Deadline to Damnation (Sons of Templar MC 7)

He’d survive.

But it’d ruin him.

I couldn’t ruin the man I loved.

Even if that meant I might ruin my family.

“Go and get your brother ready for bed,” Cade instructed Belle, putting them both down and eying me.

He knew me well enough to almost read my mind. In addition to being a sex wizard, Cade was Oz Great and Fucking Powerful in regards to pretty much everything. I couldn’t hide anything from him. Not online shopping orders, not when I got Belle’s ears pierced and not when I was on the verge of having a total fucking mental breakdown.

“I’m a big girl, I can do that,” Belle said seriously, grabbing her brother’s arm and all but dragging him toward their rooms. Although she looked beautiful and delicate like a little doll, our daughter was not gentle with her little brother.

But he held his own.

Cade crossed the distance between us, yanking my hips so my body was flush was his. Despite my utter fucking mental breakdown, I responded.

Like a lot.

Fucking sex wizard.

“Don’t like seeing that pain behind your eyes,” he murmured, moving to stroke the side of my face. “Thought I’d seen the last of it.”

“You made me push two children out of my vagina, I’d say you were certain you hadn’t seen the last of me when you impregnated me. Twice.”

The corner of his mouth twitched. “I seem to recall you having a rather active role in the impregnation process,” he murmured, hands squeezing my hips.

I swallowed roughly as my vagina urged me to forget all unimportant things like the club’s imminent war with a cartel king and the prospect of impending doom and just jump on my husband.

Cade’s mouth twitch disappeared. “I’m comin’ back, babe,” he promised. He was so certain, so strong. My man could control a lot of things, a motorcycle club, the terrible twos, my vagina. But death he could not.

I had too much experience of a strong man making promises in war that he couldn’t keep. My heart constricted at the thought of Ian. At the thought of losing someone else to a war.

“You can’t make promises like that,” I whispered.

His hand tightened. “Yes, I can. I can do anything. I’m Oz the Great and Fucking Powerful.”

I froze. “Nope. You cannot be everything you are and read fucking minds now too. I want a superpower.”

His hands run along my stomach. “You have a superpower. More than one.” He kissed my jaw. “You gave birth to my daughter, my son.” He kissed my neck. “You fought through demons that would ruin most people.” He went back up my neck. “You saved me,” he whispered against my ear.

“I didn’t save you,” I protested.

His eyes met mine. “Yes you did, Gwen. I was a man that only knew bitter. Ugly. A man who was willing to live that because that’s what he thought life came to offer. Then you arrived. In those fuckin’ shoes, with your boxes, with your sweet. Your beauty.” He looked around the house, the one that was no longer a bachelor pad, but a tastefully decorated home with warmth coming from the walls, from the photos, from the memories. His eyes shimmered.

Cade.

My great and powerful hero was being brought to tears.

“I’m not just being brought to tears,” he murmured. “I’m being brought to my fucking knees,” he rasped, landing his lips on mine.

And I kissed him back. With everything I had in me. All my beauty. All my ugly. All my fear.

His hands roved over my body, the body he’d touched so many times before, the body he owned, but somehow, it always felt new, dangerous, exciting.

My hunger for him swarmed my mind, destroying the worries that had plagued me seconds ago. Or maybe those worries were the reason for my hunger being so intense. I needed to feel alive in the most carnal way possible. I wanted Cade’s touch bruising my skin.

But a crash and a cry sounded from somewhere in the house.

Cade stopped kissing me with a sigh.

Kids made it kind of hard to have crazy animal sex on the dining room table like I’d been planning on doing a second ago.

He kissed my head. “I got them.”

His hand moved down to the waistband of my jeans and then inside my panties.

I let out a low moan.

“Hold that thought,” he commanded, kissing me once more before stepping back and going in search of whatever Belle had done to her brother now.

I stared at the patch on Cade’s back.

“Wait,” I called.

He turned.

There was so much to say. So much that I didn’t need to say it.

“Did you actually read my mind?” I demanded.

He chuckled, a real chuckle. The sound filled me up, I tried to hold onto it so I could replay it when things didn’t feel as safe as they did now. “Your mind has a way of coming out of your mouth without you realizing it, baby.”