“Hey! There he is—my hot husband with a mouth like sin and the stamina of a god.”

  “Must run in the family,” Violet slurs without missing a beat.

  I shake my head, grinning. “Too much information, Violet.”

  Magnolia raises her margarita. “Take me away, sexy chauffeur husband.”

  I step forward, catching Magnolia by the waist as she teeters sideways on her heels. “Okay, favorite, let’s get you home before someone hands you a microphone and regrets it.”

  “Ruuude,” she slurs, grinning up at me.

  I steer them toward the gate. Violet stumbles and grabs my arm. “Don’t tell Elias I said this, but I think I’m… maybe… aggressively in love with him.”

  “Are you now?”

  She sighs. “I am. It’s disgusting. I hate it.” She squints up at me, dead serious. “It’s either love or low blood sugar. But I’m leaning toward love because I ate three lemon bars. Okay, it was four.”

  Jack pats me on the shoulder as we pass. “Good luck, mate.”

  “Thanks. I think I’m gonna need it.”

  Magnolia flops into the front seat of the G-Wagon and starts playing with the radio, landing on a song she likes and cranking the volume.

  “Woo-hoo!”

  I reach over and nudge it down a few notches. “I’m pretty sure we can hear it fine without blowing the speakers.”

  “Party pooper,” she says, but she’s grinning.

  I ease out of the driveway, glancing at her. She’s barefoot now, humming off-key to the radio with a contented smile.

  From the back seat, Violet mumbles, her cheek mashed against the leather: “Your name is Alexander Björn. Like BabyBjörn. You give off such intense dad energy they named a baby carrier after you.”

  I glance in the rearview mirror, then over at Magnolia. “What is she talking about?”

  Magnolia laughs low. “No idea. She’s drunk. Ignore her.”

  “You’ll love it. Tiny sneakers. Chubby cheeks. Your genetics wearing a onesie. It’s gonna be great.”

  A minute later, she flops to one side and starts snoring. It’s the type of sleep only tequila can deliver.

  Magnolia glances at me, her smile lopsided, something unreadable flickering in her eyes.

  We pull up in front of Elias’s townhouse, the porch light casting a warm halo over the steps. He’s already coming down them barefoot, in sweats and a white T-shirt, looking equal parts amused and concerned. His gaze flicks to the back seat, where Violet lies slumped like a rag doll, one arm flung over her face.

  “You ordered one drunk American who’s in love with you?”

  Magnolia smacks my arm. “She said don’t tell him.”

  Elias raises an eyebrow. “What the hell happened to her?”

  “Tequila,” Magnolia says, deadpan. “Lots of it. And lemon bars.”

  He laughs under his breath, reaching for the door. “Tequila and lemon bars. Great. At least I’ll know what I’m looking at later.”

  Violet stirs, peeling her cheek off the leather seat. “Eliasss,” she says, reaching for him with all the grace of a drunk wombat. “I want to climb you and make bad decisions.”

  “Okay, babe. I think we should get you to bed.”

  She stands and wraps her arms around his neck, using him to steady herself. “You look like husband material and birth-control failure all wrapped in one tall, devastating package. It’s upsetting how into it I am.”

  Elias raises an eyebrow. “Husband material and birth-control failure, huh? Is that code for you want to marry me and have babies?”

  She pulls my brother’s face down to hers. “Elias, I want to be your baby mama.”

  He leans in, voice low. “Careful, Violet, before I take you seriously. You could wake up with a ring and a stroller.”

  She kisses him hard. “Take me inside and don’t let me eat cereal in the bathtub.”

  “Okay, champ.” He throws a nod my way. “Appreciate the drop-off.”

  “Anytime,” I say. “Good luck.”

  I glance at Magnolia. She’s curled sideways in the passenger seat, one leg tucked beneath her, dipping a cracker into a little plastic container of leftover cheese dip.

  She licks some from her finger and sighs, blissed out. “Why is this dip so damn good? I swear I’d fight a raccoon for it.”

  I laugh under my breath. “It’s a good thing we don’t have raccoons in Australia.”

