“And cute as bugs in rugs,” I added. “Don’t forget that. Serenity has your eyes and Maximus has your big heart.”
She laughed and added, “Maximus also has your nose and Serenity has your hair.” Then her eyes went soft as she looked into mine. “And I want a dozen more of those little cherubs, Nix. Does that make me crazy?”
“Yep,” I said then laughed. “But I guess I’m crazy too because I’d like half a dozen more myself.”
“The doctor said to give my body a year then we can try for another. I want to do just that, do you?” she asked with wide eyes.
I had to admit something to her and now would be the best time to do that. “I want to wait two years, baby. It makes more sense. I want to have time with each child. You see, I’m the oldest of my large family. I know how lost a kid can get in a large family. The first three of us were back to back. The last ones were spaced out two years apart. I noticed things about them that are different from us older ones. They each have a special bond with our parents. Like they had some real time with them that the first three of us didn’t.”
“So you regret that we had Serenity so close to Maximus?” she asked, looking a bit regretful herself.
Shaking my head, I ran my hand through her dark hair. “Regret? No. She came to us just as quickly as Maximus did. But now that we have an idea of how to put space between our kids, we can plan them, instead of them surprising us with their presence.”
She laughed. “Yeah, they did kind of make the decisions for us, didn’t they?”
I peeled the remainders of her negligee off her body, leaving her naked and got rid of my underwear. Lying down next to her, I cradled her in my arms as she faced me.
Nothing felt better than holding my wife in my arms. If I could do it twenty-four-seven, I definitely would. But life doesn’t work that way. And with the arrival of our babies, she and I could get lost taking care of them.
I kissed her cheek. “We have to make more times like these for ourselves.”
She ran her hand down my arm, resting it on my bicep, a thing she liked to do as she told me my biceps were one of her most favorite things in the whole world. Odd, I know, but Katana was one easy woman to please. “We should do a date night once a month. Shanna could come over and spend the night with the kids. She’d love that.”
The woman who had been my best friend gladly gave up that spot so Katana could fill it. But Shanna wasn’t left out in the cold. She took the second best friend position in stride. And she had my sisters jealous of her close proximity to our kids and had coveted the role of their absolute favorite aunt. Katana was right, Shanna would love to give us one night a month off.
“Perhaps we should build our own little private love shack,” I said and found her lighting up.
“We should, Nix! That’s a great idea. I’d like one of the stockade thingies, and the motif could be dungeon style. That would be so cool.” She wiggled in my arms and squealed. “You’ve got me so excited now. Ah! We get to make our own playhouse.”
“Playhouse?” I asked with furrowed brows. “I’m the master, I get to name the place, and I like love shack.”
“Love shack it is then, Master.” Katana settled in my arms, her hand running up and down my arm as I watched her wheels begin to spin.
Giving Katana a project was always a good idea. She loved to get going on something new and interesting. That’s what made her a great book cover designer; she loved the challenge of every project she took on.
I found she and I were a lot alike in that respect. She’d be a third of the way through with one book cover when she’d start thinking about the next one. So when I began talking about a new project I was into before the other one was finished, she understood completely and actually found that to be a quality she admired in me.
Hard to imagine that she and I met as strangers with what we assumed was only one thing in common, the BDSM world. We found out we had similar interests, similar ways to deal with things, and both of us were ready for marriage and kids yet neither of us had ever realized that before we met each other.
I’d heard it said before that everyone has a soulmate. I had to admit; I hadn’t believed that when I heard it. I thought those couples were all liars. No one was put on this Earth with their destiny set in stone. There couldn’t be just one person meant for anyone.
But after I found how easily Katana and I clicked, I put that disbelief away for good. I knew it was true then.
Katana and I came from extremely different backgrounds. She had it far rougher than I did. Not that I had it that hard, but I sure as hell didn’t have it as easy as my kids would.
We didn’t have much money. We lived in a three-bedroom house. Bunk beds stacked high in two of those rooms to accommodate me and my siblings. My kids would all have their own bedrooms, even if that meant finding us another place to live.
I knew we’d find a bigger home sometime in the near future. I’d keep the beach house, because come on, who lets go of a perfectly good Malibu beach house?
But I knew we’d need more room eventually, and the kids would need a yard to play in. If Katana was this excited over finding a small house for us to convert into a love shack, then she’d be over the moon when I told her it was time for us to search for a new home.
I bet she’d never thought about shopping for a mansion on a large estate before. Growing up first in a home with a neglectful mother and no father at all, then moving into an orphanage until a foster family was found who’d take her in, Katana was sure to have never even dreamt of one day finding such a grand home for her and her family.
As I held her close and felt her breathing slow, knowing she was falling asleep right in my arms, I found myself thinking about leaving it all up to her. Letting her pick out everything.
Giving her things she’d never thought she’d ever get was a thing that made me happier than just about anything. Almost as happy as I got when I saw smiles on my babies faces. That had to be my all-time favorite thing, making my kids smile.
I’d been a rich man before I met my wife. I’d been a happy guy with no worries. I didn’t feel as if I was missing a thing in my life.
But I’d been dead wrong.
