That’s what I was used to now.
Sweet.
The bitter, acidic memories of what happened when Cade and I first met, nothing but that.
Memories.
Even remembering Ian came better. With less of that soul-destroying pain that had seemed so permanent at the start. I had healed. My daughter had healed me. My son. I blinked at the man in the motorcycle cut laying a kiss on our son’s head.
Both children had ice blue eyes like their father.
Their father had saved me most of all.
And I knew it was anti-feminist of me to think that. I should’ve considered myself the heroine of my own story. And I was.
But there was also a hero in this one.
The one, after two babies and years of marriage, still made my stomach dip and my cheeks flush when he sent a knowing and hungry look my way.
“When will you be back, Daddy?” Belle asked, her voice musical and like cotton candy for the ears.
Her first word was daddy.
Obviously.
Kingston’s first word was Nigel. Our cat’s name. He loved that sadistic fucker. That was the only reason I hadn’t accidentally run it over in the driveway.
“So soon, my princess,” Cade murmured, lifting both his children into his arms. It was an easy feat for someone like him, with muscles that had not succumbed to that dreaded dad bod.
Actually, the Sons of Templar had created their own version of a dad bod. And it was good. Well, it was good in regards to my husband being hot as fuck.
Not good in regards to my husband being hot as fuck while I welcomed new stretch marks with every new baby.
Not that Cade showed anything but appreciation for the changes my body had gone through since having kids. He had shown nothing but worship.
But still, a girl feels a little self-conscious when her husband is a biker Adonis and she’s trying to figure out how to regain control of her pelvic floor.
Cade did make sure that got a workout too.
Luckily, all the things that hadn’t bounced back after my babies, my vagina was not one of them.
Usually it did things to aforementioned vagina when I saw Cade with our children in his arms, kissing them with a naked vulnerability that he only had with us. Usually it did things for my vagina when I saw Cade, period.
This time was different.
This time Cade was kissing our children goodbye without certainty he’d be back to say hello.
My stomach lurched as it had off and on for weeks.
It was constant morning sickness, this war, this feeling in the air that I thought we’d said goodbye to after everything the club had been through.
But the Sons of Templar never said goodbye to chaos.
Or war.
In that moment, I had an almost overwhelming urge to pack my children, my Adonis husband and my shoes into our car, drive to an airport and go home to New Zealand to a little town that knew nothing of wars, human traffickers or motorcycle clubs. The need to protect my family was that strong that I opened my mouth to say it.
To beg Cade.
I didn’t know his answer. Not for sure. I knew me and the kids were first for him, no matter how dedicated he was to the club.
But me asking him to abandon them when they needed their strong, cold and calculated president just because my kids wanted their vulnerable, beautiful and loving father to come home every night, was that going too far?
I knew everything about the club. Because from the start I told Cade there was no other way this went. So I knew about running guns. I knew about them stopping with the guns to focus on legitimate business. I knew they still farmed themselves out as muscle and hitmen on occasion. And I knew they’d been at war since a human trafficker kidnapped Rosie.
I knew that they had spent years trying to bring him down. Trying to figure out a way to do that that didn’t mean mass graves for those who didn’t survive the ugly way.
And now, after the Christmas massacre, the ugly way was all we had left.
I had lived beauty for so long, I’d forgotten about the ugly. And now it was staring me in the face in the form of my husband saying goodbye to his kids maybe for the last time. I selfishly wanted beautiful. Just for me. For my kids. My family.
But the club was my family. They saved me too. Cade’s brothers were my own. Their wives were closer than sisters to me. Not just because I didn’t have sisters. The love I had for them and their families closed my mouth.
No, it was because of the love I had for Cade that I closed my mouth. Because if I asked him to run, and I asked him with the desperation and fear I felt to my bones, he would most likely say yes.