Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 68814 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 344(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68814 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 344(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
Hades’ eyebrows raised. “Really?”
Val rolled her eyes. “I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t mean it. Did you forget how I act?”
Hades snorted. “No.”
“Then trust your instincts.” She tilted her head. “Is that an engagement ring?”
Eyes wide, they all whipped their heads around and stared.
It was Keene’s low, angry voice saying, “Can I have a word?” that had me sighing.
“Sure.”
I winked at Hades, then moved off to the truck while the sisters moved farther into the tent and started discussing something.
Keene waited until they were well out of hearing distance before saying, “I know we’ve really mucked this up. Seems like I’m fucking up left and right. But she’s still my sister. One of my best friends. If you end up hurting her, I won’t be able to forgive that.” He narrowed his eyes at me. “And know that she hates being left behind. Your overseas trips are over.”
They weren’t.
But he didn’t need to know that.
“I’ll take care of her.”
He blew out a long breath then said, “You will.”
The ‘or else’ was left unspoken.
CHAPTER 23
I’m fucking busy. And unfortunately, it’s not the other way around.
-Hades to Hannibal
HADES
I wasn’t nervous.
We’d prepared well for this.
I’d also had my makeup professionally done, and my hair had been teased to the point where I feared whether or not I’d fit in the truck.
I pulled the black dress up over my hips, situated the sleeves over my shoulder, then realized the zip wasn’t happening on my own.
One, because I couldn’t reach it. Two, because it was so tight I would have to hold it together while Hannibal zipped me up.
We’d left the circus two hours ago, and now that left us scrambling to get ready after my hair and makeup had been done.
Hannibal had waited for me the entire time. He’d not been entirely comfortable leaving me there because we were now in the same town as Benji. He’d also never left my side unless he had a job that took him somewhere he agreed to be.
And even that hadn’t happened all that often because he hadn’t wanted to leave me alone.
I wasn’t sure why he’d given up his going out of town gig, but I was glad as I’d figured out my so-called life.
I’d also come to realize that Hannibal had become an integral part of my life.
I didn’t wake up or go to sleep without thinking about him. I didn’t plan my day without first seeing what it was he had planned.
My morning wasn’t complete without him bringing me a cup of coffee. My night wasn’t over until he brushed my hair.
I followed him to all of his jobs.
And you know the funny thing? He didn’t care that I was obsessed with him, and I fucking loved that he was obsessed with me.
There was nothing unhealthy about our relationship.
It wasn’t weird when I sent him seventeen texts in an hour.
He didn’t find it odd that I asked to follow his location using his phone.
He especially loved being able to pull up my location and follow me to wherever the hell I’d wound up that day.
It was awesome.
And I’d never realized how a person that was made for you, that freakin’ loved you, could be the complete complement to your personality until I found Hannibal.
The cars were the first thing we saw.
There were so many of them they’d started to park along the roadway.
“You parking way back here?” I asked curiously.
He tossed me the ‘are you kidding me’ look he was prone to do when I asked him questions he didn’t think I needed an answer to.
“Well, where are you going to go if they’re already parking back here?” I wondered.
He didn’t answer, instead pulling up into the parking lot that was filled to bursting.
He looped around the back, then he was parking in front of a gate that said ‘NO PARKING ANYTIME.’
I raised a brow at him, and he winked.
He got out, and I was about to do the same when I saw him walking up to the lock on the fence and popping it open with his lock-picking tool.
I scooted over into the driver’s seat and pulled it through, and he locked it back behind us.
When I went to scoot back over so he could park where he wanted, he opened the door and caught me, ass in the air, about to crawl back over the console.
“Mmmm,” he said as he pulled me backwards.
My breath hitched when I felt his stiff cock press into my backside.
“Han,” I said, not sure whether I was protesting or urging him on.
He took my indecision and ran with it, smoothing his hands up the length of my leg, pushing it under my skirt, and squeezing my ass.
My legs were dangling indelicately out of the car, and my torso was firmly in the seat, while my head was now resting on the middle console.