The doctors weren’t even sure that she would ever wake up.
“He lost his medical license, his job, and they’re prosecuting him. The Mastings have really hammered him, and he’s done nothing to defend himself,” Sammy said. “If things keep going like they’re going, I highly doubt that he’ll not see prison time.”
My stomach all but sank.
“No,” I whispered, shoulders drooping. “That’s awful.”
Malachi’s arm came around me as he pulled me into his body.
“He got a good lawyer?” Malachi asked.
Sammy didn’t know, but I had a feeling Malachi was going to find out. And if he didn’t, Malachi would find him one.
My mother’s arms came around me then followed shortly by my father’s.
“We’re proud of you, baby,” my mom said into my ear. “Love you.”
I squeezed them both tight.
“Love you, too.”
Over the last six weeks, I’d also done a lot of growing with my family.
We’d mended fences, grown together even more, and I’d understood where they were both coming from when they’d gotten so upset when I’d told them about the pregnancy.
I wasn’t saying that I was over it completely, but I wasn’t holding any grudges any longer.
There was no room in my life anymore. Not after realizing how short it could be.
“Let me know if you need anything,” Dad said as he stepped back, offered his hand to Malachi, and then slapped him lightly on the back.
“Will do,” Malachi promised. “We’ll catch y’all for dinner later this week?”
Dad nodded his head. “Try not to slip that information to your parents this time.”
Malachi flipped Dad off, causing him to laugh.
The last time we’d had a family dinner, his parents had showed, again.
And Malachi, my father, and Sammy had informed them in no uncertain terms that their presence was not needed or wanted, and if they continued to come around, restraining orders would be had.
We hoped that they’d finally taken the hint.
“I’m going to stay with Oston,” Grans said. “And I’m taking Bobo with me. Y’all have a fun night.”
With that, the last of our family was gone, leaving me with my husband.
Husband.
God, I liked the sound of that.
“You ready to go home, wife?”
Malachi’s words sent shivers down my spine.
Eyes on his, I reached up onto my tiptoes and pressed my lips to his. “Ready, husband.”
• • •
An hour later found us both in the shower.
Malachi, as he’d started to do, went to his own showerhead and I went to mine.
Over the last six weeks, we’d done a lot of this together.
When I was on bed rest, I only had an hour a day, and I’d wanted to spend it with my man.
So we did a lot of the things we would normally do by ourselves together.
Like showering.
But today, I could actually do something about the hard-on that was jutting out in front of him.
I placed my bar of soap down gently on the ledge of the shower and moved into him.
He caught me and buried his nose into my throat, likely drowning himself in the process.
He stayed like that until he couldn’t take it anymore, came up with a gasp, and then spun so that he was pressing me up against the cool tiled walls of the shower.
“Does this mean what I think it means?” he asked as I ground myself into him.
His breath was coming in harsh pants, and he was looking at me with slightly wild eyes.
In answer, I licked his lips.
He took that for the answer it was and lifted me up, flicked off the shower, and stepped out of it all in one smooth motion.
Seconds later I found myself on my back in the bed, his body on top of mine.
“Married. Moved in. Sex. All in one day,” I teased.
His eyes softened as he slowly ground his cock into my pubic bone.
“I’ve been moved in since the day that we fake got together,” he teased. “But you’re right on the last two.”
He had been. I hadn’t actually seen him leave since we’d spoken with Luke all those weeks ago. We’d spent every single night together since. Even if he only rolled into the bed as I was rolling out of it.
His body moved and the head of his cock notched at my entrance, and that was the very last thing that either of us said for a very long time.
He took the time to relearn my body.
He worshiped every single little new detail that he’d missed over the last six weeks.
My belly was bigger.
My boobs were more sensitive.
And, apparently, I could now orgasm at the drop of a hat.
Or the lick of a nipple.
Who knew?
He definitely found some great fun with that one.
And when we were done, both laying on each other, sweaty and exhausted, I realized that this was what I’d always wanted out of life.
A man like Malachi to share it with.
“You know,” I said after my breath returned to somewhat normal. “I saw the stack of letters in the drawer next to your underwear.”
I felt him smile against my face. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” I confirmed. “You kept them all?”
“Every single one of them.” He confirmed as he moved to look up at me. “You saved me over there. You don’t know it, but you did.”
I felt emotion clog my throat.
“Well, right back at you, big boy,” I told him. “I wouldn’t have made it through these last six weeks without you.”
He smoothed his hand down the length of my face, then paused with his fingers delicately touching the small scar around my throat.
“I hate looking at this every day,” he mumbled softly. “It reminds me of everything that I almost lost.”
I pressed his hand harder to my neck. “I’ll get it removed.”
His eyes moved back to my face.
“I don’t mind looking at it, though,” he said. “It shows me that you’re a survivor. Your soul’s exactly like mine.”
