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

there to see her dancing that day Axl and Ryn saw her dance. Falling in an elegant heap on the floor. Soaring through the air in a way Michael Jordan would say, “Damn.”

And Aug had not been woken up in the middle of the night to witness a tough woman who had no idea she was tough, she was amazing, she created beauty in a variety of ways from her art to her dancing to decorating her apartment to the dress she put on for him, pull it together to finally sort their shit.

So he’d let Auggie off the hook.

For now.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Safe Place

HATTIE

Shit, you two are killing me.”

This was what Sly said after he entered Axl’s house in front of me. This being once I was done dealing with my dad and he drove me there.

I understood him.

The place smelled like heaven.

And I got to eat whatever that was, and Sly didn’t.

Axl appeared in the dining area.

Yup.

Heaven.

Axl kept moving, doing it smiling at me at the same time looking like he wanted to pounce on me.

I watched him moving, not smiling, but knowing I definitely looked like I wanted to pounce.

Gone was his usual work gear of cargos and tee.

In their place: supremely faded jeans, a different tee, this one dark heathered gray with yellow letters that said BLACK RIFLE COFFEE COMPANY around a knife, and his feet were bare.

Oh yes.

I wanted to pounce.

Axl made it to me, hooked me around the neck with his arm, I hit his body and his mouth hit mine.

We didn’t go at it.

But I got a reminder he sure tasted good.

“I do still exist,” Sly griped.

We broke it off, but Axl didn’t let us break apart. He kept his arm around my neck but positioned me to his side.

“And you guys suck,” Sly finished.

“Apologies, man,” Axl said, miraculously sounding both apologetic and not.

Sly hulked to the door.

“Thanks for keeping me safe today,” I called.

He stopped at the door and pinned me with a look.

“Your shit is great. Stop fucking around,” he ordered.

And with that, he left.

“What was that?” Axl asked.

I looked up at him to see him looking down at me.

And did it make me a freak I could stand there, claimed by him, gazing up into those steely blues for the rest of my life?

“He came to the studio with me today.”

Axl’s dark brows shot up. “You worked in the studio?”

I shook my head. “First, I rehearsed. One of my routines tonight has some tricky lighting, so I had to go through it with the lighting guys.”

Axl shifted us around and started walking us, attached, to the kitchen, saying, “And?”

“Then, well …I’m feeling the bug. Got something in my head. I had to go to the studio to check materials. And I found what I knew I’d find. I needed to make an order. So no, I didn’t work. But I’m going to get back to it once my order comes in.”

“Mm,” he hummed, detaching from me in the kitchen and pulling a stool from the wall that had a chrome base and footrest and black leather seat with back.

The only stool of its kind in the kitchen, but it was kickass.

He adjusted it to a place by a counter where it looked like he was making a salad and then shifted me so I knew he wanted me to climb up, which I did.

Once I was there, he moved to a cupboard, opened it, and I saw upside-down hanging wineglasses.

He commandeered one—awesome, wide-bowled and tall. He came back to the counter where the salad prep was happening, and I saw there was another wineglass there, filled with red. Not to mention the bottle.

He nabbed the bottle, poured and handed the glass to me.

“So what else did you do today?” he asked, picking up a knife and going back to cutting cucumber.

Okay.

Um.

Okay.

Was all that just … awesome?

“Hattie?” he called.

“Remind me, if I get a chance, and I’m home before you’re home, to be equally awesome with you.”

His expression changed, and apparently he liked what I said so much, he felt it needed to be communicated beyond that change.

So he put the knife down, came right to me in a way I had to open my knees so he could get between them. Once there, he took my jaw in both hands, and yeah.

That time we went at it.

When we broke off the makeout session, I was minimally panting, Axl was all I could see, and I was in no doubt he liked what I’d said.

“So, good day?” he asked.

A giggle erupted from me and I answered, “Yeah. And it keeps getting better.”

His eyes glittered with icy-blue goodness before he slid his hands away and went back to cucumbers.

I took a sip of my (excellent) wine and inquired, “How was your day? Or can I ask that?”

“You can ask that, if you don’t mind non-detailed answers,” he shared. “And we had some movement on a case. That movement is promising only because there’s been no movement for weeks. So, bottom line, it’s good.”

“Great,” I said, before I asked, “Where’s Cleo?”

“Hiding and preparing her complaint there’s someone in the house that divides attention from her, which she’ll add to her ongoing, active, but contradictory complaint about not having the house to herself where I only visit to feed her and appear when she’s feeling like getting some love.”

That didn’t get a giggle.

It just made me laugh.

He shoved the cucumber aside, grabbed a carrot and asked nonchalantly, “How’s your dad?”

Dang.

He looked at me out of the sides of his eyes, “Honey, we’re gonna have to go there.”

I sighed.

Then I said, “He was a jerk.”

And he was.

Not calling-me-a-whore jerk, but, say, in the mid-to-lower range of Dad’s multiple levels of jerkiness.

Axl looked down at the carrot in a manner I knew he intended to look down at the carrot so he didn’t do something else, like press me for details, demand I never see my father again, or get one of his six guns and