  I look at her, really look. Her cheeks are still flushed, her hair a little wild from the wind and tequila. And I think—God, I love her this way.

  Soft. Unfiltered. Mine.

  She stumbles into the house with my help, giggling as she misses the step. I catch her, one arm around her waist. “Watch it, favorite.”

  “I’m fine,” she says, dropping her shoes by the door. “Just gravity being aggressive.”

  It’s late, so I don’t bother with lights or the couch. I take my tanked wife straight to the bedroom.

  I fall onto the bed with a groan while she does her thing in the bathroom.

  “God, my back’s shot. I pushed too hard tonight.”

  “You were working out while I was gone?”

  “Babe, I’m always working out, trying to get back to where I was three years ago. Season’s coming.”

  She comes out of the bathroom, hair tousled, that teasing smile in place. “You’re in ridiculous shape. You could bench press a horse.”

  “You didn’t see me three years ago.”

  She leans over, her fingers sliding under the hem of my shirt. “I see you now.” Her eyes spark. “And what I see makes me want to sin.”

  “We’re married. Pretty sure it doesn’t count as sinning.”

  She grins. “We can pretend it is. I want to do very dirty things to you.”

  She starts shimmying out of her clothes, pulling it over her head with such determination she nearly elbows herself in the face.

  “Whoa there, cyclone,” I say, sitting up a little, watching her with barely contained laughter. “That top’s not going down without a fight.”

  “Shh,” she mutters, head popping through the neck hole, hair wild and tangled. “Let me seduce you in peace.”

  I bite back a grin.

  After a brief but valiant battle with her jeans—one she barely won—she’s finally naked and crawling over me, all warm skin and wicked smiles as she straddles my hips.

  “You’re sore and aching,” she says, pressing her palms to my chest. “So lie back. I’ve got this covered.”

  She tugs my shirt over my head and her fingers hook into my shorts, wiggling them down.

  “Feels a little wrong,” I say, hands skimming up her thighs. “Taking advantage of my wife while she’s drunk.”

  “Impossible,” she says, leaning in until her mouth grazes mine. “I always want you. Especially when I’m drunk.”

  She starts slow—fingers drifting like they’ve got all night to get where they’re going. Her mouth trails warm, deliberate kisses down my chest, her breath a tease that dances over skin still buzzing from her touch.

  There’s a confidence to her tonight—soft and playful––but sharp as a blade. Like she knows what she’s doing to me and she’s enjoying every second.

  And I’m letting her. Willingly. Desperately.

  I’d let her do anything to me.

  She sits back enough to study me, her eyes dark with mischief. Then she dips her head again, her tongue tracing the line of my abs as she maps the territory before claiming it.

  “Jesus, favorite,” I say, aching to be inside her.

  She grins without looking up, acting innocent. “Hmm?”

  My laugh is low, caught somewhere between pleasure and disbelief. But it cuts off fast—transforms into a groan that punches out of me when her mouth finds its mark.

  She takes my cock into her mouth and moves slowly in a way that says she’s not here to please me but to ruin me. Every bob of her head and movement of her mouth is precise and unhurried.

  Her hands slide up my thighs, palms dragging, and my legs twitch beneath her grip. I swear under my breath, hips stuttering forward in a motion I can’t control. She doesn’t flinch, just hums low in her throat, a soft vibration that coils through me.

  My fingers fist the sheet beside me, jaw clenched tight as I fight the pull. But it’s useless. She’s got me. Completely. Every graze of her mouth sends me spiraling closer to the edge, and she knows it—savors it. She eases back just enough to breathe me in, tongue flicking over the crown of my cock in a way that makes my vision go black at the edges.

  And the worst part? The best part?

  She’s not even trying to finish me. She’s playing. Exploring. Enjoying the slow unraveling of a man who usually has all the control. But tonight, she’s stripped it right out from under me with nothing but her mouth and a wicked little smile.