I moved until my forehead was pressed against his. “Like always gravitates toward like.”
I wouldn’t deign to compare my life to Malachi’s, but I knew that we both had fighter’s souls.
And I would fight, day and night, to make sure that Malachi never saw the darkness of life ever again if I could help it.
I knew he’d do the same for me.
“Love you, baby.”
Malachi’s words, though said often, always had the power to knock the wind out of me.
I ran my nose over his. “I love you more, Malachi.”
He lifted me then and we returned to the shower.
And not once did we stop loving each other the entire night.
EPILOGUE
Mile high anxiety club.
-Coffee Cup
MALACHI
Gabriel,
This is in response to your letter that you wrote before you were captured and held prisoner.
I know that you were joking, but I’d like to take you up on that offer now.
Yes, I will marry you.
Sierra
P.S. No, this is not a joke. I really would marry the shit out of you.
• • •
My phone beeped, and I chanced a glance down at it as I took the final turn toward home.
I frowned when I saw it was Sierra, and I was concerned enough that I pulled over just to read the message.
Sierra: Help, I’ve fallen, and I can’t get up.
I frowned hard at the text message and felt my heart rate start to race at the idea that she’d fallen and couldn’t get up.
Putting the truck back into gear, I sped a little down the road, passing Sammy who was likely heading to my place so fast that his hair blew backward.
I didn’t
stop when he raised his hand, his middle finger extended in my direction.
Instead, I continued to rocket down the road to my place, pulling right up to the front walk before getting out and barely managing to turn the truck off before I bailed out.
I’d barely made it up the steps before I was calling her name.
“Sierra!” I called out over and over again.
“Baby’s room!” she called out loudly.
I groaned.
I had no clue where the ‘baby’s room’ was at today.
Sierra had fucking moved the goddamn room eight times over the last six weeks since we’d gotten married and I’d ‘officially’ moved into the house with her.
Granted, I had been living there since we’d ‘fake’ gotten together, but still.
I was now officially moved into the main house where I’d grown up, and there wasn’t a single fucking nightmare that plagued me.
“What room is that?” I called as I took the stairs two at a time.
“The one at the very end of the hall, closest to the one that we just painted,” she called.
I hurried down the length of the hallway, somewhat breathless from all the running around I’d just done, and came to a sudden halt when I saw her lying on the ground.
She was staring at me with annoyance clearly written all over her face.
My mouth quirked.
“Umm.” I paused. “What the hell happened?”
She was not amused with my amusement.
I walked over to the crib that she was lying… in… and looked down at her.
“How’d you end up like this?” I wondered.
She was obviously putting the crib together that I’d told her that I would do when I got home.
Yet, she’d started it without me.
And somehow had ended up in the crib, with all four sides around her, and no way to get out.
In her obvious attempt to remove herself from the situation, she’d realized that her belly was too big to fit underneath the crib to get out from the bottom, and in trying to get out that way, had caught her shirt on a screw that held her immobile.
She glared up at me.
“You are not seriously laughing right now, Mr. November,” she growled.
It was so fucking cute that I barely contained the urge to reach down and pinch her damn cheeks.
“No, of course not,” I lied.
I heard the door slam downstairs and knew that her brother had finally made it.
Upon seeing me passing him going ninety, he’d likely started to sprint the rest of the way.
“What the fuck are you speeding for, asshole?” Sammy bellowed from my front door.
“Please, help me get this off of me,” she urged, pushing the crib and testing the confines of her shirt.
Seeing as this was her last ‘good’ shirt as she liked to call it, I saw the reason that she hadn’t just torn herself free.
She was nine months pregnant, and only days away from giving birth. The only problem was, she refused to get any more clothes that she wouldn’t need, meaning she lived in that particular black shirt, leggings, and my clothes.
But I could tell she was willing to sacrifice the shirt so her brother didn’t see her.
“Help,” she squeaked, pleading with her eyes.
I bent down and unhooked her shirt from the screw it’d caught on. A screw, I might add, that wasn’t in the right place.
Grinning, I lifted the surprisingly heavy crib up and she started to wiggle out, rolling over to her hands and knees, and then to her feet, all the while I could hear her brother pounding up the stairs.
She’d just gotten to her feet and smoothed her shirt down over the cutest baby belly ever when her brother finally found the room we were in.
“Swear to Christ,” he said as he looked at both of us. “You better not have almost run me over because you wanted to feel up my sister.”
I snorted and gathered my woman to me, loving the way she felt in my arms.
I hadn’t seen her since last night when I’d left for work, and thanks to a SWAT call immediately after shift change, it’d been longer than I’d intended to be away from her.
Luckily, Sammy and I usually didn’t work the same SWAT calls anymore, meaning he was here to help if he was needed.
As was Grans, Sierra’s parents, Blue and a handful of other SWAT guys, as well as Luca.
My SWAT family and my real family—minus my parents that was—were an essential part of our lives.
