I nodded.

“Good,” he muttered. “We’ll finish this then.”

Great.

I started to move to him because it seemed like he was leaving, and I wanted to give him a kiss good-bye, but with a sharp movement, he lifted his hand my way, and I stopped again.

“Don’t get near me in that dress,” he warned.

I felt a flutter, two tingles, and a spasm, all of these in different places in my body, all of them awesome, all of them familiar, and all of them frustrating.

His face grew a little soft (but only a little, he was still ticked), and he said, “See you later, beautiful.”

Beautiful.

Oh God, the waterworks were coming.

I trusted myself only to nod while I tried to get a lock on the tears, both of which I accomplished.

There were general farewells all around with Boone going to Ryn and laying a hard, closed-mouth kiss on her before he and Axl departed.

The door barely closed on them before Lottie said, “You absolutely need to pounce on that man.”

“Oh my God, yes.” Ryn.

“Put him out of his misery.” Pepper.

“I mean, seriously.” Evie.

“I’m outta here again.” Mag.

“I was like you, before Eddie,” Jet said, referring to her husband, Eddie Chavez, and I focused on her. “I put him through the wringer. He had to do all the work. That meaning all the work.”

I so caught her drift.

“But, honey,” she kept on, “as much as I get you, that man really, really needs to fuck you.”

Oh boy.

Yikes!

“Do you think …him losing it like that about Dad …is because he’s frustrated?” I asked.

“No,” all of them, every single one, answered at the same time.

Okay, so that sitch wouldn’t have an easy fix.

My eyes wandered to the door.

“Are you in any doubt he wants you …and bad?” Pepper asked, and I turned to her. “I mean, Hatz, he couldn’t even let you get near him wearing that dress for fear of what he’d do if you did.”

“Fireman’s hold then sex noises from behind the curtain in the dressing room,” Ryn guessed.

“I think, since it would be their first time, he’d have it together enough to take her to his car, drive her home and do her in his bed,” Evie shared her version. “Though, he’d take her to his car in a fireman’s hold.” Pause, then, “And the same when he took her to his bed.”

“Nope. He might get her to his car, but he’d do her there,” Pepper put in.

“Okay, we all need to stop talking about Axl doing me now,” I warned, visions of me in a fireman’s hold on Axl’s shoulder dancing in my head and the flutters, tingles and spasms were back with a vengeance.

The girls grinned at each other.

And that included Lottie, but she did it noting, “What they’re saying is, you can share with him what you need. He needs it too. As bad or worse than you. You guys have been waiting a long time for this. And you can trust him with it, Hattie. You can also trust him to take care of the both of you.”

She was right.

There was one thing I was getting, and that was coming in strong.

I could trust Axl Pantera to take care of me.

It still wasn’t going to be easy.

But I was avoiding avoidance.

I was tackling things that scared me.

Right?

Right.

Damn.

* * *

At around four that afternoon, I was on Axl’s deck with Evie and Mag when Mag suddenly said, “We are so gone.”

That was right before we all heard the garage door going up.

Oh God.

Axl was home.

Evie was in a moon chair beside me, Mag’s (very, the man was six foot four) long body was sprawled in a lounge on the steps up to the Jacuzzi, I was in the other moon chair.

But, as one, we all rose from our positions.

I knew, however, I was the only one who did it nervously.

Good-bye hugs were swift and out on the deck.

By the time we all piled into the kitchen, Axl was also coming into the kitchen.

I might have stared at him like a deer caught in headlights (actually, I was pretty sure I stared at him like a deer caught in headlights).

Axl was staring at me like he really wanted to say something, but whatever it was, he couldn’t do it in company.

“We gotta bounce,” Mag said into our staring contest, going to Axl and doing the bro hug of hands clasped before them, chest bump, back thump, release.

Evie went in for a regular hug.

When they cleared away, Axl looked to me, and like we had a mind meld, we both moved to each other, then moved together behind Evie and Mag to follow them to the front door.

And Axl took my hand as we did.

We stood at the front door, calling good-byes, Mag saying we’d get together, and he’d do his grilled pizza (grilled pizza?).

Then they were gone, the front door was closed, and Axl and I were standing at it, still holding hands, and staring at each other again.

As usual, he got there before me.

“I need to apologize for busting in on your time with Mac and the girls,” he said. “That was uncool. And I’m sorry. Though, honey, I gotta say, I’m not gonna apologize for being insanely pissed about that shit regarding your dad. We need to talk this through, but now, I gotta reiterate something I didn’t leave any real doubt about earlier. I got a serious problem with you going to see your father without me. At least until he gets, from me, that you now have a man in your life that won’t tolerate him being a dick to you.”

“I need you to fuck me.”

Yup.

It came right out just like that.

And I knew it wasn’t a figment of my imagination, me thinking it and not saying it (like should have happened) when his head cocked sharply to the side.

Damn!

“What?” he asked.

“Uh …” I answered.

His hand in mine got tighter and he started moving, and since I was connected to him, I started moving too, him going forward, me going back.

“Say that again,” he ordered.

“It’s just that, um …I really like kissing you,” I said.

He shifted us so we’d round the armchairs.

And our destination was clear.

Oh man.

“That wasn’t what you said,” he noted.

“Well, uh … you, and, um …me, that is—”