His bright eyes darkened with hope and desire and need, but I wasn’t done.
“I want to be wherever you are. Be loved and protected by you, pushed and encouraged by you. I don’t want to change my name because you have this way of saying it that makes my entire body come alive. I want Lexi to know that I love you. I just—”
Conor sat up, capturing my mouth with his and swallowing my surprised whimper.
His hands gripped and tugged, pulling me closer.
“Say it,” he begged, nipping teasingly at my bottom lip.
The corners of my mouth twitched up. “I love you.”
A laugh climbed up my throat and got lost in our next kiss.
“I love you. I love you,” I whispered against his lips.
He pulled slightly back, his stare bouncing over my face before resting on my eyes. “Nothing could make me stop loving you.”
I rested my forehead on his and lightly dragged my fingers through his beard. “Even after everything?”
“If your judgmental attitude didn’t push me away, I don’t think anything could.”
I dropped my head into the crook of his neck as a full laugh broke free. When I faced him again, his eyes were light and dancing.
“I just want a life with you,” I whispered. Fearlessly. Boldly. Without reservation.
“I can do that.”
Our next kiss began slow and quickly built.
Consuming.
Pushing and pulling.
Fighting and clashing.
A beautiful storm that had no ending.
Conor
Two Years Later . . .
As soon as we set foot inside the Borello house, Lexi tore off after Diggs, bright laugh echoing through the halls as she chased him.
Sutton twisted so she was in front of me, walking backward in the direction of the room we occupied during the times everyone stayed here. A mischievous grin tugged at her full mouth.
“How long do you think we have?”
“In this place?” Where a dozen other people—including kids—already were, or would be soon?
But, Jesus, for this girl, I would find a way to give us forever.
I dipped down to steal a slow kiss. “Let’s go.”
She pushed up onto her toes when I started pulling away, making the moment linger a little while longer before gripping my hand in both of hers and heading to our room.
I pulled her close to my chest as we neared the door, teasing her neck with faint kisses and whispering things I planned to do to her, only for it all to stop when we rounded the doorway and found the room missing something crucial.
Sutton’s fingers paused in my hair before her arm fell heavily. “Where’s the bed?”
“Fucking Diggs.” I released her and stalked through the house, shouting for the twin I was about to kill.
I found him in the kitchen, tossing stuff from the refrigerator to Lexi, who sat on the island, giggling the entire time.
“We’re making monster sandwiches, Dad!”
For that brief second, my irritation fell away.
Everything had the first time she’d called me that, and everything continued to.
I hooked an arm around her and pulled her toward me to kiss the top of her head. “Not too big, Lex. There’s gonna be a lot of food tonight.”
“They have to be the biggest,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “They’re called monsters.”
I flicked her forehead. “Don’t do that.”
She gestured to Diggs. “It’s what he did when he said it.”
I shot him a glare that promised pain for so much more than this conversation.
He shrugged, arms weighed down with ingredients. “Dude, it’s true.”
“Our bed is gone,” I said through clenched teeth. “Not just the mattress, the entire thing.”
He scoffed. “What do you think I am, an amateur?” He dropped the contents in his arms to the island, then straightened with a satisfied smirk. “I learned long ago with Lily that once the baby bump starts popping out, beds get moved. Never made that mistake with one of the girls during their times of need since. No one misses sleepovers for anything.”
I dragged my hands over my face, groaning as I did. “I’m sure I’ll be thankful for that later. At the moment, I fucking hate you.”
Lexi flicked the side of my head. “Don’t say hate, it isn’t nice.”
Diggs held up a fist toward her, but he never stopped looking at me. “Damn straight. All about the love in this house.”
My eyes narrowed as I pushed away from the island. “Lexi, normal size.”
“Biggest ever,” Diggs whispered.
“I heard that,” I called out but kept walking.
Ever since I’d come back from Tennessee with Sutton and Lexi right by my side, the three of us had sleepovers in the main Borello house once a month, without fail.
At first, we’d all pitched in, giving Diggs the forts he’d given everyone else for years. Once he was back to getting around the way he used to, he’d gone back to setting them up with Maverick.
When the twins worked together, there was no stopping them. They went all out every time.
Lexi loved it, and it had ensured Sutton got to know everyone, and them her. We were all together constantly, whether at the ARCK office or getting together to eat, but Sutton had quickly fallen into a routine of just watching everyone during those times. It wasn’t until the first sleepover that she started opening up to people other than Jess and Kieran.
Not that I blamed her since Dare’s first words to Sutton had been, “So, you’re why we almost lost Einstein.”
