Coming Home (Morelli Family 6)

To be fair, though, I also generally play nice. I’m too cautious of Mateo thinking the sharing is wearing on me too much, too unsure of what that would mean for Meg. She doesn’t seem to worry about any of that, but then there’s no reason to.

We all know Mateo would never hurt me.

Chapter One

Mia

“I never want to go back home.”

Two strong arms curl around me, pressing me against the balcony and keeping me close as I look out at the white sand beach, sparsely dotted with palm trees. The gentle ocean breeze blows my hair back. He releases one arm around me to bunch it up in one hand and tug the blond strands aside, clearing the way for him to kiss the nape of my neck. I close my eyes to savor the feeling, but only for a second; I don’t want to tear my eyes away from the ocean. Everything about this moment is perfect and I want to remember it forever.

“It’s so beautiful,” I murmur, my hand coming up to rest lightly on the back of his head as he buries it in my neck.

“It sure is.”

I smile at the sound of his rough voice in my ear. “You’re not even looking at the beach,” I point out.

“Then I must not have been talking about that,” he reasons, lightly. Still, he stops kissing my neck long enough to look out over the balcony at the beautiful Bahamian beach below.

“I love having you all to myself,” I tell him, giving in to a moment of selfish honesty.

Mateo’s voice is more solemn than usual as he answers, “I know. I do, too.”

Reality weighs on me for a moment. It usually doesn’t; after four years of sharing this wonderful man with Meg, I’m used to it. The thing is, I can handle him now. With Vince gone, he’s not hard to handle at all. It’s not all smooth sailing and beach vacations, of course; he’s still him. But now that all the big obstacles are out of way, he’s much more relaxed. I never need a break from him anymore. I may have needed Meg for training wheels when this first started, but now I’m fully capable of riding on my own.

I’m also completely confident he’s my soulmate. After four years, I still crave him like I did when I could only sit beside him at the dinner table, belonging to someone else.

Given our arrangement, he hasn’t married either of us. I look down at my left hand resting on the rail of the balcony. At the five carats of emerald cut Harry Winston on my finger. My ring is a lot bigger than Meg’s and significantly more expensive, but I think only because he knows I’m more into that kind of thing than she is. It’s perfect for me, but it wouldn’t suit Meg at all.

Hers was supposed to lead to an actual wedding, though. It hasn’t, not in four years. I think that’s my fault. He can’t marry her without not marrying me, so he doesn’t marry either of us.

I rarely ask about it. I’m as comfortable with him as someone can be, but I don’t like bugging him about that kind of thing for a lot of reasons. I don’t want to be a hassle, for one thing. I know it’s a complicated situation and he doesn’t like to discuss marital things, so I feel troublesome if I bring it up.

Also, I don’t want him to think I want Meg gone. I know I’m his favorite, and I know what he’s capable of; if he thought having her around hurt me in any way, I’m not completely sure he’d keep her around.

Which, considering she’s nearly five months pregnant with baby number two right now, you wouldn’t expect. But it turns out Meg was right—I can sorta wield him.

Her new pregnancy also makes me a little pissy though, because it’s been four damn years and she still won’t let me have his baby. I think it’s just a punishment at this point. She knows I’m his favorite, too. I think she likes that he lets her keep that stipulation, because we all know he doesn’t abide any rules he finds too restricting.

After four years, he’s never even let me go on the pill, even though he hates condoms, so he can maintain the freedom to change his mind on a dime. To keep the subtle threat there, maybe. Meg isn’t me, so she doesn’t like that side of him, but when she starts to aggravate him, he’ll whip it out to knock her back in line.

Here on our beachfront balcony, Mateo’s hand snakes inside the little triangle of black fabric covering my breast and I smile, leaning back against him. “We can’t have sex again. We need to go shopping.”