It, too, was covered in dust with added nuggets scattered around and overall coating of grit.
“It’s a stone that’s too porous. Everything I try, it crumbles.”
She was still talking irritably.
“So move on,” Axl suggested.
“But,” her gaze strayed to the stone, “it’s so pretty.”
She was right.
Still.
“Babe,” he said.
She was staring at the lump.
“Hattie,” he called again.
She looked at him.
“I’ve texted you five times. No reply,” he told her.
She looked shocked. “You have?”
Since she wasn’t coming to him, he went to her.
And when he did, he caught her jaw gently in his hand and dipped his face to hers.
“Shit’s been real in our crew, baby. I know you get into your thing when you’re at your studio. But when I text, I need you to reply.”
“Sorry, I got kinda involved,” she muttered.
“Understandable,” he said. “Just asking you to be mindful.”
“I kinda don’t even know where my phone is at this juncture,” she admitted, and he grinned at her.
Yeah.
She could get involved when she created.
And her focus was sexy as fuck.
He still needed her to check in.
Especially now.
“I thought you were testing a recipe for that cookbook,” she remarked.
“I was, and you were supposed to be there to taste it,” he reminded her.
He dropped his hand from her jaw when she glanced around, saying, “I’ll clean up a bit, we can go home, you can cook, and I can eat.”
He stared at her a beat before he informed her, “Hattie, it’s eleven o’clock at night.”
Her eyes got huge. “It is?”
Too fucking cute.
He nodded.
“No way,” she stated.
He chuckled and said, “Way.”
“Whoa, think I got more than kinda involved.”
“Yeah,” he agreed, smiling down at her.
“So you were texting me to get my ass home so you could feed me?” she asked.
“Not exactly,” he answered.
That was when she really took him in.
And after she did that, she leaned into him, putting her hands to his chest.
“What happened?” she asked quietly.
“Dad happened,” he answered.
Her pretty face instantly went hard. “What’d he do?”
He didn’t want to get into it there.
“Can we go home?” he requested.
She nodded immediately. “I’ll just…dust off and we can get out of here.”
“Thanks, baby.”
She gave him a grin she didn’t commit to considering her eyes were roaming his face, trying to get a bead on where he was at.
But she knew.
He was at where he always was when it came to his father.
Other than that, she didn’t waste time “dusting off.”
Then they were out of there, she locked up, got in her car, Axl pulled himself into his Jeep, and he followed her home.
An hour and a half later...
She was full-out on top of him.
It was after sex.
And after he’d shared.
“I kinda thought it was over, this crap with your dad,” she said.
It would probably never be over.
That was the way family was.
Or at least that was the way his dad was.
“I don’t have to respond,” he told her.
“Are you going to respond?” she queried.
“No.”
“I think that’s a good call,” she mumbled, her gaze wandering to his throat.
“He won’t give up, though,” he warned her, and she looked back to him.
“I know,” she whispered sadly, watching him closely.
“Babe, I can hack it.”
“Okay.”
She didn’t sound convinced.
So he repeated, “I can hack it.”
Hattie lifted a hand, trailed her fingers across his cheekbone, and also repeated, “Okay.” She then dipped her face closer and said, “Up for a second round tonight?”
Like she had to ask.
“My woman have creative energy to burn?”
“Frustrated energy,” she amended, and his brows shot up, considering what they’d finished doing not fifteen ago.
And both of them definitely finished.
This made him ask, “How frustrated can you be?”
She giggled, dipped even lower, shoved her face in his neck, and whispered beneath his ear, “The creative part of frustrated, honey. Like normal, last time, you did all the work.”
“If you’re up for taking over, I’m not gonna stop you.”
She lifted her head, gave him a grin, and kissed him.
After that, she kissed him a lot of other places.
But when she got between his legs, it wasn’t about kissing.
It was about licking.
And sucking.
Hattie gave phenomenal head.
But he couldn’t call it, whether he liked that better than when she took him to a place he couldn’t hold back, and she got off huge getting her face fucked.
Which was what happened.
He’d had to take his knees, twine his fingers in her soft curls, and fuck her mouth while he watched her touch herself in front of him.
Christ, that ass.
Using her hair, as gently as he could in the state he was in, he pulled out and tipped her head back.
His voice was thick when he ordered, “Turn around, baby. On your belly. Legs tight together.”
She was ready for him and he knew it when she scrambled to do as she was told and his cock jumped watching her do it.
He positioned, legs splayed wide, knees in the bed by her upper thighs, caught her hips in his hands, and found her, drilling deep into that slick wet.
“Fuck,” he grunted.
She whimpered.
Hearing it, he grunted, “Fuck” again.
She squeezed his cock with her pussy.
Jesus.
Even if this was the second round, it wasn’t going to last long.
“Hand under you, Hattie, baby, get yourself there,” he demanded.
She shoved her hand under her, and he knew she hit the target when it brought another whimper.
Then she flipped her head so it was to the side rather than her forehead to the mattress and her dark curls flew all over his sheets.
Oh yeah.
This wasn’t going to last long.
“Close?” he asked, his voice gruff.
“Honey,” she gasped.
“Baby, you close?” he bit off.
“Axl,” she sighed before her hips bucked, and her pussy pulsed around his cock.
Thank fuck.
He let go and joined her.
When he stopped coming, he had his head bowed and realized his fingers were digging into her flesh.
He relaxed, slid out, and came off his knees in order to lower himself and cover her back.
He shoved his face in the hair at her neck.
“You took over,” she grumbled hazily.
He grinned.
“I was supposed to do all the work,” she reminded him.
Axl lifted up only enough to pull her hair off her neck. He then kissed her there before he shifted to rest his cheek against her still-turned head.