Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 121755 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 487(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121755 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 487(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
Let’s just say they were taking no chances.
So Gabe having a key to my place didn’t surprise me since he had one when he was my bodyguard, I’d never asked about it then (because, obviously, he’d need one), and I’d never asked for it back (Freudian?).
But it was a point to ponder.
All of this was points to ponder.
Just…
Later.
I rolled to my back, stared through the pitch dark toward my ceiling, and forced myself into total recall of last night.
I remembered Gabe and I arriving back at the Oasis to find the common occurrence of a mini shindig developing in the courtyard.
Since this included Linda, Bill, Zach, Sally, and Mouthy Martha, all of whom I adored (yes, even Mouthy Martha, I might adore her most of all because you gotta love a woman who has no issue with using her voice) and my (and Gabe’s, not incidentally) close friends Joey, Gemma, Raye and Cap, Harlow and Javi, along with chips and dip, not to mention the universal call to gather…tacos, Gabe and I joined.
I also remembered everyone looking at us with no small amount of interest.
This was not only due to the fact we arrived together. It was also that Gabe made absolutely no bones about the fact he was so very done avoiding me.
At once, I learned when Gabriel Stark was making a statement, it included a lot of closeness and touching.
A whole lot.
This, of course, drove me straight to tacos, beer and denial.
I further remember Patsy joining, and then Jess (sans Eric, who was working), also Shanti, who’d been over to her folks’ house for dinner.
And I remembered I eventually was in a lounger by the pool with a beer in my grip and Shanti and Harlow flanking me, both unable to ask about Gabe since he was close, but even so, forming those questions with their eyes.
Since he was close, I couldn’t answer, and there was so much to say, I certainly couldn’t do it only using my eyes.
Last, I remembered I must have fallen asleep in that lounger because the next thing that came to me was waking up when Gabe was carrying me into my bedroom.
As all these memories bloomed in my head, I realized I could not get pissed at him for one thing. That being the fact I could tell I was wearing my nightgown.
You see, I was so out of it, when he put me to my feet in my bedroom, I’d simply lifted a hand to point at the hooks on the back of my door where my baby-pink, deep-V front, short-short, racerback nightie was hanging.
He’d brought it to me, and right then, lying in bed in the dark, I could feel the heat in my cheeks, because I’d actually changed right in front of him.
I’d then collapsed into bed.
Though, I did not recall inviting him to join me there.
And I might have been kinda out of it a few minutes ago, but I was not so out of it I didn’t feel the man was only wearing his underwear. I’d felt the roughness of his hairy legs against mine, his also hairy chest catching at my nightie, and lots of skin.
Later, I would marvel at the fact the man could dress and leave an apartment in ten seconds flat (marvel at it and wonder at it because that seemed a pretty practiced exit and might not say good things).
Now, I simply had to contain the freakout all this caused, because, on a turn of my head, I could see my alarm was two minutes from sounding and I had to get my ass out of bed and face the day.
One thing I knew, I was going to have to have a pretty stern convo with Gabriel Stark.
And soon.
Because that was not happening again.
Ever.
Boo! Dreamer protested.
Good Girl, Logic approved.
Ugh.
With no choice, I set all of that aside and got out of bed.
At five ’til five, all gussied up and ready to make some muffins, and later, some tips, but still dragging (I could seriously not wait until Sunday), I parked my little blue Mitsubishi Mirage in the parking lot behind The Surf Club.
I got out of my car, closed the door, locked it, started toward the back door to SC, and instantly understood I’d learned a life lesson that I was both grateful for, and wished I’d never endured.
Apparently, a girl’s instincts ramped up after she’d been kidnapped (thanks, Trev!).
This was why I pulled my always-charged Taser out of my bag, whipped around and aimed it at the man who was loitering in the parking lot.
I kept it aimed even as I saw illuminated by Tito’s solar-powered lot lights that I knew the guy.
It was Mr. Shithead, one of our informants who was not a friend. He was skeevy and crotchety, and he liked us about as much as we liked him.