I forced energy into my arm and lifted my hand to brush his cheek. “I love you just as much.”
He shook his head. “Not possible, babe.”
I smiled. “Is it a competition?”
“Fact.” He nudged his hard-on between my legs, and I shivered in reaction. “No man alive loves a woman as much as I love you. I never thought I would feel this way about anyone. I didn’t think it existed. Not for me.”
“You’re going to make me cry, and I need to stop crying,” I whispered. “I love you just as much. Never forget it.”
He nodded, leaning down to brush his mouth over mine. “Do you trust me?”
“Yes,” I said immediately. “Completely.”
“Still on the pill?” He nibbled on my lower lip before looking into my eyes in question.
Confused, I nodded.
“And you trust me?”
“I already said yes.”
In answer he kissed me deeper, wetter than before, and as I sank into the beauty of it, he pushed inside of me.
He gasped against my mouth at the feel of being inside of me sans protection. His eyes darkened as he pressed deeper, and my muscles squeezed around him. He eased almost all the way out of me, and then slid back in, his thrusts gentle and slow.
The friction started within me again.
We locked gazes as he moved inside of me, and I was overwhelmed by the connection between us, by the love. It spurred my arousal on like nothing else could, and before I knew it I was coming again.
Logan kept pumping into me, chasing his own climax, the tension straining his muscles as he fought to hold it off as long as possible. When he pressed a thumb to my clit, I realized why.
He wanted me to come again.
In the privacy of my bedroom, Logan MacLeod whispered all the dirty things he was going to do to me in explicit deal. Just as he demanded I come once more, my inner muscles tightened around his cock and his lips parted, his hips stilled, and with a deep groan that sent satisfaction rumbling through me, he shuddered as we reached climax together.
CHAPTER 29
Eight months later
T
he sound of banging slowly seeped into my ears, jerking me out of my warm, wonderful sleep. I kept my eyes shut, refusing to be completely pulled out of it.
“Dad! Grace!”
The heavy arm around my waist shifted, and a groan rumbled right near my ear.
“Dad!”
“Maia?” Logan said sleepily into my ear, sounding confused.
“Door,” I mumbled.
“Wake up! It’s the wedding today!” She ended that on a giggle.
“Fuck.” The arm started to disappear from my waist, and I fumbled to catch it.
I pulled his body back in to mine, my back against his front. “No.”
I heard his throaty chuckle. “Babe, we need to get up.”
“Wake up!”
“We’re up, Maia,” Logan called back.
“I’ve got coffee for you. Are you decent?”
He leaned down to brush my hair from my face and whisper in my ear, “Are we decent?”
“I am. You’re definitely not,” I mumbled, still refusing to open my eyes.
“In ten seconds I’m coming in!”
“Damn.” I opened my eyes, squinting against the light. “I feel like I’ve had three hours of sleep.”
“That’s because you have.”
I turned and sat up, watching as Logan got out of bed and quickly shimmied into a pair of jeans. He threw a T-shirt at me.
Oh, yeah, I was naked.
I started to pull it on when I noticed his tie still wrapped around my wrist. “Shit.” I tugged at it frantically, not wanting Maia to see it.
Logan laughed and sat back on the bed, pushing my hands away. “Give us just a few more seconds, Maia,” he called out to her.
“Ugh,” she said. “That told me more than I needed to know.”
“Get it off,” I whispered, as he struggled to untie the knot.
He was shaking with laughter. “Where’s the other one?”
I lifted my wrist and frowned. “You must have taken it off.” I glanced warily at the bedroom door. “I thought Maia was staying with Shannon last night?” Just the thought of her hearing what we got up to in this bedroom made me blush in mortification from head to toe. A few months ago I’d given up my flat to move into Logan’s, and we’d been very creative about sex ever since, finding time to have amazing, very loud sex whenever Maia wasn’t home. The times she was home were the times Logan loved to watch me bite my lip to keep the cries of pleasure inside.
