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With a sigh, she looked out the window. “Where are we going now?”
“We can either go home, or we can go through your stuff in storage.”
Her shoulders slumped. “I’m sorry, but can we just go home? I’m not up for all that right now.”
“Home it is. Are you okay?”
“Yeah, just tired. I need to decompress a little bit.”
“No problem, mami. Put on something you like, and we’ll chill and listen to music, okay?”
“Okay.”
After placing a soft kiss on my cheek, she turned on the radio and I allowed a comfortable silence to fall between us, already planning the next step in my seduction.
By the time we pulled up to the construction zone that was the site of my future house, Joy had fallen asleep in the deep leather bucket seat. I already had the builders sent home for the day, and I smiled at the progress they’d made. All the exterior walls were up, and they’d finished installing the windows and doors. Inside, the drywall was almost completed, and the bathrooms and kitchen were almost complete. Some rooms had even been painted and decorated. It was a modest house by my parent’s standards, only eight bedrooms and ten baths, but it was the perfect home for Joy.
It should be, because I’d built it to her dream house tastes.
Hannah loved to talk about Joy, and it hadn’t been hard to steer her into a conversation about what Joy’s dream house would be like. I’d been surprised at first by her preference, but the more I thought about it, the more sense it made. Joy’s love of 80’s John Hughes movies had given her a taste in homes that was more Midwestern than Southwest. Getting it right had required no small amount of effort on my part, but it had to be perfect for her. Even when I was lying to myself and pretending I was finally building my own place near Leo, I customized every inch of it to her tastes.
God bless Pintrest inspiration boards. They made it a hell of a lot easier to know what a woman likes and wants. Leo clued me into them after I started to get serious about Joy, and I’d spent many hours poring through her dreams, picking out her fantasies and making them real. That’s not to say I hadn’t thrown my own personal tastes into the design, but I wanted a place she’d feel instantly at home. Somewhere she’d never want to leave.
You didn’t usually see Tudor-style places in Phoenix, but that’s exactly what I’d built for her. Three stories tall, with cream stucco and black wooden beams; it was surrounded with the old growth trees I’d bought this lot for. Joy was always complaining that everything was so brown, so I’d spent a fucking fortune on genetically engineered grass in the backyard surrounding the pool. Emerald green and soft, vegetation which thrived in the desert conditions—while not technically legal in the US, it gave my girl the green she craved.
I tried to keep from waking her as I scooped her up in my arms, but she came to with a gasp and tried to scramble away from me, knocking her sunglasses off in her haste.
“Whoa, easy, sweetheart.”
“Jesus Christ, Ramón,” she gasped as I slowly slid her down my body, relishing the drag of her large breasts. “You scared the shit out of me.”
“Sorry, I was trying to keep from waking you.”
“It’s okay.” She frowned as she scanned the construction site. “Where are we?”
“My home.”
“Wait, I thought you were taking me to my home—or Mark’s home. Whatever.”
“Nope.”
She huffed with annoyance, but I didn’t miss the excited gleam in her eyes as she turned and took in what I hoped would be the place where we would raise our family. “This is yours?”
“Yeah.”
“Wow, I mean…wow.” Her arms dropped to her sides as a smile began to curve her lips and round her cheeks. “This is your house? You live here?”
“Not yet. As you can see, it’s still under construction. I’m staying at my parents place until it’s done.” Giving her a wink, I took her hand. “I hope you don’t think I’m a loser for still crashing on my mom’s couch.”
She grinned up at me, and my chest felt tight and funny. “Nah, we’re good.”
Her stomach audibly growled, and I tugged her after me. “Come on, lunch is waiting for us out back.”
I was eager to show her the backyard I’d designed with our future family in mind. Lots of grass to soften the blow if my future kids fell while playing, good size wrought iron safety fences around the edges of the hill the house was situated on. I’d bought up twenty acres adjacent to Leo’s place. All the mansions around us were on large plots of land, so there was a lot of uninterrupted wilderness from our view. Plus, Diego was checking out some land adjacent to mine and thinking of building as well.