Then Einstein showed up at our house in the middle of the night a couple of months after our return, sobbing, and went straight for Sutton, pushing me out of the room as she did.
When I’d called Maverick to figure out what was going on, he’d said, “It’s Einstein, man. Bad shit happens, she pushes it aside and lets it consume her until she deals. She’s dealing.”
Those two had been inseparable since.
Somehow, the friendship worked with Sutton’s attitude and Einstein’s harsh way of talking to everyone.
They were even due three weeks apart.
More rebels to add to our growing family.
Kieran and Jess had just found out they were expecting a second, and I hoped this one was a girl as wild as her mom. Because their first had been the calmest, most controlled kid from the day he was born.
Barely cried and studied you with sharp, knowing eyes. When he started crawling, he would appear beside you. Once he started walking, it only got worse.
Little shit was just like his dad.
And Kieran fucking loved it.
As for my family . . . we’d bought a bigger house since I was no longer living alone and then had gotten everything they needed to go through life again.
Birth certificates, social security cards, IDs, background stories. Only their last name was different, and six months later, we changed it again to mine.
And there wasn’t one damn thing about our marriage that wasn’t real.
Sutton was mine—she always would be.
Just as Lexi was officially my daughter. We’d done that legally, not through Einstein’s creations.
Lexi was in school and dance and had an attitude that rivaled her mom’s, and Sutton was working at the salon in town. Every night, she walked into the ARCK office, exhausted and with the biggest damn smile on her face. And every night, that smile reminded me that this was the life Beck had always wanted for us.
It was why he and Kieran had worked so hard to pull us from Holloway.
So, we could have this.
Work we were good at and passionate about.
Kids running around instead of being hidden away on the backs of properties. Our women living their own lives, pregnant, and not having the constant threats to them or our unborn children hanging over their heads.
I just wished he’d been around to enjoy it.<
br />
As soon as I made it to the bedroom, every frustration disappeared.
I stopped in the doorway, hand gripping the frame, and just took Sutton in.
Sitting cross-legged on the couch, scrolling through a list of names on her phone I knew she’d already been through a thousand times.
Smooth skin and curves that fit perfectly against me on display.
She’d changed into one of her satin robes and left it open, revealing nothing more than her lace bra and underwear, and the most perfect bump in the world.
When voices echoed through the house, I stepped into the room, shutting the door behind me and twisting the lock. “You’re beautiful.”
She set her phone down and lifted her head, her bottom lip caught between her teeth. Blush crept up her cheeks as she leaned back against the arm of the couch, the sight a perfect contradiction. All shy looks while begging me to look, to come closer.
I pulled my shirt over my head as I closed the distance between us, dropping it onto the floor a moment before I placed my hands on either side of her. I bent to press a kiss to her stomach, then captured her mouth for a lingering, unhurried kiss.
“Bed?”
“Diggs took it for the fort.” I passed my lips across hers once more, trailing my knuckles against her five-month bump as I did. “Because of this.”
A hum of acknowledgement sounded in her throat. “Thoughtful.”
“Not right now.”
Her fingers dragged through my beard, gripping and pulling my face back to hers.
Her lips brushed against mine when she whispered, “We have a perfectly good chaise right here.”
I gripped the sides of her underwear and started pulling them down. “For everything I wanted to do to you, I need that bed.”
“But think of what a man the likes of you could do to me right here.”
“The likes of me?” The question was pure tease. I nipped at her bottom lip and reminded her, “You married the likes of me.”
“It was the beard,” she said breathlessly as I stretched her legs out and finished removing her underwear.
A rumble of a laugh sounded in my chest. “That right?”
“And the tattoos.”
I parted her legs and trailed the tips of my fingers up her thigh, savoring every part of her reaction when I touched where she was ready for me.
Her soft gasp. How she arched away from the couch. The way her eyelids fluttered shut only to open again, revealing eyes filled with lust and need and love.
She pulled me closer, her lips brushing mine with each breath.
Teasing.
Pleading.
Driving me crazy and making my blood pound its claim with each beat of my heart.
Mine, mine, mine.
Just before she took control of the kiss, she whispered, “It was you.”
Look for more Rebel novels from Molly McAdams!
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Coming Soon . . .
The Brewed Series
From New York Times bestselling author, Molly McAdams, comes a new, captivating series! Each stand-alone focuses on one of the Dixon boys—the hottest bachelors around. What everyone doesn’t see is the strain threatening to destroy their family and their parents’ dream permanently. Based in a small, country town, the Brewed series is filled with tension, excitement, and passion—feuds will transform to romances, and chances will be given again in true McAdams fashion.
Limit (Rebel Book 3) Page 37
