Fuck. My muscles under her palms get tight, and “Baby” rips from my chest. “She knows. She’ll never doubt that.” I give her a squeeze. “Ever.”

“But what if she does? What if—”

“She’s going to grow up surrounded by love,” I cut her off. “Surrounded by a family and parents who love her. She won’t question that, and she will never—not ever—feel alone.”

“I just love her so much,” she says quietly.

“I know you do, and so do I. I also love you and want to help, so please let me do that.”

“Okay,” she agrees, dipping her head to touch her mouth to mine.

Before she can lean back, I slide my hand into her hair to keep her where she is. “Slip off your nightie and panties, baby. I’m gonna eat you then you’re gonna ride me.”

Her breathy “Okay” is filled with desire and need. As she pulls off her nightie and rolls to her side to slide her panties down her legs, I kick off my pajama bottoms then hook her around the waist, placing her over my face, her thighs on either side of my head.

Her hands slap against the headboard and “Oh” rushes from between her lips. I wrap my hands up and around her thighs then pull her down to my mouth. I groan when her wetness hits my tongue then go at her, licking, sucking, nibbling until her hips start jerking in my grasp, telling me she’s close to losing it. I don’t let up until she cries out and her head falls to rest on the headboard.

Hard as a rock, I wrap one hand around my length and stroke to ease the pressure. Hadley moves, and I adjust with her, holding onto her hip as she lowers herself down on my length. Her wet, tight heat closes around me, slowly making my teeth grind together. “Fuck, but I love this goddamn pussy,” I groan when I’m fully seated within her.

“I love you,” she moans, raising her hips and dropping them slowly. “I love the way you fill every inch of me. God, I feel you everywhere.” Her head falls back and her eyes close. I lean up, capture her nipple between my lips, and roll my tongue over the tightly drawn tip. When her head tilts forward, our eyes lock.

I transfer my mouth to her other nipple, and her thighs around mine tighten while her pussy ripples along my length. “Do not come, Hadley, not until I say.” Her eyes flare and her lashes flutter. “Christ, my wife is gorgeous when she’s taking my cock.” She mewls, coming down harder as I buck up into each and every downward stroke. When my balls draw tight, I slide my hand around her hip and roll my thumb over her clit. “Come with me, baby. Give it to me.”

She clamps down around me, and I hold her still as I lose myself deep inside her. Breathing heavy, my heart pounding against my ribcage, I soak in our connection, the feel of her breath hitting my neck and her soft, warm body limp against mine. I close my eyes. Never could I have imagined a more perfect woman for me than her. She’s every hope, dream, and wish mixed into the perfect package.

“If I was able to design the perfect wife, perfect mother, perfect woman, I still wouldn’t even come close to describing you,” I whisper against the side of her head, and her muscles contract. “Every day, I’m thankful that I get to wake up to you. That I get to spend the rest of my life with you at my side.” I wrap my arms around her back, holding her flush against me. “Chloe is gonna feel the same every day of her life.” Her body bucks against mine and I place my mouth to her ear. “You’re everything to us, baby... fucking everything.”

I roll us face-to-face and hold her tightly as she cries until she eventually falls asleep. When Chloe wakes up and I hear her through the monitor sometime later, I go to her room and bring her back to our bed, resting her slight weight against my chest. I hold her and her mom in my arms and know without a doubt I have within my grasp something most people will never really understand, something beautiful, something rare, something worth cherishing. A family created from love.

Hadley

Years, and years, and years later . . .

“You’re the one who decided she should get a car for her seventeenth birthday,” I remind Cobi, as he shoves his fingers through his hair and stomps past the front window for the thousandth time in the last three hours. He started pacing approximately thirty seconds after Chloe left to go out on a double date.

“You agreed with me.” He stops long enough to look at where I’m currently sitting on our couch, watching the TV and him.

“I was under the influence of your penis. I don’t think that counts.” He grins, but then it slips away and his eyes move over me then back to the window. “She’s okay, honey. It’s not even time for her curfew,” I remind him as he goes back to pacing.

“I just want to know she’s home safe.”

“And she’ll be home soon, but your pacing is not going to magically make her appear,” I say, and he glares at me. “Come sit down.” I pat the cushion next to me.

“If she didn’t look like you, I wouldn’t worry so much, but she looks just like you.”

She doesn’t look like me. She has my hair and build, but she has her dad’s beautiful eyes and sweet personality. Really, I think she looks a lot like her grandma Liz.

“I see Daddy’s still pacing,” Briana, our fifteen-year-old daughter, comments as she comes into the living room, plopping down on the couch next to me. I giggle when she gives me a surprised look and then smiles. Our middle girl looks a lot like a mixture of Cobi and me, with her daddy’s hair and my eyes.

“Is Chloe home yet?” Jace, our fourteen-year-old mini alpha, shouts from his bedroom upstairs, and Briana shouts back “No” before I hear his bare feet hit the hardwoods upstairs. I listen as he jumps down the stairs—I’m sure skipping three or four at a time. Something I tell him not to do all the time, something he does anyway, because apparently he can’t help himself. Thankfully though, he’s never broken anything doing it.

“You shouldn’t have let her go, Dad,” he says to Cobi as soon as he hits the living room.

Briana hisses, “Shut up, Jace.”

“You shut up,” he returns, glaring at his sister.

“Both of you, stop it,” Cobi cuts in on a growl, and both of them clamp their mouths shut and look at their dad with wide eyes. “Do not tell each other to shut up. Got it?” He looks between the two of them.

“Yeah, Dad,” Jace mumbles.

“Yes, Daddy,” Briana says softly.

I fight back a smile and wrap my arm around Briana then touch my boy’s face when he sits close to me on my other side.

“Can I make popcorn?” Jace asks after a few minutes of watching TV.

“Sure, honey,” I reply, and he gets off the couch, walking past his father, who reaches out and pulls him into a hug that he returns instantly.

Jace is the spitting image of his dad from head to toe, but he will probably be taller, since he’s already touching the top of his head to Cobi’s chin, and so tall I have to look up at him even now.

“Bring me a beer on your way back, kid,” Cobi orders, and Jace smiles at him before disappearing through the door.

“I cannot wait to start dating,” Briana states, and her dad stops pacing long enough to give her a look that has us both cracking up.

Jace comes back in with a bowl of popcorn, handing his dad his beer before taking the seat next to me again. Briana and I both dig in, ignoring his comments about us eating it all. I watch my husband out of the corner of my eye, and when I see his broad shoulders relax, I know my oldest baby is home.

“Scoot, kid,” he orders Jace, standing over where he’s still sitting next to me.

“What?” Jace asks through a mouthful of popcorn.

Instead of repeating himself, he sits down between Jace and me, taking the bowl of popcorn and placing it on his lap.

“So you’re going to pretend like you haven’t been standing at the window since she left?” I guess, rolling my eyes at my husband while both kids on the couch with us laugh at him.

“Just act normal.” He wraps his arm around my shoulders, pulling me firmly into his side.

I look up at him as he tips his head down, and announce, “You’re crazy.”