“Love you, baby,” Zane said before he rolled off, his arms pulling her close.
“And don’t think we’re through with you. We’re staying up all night,” Nate promised.
But they were asleep five minutes later. She grinned up at the ceiling, utterly unwilling to wake her men. It didn’t matter now. They could have freaky sex today or tomorrow or all the tomorrows to come. She wouldn’t let her insecurities keep them apart. Not ever again.
They were hers. She was theirs. And all was right in Bliss.
Deep in the night –
“Do they ever sleep?” Stef asked, looking down at the tiny human whose feet kicked. Charlie—he thought it was Charlie, but he couldn’t be completely sure—kicked those fat baby legs until he managed to catch one of them. Then it was a long, slow trip toward his itty bitty rosebud of a mouth that grinned and drooled as he began to gnaw on his own foot. It should be gross. He wanted to turn away because babies were tiny humans who had zero interest in following a well-thought-out plan.
But damn, he was cute.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. He wanted a baby.
He was too young for a baby. He would never be old enough for a baby. Damn it. They were cute, and he wanted one. He wanted a kid with Jen’s eyes and smile and his willpower. Maybe not his willpower. No. Definitely with his willpower. The teen years would suck, but that kid would be a hell of an adult.
Jennifer grinned up from her rocking chair. She hadn’t complained once, just played with the babies and fed them their bottles and looked way too sweetly maternal. She was so young, but he’d learned that her heart didn’t have an age. Her heart was simply capable of deep love and infinite patience.
He looked down at his bride, his heart doing that weird flip-flop thing it always did when he thought about Jennifer for more than a second. Yes, she was young, but he was starting to wonder if she couldn’t handle motherhood as beautifully as she had handled marriage. Jennifer had surprised him at every turn, proving to be far more than just his match. A match was just someone who could keep up. Jennifer Talbot made him a better man.
“Oh, they sleep, babe. They just tend to like to do it on their own schedule.” She gingerly got out of her chair and started to make her way to the second of two playpens the Hollister-Wrights had brought for their clan.
God, he was crazy about her. Just the way she moved got his dick hard. She gently laid the baby down and turned to him, a mysterious smile on her gorgeous face. He would turn his Dom voice on her, but little Charlie was still eating his own foot and giggling up at him. It didn’t make him anxious the way it should. It simply made him wonder what his own child would look like.
“So, do you think you might ever want one of those tiny humans?” Jen asked. She sounded perpetually amused with the world. It was one of the things that drew him to her. She saw the world with such open and accepting eyes.
He couldn’t help it. He reached down and put a hand over Charlie’s fat little belly. The baby made a gurgling sound and his every limb twitched with excitement. Maybe that was what was so fucking great about kids—the brilliant opportunity to show another human being the whole world and to live it all over again through the eyes of his child.
Stef loved his dad. He really did, but his childhood had been truncated by his mother’s desertion.
Jennifer would never leave him, not willingly. She would stand beside him and raise any children they had, showing them the world and more importantly, showing them their world—giving them Bliss. He wanted his shot at being a dad.
“I do,” he admitted, his heart in his throat. He forced himself to catch her eyes, allowing her to see his emotion. It was only for her and his cobbled-together family. “Jennifer, I want kids. I know I haven’t given you any indication of that, but I really do. I lie about it because I don’t want you to feel pressured. But being around Max and Rye’s daughter and now Callie’s boys…”
He wasn’t sure how to say what he wanted to say. It was a vision in his head.
“You want your kids to have what you had. You want your babies to have Max and Rye and Callie as their family and all their kids as their confidantes and playmates and best friends. You want to have children so they can run all over Bliss and cause just as much trouble as you did.”
Once more, his wife proved she knew him so much better than he knew himself. “Yes.”
That secret smile came out again, curling her lips up. “I’m glad you want babies, Stef. Though I can’t promise I’ll produce a litter the way Callie did. I think this is a onesie.”
Her hand covered her lower belly, and there was a sheen of sweet tears in her eyes. His brain took a minute to process what she was saying, to put two and two together and come up with three. “Jennifer?”
She took a deep breath. “I hope you’re happy, Stef. Please be happy because I’m having this baby. It’s ours. I know we didn’t mean to have one so soon, but I’m happy. I want our baby to have Paige and Charlie and Zander. I want this more than I could want anything. Maybe not more than you, but I want both. I want you and our family.”
Stef took two steps toward her and got to his knees. She always brought him to his fucking knees. She had to know he worshipped the ground she walked on. He put his hands on her still-flat belly where his child was currently growing.
Dear god in heaven, he was having a baby.
“Stef, say something,” Jennifer said, her voice anxious.
He wrapped his arms around her, hauling her close. “Thank you.”
Jennifer’s fingers wound into his hair. “Stef, I’m so happy, babe. I can’t tell you how happy I was when I found out. I love you.”
“I love you, too.” She was his whole damn world.
“Dear god, the babies have made them insane,” a sarcastic voice said. Stef looked up, and Zane stood in the doorway. Callie and Nate were beside him. Callie was clutching a robe around her body. Nate and Zane just had pants on.
“Aren’t you supposed to be fucking?” Stef said, smiling as he stood. He put an arm around Jennifer’s waist, placing his hand over the baby. His baby. Their baby.
“We did. A couple of times.” Nate leaned over and kissed Callie before reaching down to pick up Charlie. “But we woke up and wanted to see our kids. I guess we’re just parents deep down.”
Callie shrugged. “It’s the best of both worlds. Crazy sex and a family life.”
Zane put a hand on Zander as he slept. “Sleep is overrated. I love this. I love having wild-ass kids. I hope we have ten.”
Callie’s eyes went wide. “Let’s go for four, baby.”
Zane shrugged. “The more the merrier.”
The Hollister-Wright clan settled in, rocking their babies. Stef held his wife while he watched them.
He could sleep when he was dead. He felt a smile cross his face. He was pretty sure even after he was dead that Jennifer would be there. Nell assured him that a happy afterlife awaited them all.
It didn’t matter. For now all was Bliss.
THE END