  Her nails skim the inside of my thigh, and I bite down on a groan, my whole body taut, held together by threads. One more pass. One more breath. I’m⁠—

  But then she pulls back, eyes blazing, lips swollen, face flushed with heat and power and something else entirely. She lets go with a soft, wet sound and glances up, her eyes burning. Her fingers curl around my hips, keeping me there.

  She moves up my body with a kind of grace that shouldn’t be possible when you’re tipsy and naked, but somehow, Magnolia makes it feel like poetry.

  Her thighs frame my hips as she straddles me again, the warmth of her skin brushing mine in all the places that matter. She kisses my neck, my jaw, then my mouth—slow and deep.

  And then—she takes me in.

  My breath punches out of my lungs in a sharp exhale. My hands move on instinct, locking around her hips. She moves, hips rolling in a rhythm that’s unhurried, intentional, devastating.

  She knows what she’s doing.

  I slide a hand up her spine, fingers splayed between her shoulder blades as I pull her down to kiss her.

  “I want you to come inside me.”

  “I always come inside you, babe.”

  My head tips back against the pillow, eyes shuttering closed for half a second. I force them open because watching her this way––her body silhouetted by the light from the bathroom, hair wild, lips parted, eyes locked on mine––is its own kind of high.

  When I come, it’s with her name on my lips, and her body wrapped around mine.

  She collapses on top of me, breathless and boneless, her cheek against my chest, our skin slick and tangled and real in that way only the aftermath can be. My arms slide around her, pulling her closer, anchoring us both in a quiet that hums with afterglow.

  Her fingers trace lazy shapes on my ribs, and I think she might be falling asleep until she blurts out, “I want a baby.”

  My entire body stills beneath her, every nerve suddenly on alert.

  I open my mouth, but nothing comes out at first. I heard her––clear as day––but some small, stunned part of me wonders if I really did.

  And then she lifts her head, looks me in the eyes. “The IUD––I want to take it out.”

  A beat.

  “I want to get pregnant, Alex. Soon. So the baby’s born at the start of your off-season. I know we haven’t been married long, but I’ll be thirty-two soon, and you want a big family, and I don’t want to wait.”

  My heart pounds hard and hope unspools in my chest like a runaway thread.

  She’s serious. She wants this.

  “You know that’s what I want. If it’s what you want too, I’m all in.”

  She smiles. Soft. Certain. “It’s what I want.”

  I wrap my arms around her, tighter than before.

  “Okay,” I whisper into her hair. “We’re gonna make a baby.”

  And bam. The rest of my life and everything I’ve ever wanted tilts into place.

  Chapter 31

  Alex Sebring

  The music’s pounding—something bass-heavy and angry—and I’m drenched in sweat, halfway through a brutal set when I sense movement in the doorway.

  I glance up between reps—and there she is.

  Jeans. A plain white T-shirt. Ponytail.

  No makeup. No fanfare. Just Magnolia in her natural state, and somehow, it guts me every time.

  She looks like Sunday mornings and forever plans. The type of woman who could knock the wind out of you without even trying.

  She leans against the doorframe, arms crossed, a faint smile tugging at her mouth. I rack the bar and tug one earbud free.

  “Careful,” she says. “If you keep looking like that, I might forget what I came in here to say.”

  “Then come sit on my lap and remember slowly.”

  I grab a towel, swipe the back of my neck, and pat the bench beside me.

  She doesn’t sit beside me. She straddles me instead—knees bracketing my thighs, arms sliding around my neck.

  My hands find her waist on instinct, fingers curling into her T-shirt like they’ve missed her—which is insane, considering it’s only been a few hours since I saw her.

  “What’s going on?” I ask, heart already thudding.

  She leans in close, mouth brushing my ear. “I saw my OB-GYN today.”

  Everything stills.

  The sweat, the soreness, the music humming low behind us—it all fades.

  “And?” My voice is rougher than I mean it to be.

  She pulls back, eyes glittering. “No more IUD.”

  The words hit like a flare straight to the chest. My grip tightens. My brain short-circuits.

  “Wait… really?”

  She nods. “Really really.”

