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)
Di relaxed and caught up with her dad.
There was a lot they talked about that made Hugger feel out of place.
They were both highly educated and well-traveled, with Armitage sharing he continued to tour the world the years Di wasn’t in his life, hitting Sweden, Poland, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea and Japan.
Di told him all about her internship in London and her “museum vacations” to Washington DC, New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles, and her “beach vacations” to St. Thomas and Aruba.
Hugger didn’t have a lot to offer, and fortunately, they were so into catching up, that was neither noticed nor expected.
Though Di, being Di, made sure he wasn’t left out, touching him, smiling at him, leaning in to bump him with her shoulder to indicate she hadn’t forgotten he was there and making sure his plate was piled high.
They ate a gut-busting amount of food, and Armitage still unearthed a caramel apple pie he’d bought that made Di sniffle, telling Hugger that was another favorite, but again she held it together.
She said she was going to host her dad for their next dinner, and Armitage jumped right on that.
They set it for the next Wednesday.
The mood came over her the minute they hit the car.
And now he had to do something about it.
He just had no clue what.
He walked down the hall to her bedroom just in time to see her standing on her side of the bed, her phone to her ear, obviously in the middle of leaving her mother a message.
“…acting like a child. Stop pouting. I had dinner with Dad tonight, and you and I have something important to talk about. Call me.”
She stabbed her screen then looked at Hugger.
“I’m such an idiot,” she decreed.
Shit, he was glad she was talking.
Even so, he didn’t like what she was saying.
“You are not,” he growled.
“All my life, I’ve been ignoring what a spoiled brat she is.”
“She’s your ma. That’s shit you don’t notice.”
“Well, Dad wasn’t like that. Nic wasn’t like that. So how didn’t I notice?”
“Because she’s your ma.”
She stared at him a beat before she teetered, landing face first in the bed.
Christ, the last few weeks she’d been put through the gamut of emotions.
And still, she could be cute.
He toed off his boots before he got in the bed on the other side, claimed her under her arms and hauled her up to his side.
He then went still when Diana shifted so she was on her hip and she could flip off her pumps. She then immediately shifted again so she was straddling his hips, collapsed her chest on his and dug her forehead into his neck.
“There’s more with Dad,” she announced. “Stuff we have to talk through. But I think I’m getting it.”
“Getting what?”
“Why it felt like he was so hard on me. Okay, not felt like, he was hard on me. But maybe he was like that so I wouldn’t turn out like Mom.”
Hugger had his fingers wrapped around her waist. She felt too good astride him, her weight on him, her smell everywhere. All of that was so fantastic he didn’t trust himself to move his hands.
So he kept them where they were and asked, “How was he hard on you?”
She pushed up so she was resting her forearms in his chest, which wasn’t better or worse on the effect she was having on his cock, though now he could see her beautiful face and fantastic hair, and that was definitely worse.
Fuck, he had to get his shit tight. She was going through something and all he could think about was banging her.
“I had to get good grades, as in, a B was unacceptable,” she said. “Extracurricular activities, and a lot of them, so I could have a well-rounded experience in school and didn’t ‘waste my time,’ Dad’s words, on something useless like TV. I had chores around the house. I had a reading list that was not school mandated, but Dad mandated. He opened a joint checking account for me when I was sixteen, and I had to keep it balanced monthly and show him my work. He had firm opinions about how I wore my hair, and my clothes, lecturing about how they represented me, but also him. He was also pretty intense about me not gaining weight. He’s a fit guy, and into healthy living, and he pressed that on me in a big way.”
Listening to all of this, Hugger treaded cautiously. “So, essentially, he was a dad.”
“It was a lot, Hugger, and maybe as a man, he didn’t get how being judgy about how a girl ate and her weight and appearance are really, really not good things. But more, I never got a ‘well-done.’ It was more, ‘okay, you did that, this is what you need to learn next.’ His disappointment was pretty extreme when I put a foot wrong, and he didn’t hesitate to share it. It felt like he wanted me to be a Stepford kid. Part of it was suffocating, most of it was that it sucks to disappoint your dad.”