the rug and stood.
The deck door opened and Axl was there.
And man, he made navy cargos and a gray tee look like everything.
No offense to Brett, but better than Brett in practically nothing.
Crap!
I was so in trouble.
“Uh—” I started, panicked.
No.
Frantic.
Because he was there, and I really could not take him being mean to me again, even if I deserved it.
And …
Brett was there because I had a situation that might be nothing, but it also might be something, and I hadn’t thought Axl would ever find out I had this situation.
But now he was there, and Brett was there, and to explain why Brett was there, I’d have to explain said situation.
However, as what was becoming usual with Axl, that “uh” was all I got out before he lifted a hand, palm out my way.
“No. I gotta start. Because I fucked up. I was a dick. Totally uncool.”
What he said made me com
pletely forget I had anything to say.
He dropped his hand and kept talking.
“I was pissed, and I’ve been frustrated for a while you won’t let me get to you and that came out. No excuses. I should have locked it down, sorted through it before I came to you. But I didn’t. And I apologize. Seriously, Hattie. What I did was fucked and I wished I didn’t do it. But I did. And there’s nothin’ left but for me to say I’m sorry.”
Ohmigod.
That was so nice!
“I—”
I again got no more out.
“You’re beautiful.”
I blinked and my belly felt funny.
Um …
I was?
I mean, I knew I wasn’t hard to look at.
But … beautiful?
“And you danced that dance for me,” he continued. “It messed with my head. It was … ” He shook his head. “I’d never seen anything like that. Felt anything like it. No one had ever given me anything as gorgeous as that. It was too much. Too big. And the only person I could work that out with was you, and you cut off every avenue to you, and I needed to process what I was feeling. I couldn’t hang on to it anymore.”
“Axl—”
Yup, again, that was all he let me say.
Though, I was glad whatever I was going to say didn’t stop him from saying what he said next.
And the way he said it.
Low and tortured and thick and amazing.
“Christ, baby, I can’t get it out of my head. I go to sleep, thinking about you dancing. I wake up, and the first thing I see before I open my eyes is you looking at me after that dance. I—”
Okay.
Done.
I moved the five steps to him, put my hand to his chest and whispered, “Shut up.”
He stared down at me, unmoving.
I stared up at him, the same.
The air around us grew heavy.
And he was so gorgeous, saying such incredible things, not to mention right there, and I was touching him, I couldn’t stop my lips from saying, “Shut up, shut up.”
The words that came after that lingered in the air unsaid, but they were there.
Kiss me like you mean it.
And he heard them.
I knew he did when his arm sliced around me and my hand on his chest was forced up into his spiky hair because my body was plastered to his.
And his mouth was on mine.
He kissed me.
Axl kissed me.
And he did it like he meant it.
His other arm swept around me, and I came up on my toes, his head angling, mine tipping the other way. He held tight and I pressed deep and I tasted, and I took, and I gave, and I drank, and he plundered, and he sucked, and his tongue danced with mine and yes …
Yes.
He kissed me like he meant it.
And I kissed him back the same way.
“Okay, the very last thing I wanna be doin’ right now is interrupting this.”
Axl tore his mouth from mine and looked over my shoulder at who I knew was Brett.
And those steely-blue eyes grew stone cold.
But his arms got so tight, I was having difficulty breathing.
Please tell me this was not happening!
I looked over my shoulder and there was Brett, bare-chested and in pajama bottoms.
And there I was, in my jammies in Axl’s arms.
For the first time, in Axl Pantera’s arms.
After he kissed me.
This was happening.
CRAP!
“Before you lose it, I sleep on the couch,” Brett declared. “And we don’t got time for you to lose it anyway, because, Hattie,” Brett looked to me, “you need to see this shit.”
He then waved something he was holding in his hand that I hadn’t noticed, what with my freak-out that he’d interrupted Axl and my first kiss.
But it looked like pictures.
And a large manila envelope that vaguely, in my hazy mind, I remembered came in the mail yesterday. It had no return address. My address was handwritten. I didn’t know what it was. I figured it was marketing material, but regardless, I didn’t open my mail because I was busy getting ready to go to work.
“Why’s he sleeping on your couch, Hattie?”
At Axl’s question, slowly, I turned my head back to him.
His eyes were still cold.
“Well—” I began.
But now Brett was interrupting me.
“It’s good you’re here,” he stated, and I could tell by his voice he was getting closer—even if, on that little deck, it was hard to be too far away—but still, he was coming closer. “And it’s good you’re not fucking around with working shit out, finally. But what seemed like a low-key sitch is now officially a serious fucking sitch.”
At that, I looked to my side and down at what Brett was holding.
Pictures.
