God, he tastes good.
I’ve never been a stranger to swallowing him, but I almost don’t want to tonight.
Not when I have a strange, surreal, tender second where I’m marveling at how this hot seed just changed our lives in ways I’m only beginning to fathom.
But when I pull away, clean every inch of him, and then my own lips, there’s no doubt whatsoever in his eyes.
I’ve found my protector—the one I didn’t even know I ever asked for.
The king who pulled the sword from the stone in my heart.
The only man I’d ever let master every inch of me.
The last human being I’ll ever truly trust to make me happy.
And the only man worthy of sharing my life, my family, my everything.
* * *
Later that night, we lie in bed together, and I can’t miss the protective way his hand rests over my stomach.
He was just so rough with me, so passionate, so needy, so hungry it’s like he was trying to break me for anyone else.
Or maybe just get a head start on making another baby before the first one’s even born.
Now he’s looking at me like I’m everything in the world.
I almost can’t stand it.
My life has always been a curtain of moving shadows. A cascade of subterfuge and fluid identities. No matter how bright and bold I say I am, that life hasn’t had much room for pesky feelings in the ever-shifting darkness.
It’s almost painful to see someone watching me with so much light in his heart, in his eyes.
If he’s not careful, Oliver Major will ruin me with his love—assuming he already hasn’t.
“They won’t have her,” he says fiercely. “They won’t put their paws on our kid. We’ll get out of here, and I’ll dismember that entire company to make sure they can never touch her or us again.”
I can’t help but slip a shaky laugh. “You’ve already decided we’re having a daughter? Um, it’s just a clump of cells right now.”
His gaze flicks past me to the ultrasound on the nightstand.
“I know,” he says softly. “You’re too strong to give me anything but strong-willed baby girls who are just as wild as you.”
A weak smile pulls at my lips. His fantasies should make me happier.
“I don’t feel wild right now,” I admit. “I’m worried. We talk about taking them down, nothing new there…but we’ve only gotten in deeper over the years, Oliver. How do we have a child, and tell her the things we’ve done? The things we’ve enabled them to do? If there’s a hell, we’ve pretty much got express passes…”
So, this is new. Another emotion I’m not used to.
Regret.
But he captures my hand with a rough swipe, holding it against his heart.
It beats so strong under my palm, so fierce, so firm.
“We tell her life has a lot of fucking grey, Fuchsia,” he says, holding my hand so tight it hurts. But it’s the kind of good hurt I need.
My eyes flash as he licks his lips and continues.
“We tell her that her mother was pushed into a life that wasn’t hers for the choosing when she was too damn young to make a choice, and boxed in without any easy, safe way out. That her father went in blind. Not knowing what this situation would become, and he wanted to try to stay close where he could do real damage from the inside, even if it meant playing a dangerous waiting game. If we handle it any other way, we die, wildcat. And then we can’t be there for her at all.”
I swallow hard.
There’s no question he’s right.
“Do we tell her how scared we are, then?” I ask, searching his eyes, that devastating mocha-brown expanse, and I wonder if a man as calm and steady as he is can even feel fear at all. “That some of it’s just that we’re cowardly and weak and afraid to die?”
“That’s not cowardly or weak.” He presses his lips to my knuckles with a smile full of so much warmth, and that’s when I realize this man really loves me.
“Oliver…”
“It’s human to fear death. And it’s human to want to run from facing it for a little while longer,” he growls, then tugs me closer. “Come here, wildcat.”
I go into his arms, then, and let him wrap himself around me—around us.
Us.
God.
There’s two of us, right now, plus another one inside me.
With a shaky sound, I burrow myself against him.
He presses his lips into my hair.
“We’re not going to die,” he promises. “We just have to be smart so we get to decide how we choose to live. There’s a life after Galentron, beautiful. We put our heads together, we’ll find it.”
I don’t say anything. I can’t.
But I believe him.
I believe in him.
I won’t lose Oliver. Not over this. Not after the promises he’s made and the pact we just sealed with the most frenzied, heartfelt kiss of my life.