Total pages in book: 45
Estimated words: 43920 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 220(@200wpm)___ 176(@250wpm)___ 146(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 43920 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 220(@200wpm)___ 176(@250wpm)___ 146(@300wpm)
“Are you mad about Otto?” Cami asked, and only then did I realize she was walking right beside me, on my right, Dawson on my left.
“No,” I grumbled.
“You sound mad.”
“I’m mad about something else,” I told her.
“About me?”
I stopped walking and turned to her. “No. When have I ever been mad at you?”
She thought a moment. “The time that man in the store kept following you around.”
“That was—”
“What man?” Dawson asked her.
“I don’t know,” she answered him. “A stranger was following Uncle Chris and asking him dumb questions about this cheese he had.”
“I see.”
“I mean, my mama knows about cheese, not Uncle Chris.”
“Absolutely.”
“So I told the man he was wasting his time talking to Uncle Chris but he stayed anyway.”
“I’m sure he did.”
I groaned and started for my office again. Sadly, they didn’t stay there and talk but followed right along with me.
“He wouldn’t go away, and I finally told him that Uncle Chris doesn’t eat a lot of cheese because—”
“Never mind,” I told her.
“See? That’s how his voice sounded that day too,” she informed Dawson. “But I told the man he doesn’t eat cheese because it gives him the toots.”
“Oh, for the love of God,” I grumbled. “Remind me to yell at your mother.”
“What did Mama do?”
Dawson was chuckling. “Did the man run away after that?”
She nodded.
“And your uncle Chris was mad?”
“Not mad, but he made a face like—oh, see, just like he’s making now.”
“I love that story,” he told her.
Watching her soak up his attention was going to make me homicidal, so I hurried to my office. The door was closed, and I had to wait for Dawson to open it for me.
“Cami, go get your mother,” I ordered, and she bolted away.
“I like Cami. It sounds like she’s a fantastic cockblock.”
“She’s just possessive, like you. She wants everyone’s complete attention.”
“Not everyone’s. It sounds like we both just want yours.”
Setting the rabbit cage down on the catchall table to the left of the door, I shook my arms and tried to massage the knot in my shoulder.
Dawson put everything down and was there, quickly, taking hold of my shoulder with one hand and using the other to rub where it hurt.
“Knock it off,” I ordered but didn’t move.
“Just let me take care of you for a second, you stubborn shit.”
“Listen, you don’t get to—oh,” I moaned instinctively when he plastered his chest to my back and wrapped his arms around me.
“I’m sorry I’ve been gone,” he whispered into my nape, hands clutching at me. “But I’m here to stay, honey, I swear to God.”
“Chris, oh—well, that was fast,” Darcy said as she walked into the room.
“Nothing is fast,” I told her. “And I’m sorry I snapped at you, but the cage is fuckin’ heavy, and I carried it a long way.”
“From the car I saw you get out of?” she teased me as Dawson let me go, and I bent over to stretch my back.
“Yeah, but first from Cami’s classroom to the parking lot behind the school.”
Her eyes got wide as I straightened up. “Ohmygod, are you dying?”
“A little, but I’m still sorry.”
“It’s fine. Who is that woman out there chatting up Georgine and Xola?”
“Her name is Nicole Amsel. She’s a food blogger and—”
“Oh, she’s The Picky Blackbird,” Darcy informed me. “She wrote a lot of lovely articles about Xo and me when we were in Vegas for the nationals.”
“Then go introduce yourself and send Georgine back here. I think Cami got lost.”
“Will do,” she said, glancing at Dawson on her way out.
“So, I have things to say,” Dawson apprised me as he transferred Cami’s gifts from the floor to my desk, making a neat pile.
“Didn’t you say them all already?” I pointed out, admiring the fluid movement of the man as he worked, thinking how good he looked all healthy and strong. I was a big fan of his broad shoulders and wide back. The tight jeans were very nice as well…
“Right?” Dawson asked, bringing me out of my reverie.
Shit.
He cackled. “You were checkin’ me out when you were supposed to be listening.”
“I was listening,” I groused.
“What’d I say, then?”
I had no earthly idea. “Fine, I was checking you out.”
“Whatever works.”
“The hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It means I thought, since you still love me, that your heart would return to me first, but I will take your body as well.”
“You’re a smug prick right now.”
“No, not at all,” he husked, reaching into the breast pocket of his black leather biker jacket and pulling out a very chunky gold ring with five large square-cut diamonds on top. “I’m actually scared to death.”
“The hell is that?”
He waggled his eyebrows.
“You cannot think for a minute—”
“I just want you to see it’s here, and I’m carrying it around, ready to put it on your finger the second you say yes.”
“No,” I replied firmly, annoyed. “You can be here, play here, because honestly, that’s a benefit to us as well as to the guys in your band, but there is nothing you can say to change my mind about us.”