“Of course.”

She grinned at him. “Then shower.”

And back she went to her hair.

He moved to his room, pulled off his clothes, tossed them on the chair, boots and socks remained on the floor, then walked naked back into the bathroom.

She turned to him again, her eyes doing a full body scan, but sticking on his cock.

This meant he got behind her, fit himself to her body, bent in and kissed her neck, getting a whiff of her perfume, feeling his cock stir (again), and he said in her ear, “You can have it later.”

“Mm,” she hummed.

He kissed her neck again then went to the shower.

When he got out, Hattie was still at the sink fucking around with her hair, but now she was doing it with Cleo sitting on the bathroom counter, tail swishing, staring at her in fascination.

Axl didn’t question that.

He understood a fascination with Hattie’s curls.

But when he reached for a towel, Cleo remembered nothing fascinated her. And doing so, she tossed him a look, jumped down, and Axl stopped and stared as she ran her body along the backs of Hattie’s legs as she strutted out.

“Jesus, what’d you do to my cat?” he asked.

“Well, as she’s a girl,” Hattie told the mirror, “and I’m a girl, I realized the best way to win any girl over was to offer her girl time.” She stopped fucking with her hair and turned fully to him. “In other words, I took some time with Cleo, and she and I had a chat which was mostly me chatting, and Cleo snarfing down a bowl of tuna.”

“In short, you bribed her with food.”

“Totally.”

Axl chuckled.

Hattie leaned a hip against the basin and watched him towel off.

“Babe, it’ll take me five minutes to dress and we need to be out the door in five minutes. I don’t have time to fuck you which means we don’t have any for you to change your mind seven more times about your dress, or your shoes, or—”

“I got it, I got it,” she said, whirled, her skirt flew, and she was out the door.

He seriously wished he had that twenty minutes he’d wanted to have before they needed to leave when he walked from the hall, dressed in jeans and a white button-down, his shoes in his hand, to see Hattie rise from the bed wearing a pair of high-heeled yellow sandals with a thin ankle strap, a little gold at her throat and wrist, and a sheen of gloss on her lips.

He’d woken her up to fuck her that morning before he had to get up and shower, then leave.

With Sly at the door to take duty, he’d left her in his bed.

That fuck, officially, wore off the minute he saw her in those shoes with that lip gloss.

Now he was wishing even more than he did before—and he wanted this visit out of the way, but he’d never been looking forward to it—that he hadn’t caved when his mother pushed for this dinner.

He beat back the need to at the very least kiss her, and hard, which he knew would lead to them both wanting other things, which in turn would mean his resolve would buckle, and he got on with putting on his shoes.

She grabbed her purse. He grabbed her hand.

And at the door to the garage, he called, “Later, Cleo.”

Nothing.

“Later, shmoochmagooch,” Hattie called.

A distant meow.

“Shmoochmagooch?” he asked.

“During our chat I learned she likes baby talk,” she told him.

Fucking hell.

This made him grin and he kept doing it even when he was backing them out of the garage.

Bad news, they were on their way and it was always a crapshoot with his dad how things would go.

Good news, Hattie seemed a lot calmer than when he walked into the house.

“You good?” he asked to confirm.

“Absolutely not. I’m totally freaking out,” she answered.

He glanced at her and saw none of that.

“You seem good,” he noted.

“I’m faking it.”

Back came his grin.

“Honey, it’s gonna be okay.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“It is. Most importantly, it’s going to happen, and that means eventually it’ll be over, we’ll be home, and it’ll be behind us.”

“Smart advice. I will now commence visualizing the ride home.” She then put her hands up at her sides, tip of her thumb to tip of her middle finger, and she began chanting, “Om.”

Now he wasn’t grinning.

He was laughing.

Fuck, she was something.

Yeah.

Cute girls totally did it for him.

She stopped chanting, dropped her hands and asked, “How was your day?”

“I had duty at the monitors,” he shared. “We take turns having to sit there and stare at them. I got three days of that and then I’m back out from behind my workstation. Which I already know will be the best day of the week.”

“Man of action,” she noted.

“Definitely not a man of sitting on my ass all day,” he replied.

She didn’t say anything, and at a glance, he saw her lips tipped up, looking amused, staring out the windshield.

It was a good segue, so he took it.

“Sometimes, depending on what jobs we’re on, I got night duty doing that,” he told her.

“All right,” she said.

“That’s not a problem?” he asked.

“Honey, I work nine to two in the morning. Is that a problem?” she asked back.

“No.”

“I can hardly be ticked at you that you have to work nights when I work nights.”

Right.

“Yeah,” he said through his chuckles. When he stopped chuckling, he asked, “Did you get to your studio today?”

“I was in the middle of a tourney of Pac-Man with Sly, and, by the way, he’s nowhere near as good as you, so I kicked his ass, when I decided the dress I picked to meet your folks in didn’t work. We went to four stores. Sly carries a gun. That’s the only reason it wasn’t five. I felt the need to make up for it, so I took him to Cherry Cricket for lunch. He was feeling the burn of me kicking his ass so he forced a short first to win two takes it all at the video machine, which I won. Commence freak-out about the dress, because I decided on a red one, but obviously, since I’m not wearing it, it wouldn’t do. So that would be a no on the studio.”

“Maybe tomorrow,” he replied.