“Hey,” he said coming into the room. “I didn’t cheat.”

Beth pouted. “It was almost like cheating.”

I tickled her belly. “You’re just mad because you didn’t come up with it first.”

She giggled despite herself and I knew we were forgiven.

I leaned down for a kiss and a hug, holding her for a minute longer than usual as she wrapped her little arms around my neck. “Night, baby,” I whispered.

“Night, Momma,” she said.

I got up and let Braden kiss her goodnight. The two of us stood in her doorway for a second, watching her pull her duvet right up to her ear as she turned onto her side, getting comfy. I switched off her light and we closed the door behind us.

I looked up at Braden and shivered at the heat in his eyes.

“I’ll lock up,” he said, his voice low. “You go upstairs and wait for me.”

My skin flushed with excitement. I grinned in anticipation. “We’re having an early night?”

“A long night,” he corrected, leaning down to kiss me softly. “You’re going to be fucking exhausted by the time I’m done with you.”

“Yay.” I grinned back and he chuckled.

While Braden went downstairs to lock up the house, I went upstairs to get changed into a nighty that my husband bought me after I told him I was pregnant. It was a silk nighty in ice blue and it covered my bump but was really low cut and snug around my boobs. My boobs were usually a very decent handful and were now more so and very tender.

I shouldn’t complain too much about my pregnancy figure. I was lucky enough just to have my boobs and belly swell. Every other part of me stayed the same. In fact, Ellie Senior told me rather enviously that from the back you couldn’t even tell I was pregnant.

Ellie would be envious of that since she swelled up everywhere—face, fingers, feet and all.

Ellie Jnr wasn’t too big of a bump, I thought, smoothing the silk over my stomach. Luke had definitely been bigger.

“Sexy lingerie, check,” Braden said, smiling at me as he stepped into our bedroom and closed the door.

One of the best things about our Georgian townhouse? Being a whole floor away from our kids so we could have adult husband and wife time without them overhearing us.

I pointed to my bare feet. “No heels, though, sorry.”

He whipped off his sweater and threw it across the room as he walked toward me. “We didn’t even need the nighty, believe me.”

My eyes locked with his as he tugged me toward him. “You have good taste in lingerie though,” I murmured, my breathing quickening.

He slid his hands down my back and I felt my nipples pebble. “I’ve been looking forward to this all day.”

“Yeah?” I ran my hands up his arms. “Then can we move it along? Because I would very much like an orgasm.”

Braden’s eyes narrowed at my unromantic demand and he started walking, moving me backward toward the bed. “I was going to make love to you but if you just want to get straight to the point that’s your call.”

“Really?” I said, my heart pounding with excitement. “I promise you can make love to me after.”

My husband closed his eyes, a smile kicking up the corner of his mouth as he shook his head. “Almost twelve years of marriage and she’s still unlike any woman I’ve ever known.”

“She’s still in the room.” I got up on the bed and when he opened his eyes I grinned at him. “I’m ready.”

He smirked. “You look like a kid at Christmas.”

My gaze dropped to his straining zipper. “And I know which present I want to open first.”

Braden burst out laughing and reached out to wrap his hand around my ankle. Gently he pulled me down the bed toward him. I leaned back on my hands and tilted my head back, as his mouth descended toward mine.

My lips tingled at the brush of his mouth against mine.

One brush.

Two.

Teasing

A whisper.

“Braden,” I pleaded softly.

“Do you love me, Jocelyn?” he murmured in my ear, and goosebumps awakened at the back of my ear and all the way down my neck and spine.

A long time ago that question would have sent me scurrying from the room. I remembered that fear, those feelings, but they felt somehow separate from me… like I remembered them as though they were felt by a very good friend of mine—as though it all happened to a very good friend of mine—rather than to me.

I turned my cheek, caressing my face against his, feeling the slight prickle of stubble on his cheeks. “No one could love you more, baby.”

At that he groaned and gripped the nape of my neck in his hand, holding me to him as he kissed me hungrily, desperately. I clung to his waist, straining for more, always more.

I pulled back and reached up to cup his face in my hands.

Staring into his eyes, eyes that were now as familiar as my own, I felt a huge rush of emotion overwhelm me. I knew it was my hormones. I swear I was at my mushiest when I was pregnant. I think that was another reason Braden liked me knocked up.

“Do you still feel the way you felt about me when we first got together?”

He stared at me, his eyes searching mine. “No,” he said quietly, as though it was obvious, and my breath caught. “I feel more.” He took my hand in his, sliding his fingers through mine. “You’re a part of me now in a way you weren’t when we first fell in love. It was just a connection then. A hot, exciting, sexy as fuck connection.” He grinned at me, the memories dancing in his eyes. “Now it’s a full blown fusion. A hot, deep, sexy as fuck fusion. If something had happened back then… if it hadn’t worked out… it would have floored me but I would have eventually gotten back up and started living again. Life would have been emptier but I would have gotten on with it.