I’d simmered down now that I had someone at home to take care of.
Two someones.
“I was stuck, okay?” Sierra growled. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“How were you stuck?” Sammy wondered, his eyes narrowing on me, then my wife, then back to me again.
I gestured to the crib.
“I thought we were putting that together tonight?” he said.
“We are.” I paused. “Since she got stuck in it before she could finish it.”
Sierra sighed. “Y’all are so annoying.”
I grinned wickedly at her, pressed one more kiss onto her forehead, then said, “Order pizza, baby. I’m going to get a quick shower in before we have to go.” I stopped. “Where’s Hastings?”
“Sleeping,” Sierra said just as Hastings said, “Not sleeping. Laboring. Apparently, this baby is ready to come.”
We all looked toward the door to see Hastings standing in it, water pooling at her feet.
“Oh, my God!” Sierra cried. “Sammy, you’re having a baby today!”
We all looked back just in time to see Sammy faint dead at our feet.
Four hours later, Sammy and Hastings welcomed their baby girl, Aurora, into the world.
Six weeks after that, we welcomed our own baby boy, Miller Luca Gnocchi into the world.
• • •
I hope you loved Malachi and Sierra. Up next is Depends on Who’s Asking.
Turn the page for a sneak preview.
What’s next?
CHAPTER 1
Due to personal reasons, I’ll be drinking again this weekend.
-Caro’s secret thoughts
CAROLINA
“And then he started to laugh.” Brielle wiped her eyes. “I didn’t know what to do.”
I’d met Brielle through a grapevine of friends, and for some weird fucking reason, she’d latched on to me.
I wasn’t sure why, or how, I’d somehow become her keeper, but I didn’t like her.
Not at all.
She was petty and fake, and she was also not a person that I would normally spend time with.
I especially didn’t like how she treated people.
I looked down at my corn dog and wondered, idly, how long I had to wait to take another bite.
I mean, she was really crying here. Like, big, fat drops.
I looked at my watch and realized that regardless of whether Brielle was crying or not, I had shit to do, and listening to her cry about some man that didn’t return her attentions wasn’t one of them.
“I gotta go,” I said to her. “I’m due back in court in fifteen minutes. I haven’t even gotten to eat my lunch yet.”
Brielle wiped her eyes and shoved her lunch away with a ferocious scowl.
I stood up and wondered if I should address her attitude, but decided that I didn’t have time for that, either.
Honestly, I really wasn’t quite sure what the hell was going on with me.
I shouldn’t have agreed to this lunch date in the first place, but I couldn’t seem to stop myself when it came to her. I felt bad for her.
She truly was a mean person. But when I met her a few months ago when I got home, she’d somehow gotten me my new job… and I couldn’t blow her off after she’d done something so great for me.
“Fine. But you’re paying. I paid last time.” Brielle stood up and left her trash on the table.
“Are you going to throw all of that away?” I asked curiously, not bothering t
o argue with her ‘I paid last time’ comment. She was wrong. I’d paid last time, too. At some point, I was going to have to stop being grateful that she’d found me a job.
She looked at the table, then the trash can only a few feet away.
“No,” she said. “That’s not my job to do, it’s theirs.”
I nearly rolled my eyes but chose to pick her trash up instead. Mine, I packed back into my bag and rolled it up before tucking it into my purse.
Just as I was about to push out of the hospital lunchroom door, Brielle caught my attention once again.
“You have toilet paper on your shoe.”
I looked down and, sure enough, I did have toilet paper on my shoe.
And something brown was on it.
Gross.
I kicked my leg and attempted to flick the tissue off.
I stepped out of the way as I tried to get the stupid toilet paper off without touching it as the door at my back was pushed open and an amused man said, “Need help?”
I looked up into the piercing green eyes—eyes that practically glowed with enjoyment—of Saint Nicholson, and froze.
His chestnut-colored hair was curly and beautiful, and I practically itched to sink my fingers into the locks. To wind a couple of those curls around my fingers. And holy God, he was wearing black, horn-rimmed glasses. Where had those come from?
“I’ll make it,” I grumbled, trying not to allow my eyes to slide down the length of his body like I wanted to.
But it was inevitable.
The man was hot as fuck.
He was tall, way taller—by at least a foot—than my five-foot-three. He was bigger around, too.
Where I had curves, he had lean hardness.
Where I had fat, he had nothing but muscle.
And the uniform he was wearing only added to his sexiness.
I had a thing for cops.
I’d dated three in my life.
None seriously or anything. A couple of months each.
But none of them had been as drop-dead gorgeous as the man currently grinning at me.
He moved forward, pressing his body close to mine, and then stepped onto the toilet paper with his booted foot.
His big, booted foot.
Like, way bigger than my size sevens.
Just as quickly as his body touched mine, he was away from me, and the toilet paper was no longer clinging to my foot.
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