“She was,” he assured me as he untied the tie.
As soon as he did that, I whipped on the T-shirt.
“I’m coming in before the coffee gets cold.”
“Come in,” Logan said once I was covered and the tie was hidden.
Maia pushed open the door and stepped in carrying two mugs of coffee. My lips parted at the sight of her. She was already dressed in her bridesmaid outfit.
“You look beautiful,” I said.
She grinned, handing me my coffee. “Now, don’t go getting all watery on me, Grace.”
“She’s right.” Her dad leaned up to press a kiss to her cheek as he took his coffee. “You look gorgeous, sweetheart.”
She blushed and smoothed her now-free hands down the pale pink dress. It was so subtle a pink it was almost oyster. It had little cap sleeves, a sweetheart neckline, and a slight swing in the skirt. The skirt hit her knees, so you could see the beautiful oyster-pink platform peep toes she was wearing. Her hair had been styled into this elaborate updo with coils and curls pinned in place with little pearls and diamantés.
“You look so grown-up.”
Maia smiled shyly at me. “Do you think Charlie will like it?”
Her father growled at the mention of the boy who had been seeing Maia for eight months now. I didn’t know what he was so concerned about. Charlie was the opposite of a bad boy if ever I had met one.
“I’m sure he will. What are you doing here? Clearly you’ve been at Shannon’s.” I gestured to her.
“Aye, the hairstylist and makeup artist did my hair and makeup first, so I thought I’d grab a cab and come back home to make sure you two were up. Thankfully I did, or you’d still be sleeping.”
“On that note, I’m going to take a shower.” Logan dumped his now-empty coffee mug on the bedside table and hurried out of the room.
“Is he nervous about walking Shannon down the aisle?” Maia said after he’d gone.
“Nope. He’s honored.”
I watched Logan walk his sister down the aisle a few hours later, my chest bursting with pride. I still thought it was incredibly brave of her to choose him over her father, and I was pleased to see that despite the upset it caused, her parents were still in attendance. Apparently, their father had come around, and understood why it meant so much to Shannon for Logan to be the one to give her away.
They’d also been there for Maia so far.
Not surprisingly, Maia, knowing what they were capable of, kept her defenses higher around them, having been taught too young what it was like to have someone care for you one moment and stop caring the next.
But the MacLeods were trying.
Shannon had only a flower girl, a bridesmaid, and a matron of honor. She had Maia as bridesmaid, Cole’s niece, Belle, as flower girl, and her friend Rae was matron of honor. I’d met her only once before. Rae worked with Cole at the tattoo studio, and she herself was a tattooed biker-looking chick who somehow made her dress look biker punk.
It might have been the motorcycle boots Shannon had allowed her to wear.
Both Shannon and Cole had written their own vows, so I had mascara blobs around my eyes by the time they were finished. I was glad to see I wasn’t the only one affected, however, as I could see Ellie, Jo, and Hannah dabbing away at their eyes. Only Olivia and Joss were dry-eyed, but their beaming smiles lit up the whole church.
/> I’d never known people like them, I thought as I stared around the room at the women and men and children who had invited Shannon and Logan into their lives and just as easily took in Maia and me.
“Need a hanky there?” Aidan whispered in my ear beside me.
Juno, who sat by his side, jabbed her elbow into his stomach to quiet him.
Chloe, who sat on my other side, handed me a tissue.
I rolled my eyes at their gentle teasing, but I was glad they were here with me.
All of my family in one room together.
“Okay, let’s ditch this place and get out of here,” Shannon announced upon rushing over to us, dragging Cole with her.
The reception hall was huge because they had a lot of guests, but those of us who were family and close friends had pushed two tables together and were sitting around them, talking and drinking, relaxed now that the ceremony and dinner was over.
We stared up at Shannon, amused.
