She doesn’t understand. How could she? Her mother is everything I wish my parents were. She protects Harper at all costs. She loves her fiercely. There must be something defective about me, because my own parents don’t love me.
I look down, but she tips my face up to meet her eyes.
“You take care of me, time after time. You push my boundaries every chance you get, but you’re good to me. It wasn’t a hard decision to choose you to be my first. Besides the size thing, I mean.”
I smile and capture her lips. She leans into the kiss, opening and letting me take control. When I pull back, she comes after me, and I smirk.
“Everything about you is everything I didn’t know I needed.” I brush her hair behind her ear. “You’re soft and fierce. Caring and a hard-ass when you need to be. You made me sandwiches, little nympho.”
She shrugs. “You liked them.”
“I did.” When I brush my thumb across her lips, her eyes darken. “You took care of me. So I made sure my friends didn’t break you, because I didn’t want you broken. I wanted you exactly as you are. Jack told me you wouldn’t stay if we couldn’t love you.”
“I don’t need you to say the words if they aren’t true.” Her eyes search mine. That’s the truth and it makes me love her even more.
“I don’t need to lie to you, little nympho. Because I can’t imagine a life without you in it. I’ve always wanted to keep you. Maybe not in the beginning when you were a virgin who didn’t want to have sex anytime soon and then demanded we not have sex unless it was with you.”
“I mean, can you blame me?” She smirks. “I didn’t exactly want a bunch of man whores circling around me.”
“You gave me something no one else in my life ever has.”
“My virginity was special, but?—”
I cover her mouth and shake my head. “You gave yourself to me unconditionally. You knew we might leave once we got what we wanted, but you gave in without letting that hold you back.”
Her eyes soften.
“I love you, Harper. I will always be at your beck and call. I don’t care if everyone calls me pussy whipped. Yours is definitely worth it.”
She rolls her eyes, but I still keep her mouth covered.
“We’re not normal guys. We’re not easy. Our lives won’t always be simple, but I think with you we can make this work. We can stay together and love each other and have eight to twenty kids.”
She mumbles against my hand.
I nod like she agreed with me. “Twenty? Yeah, that might be a lot, but I mean, you have five helpers, so that breaks down to three and a half kids per person. And, I mean, you won’t have all of them at once.”
She licks the palm of my hand, and I raise my eyebrows. She rolls her eyes.
Cadencomes through a little muffled, but I just smile and remove my hand.
“First off, no to twenty kids. That’s a definite hell no.”
I sweep her into my arms and roll her onto her back on the bed, coming down on top of her. “Mmm, maybe we should just keep trying for that many then.”
She giggles and pushes at my shoulder. “You’re incorrigible.”
“I’m in love with you, Harper. I want a future with all of us and lots of children to grow up knowing what love is, because anyone who knows you will know what love is.” Closing the distance, I take her mouth softly.
She sighs into my mouth and wraps her arms around my shoulders. She breaks away. “I love you, Caden.”
Our lips collide again and I want to spend the entire night making love to her.
“Celebrate your love later.” Eli’s voice makes me lift my head to tell him off. “We have shit to discuss.”
“We should go.” Harper sighs but presses up to kiss me once more. Her dark eyes sparkle with promise. One I will definitely hold her to. “Later, War.”
CHAPTER 56