Black and white. Eight by ten.
Porn.
Hard-core, BDSM porn.
And it did not look like the woman tied up in a very unsexy way (to my inclinations) was enjoying it.
My skin chilled.
“The fuck?” Axl whispered dangerously.
His skin didn’t chill.
It seemed to heat.
And his arms got tighter.
“There’s three pics,” Brett explained. “This one’s the least fucked-up. And it came with a note that said, ‘This is you.’ ”
Suddenly, Axl let me go and took a step back.
That chill on my skin turned to ice.
“The fuck?” he repeated.
I looked up into his eyes.
But Brett answered for me.
“She got a call two days ago. Man said her name, threatened to tie her down and whip her. Odds were, he was just a crackpot fan. Now, think he isn’t just fucking around.”
“That’s why he’s picking you up from Smithie’s,” Axl said to me.
Okay, well, as I suspected, Boone and Ryn saw me get in Cisco’s car.
And Boone told Axl.
“Axl—”
“That’s why he’s sleeping on your couch.”
“Okay, see, the call came in when—”
“That’s why he’s on your deck hardly wearing anything, while you are on your deck, also hardly wearing anything.”
“Well, I wouldn’t exactly say this was hardly any—”
“And you didn’t call me.”
His voice was so flat in delivering that, I closed my mouth.
“You didn’t call me or Mo or Boone or even Smithie. You called Cisco.”
And that was an accusation.
“Okay, I see that isn’t—”
“And you kissed me like you just kissed me. What’s the matter with you?”
And again, I shut my mouth.
Because that?
I did not like the tone of that.
It hurt.
“You know, think I made it clear I’m in to do the work, Hattie. But there’s only so much a man can take,” Axl declared.
“Listen, brother—” Brett tried to get in there.
Axl’s head jerked his way. “I’m not your brother.”
“Just calm down and let Hattie get a word in.”
“You got advice for me with this?” Axl asked, flinging a hand out my way.
Right.
First I was “work.”
Now I was “this.”
Seriously?
I mean, he always wore cargo pants. And I knew he was a commando. He’d been in on Evie’s rescue the first time she got kidnapped (that one without all the girls) and Evie said there were smoke bombs and tackling involved. Not to mention, he’d charged after Ryn when she was taken, I was there as yet to be abducted, and I heard the gunshots he was exchanging myself.
So he left it in little doubt he took his masculinity very seriously.
But acting possessive and like the wronged man when he’d only kissed me once and he did it when he
had a girlfriend?
(Okay, I participated in that, and encouraged it, and that was very wrong, until I understood what was up with him and the woman he was seeing, but I didn’t have a boyfriend.)
Seriously, after he broke into my studio and was a jerk to me, then I got a nasty call when he stormed out, I could phone whoever I wanted.
Right?
Before I could share my thoughts on this, Axl’s attention returned to me.
“So, official. My job in this,” he cut a hand between him and me, “is done. You want it? You’re up.”
And with that, but no explanation to what that meant, he walked right through my gate and the entire deck shook when he slammed it behind him.
For long moments, both Brett and I stood there silent, staring at the door.
Then for longer moments, we did the same.
After those moments were over, I turned to him.
“You’re a guy. What on earth was that?” I asked, tossing my hand toward the gate.
“Quiet, sweetheart,” Brett said in a voice I’d never heard.
Instantly, I got quiet.
I also belatedly took in the look on his face as he continued to stare at the gate.
And when I did, I decided to give him as much time as he wanted.
He didn’t take a lot of it before he rearranged his face (slightly) and turned to me.
“Now that I’m not in danger of getting my knife, hunting that motherfucker down and teaching him a lesson …”
Eek!
“ … as a guy, I can tell you that he’s in it so deep with you, he can’t fuckin’ see straight.”
At that, I threw up both hands and reminded him (again), “He has a girlfriend!”
“I’ll be expending some effort today in finding the veracity of that statement.”
My body jolted.
“You don’t think he has a girlfriend?”
“You’re my girl to look after. I been doing that. This situation was not moving forward, so I had my ear to the ground, eyes I always got lookin’ checkin’ things out. He spends time with a woman. Until now, I thought she was a place keeper.”
Uh-oh.
All of a sudden I was in serious danger of getting insanely pissed at a man who had not too long before shared he was “not sweet” and I knew the form this could take since I was in the room when he ordered one of his henchmen to point a gun at Pepper’s head.
Still, I couldn’t quite keep the ticked-off tremble out of my, “Place keeper?”
“Baby, guys are dicks. They don’t mean to be. It comes naturally. Though, when they find the one for them, that’s all done.”
Dream Spinner (Dream Team Book 3) Page 5