Her dress – a white, figure-hugging, calf-length forties-style number – was still pristine. As were the five-inch Kurt Geiger bridal shoes she was wearing. However, her cheeks were flushed, and her hair was falling loose of the clips the hairstylist had used.
She looked overwhelmed.
“I mean it.” She nodded. “We need to get out of here. My cheeks hurt, my feet hurt, and I’m fed up talking to people I hardly ever talk to instead of the people I want to talk to.” She gestured to us.
“I tried to tell her this is what it would be like,” Cole said as he wrapped his arms around her waist and drew her back against him.
“Let’s just go to the Walk or something.” She referred to a pub that I knew Cole favored on Leith Walk.
“Nope.” He kissed her cheek apologetically. “We’re stuck here.”
“That doesn’t mean you have to traipse around after everyone else,” I said, pushing an empty chair toward her. “Sit down with us. If anyone wants to talk to you, they can come to you.”
Her eyes brightened at that, and she immediately whipped off her shoes and padded over to me barefoot. Logan pushed a chair toward Cole, and he gave up and decided to join us too. “What the hell,” he muttered. “It’s our wedding.”
“We should have done that at our wedding,” Joss said to Braden.
Her husband held Baby Ellie in his arms, swaying her gently as she took everything in. Shannon and Cole had deliberately held the wedding and wedding supper early so the kids could all enjoy it. “Probably,” he said. “But I quite enjoyed how tortured you were by it all.”
“You’re such a romantic,” she said dryly.
He winked at her and she rolled her eyes.
“Everyone should do what we did,” Hannah said. “Marco and I invited just you lot, and it was perfect.”
“Oh no. I like the whole big wedding thing,” Ellie disagreed. “I love weddings.”
“We know,” Joss, Jo, Liv, and Hannah said in unison.
Ellie glared at them, and Adam put his arm around her, pulling her in to his side. “Ignore them, sweetheart.”
“You love that I love weddings – don’t you?” she said to him, wide-eyed, still somehow managing to pull off this adorable thing even though she was in her late thirties.
“Absolutely,” her husband managed to say with a straight face.
Braden ruined it by grunting loudly in disbelief.
“Well, Grace and I will probably just make it a small do,” Logan announced, causing the whole two tables to quiet.
I stiffened and felt Chloe’s hand grip my knee in reaction to the announcement.
Maia gasped. “Are you getting married?”
“At some point,” Logan said, looking confused by everyone’s sudden alertness.
“But have you proposed?” Shannon leaned across the table, eyes bright with excitement.
“At some point I will.” He stared across the table at me, apparently looking for help.
I could only stare back in shock.
He had not mentioned marriage to me.
“Why does Grace look like she’s just hearing this for the first time?” Olivia asked, amusement in her expression.
“Because she is,” Chloe answered beside me. She would know, because she’d be the first person to hear about it.
“Och, Logan,” Jo snapped at him. “You can’t go announcing these things without talking to the bride-to-be first.”
“Bad form, mate.” Nate shook his head.
“Well…” Logan looked at them all and then at me before coming to the realization that he’d gone about it all wrong. “Fuck.”
“Logan MacLeod, there are children present.” Elodie harrumphed.
“Apologies,” he said, almost sheepishly.
I laughed at the fact that no one else, absolutely no one else on the planet could intimidate Logan, but Elodie Nichols could make him feel like an errant schoolboy.
Our eyes met as he turned toward my laughter. His eyes asked me if we were okay. I smiled. “You just better make sure it’s one hell of a proposal.”
Everyone snorted and chuckled as Logan’s gaze, his promise to do just that, seared from his eyes into my very soul.
“Way to hijack my wedding, folks,” Shannon teased.
It snapped Logan and me out of our moment, and I put an arm around her, hugging her in apology. She waved me off, laughing, apparently too excited at the prospect of us becoming sisters to care.
