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It was the first time he’d touched me in that kind of way.
So I wanted it to be about me not making a scene, but it wasn’t.
It was because his hand felt good wrapped around mine. It was big. Warm. I could feel the callouses, so it spoke about him. It said he was a man who worked. He was a man who didn’t put on airs. He wasn’t soft. He got stuff done.
And it was so big, my hand got lost in his, and that felt so…danged…good.
Like he could shelter me. Protect me. Wrap me up in him so the hurts of the world could never get to me.
And…
Yeah.
That was mostly what was on my mind as he towed me to his truck.
He opened the passenger side, and I wished I hadn’t released the surprised squeak that came when he reached under my hair, plucked the earpiece out of my ear (how did he know it was there?!), shoved it in his jeans pocket, picked me up…
Yes, picked me up!
…and dumped me in the passenger seat.
I was stunned immobile by these moves. So much so, he’d closed my door, rounded the grill and pulled himself up beside me before I had a reaction.
But it was too late.
He’d fired up his truck, there was an incessant beep, and over it he demanded, “Belt up.”
I had no choice but to do so since we were moving.
After I accomplished that, even though my fingers were fumbling due to being both extremely ticked off and feeling something else, something deeper, scarier, the beeping went away, I turned to him and shared irately, “My car is there.”
“We’ll send Cody to get it.”
Cody was another former Shadow Soldier, current NI&S Hottie Squad member.
“Cody doesn’t have my fob.”
Javi didn’t reply.
I’d been around these men enough I translated his silence. “He doesn’t need my fob to start my car.”
“We have fobs for all you women’s cars,” Javi stated.
Although this was insane (I mean, how did they do that?), it shouldn’t surprise me. Raye with Cap, Jessie with Eric, we knew the Hottie Squad looked after us. They’d hacked into the cameras trained on the Oasis parking lot (Oasis Square was the apartment complex where we lived). They had the code to the gate to the courtyard. They also had other things to keep tabs to keep us safe.
But it surprised me.
Actual duplicate car fobs?
“You have actual car fobs?” I asked as he turned onto Goldwater.
“We have actual car fobs,” he answered. “But, just sayin’, for fifty bucks, he’ll get your fob from the valet.”
I really didn’t want to think that fifty dollars would earn the key to my car handed over to a stranger, but since my car wasn’t all that much to write home about, and cost of living wasn’t either, I suspected fifty bucks would get someone the key from the valet.
“Okay, let’s move on to you dragging me out of that restaurant and poking your nose into Angel business,” I said.
“Yeah,” he replied. “Let’s move on to that. What are you women up to this time?”