Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 137310 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 687(@200wpm)___ 549(@250wpm)___ 458(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 137310 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 687(@200wpm)___ 549(@250wpm)___ 458(@300wpm)
Singing Big Petey off on his last ride.
Halfway through the song, people were smiling, eyes were lighting, breath was being breathed back into a loving family who’d lost their cornerstone and hadn’t known what to do.
Until then, when they realized the man who formed that cornerstone did it so strong, it’d never crumble.
And they realized the man who set it would always be part of the very foundation of the beauty that was built on top of it.
Because, when Chaos hit their next time, with Peter Waite’s support, grit and guidance, they got it right.
In Hugger’s room at the Compound, I left the bathroom after cleaning up.
Hugger and I had just made love.
It wasn’t that we never did it that way, we did. Though it was rare. We preferred to get physical, raunchy, rough, intense.
But that night, he took his beautiful, sweet time with my body, I did the same with his, and in this moment, at the end of this dreadful day, it was perfect.
Hugger’s room at the Compound, I’d noticed the time before, and again right then, was clean and tidy, like he always was everywhere.
He’d been so conditioned to take care of the little he had, even when he had more, he did the same.
The week before, I’d considered it a minor triumph when he left his clothes on the floor of our bedroom, rather than what he normally did, gathering them up and putting them in the laundry hamper, when he had an early meeting with Buck about the properties they were looking at.
I was maybe the only woman on the planet who wanted her man to loosen up when it came to keeping their place tight.
But in the end, if he didn’t, he didn’t.
I’d take him any way he came.
When I got close, Hugger lifted the bedclothes that were covering him from the waist down, so I could enter the bed, something I did, finding my place right on top of him.
When I settled in, he traced his big hands up my back and said softly, “Why am I the only guy existing who’s considering going back to condoms, so my baby doesn’t have to haul her ass to the bathroom after sex?”
Okay, okay, okay.
Oh-freaking-ficial.
I so totally loved this man.
“Deal, from here on, I clean you up,” he continued.
“Deal,” I agreed.
His eyes moved to the side and back to me. “Your phone’s been goin’, baby.”
I’d heard it, vaguely, during sex, but obviously only very vaguely.
I sighed, reached out to nab it, thumbed it and showed it my face, then scanned the texts.
I put it back on his nightstand and turned to him.
“Texts from Bernie, Charlie and Mel. Also Gerard. And shocker, Annie remembered too. They want me to tell you different versions of you and your family are in their thoughts.”
“Sweet. Tell ’em thanks,” he muttered.
“Will do,” I replied and stroked his beard. “How are you hanging in?”
“Feel absolute shit…and totally great.”
I didn’t get that, but I stayed silent and let him do what I knew he’d do.
Give it to me.
He did.
“When I lost Ma, I didn’t know what I was heading into, and that was shit, but more, I did it alone, and that made it impossible to maneuver. That’s why I got stuck in it. I didn’t know how to pull myself out, and I didn’t have anyone to show me the way.”
My poor baby.
I continued to stroke his beard.
“Losing Pete isn’t any less shit,” he carried on. “Having lost someone before and knowing how bad it’s going to be isn’t any less shit either. The difference is havin’ my brothers, my family.” His hands stopped roaming my back. “And havin’ you.”
I melted into him.
Or, I was pretty melted into him, so I oozed into him.
“Babe, your dad, Nic and Larry showing was all kinds of cool,” he whispered.
“They like you,” I whispered back.
“Yeah,” he grunted.
“No, they really, really do,” I teased, but it was still the truth.
He slid his hands to the cheeks of my ass and gave them a squeeze.
I smiled at him. It wasn’t beaming but it was genuine.
Then I took a breath and let it flow.
“And I love you,” I said.
Hugger went solid under me.
Then he rolled us so he was on top.
“Say it again,” he ordered.
I smoothed the hair away from his handsome face, gazing into those warm, intense, beautiful brown eyes, and I whispered, “I love you, Harlan McCain.”
He slanted his head and kissed me, hard, wet, long and deep.
When he broke it, my lips were bruised but my eyes were stinging with tears because Hugger was a tremendous kisser, but that was the best yet by far.
And I knew why it was.
But he was my Hugger.
So he told me.
“Love you too, baby,” he said.
A tear slid out of the corner of my eye.
Hugger caught it with his thumb, dipped to rub his nose against mine…