My spirit never got tired of singing it.
With Kallie still tacked to my side, my feet were moving.
Drawn.
Had been since the second I’d seen her.
I’d just had no idea that being drawn to all that dark, into her light and heavy and soft, was drawing me right into life.
My boots thudded up the wooden steps, becoming a heavy echo as I crossed the porch.
Tenderly, I caressed across my son’s head before I moved to settle my hand on Shea’s neck. Her pulse thrummed like content and thunder beneath my touch.
She exhaled something that sounded like relief. Ease and comfort and perfect harmony.
“You have any clue how much I missed you, baby?” I asked, voice raw. Coarse with five days of pent-up need.
She peeked at me, driving me mad with that coy, playful grin. “Um…about half as much as I missed you?”
Chuckling, my thumb set to tracing her jaw, my famished eyes roaming her gorgeous face.
A familiar stir of devotion ran hot in my veins, words dropping even lower. “You think so, huh?”
“Mmhmm. Considering I didn’t stop thinking about you for one second while you were away, I’d think giving you half would be generous.”
The girl was teasing me with the soft, seductive lilt of that Southern drawl.
My entire body hardened, thinking just how fucking sublime it was gonna be to get lost in hers.
Sleek legs and hungry hands. Complete. Body and soul.
Couldn’t wait.
“Have to say, think you’re way off base, Mrs. Stone. Got to L.A., and there I was, missing my family for three extra hours. Torment.”
I smirked. Time change and all.
The laughter that trekked up her throat was flirtatious, and she started to sway in my hold, while she kept our son in the protective cocoon of her arms.
“And we had to wait for you three extra hours to get here tonight. Torture,” she fired back with another grin.
My insides fluttered like all those butterflies Kallie loved to talk about.
But this?
This was ripping wings.
A battering beat of loyalty and dedication and need.
I prodded my girl’s chin, lifting her to me so I could dip down and kiss the one who’d seen this inside me.
Someone worth something more than sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll. Someone better than one-night stands and an empty soul.
The one who’d trusted in it.
Believed in it.
She received me with plush lips, soft and sweet and tender, the briefest flash of her tongue fueled by desire. I lingered there, kissing her a little deeper than maybe was modest. But fuck, who could blame a man who had a girl like this?
Kallie giggled, little body wiggling in my hold, plucking me from the salacious direction my thoughts went strayin’.
“Daddy,” she sang like she was givin’ me a good scolding with that precious voice. “Too many kisses.”
I cut her a guilty albeit unremorseful smile, before I dropped my forehead to my wife’s.
Emotion grew thick, this feeling swamping me as I turned my gaze down to the child we’d created.
God.
He was incredible.
A miracle.
Connor Julian Stone.
I dropped a quick kiss to Kallie’s temple. “Let me say hi to your brother, okay, Little Bug?”
Never wanted her to feel like she now came second. Like she were less when that was impossible.
Like she totally got it, she nodded in her sweet way. “’Kay.”
I set her on the ground and turned back to my son.
Wide grey eyes locked on mine, and Connor gave me this gurgling sound and a lopsided, crooked smile.
God, felt ’em both right in the center of my chest.
“Hey there, little man,” I said quietly as I lifted him from Shea’s arms.
I held him out in front of me. Just needing to take him in.
Then I brought him near, softly kissed the corner of his mouth.
Tiny fingers dug into my face as he curled into me, one of those giggles he’d just figured out how to make bursting free and sinking right into me.
Joy.
So much joy.
“Were you a good boy for your momma?” I cooed.