  I stare at her, stunned stupid. We’d talked about this—late-night whispers, a hopefully someday, a dreamy sort of what-if. But now she’s here in my arms, saying it for real. We’re not daydreaming about it anymore.

  It undoes something in me, quietly and completely. And all I can think is—this is it. This is the start.

  I cup the back of her neck and kiss her—slow, deep, reverent.

  When I pull back, my voice is rough. “So we’re doing this?”

  “We are definitely doing this,” she says. “But there’s a catch.”

  “Of course there is,” I say, grinning. “What is it?”

  “Math,” she says, wrinkling her nose. “If we get pregnant now, the baby comes before the season ends. And I want the birth to land at the start of the off-season.”

  I nod, understanding. “Makes sense. But just so we’re clear—if that timeline shifts, you and the baby still get me. All of me. No matter what.”

  She leans her forehead against mine, eyes soft. “There’s more.”

  Her expression shifts, lips twitching like she’s trying not to smile. “Because we want the baby to come after the season, we need to practice abstinence for now.”

  I blink. Abstinence?

  I sit back, searching her face. “I’m sorry—what?”

  “Full-on abstinence. No slipping up. No accidents. We’ll have to sleep in separate beds. Possibly even different rooms.”

  I narrow my eyes. “No way in hell I’m doing that.”

  She doesn’t crack. Not at first. Then one corner of her mouth curves, and the rest follows. “God, you’re so easy.”

  I groan and let my head fall back against the wall. “You’re evil.”

  “You love it.”

  I tug her closer, hands sliding beneath the hem of her shirt, palms settling on warm skin. “I love you.”

  She laughs, quick and bright, then kisses me soft and fast. “I love you too.”

  “So, what’s the actual plan? Because I know you have one.”

  She grins. “We only have to avoid getting pregnant for one month. One. That puts us in the sweet spot for an off-season baby.” She leans in close, eyes dancing with mischief. “How strong is your pull-out game?”

  I arch a brow. “Stronger than my abstinence game, that’s for damn sure.”

  “Condoms?”

  I shake my head. “Absolutely not. I’ve been inside you bare—we can never go back to shrink-wrapped sex.”

  She grins. “Okay. I guess we’ll go with the rhythm method. Pull out, avoid sex when I’m ovulating. My doctor said the failure rate isn’t too high when you do it right.”

  That sounds like a very sexy math problem. “Okay, but what happens when it’s your fertile time of the month and I want to fuck you six ways from Sunday?”

  She leans in, mouth brushing mine, eyes full of heat. “We’ll get creative.”

  God help me, I love this woman.

  “Alex… can we keep this between us for now? I’m not looking for advice or questions—or anyone else’s version of what’s right. Just want this to be something for us.”

  I press a kiss to her temple, steady and sure. “It stays with us.”

  She’s quiet for a beat, her fingers tracing idle patterns across my back. “There’s no guarantee this’ll happen on our timeline. My body might not cooperate. I need us to be okay if it takes longer or if it doesn’t go the way we pictured.”

  I run my hand down her spine. “We’ll pivot if we need to. If it takes longer, we wait. If it goes sideways, we love each other through it.”

  Her breath catches, and she kisses me—slow and deep. A kiss that tastes like a promise and a challenge all at once.

  When she pulls back, I’m already chasing her mouth for more.

  “This,” I murmur against her lips, “is the hottest secret we’ve ever kept.”

  She shifts in my lap, her body sliding against mine in a way that does not help my self-control.

  “Better come up with a few new workout routines,” she whispers, voice thick with amusement. “You’re gonna need the distraction this month.”

  “Oh, I’ve got one distraction in mind already,” I say, catching her mouth with mine again. “You need to increase your pineapple intake.”

  She melts into the kiss before pulling back and smiling. “Pineapple, huh? I wouldn’t mind that at all.”

  I grin, brushing a thumb across her cheek. “Good. Because I won’t mind either.”

  She kisses me back, soft this time. Lingering. When she pulls away, her forehead rests against mine, and her voice is barely a breath. “We’re gonna be parents, Alex.”