She chuckled again, at his shock. “You seem stunned.”
“I thought for sure you’d throw me out on my ass.”
“Only if you ever try to leave me again.”
“Oh, you’re stuck with me now for good, Jo-Jo.” He covered her belly with his hand. “A baby—that’s going to take a minute to get used to.”
“You’re telling me. It won’t be renting a room in your body.” She rolled her eyes.
Moose laughed and nodded. “True. Thank God!” He shook his head. “You’ve given me everything I never thought I wanted but desperately needed. How do I ever repay you for that?”
“Oh, just worship me like the goddess I am.” She batted her eyelashes at him.
Moose tilted his head back and laughed, then returned his smoldering gaze to hers. “How about I make love to my fiancée, instead?”
The words turned her into a pile of goo. “Oh, Dylan.”
He grinned. “First time you’ve ever called me that.”
“It seemed appropriate. You did call me Josephine.”
“Mm- hmm.” He stepped back and lifted her into his arms, holding her close. Their lips met, and this time there was no sense of urgency or overflowing fire. Just a sultry slow burn as they explored one another with new eyes and the knowledge that they had the rest of their lives to be together. He nipped her bottom lip, and she moaned, opening to allow his questing tongue entrance. Placing her on the bed, he stripped her down like a present, removed her clothing one layer at a time with careful movements that made her heart swell and provided a balm for the nearly avoided disaster he’d almost caused. The man loved her enough to let her go if it meant her happiness and he would keep her forever when given the choice. They’d come so far.
“I knew these looked bigger.” Moose cupped her sensitive breasts, and she moaned. “Oh, I’m going to have so much fun.” Gently, he rolled a bud between the calloused pads of his fingers.
Her body arched. “Aren’t you overdressed?”
“Not for long.” He winked and stripped down.
She’d never seen him so open or playful. It was as if he’d removed the final curtain that hid him. “Who are you and what have you done with Moose?” she said, giggling as he climbed on the bed.
“Don’t you see, I get to keep you? The one thing I’ve truly wanted in years. I came here ready to let go, regardless of what it might cost me, yet here we are.” He ran his fingers down her thighs. “I’m not good with words or emotional expression. But if I believed in soul mates, you’d be mine. What we have is good. I want to keep it always.” He cupped her heated core. “I want to wake up and push inside you, fill you full of my cum and mark your body over and over. You’re an elusive mystery I don’t think I’ll ever fully figure out.”
Not good with words? The man is practically writing me a sonnet right now. “Oh, Moose.”
A bashful look appeared on his face. “You bring back that the boy who shattered under the weight of his mother’s illness.”
“And you healed the jaded part of me that didn’t think I would ever love or meet a man who stayed.” Mentally bared, she opened her legs. “Make me yours?”
This was a new beginning, the start of their final chapter. Unorthodox and a bit mad, they’d skipped the normal song and dance, but it was theirs and oh so right.
He pushed inside, stretching her walls, and she whimpered. “Who do you belong to, Joey?”
“You—Moose.”
Silence fell as they moved together, deepening their bond and making promises words couldn’t fully describe.
* * * * *
Two days later, dressed in an airy white eyelet dress, Joey became Mrs. Dylan Landry, and Moose quietly moved his things into her house.
Things were far from perfect. The threat of retaliation from Levi and his overgrown fraternity of sick bastards loomed over them daily as the Eights and Mayhem continued to seek a way to topple their monopoly once and for all. They’d manage to figure out the remaining two members who were involved, but the rest remained a work in progress.
Still, they had each another and the little one on the way, which was more than either of them ever hoped for.
Keeping her new secret to herself would be torture, but she could hold out until after Juliette’s wedding.