Without Katana, I’d be nothing. I don’t know how a person can come into your life and make herself a part of you the way it happened with Katana and me.
I’d heard the term, my better half, a lot, but I didn’t ever understand it completely, thinking it just a nice term married people used. But now that I’d found that with Katana, I understood it completely.
Katana was part of me, and she always would be. My kids were too, but they were blood, I’d always assumed I’d have a natural bond with my offspring. But a woman? No, I never saw that coming.
As I held my wife that night, falling asleep with her, I knew I could count my blessings and knew we’d found our happily ever after.
The End
The Naughty One Preview
Young surgical resident Romy Sasse returns home to Washington State for the holidays to find her free-spirited mother has become engaged to the last person Romy would expect—multi-billionaire, Stuart Eames. As both of the families gather for Thanksgiving, Romy meets Stuart’s son, financier Gaius, and immediately takes a dislike to him. Her world is turned upside down, however, when she discovers Stuart’s other illegitimate son is none other than her new boss, surgical god, Blue Allende.
Inspired by Blue’s expertise in the operating theater, Romy is grateful when he decides to mentor her though her last year as a surgical resident, and soon it becomes clear that their chemistry extends further than the hospital. At first, Romy resists temptation; she doesn’t want to be seen as the doctor who slept her way to the top. But soon, the attraction between them becomes undeniable.
Marring her happiness, Romy finds that divisions with Blue’s family go deep. Gaius is psychotically jealous of his younger, illegitimate half-brother and will stop at nothing to ruin his career and his life. Having
already made unreciprocated advances towards Romy, Gaius is outraged when Blue and Romy fall in love. As Christmas approaches and a severe ice storm hits Seattle, Gaius, with the help of anther malevolent force from Romy’s past, unleashes a campaign of terror which will not only test their skills in the operating theater, but risk their lives and their love as well …
Part One
Chapter 1
Seattle
Romy shoved her chestnut brown hair up into a ponytail as she jogged quickly along the hospital corridors. Damn Seattle traffic. She had been so organized right up until she’d hit the traffic accident on the Alaskan Way viaduct. Now she’d missed the first few minutes of rounds, and on the worst possible day. So not a good first impression to make. Still cursing herself, she hurried to catch up with her colleagues in the general surgery department.
Rounding the corner at a fast clip, she heard his voice before she saw him, a deep, mellifluous tone which she knew made woman weak. She might never have met the man, but his voice was as legendary as his surgical skills. Oh yeah. And his body. People talked about that in the same breath as his medical accomplishments.
He spoke again and she thrilled at the husky hint of an accent—Italian, maybe?—in it.
“If the infection worsens we’ll consider a shunt, but in all likelihood, it will resolve rapidly since it was caught at the outset.”
Romy blinked in surprise at the words. Blue Allende, he of the oh-so-sexy voice, was a superstar surgeon. Not even forty years old, he was at the top of his game, and also at the top of most hospital’s wish-lists. With the reputed looks of a movie star and the serious, brooding intelligence of someone a lot older, Blue Allende’s reputation preceded him. So why was he standing around with a motley crew of doctors, nurses, and interns, discussing something as mundane as a shunt?
It gave her pause and jumpstarted her liking for the man who, apparently, wasn’t your average arrogant genius surgeon. But Romy was still late, and no doctor appreciated tardiness, particularly not one with such a packed schedule …
Goddamn it.
Stopping outside the door she saw a bunch of other residents and slipped in among them, hoping she wouldn’t be noticed and knowing she didn’t stand a prayer.
Her friend Mac, an affable African American with a sweet face and a wicked sense of humor, grinned and nudged her. “Late for the rockstar, Sasse,” he hissed, “genius move.”
Romy poked him with her elbow, rolling her eyes. “What did I miss?”
Suddenly the crowd of doctors parted and she saw him where he’d been leaning over a sedated patient. Her breath caught in her throat as Blue Allende turned bright green eyes on her.
All the usual hospital noises faded into the background as she was caught in that fiercely intelligent gaze.
Jesus, Romy thought, this man doesn’t belong in an operating theater; he belongs on a cat walk or on the cover of Vogue.
He was gorgeous. The bright green eyes were surrounded by thick, black eyelashes on a face carved from Italian marble. A shock of dark curls fell messily about his head … then she noticed his wide, sensual mouth set in a thin line.
Ah, shit. She’d like to have seen that mouth in something other than a scowl.
“Dr. Sasse, welcome.”
That voice from up close. Wowwowwow. And … he knew her name? Romy prayed not to stutter. “Apologies for my tardiness, Dr. Allende; it won’t happen again.”
Was that a hint of amusement that flashed in those devastatingly beautiful eyes, and maybe a slight hitching up of the mouth? No sooner had Romy thought she’d seen it than it was gone. He turned back to his patient and Romy was grateful he hadn’t shamed her in front of everyone else. One more point in his favor, bigtime.
“Got away with it,” Mac muttered in her ear, and Romy sighed with relief.
As they moved through rounds, she was impressed by Allende’s in-depth knowledge of his cases and the way he coaxed the residents to find answers to his questions, rather than merely lecturing. Even when they got a fact wrong, he didn’t sneer or bark at them. Furthermore, he treated patients like friends, addressing them with as much candor as compassion, taking his time rather than rushing right along.