As conversation moved on to other things, Maia rushed around the table to me, bending down to look me in the face. For a moment we just gazed at each other, and I felt everything she was feeling without her having to say anything. I reached up to touch her cheek, and her eyes brightened with tears.
Just like that my eyes filled up too.
Because we suddenly knew.
She and I… we had Logan and we had each other.
And that meant we were finally going to be okay.
I glanced over at Logan to find him watching us intently, like he knew what had passed between us. His eyes darkened with deep-felt emotion. His lips parted and he mouthed, I love you.
And as I mouthed them back, in that moment – in that moment I would never forget – I felt the rare sweetness of absolute rightness… of absolute contentment.
Of absolute family.
EPILOGUE
Four days later in Italy
Shannon
“I
t was good of Joss and Braden to give us the villa again,” Cole said as we floated in the pool together. Spring in Lake Como was genuinely a mild affair, a bit like an early British summer, but today was an unusually hot day for the season and we were taking full advantage of it.
I bobbed gently against him, my legs wrapped tight around his hips, my arms around his neck. “I’m so glad we came back here.” It had seemed like the perfect choice for our honeymoon.
Cole’s hands kneaded my bottom, his low-lidded gaze making me tingle. “Me too. I have particularly good memories of this pool.”
I laughed. “It’s broad daylight. I only let that happen last time because it was dark.”
“Does that mean you’ll let me take advantage of you in the pool tonight, then?”
“Oh, you’ll have to get me drunk first. I mean, look at you,” I teased, smoothing my hands over his strong biceps. “Blech.”
He shook with laughter. “I know it’ll be a hardship for you, shortcake, but do it for me.”
“Oh, all right, then.” I laughed as he peppered my face with kisses and pretended to grope me.
“You’re wearing too many clothes,” he huffed.
“I’m wearing a bikini.”
“Yes. Too many clothes.”
Giggling, I held on tighter to him, urging my body closer to his as the water tried to gently separate us. “I think we should come back here for every big anniversary.”
He slid his arms around my back, drawing me up against his chest so our lips were just an inch from one another. I stared into his beautiful green e
yes, and like always, I felt contented with the soul-deep knowledge that I’d found my best friend and my family in this man.
“I think that’s a great idea,” he said softly, brushing his mouth over mine. “And when we have kids and they’re older, we should bring them here too.”
“How many do you want?”
He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter to me. I’ll be happy if we have one or five, boys or girls… As long as they have a piece of me and a piece of you in them, that’s all that matters.”
“Do you have to be so perfect, Cole Walker?”
“It’s all part of my charm, Mrs. Cole Walker.”
I flushed, my body tingling with arousal as it did every time he called me Mrs. Cole Walker. I didn’t know why it was such a turn-on and a trigger, but it was, and I seriously regretted confiding it to him. I glowered at him. “You said you wouldn’t.” I squirmed as he cupped my ass, deliberately pressing me against him.
He grinned devilishly. “You are so fucking adorable.”
I closed my eyes and shut out what he was doing to my body. There was no way we were having sex in broad daylight in a pool! “I want three kids!” I practically shouted to distract us both.
Just as I’d expected, Cole stopped teasing my body and stilled. “Three?”
“Mmm-hmm.” I popped open my eyes to stare into his in earnest. “Boys or girls… I don’t mind. Although I would like one boy with green eyes and strawberry blond hair.”
His smile was slow and boyishly pleased. “Yeah? And when are we starting on making that happen, then?”
“Another few years?” I said. “I still want you all to myself for a while.”
“Another few years,” he murmured, staring at me with all the love and tenderness in the world. “We’re going to have really cute kids.”
I nodded, hugging him tight. “And smart.”
“And kind.”
“And talented.”
“We really love ourselves, don’t we?” he cracked.
I shook my head and stared into his eyes. No, I just really love you.
As if he read my thought, Cole closed the distance between us and kissed me so deep and so hard, I reconsidered the whole sex-in-broad-daylight thing.