“Vegas is a six-hour ride from here.”
Boom. Boom. Boom.
My head swims as butterflies take flight in my stomach. “Gabe…?” Tears well and fall to my cheeks. “What are you saying?” I demand. I need to hear the words.
“Marry me, baby. I need you to be my wife more than I need air.”
“Oh my god,” I cry, grabbing his face and covering him in wet, sloppy kisses.
“Is that a yes?”
“It’s a hell yes—it’s everything,” I sob, my emotions jumping from overwhelming happiness to an indescribable need to have him inside me again, loving me, claiming me. He doesn’t make me wait. His lips devour, whispering words of love as his cock fucks me like he owns me.
Twenty-Seven
Gabe
A couple weeks later…
Pain contorts her beautiful face, the needle buzzing over her skin with ease, the pretty sparrow tattoo coming to life on her flesh. When we got back from Vegas, there was a new light in her eyes—a confidence and contentment that wasn’t there before. It made me happy to give that to her.
“I want a sparrow tattoo,” she’d said one night while stroking over the tattoo on my chest. She’d found a baby sparrow in the grass outside our house. It had fallen from the nest, no doubt preyed on and dropped from a predator’s mouth. She insisted we take it to the vet. We came home with a plan to heal its broken wing that she took real seriously.
I stroke down her other arm to soothe her. She saw herself in that fucking Sparrow: a broken bird learning to fly for the first time. It’s kinda beautiful.
“And…we’re done! You ready to take a look?” the artist asks, wiping over her skin.
“I love it,” she gasps, her mouth popping open in wonder.
“I love you,” I tell her, kissing her temple.
Pulling up the driveway to our house, my jaws twitches. There are fucking bikes and cars parked everywhere. “What’s going on?” Willa speaks my thoughts, looking between me and the motors scattered around.
“Jameson,” I growl.
Walking inside, a roar of cheers rings out, rattling the foundation. A hand thrust out toward us to be shaken as congratulations whirl around.
“You seriously thought there wouldn’t be a party?” Jameson quirks a brow and shoves a beer at me, grabbing Willa and squeezing her in a bone-crushing hug.
“We got married weeks ago,” she murmurs.
“Yeah, well, I stayed in Reno longer than planned so…” He shrugs.
“You filled my fucking house with dirty, furniture-breaking, booze-guzzling, whore-fucking bikers,” I growl out. Every inch of my fucking house stuffed with leather and booze.
“What the fuck are you talking about? You’re a dirty, furniture-breaking, booze-guzzling, whore…”
I raise a fist to him in warning, darting my eyes to my wife, her narrowed glare pinned on Jameson. “A what?” she asks.
“A wife-loving good man.” He grins, a full-megawatt, goofy grin.
I’m going to kill him when this is over.
Twenty-Eight
Willa
Two months later…
Standing at the stove, I turn the bacon in the pan, willing it to hurry up and crisp as I wipe at the saliva building in the corner of my mouth. “Will, you know I’ll cook for you.” Gabe’s arms curl around my stomach, his lips sucking the soft tissue behind my ear.
Leaning back into his embrace, I sigh, “I didn’t want to wake you. It’s just bacon.”
“You never eat bacon, and if you’re awake, I’m awake.” He turns me in his arms, nuzzling along my jawline. “I miss you when you’re not cuddled into me.”
“I’m sorry. We’re hungry.”
Pulling his face back, his brows pull together. “I’m not hungry for food.” His lip curls into a sexy smirk.
“Not you—us.” I point to my stomach, biting my lip. My heart is racing. I’ve thought of a million ways to tell him, but always lost the nerve.
“Willa, what are you saying?” He looks between my face and my stomach, a red heat spreading up his cheeks.
“I’m pregnant,” I blurt out, and almost jump four feet in the air when the smoke alarms begin screeching. Crap. I turn and grab the pan, removing it from the heat, and snatch up a tea-towel, waving it at the small white box on the ceiling. The noise cuts out as suddenly as it started, and I will my racing heart to steady. Gabe hasn’t moved.
“Gabe?” I question, a protective hand coming around my stomach. We haven’t had the kids talk, and now, here we are, newlyweds, and in six months, parents.
“You’re sure?” His voice hitches.
“I’m sure.”
He covers his face with both hands, then pushes them through his hair. “I’m going to be a daddy?”
“You are.” A tear leaks from my eye. Within my next breath, he’s across the kitchen, lifting me into his arms and spinning me. “I’m going to be a daddy!”
Wrapping my legs around his waist and arms around his neck, I look down at my husband. “The best daddy there is.”