Dream Spinner (Dream Team Book 3), Kristen Ashley [reading eggs books txt] 📗

he said in my ear (still laughing), “Then I’ll pick you and your bag up here later and that means we don’t have to reconnect for me to get you a key. I’ll give you one tonight.”

When he pulled away (but did not let my neck go), I caught his eyes and noted, “I’m okay with seeing the rope, Axl.”

“I’ve called for one of the guys to come, have a look, take some pics, and do some dusting for prints. I don’t want to disturb it until that’s done. Zane’s gonna be here in fifteen. So we go in the back way.”

That made sense.

I nodded.

He slid his hand from my neck so his arm was around my shoulders.

Sly was there.

Whoops.

Forgot we had company.

“Sorry, we didn’t get you a bagel,” I said to Sly. “We didn’t know you were here.”

“Cisco told me to show. I showed,” Sly explained.

“Food, fuck,” Axl muttered, clearly remembering we’d left it in his car.

He let me go to head back to the Jeep as Sly warned, “You eat in front of me, you’re gonna have to watch me eat later. I’m hungry.”

“Probably not as exciting as what I let you watch yesterday, but it won’t kill me.”

Sly smiled his agreement to this, which I didn’t think I’d yet seen him do, the smiling part. It turned him from looking like a lovable bruiser to a cute, lovable bruiser.

Axl re-joined us. We walked down the side yard to the back. I let us in.

And once we all got through the utility room, I watched Axl, trying not to let on I was watching him.

He certainly looked around, perhaps not with avid interest—ogling my shock-of-color art and my fantastic beanbag—but he definitely took things in.

So yes.

He’d wondered what home was for the girl who was his but not.

Like I’d wondered about what home was for him.

He didn’t turn and give me a thumbs-up.

He did one better.

He looked at his boots and he did that grinning.

I took that as a stamp of approval.

And even with some weirdo leaving bondage rope on my welcome mat, again came the joy.

I unearthed the bagels and got both the current men in my life drinks.

Axl started in when we were sitting at my bar, eating.

“You date anyone recently?”

I was surprised it was getting-to-know-you time with Sly leaning on a kitchen counter right across from us.

“Uh …”

“Let me explain,” he said. “This shit that’s happening to you does not stink of stalker. This stinks of wronged asshole.”

“Oh,” I replied.

Axl explained further.

“First, he knows your cell number. It’s not impossible to find a cell number, but it requires some work. Second, the threats are not escalating. He’s telling you what he wants to do to you and sticking with that. Third, it’s sexual in nature, which does not preclude a garden-variety stalker, far from it. But he seems stuck on one theme like he either thinks that’s the threat, or he thinks that will fuck with your head or … ” he hesitated, “that was something he wanted that maybe he didn’t get and he’s pissed about it.”

“I didn’t recognize his voice over the phone,” I noted.

“If you know him, in order that you wouldn’t recognize him, he could have farmed that part out.”

Great.

I looked to Sly. “Can we have a second?”

Sly readily lifted his lemon-lime ICE and stepped out on the deck.

Yeah.

I understood his reaction.

I didn’t want to be in on this conversation either.

I looked to Axl.

“The last guy I dated was a somewhat long time ago and he was really boring in bed.”

“I’m sorry, honey,” Axl replied.

Though, in saying this, he looked both sorry and like he thought something was funny.

I homed in on the last part.

“Bad sex isn’t funny, Axl,” I told him the god’s honest truth.

“I know, baby. Christ, you poor thing,” he soothed at the same time teased.

I looked away and took a bite of my bagel in an effort to share I was miffed.

“Back to the subject, Hattie,” Axl called.

I looked back at him, and in an effort to get this done, got over being miffed.

“Do you think he might feel like you done him wrong?” he asked. “Did he want to end it? Was there a guy before him that might be a red flag?”

All right.

Well …

This sucked.

Maybe one day, in the distant future, when we were enjoying a glass of wine in his Jacuzzi, I could share about lovers past.

And maybe not ever, since there was not much to share.

But before we even had our first date?

Not a big fan.

But he needed what he needed so none of the men in my life felt I needed a bodyguard.

And thus, I had to give it to him.

“The last guy I dated was a couple of months before Lottie met Mo,” I shared.

“Whoa,” he muttered.

Yeah.

It wasn’t years ago but it wasn’t weeks ago either.

The curse of the shy girl.

I sallied forth.

“I think he was excited that he was dating a stripper. This could be why we had about three dates before he was all in to introduce me to his friends, and about a second after he said my name, he told them I was a stripper. Therefore, we had about three dates after that so I could give him the benefit of the doubt. Then I quit taking his calls. I slept with him twice in that time, and like I said, it was boring. But I didn’t get to know him well enough to know if he had any latent or non-latent kink tendencies. He could be sweet, but in the end, I realized that hid he was mostly a jerk.”

Axl didn’t look amused anymore.

“The guy before that,” I went on with a shrug. “Big spender at the club. He was the first and only patron I dated. I did this because he bought four lap dances from me and he acted during them like it was less about the lap dance and more about getting to know me while I was giving them to him.”

Axl looked