My first Axl.
But in this world, he was known as Chief.
It’s arguable, but that last might be a better moniker.
“Hey, Mr. Man,” I said, bending as he made it to me.
I picked him up, cuddled him to my chest, bent my head to him, and he stared at my face with his intelligent eyes, putting his fluffy kitty paw to my mouth.
God, I’d forgotten how silky soft his fur was.
“Yeah,” I whispered against his paw, “I miss you too.”
Axl/Chief started purring.
A hand came to rest on the back of my neck, fingers curling around.
“Did good with his namesake, Kit,” High said from beside me. “Man’s solid. Treats his woman like gold.”
“It’s weird,” I replied, still staring down at my kitten, “considering the inspiration.”
Tack was now standing in front of me.
“Nothing’s weird, babe,” he stated. “Especially when it comes from the heart.”
I looked up and again into his eyes.
“Red wants you for breakfast tomorrow,” Tack declared. “I’m making pancakes. Can you hit the foothills in the morning?”
Tack, his wife Tyra (or as he called her, “Red”) and Tack’s pancakes?
There was only one answer to that.
“Absolutely.”Chapter FourTake Care of YouAxlTwo weeks earlier…Axl parked his Jeep next to the burgundy Murano that sat outside the converted storage units.
It was late.
It was dark.
And she wasn’t responding to texts.
He was mildly relieved when he saw Hattie’s Murano outside her unit.
But his woman replied to texts, that night he’d sent five, got nothing, so he wasn’t totally relieved.
He exited his vehicle, went to the door to her unit, which was her studio, and as usual, didn’t knock before he went in.
The space was as it always was: an organized mess that was only organized in a way Hattie understood.
And Hattie was in the middle of it, dust in her hair, streaks of it on her face, and her jeans-overall shorts and the tight tank she wore under were also covered.
Her gaze came right to him.
“I’m trying a new medium and it isn’t working,” she said irately, rather than saying something like, “Hey,” or better than that, smiling at him, coming to him and offering her mouth.
He looked to the huge lump that sat on a thick wooden plank set over two sawhorses.
It, too, was covered in dust with added nuggets scattered around and overall coating of grit.
“It’s a stone that’s too porous. Everything I try, it crumbles.”
She was still talking irritably.
“So move on,” Axl suggested.
“But,” her gaze strayed to the stone, “it’s so pretty.”
She was right.
Still.
“Babe,” he said.
She was staring at the lump.
“Hattie,” he called again.
She looked at him.
“I’ve texted you five times. No reply,” he told her.
She looked shocked. “You have?”
Since she wasn’t coming to him, he went to her.
And when he did, he caught her jaw gently in his hand and dipped his face to hers.
“Shit’s been real in our crew, baby. I know you get into your thing when you’re at your studio. But when I text, I need you to reply.”
“Sorry, I got kinda involved,” she muttered.
“Understandable,” he said. “Just asking you to be mindful.”
“I kinda don’t even know where my phone is at this juncture,” she admitted, and he grinned at her.
Yeah.
She could get involved when she created.
And her focus was sexy as fuck.
He still needed her to check in.
Especially now.
“I thought you were testing a recipe for that cookbook,” she remarked.
“I was, and you were supposed to be there to taste it,” he reminded her.
He dropped his hand from her jaw when she glanced around, saying, “I’ll clean up a bit, we can go home, you can cook, and I can eat.”
He stared at her a beat before he informed her, “Hattie, it’s eleven o’clock at night.”
Her eyes got huge. “It is?”
Too fucking cute.
He nodded.
“No way,” she stated.
He chuckled and said, “Way.”
“Whoa, think I got more than kinda involved.”
“Yeah,” he agreed, smiling down at her.
“So you were texting me to get my ass home so you could feed me?” she asked.
“Not exactly,” he answered.
That was when she really took him in.
And after she did that, she leaned into him, putting her hands to his chest.
“What happened?” she asked quietly.
“Dad happened,” he answered.
Her pretty face instantly went hard. “What’d he do?”
He didn’t want to get into it there.
“Can we go home?” he requested.
She nodded immediately. “I’ll just…dust off and we can get out of here.”
“Thanks, baby.”
She gave him a grin she didn’t commit to considering her eyes were roaming his face, trying to get a bead on where he was at.
But she knew.
He was at where he always was when it came to his father.
Other than that, she didn’t waste time “dusting off.”
Then they were out of there, she locked up, got in her car, Axl pulled himself into his Jeep, and he followed her home.An hour and a half later...She was full-out on top of him.
It was after sex.
And after he’d shared.
