“Now,” he said, squeezing her butt, “let me put on a shirt, and we can get back to the reception and tell everyone we’re heading off to San—”
She shook her head, fisting her hands in his hair. “Hell no. The reception’s done for us. We’re staying here, getting naked and having wild and crazy monkey sex until sunup.”
“Wild monkey sex, eh?” He arched an eyebrow, even as his cock—now a hard pole pressing against her lower belly—spasmed. “So no wedding cake then?”
She went up on tiptoe and pressed her lips to his. “No wedding cake.”
He chuckled against her lips, grabbed her ass, and pulled her harder to his groin. “I’m not hungry for cake anyways.”
Epilogue
Six months later
Mick lookedup from the pink-wrapped bundle cooing and gurgling and wriggling in his arms. “Babies are so squirmy.”
Lowering herself onto the sofa beside him, Zeta gently repositioned the blue-wrapped bundle of amazingness inherarms. Two-week-old Isaac and Lily were the most perfect niece and nephew a person could have. She smiled at Isaac—cooing softly like his twin sister, but without the wriggling—and then lifted her smile to Mick. “Squirmy? That’s the official medical term, is it, Dr Blackthorne?”
Grinning, he nodded. “Definitely.” He readjusted Lily in his arms and his butt on the sofa. “I take it Elisa is asleep?”
Zeta let out a soft chuckle. “Both herandAngus fell asleep before I even walked out of the room.”
Mick snorted. “So much for Angus’sI’m just going to sit here with Lis in case she wakes up and wants something. His snoring will probably wake her.”
“I don’t think anything is going to wake Lis for a while.” She pulled a face at Isaac, who gazed up at her with dark blue eyes that were wide and solemn. “Being a parent is hard,” she told him on a lilting whisper.
Mick laughed, the sound as soft as her whisper. “Being an uncle is easy.” He looked down at Lily, who was now gazing up at him with the same solemn concentration as her brother, and gently booped her nose. “I could do this all day.”
A wave of warmth rolled through Zeta, and she let out a happy sigh. They’d both arrived back in Sydney yesterday, ready to be the best aunt and uncle for the babies, and to give the exhausted new parents as much help as they could. Elisa and Angus were coping well, according to Bria and Owen. They were just very, very tired.
The moment the safari park’s resident vet confirmed that Mandla was doing well and thriving, she’d booked their flight to Sydney.
Staying away from her sisters had been hard.
Staying away from her new niece and nephew had been damn near torture.
She didn’t like it. Not at all.
A thick lump filled her throat, and she lifted her focus from Isaac to Mick and watched him pull faces at Lily.
He was amazing. He’d been living with her in San Diego for six months and had been accepted into an emergency medicine fellowship working in the university hospital network as an ER doctor. Although no matter how many times she corrected him, he still said ED instead of ER. She was beginning to suspect he was doing it on purpose as part of his winning Australian charm.
Six months. But that couldn’t last. For starters, his work visa would run out soon. Secondly…
The lump in her throat flowed down into her chest, turning into a warm pressure. “Mick?”
He looked up from Lily with a goofy smile on his face. “Zee?”
She pulled in a steady breath. “I got a job offer yesterday.”
Lily squirmed in his arms a little, and he gave her a gentle jiggle, patting her butt in a steady rhythm as he did so. Instinctual. Everything about Mick was instinctual. And wonderful and caring. She loved that about him. So much.
“From who?” he asked. “The San Francisco Zoo still trying to convince you to go work there? I’m happy to move to San Francisco, if that’s what you want. The public hospitals there are crying out for good doctors, and if I apply for a new work visa soon, I’ll—”
She shook her head, and the warm pressure around her chest spread to her whole body. “Not the San Francisco Zoo.”
He frowned. “Who then?”
Here we go…