Quiet Man: A Dream Man Novella - Kristen Ashley Page 0,25

but she could have stayed standing.

But not if she wanted him to think he could best her.

Something she obviously did.

Slowly, forcing himself to take in the surrounding area as he did it, Mo got out, rounded the hood, noted the sister, Jet, was up, had moved a bit forward, had hands on hips, but she wasn’t watching her boys wrestle with their aunt on their aunt’s front lawn.

She was focused on Mo.

He could see Eddie going there. She was pretty, not as pretty as her sister, but pretty. Curvy. Way more curvy than Lottie. Dressed in jeans, flip flops and a tight, long-sleeved T-shirt that showed no cleavage but still didn’t leave much to the imagination.

Mo would lay money on the fact that Chavez both loved and hated that T-shirt.

Loved it when she wore it for him.

Hated it when she wore it in public.

This unlike Lottie, who was in another skintight tank, this one neon pink, and faded jeans (but Lottie also was wearing flip flops).

Well, not now. Both of them had come off in the free-for-all.

He’d ascended the slope just as the oldest one got her to her back, straddled her, shoving her down at her shoulders while the middle one (maybe five or six years old) threw himself on her legs and the littlest one (maybe three or four) was engaged in the concerted effort of trying to tickle her sides, something that was thwarted by his big brother’s legs.

“I got you!” the oldest one shouted in triumph.

“Give! I give!” Lottie yelled through giggles.

Well, shit.

Just shit.

He knew it before.

He knew it right then for certain.

He was fucked.

Because he could totally fall in love with this woman.

Yeah.

Shit.

“Let up your aunt, boys.”

Yup.

Eddie’s kids.

Mom spoke and all the boys immediately moved. He had a feeling “Wait until your father hears this” was immediately followed with the urge to piss their pants.

It was then, when they were forming a loose row, oldest to youngest, the oldest caught sight of Mo.

So that was when he whispered, “Holy smokes.”

Number two turned his head to check out what had his brother frozen in wonder and he caught sight of Mo.

His response was, “Dios mio.”

“Dante! Mouth!” Jet snapped.

“Holy smokes,” Dante decided to repeat after his brother.

“Hey! Are you Annie Lottie’s boyfrien’?” the youngest screeched at him.

Jet’s eyes cut to Mo.

“Whoa,” Dante said.

“Cool!” the oldest called out. “Auntie Lottie’s dating a badass!”

“Alex!” Jet spat. “Mouth!”

Alex was too overwhelmed with Mo to mind his mother.

This was why he stated, “Dude, you’re yooooooouge.”

“Do we speak that way to people?” Jet demanded to know.

Alex twisted toward his mother. “But, Mamá, he’s yooooooouge.”

“I don’t care. You don’t tell a man he’s large. He knows he’s large,” Jet educated. “And you definitely don’t tell your aunt’s boyfriend he’s large. It’s rude all around. It’s ruder in the family.”

In the family.

Oh yeah.

Shit.

Mo looked to Lottie who had not only taken her feet but regained her flip flops.

She was smiling, big and white at him.

He felt that smile in his gut, his balls and his chest.

Yeah, he’d been claimed.

How the fuck had he let that happen?

Thankfully, she turned her smile from him and declared to the boys, “We were just at the grocery store. Who wants to help us carry in and put away?”

“Me!” Dante yelled, then raced to the truck.

“Me!” the youngest shouted, then followed his brother a lot less agilely.

“Is it all healthy junk?” Alex asked his aunt.

“Who am I?” Lottie answered.

So that explained the Dove ice cream bars, caramel M&Ms, Tostitos and salsa and pork rinds, all purchases Lottie had not, in three days, demonstrated she’d ever let past her lips.

Alex grinned up at her. “You’re Aunt Lottie.”

He knew there were treats in those bags for her nephews.

Mo’d been wrong.

He could not fall in love with her.

That shit was already happening.

“Go help your brothers,” she said gently, grinning back at her boy.

Alex raced to the truck.

Dante was already digging in the back cab where the groceries were.

“And this is?”

Mo had felt Jet approach, but he was engaged in doing another scan of the street.

He turned back at Jet’s question.

“Jet, this is Mo, my new mound of hunkalicious boyfriend. Mo, this is Jet, my sister,” Lottie introduced.

As previously noted, Eddie Chavez and his crew, all of them, including the ones he was linked not-so-loosely to at Nightingale Investigations, did not know about what was going down with Lottie.

Another reason, after the second letter, they didn’t bring in the cops.

Or the Feds.

This meant Lottie’s sister couldn’t know. If she did, she’d be on