“Move in with me?” I hold her to me and smile against her mouth.
“Considering I’m doing that tomorrow, I’d say you already know the answer to that.”
“Just checking.” I touch the tip of my tongue to her lips briefly before letting her go.
“Take care of my girl, Jake?” I meet my son’s eyes over her shoulder.
“Done deal, Dad.” Don and Connor walk beside him while Harvey is being doted on by my mom and Celeste behind them. To say Harvey has been wholeheartedly adopted by all of the grandparents would be an understatement, and he loves every single minute of it.
I meet Don and Connor’s eyes and lift my chin. “You old men ready for today?”
“We were born ready, and even if we weren’t, we’d still run anyway.”
“Yeah, I know.” My voice thickens with emotion. Dee reaches out and squeezes my hand, drawing my eyes to hers. “See you at the finish line, sweet cheeks.”
She smiles and shines that bright light of hers my way. “I’ll be waiting for you, honey. Go get ready. We’ve got a wonderful woman to remember today.”
“That we do.”
She’s wonderful too, Rhodes, Lily says in my head. Dee’s exactly who I wanted for you and Jake. She’s perfect in every way.
So were you, baby. So were you. Then together with Don on one side and Connor on the other, we walk over to my other family and get ready to run for Lily.
Dee
“Moooom, do you know where my soccer ball is?” Harvey calls out from down the hall.
“It’s in a box!” I yell back.
“Didn’t we pack it in the box with stuff written on the side?” Jake shouts from the kitchen.
“I can’t find it,” Jake continues.
I snort and shake my head. “Why do we suddenly sound like The Waltons?”
“Who are the Waltons? Are they our neighbors?” Harvey asks, making me laugh out loud.
“Isn’t that an old person TV program?” Jake bellows.
“Good night, John Boy. Good night, Elizabeth. Good night, Daddy. Good night, son. Good night, Mary Ellen . . .” I murmur to myself with a smile.
“I can’t see any boxes with stuff on it. Maybe Dad is bringing it with him,” Harvs hollers.
“I’ll come and help you find it, Harvs. Gimme a minute,” Jake offers. For an almost seventeen-year-old guy, he’s really taken to the little brother concept like a duck to water.”
Out of interest, I check the label on the box I’m unpacking and giggle when I see ‘bedroom stuff’ written on the side.
“They all have stuff written on them,” Rhodes replies, appearing in his—now our—bedroom doorway with two more boxes labeled ‘Dee stuff’ on the side.
Looking up from where I’m sitting cross-legged on the floor, my lips twitching. “The word stuff has a lot of uses.”
He pushes off and slowly stalks toward me—and it’s totally a stalk, there’s no other word to describe the long, measured strides and the hunger in his eyes. “It does, does it?” His voice is low and rough, and all kinds of hot.
I lick my lips and crane my neck as he stops in front of me. It takes everything I have not to squirm as he gazes down at me. “How about ‘Honey, all the stuff you wanna do to me will have to wait till the kids are asleep?’”
“Or . . .” He bends and hooks his arms under mine, hoisting me up so I’m plastered to the front of him. “Maybe you can give me a taste of the stuff you want me to do to you later . . . hmmm?” His arched brow and sly smirk are my undoing.
I slide my arms around Rhodes’s neck, and standing there, in the middle of our bedroom, with our sons still yelling a conversation back and forth, I lift on my toes and press my lips to those of the man who says I changed his life. What I realized six weeks ago when Rhodes asked Harvey and I to move in with him, is that before Rhodes ran to my rescue, I’d been treading water—and had been for at least two years. It’s only since then I’ve felt myself moving forward and doing it while falling head over heels for the man who just makes everything feel so damn easy.
“Do you think we could lock the door. I’m craving a taste of you?” I murmur against his lips.
He groans and grips my ponytail, tilting my head to the side before spearing his tongue in my mouth and rendering me speechless. The hungry, carnal, desperate kiss drives all thoughts of stuff from my brain.
It’s one of the ones where Rhodes is frustrated he can’t lay me out and take me like he wants to, and I’m right there with him, meeting his tongue stroke for stroke, my hands roaming wherever I can reach until we’re pretty much screwing with our clothes on.
When he finally pulls back, his pupils are huge, his gaze still promising to devour me. “I promise to make it up to you later. Then we can both taste each other,” he mutters, his attention dropping to my mouth again.
Brushing my lips against his jaw, I step away and try to cool my jets. “I’ll hold you to that.”
“Fucking hope so. By the way, Flynn called, and they were about ten minutes away with the final load from the house.”
“Okay,” I say quietly, my throat tightening.
Rhodes’s eyes soften before he wraps an arm around my shoulders and pulls me into his chest, his chin resting against my temple. “Hey. It’s alright. This is a big day for everyone.”
“It’s just . . .”
“The end of an era?”
“Yeah. Kind of. It’s not like we won’t see him ever again.”
“Considering Harvey is gonna be there half the time, and then there are holidays, events, parties. . .”
“I know. But it’s different.”
Rhodes puts enough space between us to reach out and cup my face, his gaze locking with mine. There’s no jealousy or worry there—just understanding and so much
