“Half naked.”

She laughed and lifted an arm up to curl around my neck. “Of course.”

“How’s the drive from Austin going?” Ayden refused to get on a plane this far along into her pregnancy even if her doctor had informed her it was perfectly safe. She insisted she wasn’t taking any unnecessary chances with her little girl, so she and Jet were driving in the unpredictable weather so they could be here next week for Rome and Cora’s wedding.

“She sounds fine. Jet was the one suffering. He’s doing that guy thing where he wants to drive straight through, and with a wife that’s six months pregnant with a baby sitting on her bladder that just isn’t happening. She told me he looks like he’s going to shoot an embolism every time she tells him she needs to stop and use the bathroom. Knowing your sister, she’s doing it on purpose every fifty miles or so just to aggravate him.”

“Probably. I’m excited for them to get here.” I had Skyped with Ayden a few times, so I could see the way being an expectant mom was changing my little sister physically. I wanted to see how she was handling it up close and personal, with my own two eyes. And I wanted to put my hands on the baby bump that held my niece.

“Me, too.” She fell quiet for a second and then asked softly, “Do you ever think about getting married and having kids?”

I took her beer out of her hand, set it down next to my scotch, and put my hands on her hips so that I could lift her and turn her around so that she was straddling me and we were face-to-face in the dark.

“Do I think about marriage and kids in general, or do I think about them with you, Red?”

She put her hands on my shoulders and shrugged, which sent her auburn hair slithering across my hands in a sexy, cool glide.

“Ayden’s due in a few months, Rome and Cora are getting married in a week, Rule and Shaw are living in domestic bliss, Salem just told everyone she’s expecting, and Saint couldn’t tell Nash yes fast enough when he proposed over Christmas. There’s just a lot of kids and forever-after going on around us and you never mention it. I just wondered if it was even in the cards for us.”

I untangled one of my hands from her hair and put a finger under her chin so that she couldn’t look away from me. “You want to get married, Royal?”

She rolled her eyes at me like that was the stupidest question I could ever ask. “Yeah. Eventually.”

I nodded at her and leaned forward so I could kiss her lightly. “Then eventually we’ll get married.”

She gasped and her mouth fell open in a rather comical way. I pulled her closer so that I could whisper into her ear, “You wanna have my babies?”

She shivered against me as my hands drifted up along her bare thighs under the hem of my shirt. “Absolutely.” She breathed the word into my neck as she fell forward to hold me closer.

“You let me know when you’re ready for that to start and I’m on board.” She would be an amazing mom, and while my skills and ability to parent were probably questionable at best, I would figure it out. Because having a family with this fascinating, fun, wonderful woman wasn’t something I was ever going to miss out on.

My hands brushed up against warm, naked skin that was already damp and ready for whatever I wanted to do with her. She lifted a mischievous eyebrow at me and leaned back from where she was nuzzling on my neck so that she could get her hands between us in order to work on my belt.

“Were you planning on giving the neighbors a show?” I couldn’t help the humor that laced my voice as she set my hardness free and ran her hand up and down the length.

“I left the lights off for a reason.” She smiled at me, and my entire world was in that tiny gesture.

I grunted in response because she wiggled herself up over my straining erection and then slid down so that I was sheathed tightly inside her welcoming and pulsing body. At this angle I could feel the way her body had to stretch to accommodate me. It made my eyes twitch in pleasure. I used the hand that had been stroking her inner thigh and playing with the tender places that led to where we were joined to slip between her slippery folds and find her sensitive little spot of desire.

She said my name on a moan and started to move on top of me. We were still mostly clothed; all any nosy neighbor would see if they bothered to investigate was a flash of her spectacular rear end every time she lifted and fell as she rode me hard. She curled an arm around my shoulders and leaned forward so that our heads were pressed together. Every time she panted I tasted it across my lips. Every time I growled in satisfaction at her she breathed it in. I teased her clit ruthlessly as she ground into me, as her body sucked and pulled on mine with greedy motions. She was beautiful. The way she worked me over was beautiful, and when she came with my name on her lips and my hand coated in her passion, it was so fucking beautiful it pushed me over the edge and I followed right behind her.

We panted together and tried to catch our breath as I moved my hand to curl around her naked butt. She rubbed her cheek against mine and sighed as she told me, “I live for these moments with you, Asa.”

I picked her up and carried her inside our house, our home, and thought that Ayden had been right. When you allowed yourself to love and be loved, that was when life really started. I might have come back from the dead once, but I hadn’t started living until I let myself love Royal.

*

“Cora told me I have always been her hero, so I needed to look like one on our wedding day.” Rome grumbled the response when I asked him how it felt to be in his dress uniform after being out of the army for so long.

We were all standing at the back of the church waiting for this shindig to get started. I think everyone had been a little surprised that Cora wanted to go such a traditional route with her wedding, but according to Rome, his little pixie had always wanted the fairy tale and he was more than willing to give it to her.

At first I had been stunned when he asked me to stand up with him. Of course Cora wanted Royal as a bridesmaid, so it made sense that I would be the one to walk her down the aisle. Rome had given me one of his somber looks and informed me that I belonged up there next to him just as much as Rule, Jet, Nash, and Rowdy did, and how could I argue with that?

Shaw and Ayden were trying to keep RJ entertained so that she didn’t shove fistfuls of flower petals into her mouth while she waited for her very important duties as flower girl to start. The adorable, blond toddler was far more interested in making a mess with the rose petals than she was in whatever the women were doing to distract her. She kept looking up at Rome with a big toothy grin and asking him if it was time to get married. The big man just smiled back at his precious little girl and told her, “Almost.”