He totally had.

Way longer than three days.

Bah!

“So, have a conversation about it,” Jet said to Ryn. “She doesn’t have to go for the gusto.”

A conversation might be doable.

It might not.

Axl and I now seemed to have no problem communicating.

But how did you bring up the conversation that essentially said, “Dude, I want you to fuck me.”

I absolutely wanted him to fuck me. If he could kiss that well, I was really looking forward to what else he could do.

Again …

Like … a lot.

I just didn’t know how to get him to do it.

I mean, he hadn’t even gone for my breast.

It was excruciatingly frustrating.

“I think it’s sweet he’s taking things slow,” Evie remarked.

“God, if Boone slept on the couch while I was in a bed a room away, for three nights, I’d have to figure out how to muffle my vibrator, I’d be she-bopping so much,” Ryn declared. “We actually had a conversation about taking it slow. Our slow lasted a day.”

Oh God.

Seriously, I felt that.

After all our snogging?

Then Axl just kisses my neck, tells me to sleep well and closes his bedroom door on me?

Man.

It had been crazy hard not to crawl between his sheets and have a little me time that I wished was we time.

“Talk to him, grab his dick, whatever. The conversation, verbal or physical, will last less than a minute before he does something—” Lottie cut herself off as she looked to the door.

The way she did that, I looked that way too.

And, to my surprise, incoming were Axl and Boone, with Axl looking …

Looking …

I braced because I’d never seen him look like that.

But it was not hard to read that look.

He was enraged.

Oh no.

What now?

My stalker had taken a day off. There’d been nothing from him on Friday.

Was he back with a vengeance?

“Oh shit.” Ryn.

“Holy hell.” Pepper.

“Oh boy.” Evie.

“What are you doing here?” Lottie.

Axl stopped by the pedestal I was standing on, his eyes raking me, they came to mine, and he demanded, “Jesus, fuck, what are you wearing?”

“Uh …”

“A bridesmaid dress, Axe,” Lottie answered for me. “Seeing as we’re at a dress fitting, and you know that. But I’ll repeat, what are you doing—?”

“Your father called you a whore?” Axl bit out, ignoring Lottie.

I looked to Boone who was looking apologetically at Ryn, which made me turn my attention to Ryn who was in full-on Eek! face.

Ryn told Boone, Boone told Axl.

Now Axl was here.

Enraged.

Damn.

“Eyes to me, Hattie,” Axl growled.

I turned instantly back to him.

“Uh …”

“And you’ve been fasting?” he clipped.

My gaze took the journey from Boone to Ryn again, which bought me another growled, “Eyes,” from Axl.

I started to move off the pedestal to him, seeing Mag now standing behind him with Boone, and I did this saying, “Honey, I—”

He shook his head, I stopped moving, and he stated, “Oh no, baby. Fuck no. Shit just changed with how we deal with your dad.”

Uh-oh.

“Listen, maybe we can talk—” I tried again.

“You’re not a whore,” he declared.

“I know that, but—”

“Does it even penetrate how entirely fucked up it is for a father to call his daughter a whore?” he asked.

I shut up, and not simply because, in truth, it actually hadn’t. It hurt he said that. I knew he was wrong about it. But it didn’t occur to me to take that one step further and think that was, indeed, entirely fucked up.

What it was, for me, was Dad just being Dad.

I also shut up because I’d learned this. That “this” being, when Axl got pissed and had something to say, I didn’t interject, even when he asked me questions.

“And you have a beautiful body,” he announced.

Oh.

Wow.

“What the fuck? Fasting?” he went on.

When he didn’t say anything for a while, I opened my mouth to share, but before I could, he threw up his arm, indicating me, and said, “For Christ’s sake, look at you. You’re fucking perfect. And you don’t need that dress to be that, but, baby, you in that dress. Fuck.”

I stood still.

I felt the girls go still.

The air went still.

Maybe even the earth stood still.

Because …

Perfect?

Oh man.

Okay.

Official.

I really needed my guy to fuck me.

“And you’re fasting,” Axl continued. “Because that asshole gets in your head. I told you, baby, he harms you, I intervene. I’m intervening.”

“It’s intermittent fasting,” I said softly. “It’s a program to—”

“Lose weight?” he asked curtly.

“Yes. I could stand to shed a few pounds.”

Like, maybe, twenty-five (okay, thirty) of them.

“Why? You out of shape?” he queried.

“Well, no.”

“So?” he pushed.

“What I’m trying to share is, it isn’t him. It’s something I want to do for me.”

“Think real hard, Hattie, honey. Isn’t it? Is. It. Not. Him?” Axl challenged.

Okay.

Um …

Heck.

It was.

It was him.

Whenever I felt crap about myself, it was always Dad.

“Yeah,” Axl said quietly, reading that realization on my face.

“Axl,” I whispered.

“We’ll talk about this more tonight,” he said, much more calmly. “But I am no longer okay with you walkin’ into his house with that target on your back, Hattie, knowing the extremes of his abuse.”

“Okay, we’ll talk about it,” I quickly agreed.

He nodded, turned his eyes to Lottie and said, “Apologies for interrupting, Mac.”

“Not necessary. In fact, I wish I could do an instant replay,” Lottie replied.

Even if that was kind of funny, Axl was in no mood, so he didn’t even smile.

He looked back to me. “I’ll be home around four. Will you be back?”