More than slightly blown away by the whole picture, Romy watched him carefully and was confused when she spotted him in an unguarded moment when the group was discussing a situation and he apparently thought no one was paying attention to him. Also not typical. Grandstanding surgeons believed the spotlight was always on them. In that brief second though, she saw something in his eyes that she recognized all too well.
Pain. Sorrow.
Romy was so distracted by the revelation that she didn’t realize the focus had shifted and everyone was staring at her. Suddenly feeling the heat of their stares, she swallowed hard, flushing. “I’m sorry, Dr. Allende, could you repeat the question?”
The amused look was back, displacing sorrow. “I was asking if you could give me the ways we can use to diagnose ankylosing spondylitis?”
Romy cleared her throat. “Of course.” She ran through the options and then concluded, “Of course, the disease is notoriously hard to diagnose, and once identified, it usually is a case of pain management. Opioids have little effect pain-wise, but we could try medical marijuana as a last resort.”
“Hail Mary,” said the patient, a young man in his twenties, and they all laughed.
“As a last resort, Billy.” Blue smiled and Romy’s entire body reacted to it. It lit up his handsome face and Romy could feel a beat pulsing between her legs. Stop it, she told herself, do not get a crush on your boss.
After rounds, Blue asked to see her in his office. He motioned to the chair opposite his desk and Romy sat down, trembling with nervousness. Was she about to be bawled out for being late?
“Don’t look so scared,” he said mildly, his tone neutral but somehow still warm. “It’s just an introduction. I didn’t get to meet you like the other residents.”
From someone else that would have sounded passive aggressive. From him, it came across as oddly sincere.
“I’m sorry for being late, Dr. Allende,” she apologized.
“Happens to us all.”
Before she could blink at that, he picked up a file and opened it.
“Dr. Romy Sasse, age twenty-nine, graduated top of your class at Stamford, did your internship and part of your residency at Johns Hopkins … why transfer here for your last year? Johns Hopkins was very reluctant to let you go; we had to fight for you.”
Old memories made her cold inside. “I had to come home to Seattle. Personal reasons. Also, my mother is getting married, rather unexpectedly.”
“And she needs you to be here?”
Romy hesitated. “No, it’s not that, but …”
“But what?”
Romy sighed. It was none of his business, but she owed him this much after being late. “My sisters, Juno and Artemis, asked me to come. I’m the middle sister, the peacemaker. They have some concerns about Mom’s fiancé.”
“Really?” Blue looked interested, even though Romy couldn’t for the life of her figure out why. Or why she just kept talking.
“It’s not that he’s a bad person, though I still haven’t officially met him yet. But he’s so entirely not what we thought Mom would go for …” Abruptly, she halted, catching herself in mid-ramble. “I’m sorry, you really don’t need to know this.”
“No, please go on.”
Romy frowned. “Well, then, you should know, my mom is a free spirit, a rainbow child, a hippie. Look at our names.”
Blue smiled. “Okay, so Juno and Artemis, I get, but Romy?”
“Short for Romulus. Yes, I know it’s technically a boy’s name but, you see, I was a twin. Fraternal. My brother, Remy—Remus—died when we were five years old.” God, the pain of it still haunted Romy. “Mom thought I was a boy too when she was pregnant, hence the name.”
“So your name is actually Romulus?”
She was grateful he
didn’t press her for more details about Remy. “No, she managed to change it at the last moment on the birth certificate. Romy is my legal name.”
“And you don’t like your future stepfather?”
“I don’t know him.”
Suddenly Blue grinned. “I think your mom and Stuart Eames will be just fine.”
Romy gaped at him in astonishment. “How the hell …?”
He laughed, and his face looked even more desperately handsome than ever. “Believe it or not, I wasn’t interrogating you without an actual purpose. You see, Romy Sasse, Stuart Eames is my father. So, technically, we’re about to be siblings. Welcome to the family, Romy.”
Chapter 2
Romy was still shell-shocked when she went to her mother’s house that evening. Part of it was admittedly from the additional time she’d spent giddily talking in Blue’s office—he’d insisted she call him that—and the rest was entirely due to his revelation.
“Why didn’t you tell me Stuart was Blue Allende’s father?”
Magda Sasse looked up from the cutting board and grinned at her middle daughter’s abrupt greeting. “Hello to you, too. Because, dear one, Blue said he didn’t want you to know right away. He wanted you to be on his service and thought you might not want to if you knew. Your reputation as a first-class doctor precedes you, honey, and I’m very proud.”
Romy smiled and hugged her mother. “Thank you, Momma Bear. Anyway, Blue told me he will be with us for Thanksgiving?” Upon hearing that, she’d been hard-pressed to keep it together in the surgeon’s office. Blue in her home, having dinner with her family … why was that weirdly hot?
“Will it be awkward?” her mother asked in concern.
Romy hoisted herself up onto the kitchen counter and stole a piece of bell pepper Magda was slicing for salad. “I don’t think so. Well, at least I hope not. He’s a pretty even-tempered guy.”
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