I sat up and scooted to the edge of the bed, grabbing his belt buckle I tugged him closer, a satisfied smirk stretching across his face, his dimple deeper than ever. When I had his pants and boxer briefs off, I stood up and took off his tie before slowly unbuttoning his vest and shirt, running my hands up his chest to his shoulders so I could slide it off as well. He pushed me back down onto the bed and brought one of my legs up, chuckling when he got to my Converse.

“This is just another reason why I love you.” He said as he took it, and the other one off.

His hands left a trail of heat up and back down my legs as he removed my underwear and brought himself back between my legs.

“You’re not going to take my dress off?”

Brandon kissed my neck and his deep voice gave me heated chills, “Maybe later.” His brown eyes caught mine, and in them I could see everything he felt for me and I wondered how I could have ever been stupid enough to try to live without him. “I love you so much Harper.” He said before he slid into me.

I gasped at the sensations that coursed through my body. Every time with him seemed to be better than the time before, and I didn’t think I would ever get tired of these alone times with him. “Brandon,” I cried when he rocked against me, “God I love you too.”

***

“Wake up Harper.”

I grumbled and rolled onto my back, quickly slipping back into the place between sleep and waking. I felt something against my neck and tried to swat at it, when I didn’t catch anything I figured it must have been my hair and sank deeper into the warm bed. Before I could drift back into my dreams, there was that brush against my neck again, but when it continued down my chest and stopped for a few seconds at the swell of my breast I tried to fully wake up to look at what I now knew was my husband. Brandon continued down my stomach, lightly biting my left hip, and crossing over to do the same to the right. My eyes flew open and I exhaled a breathy “oh” when his lips trailed to the inside of my thighs.

Brandon’s low chuckle alone would have caused shivers, but his lips and tongue moving slowly against me were all my mind could comprehend right now. I ran my hands over his buzzed head and tried to keep my eyes open to watch him, but they fluttered shut again, a moan escaping my barely open lips. He slid two fingers in me as his tongue continued to work against my most sensitive area. A ball of limb-numbing pleasure was already spreading through my body and I had a feeling I wasn’t going to be able to hang on much longer. My hips involuntarily rolled and his left hand gripped harder on the back of my hip, but didn’t try to hinder my movements. He quickened his pace and after a few minutes I was extremely thankful there were no neighbors near us as the following cry tore out of my chest, my body surging with heat. Brandon hovered over my body and pushed into me when the next wave rushed through me and met my satisfied whimpers with a carnal growl as he moved against me, his lips and teeth nipping at the hollow at the base of my neck. Each bite a little rougher than the previous, matching his thrusts. My hands passed over the muscles in his shoulders and back as they bunched together with each hard drive into me. Our breaths were ragged and there was a thin sheen of sweat covering both of us when he collapsed on top of me some time later. He struggled to keep most his body weight off me by resting on his forearms, and ended up rolling onto his back, pulling me with him so I could curl up against his side.

Intertwining our fingers, he brought my hand up to his mouth and placed a gentle kiss against it before kissing the inside of my wrist and rubbing a thumb across my newest tattoo. Brandon and I got “his and hers” tattoos, on my left wrist read “i love him”, and on his right read “i love her”. Cheesy? Definitely. But we love them. We’d gone to Chase’s old workplace, and although I had been nervous to see them, we were welcomed with a lot of hugs from everyone, Trish no longer worked there. Jeff hadn’t been able to stop hugging me, and Brian’s eyes had actually started misting when he pulled back from a hug that rivaled Jeff’s. We showed them pictures of Liam, and they loved his name just as much as our family had. We promised to have them over one night so they could meet him, and Brian had joked that he and Marissa would steal him. They already knew Brandon from parties and when he’d gone there to get some of his work done, and I was surprised when the guys had seemed genuinely happy we had gotten married. I learned guys gossip just as bad as girls do when they told me they’d known all about the drama involving Chase, Brandon and myself; even from way back when Brandon and I first started dating.

“These have been an amazing three days.” I sighed happily. “Thank you for everything.”

“Thank you for marrying me.”

I nuzzled into his chest and smiled when his arm tightened around me, “I feel like everything is perfect now. Is that corny?”

He chuckled and kissed the top of my head, “Nope, because I feel the same way. Is it…is it bad that I’m really anxious to get back to Liam?”

“Oh my word me too. A big part of me can’t imagine leaving this bed, but I’m aching to see our baby.”

“Well then, let’s go get him.”

I crawled off the bed and goose bumps covered my body when I saw his eyes heat watching me walk around without any clothes on. I knew what he was thinking, because it couldn’t be any different from what I thought when he did the same. Leaning back over him, I pressed my bare chest firmly to his and whispered suggestively in his ear, “I think I could use a shower first, care to join?” I raised an eyebrow at him before turning toward the bathroom, with my husband right behind me.

19

“You wanna go see Daddy?” I crooned at Liam as he smiled widely at me and whispered Dada. “Come on big boy.” I groaned as I lifted him off the bed and onto my hip. “Oh my word, he is such a chunk!”

Bree laughed and rained kisses over his head, “Don’t listen to your mom, you’re the cutest baby ever, rolls and all.”

“Of course he is,” I scrunched my nose at him and play-gnawed on his fingers when he continued to press them to my lips, rewarding me with a belly laugh from Liam, “just because you have built in bracelets and anklets doesn’t mean you aren’t ridiculously adorable!”

“I got the bags, do you need anything else before we go?” Bree asked as she walked toward the front door.

“Nope! Let’s go see them.” We loaded Liam into his car seat and headed over to Brandon’s gym.

Two months after our wedding, the gym that Brandon had continued his training at when he moved to San Diego, which led to his underground fighting, started going under since the owners went bankrupt. Brandon had been getting restless trying to figure out what he wanted to do with his life since he had stopped fighting. Not that we had to worry about money, but he felt like he wasn’t doing his job as a husband and father by not bringing in more money. When he’d heard about McGowan’s Gym going under, he’d rushed home and asked what I thought about it. He wouldn’t put himself in danger of getting another hit like the one from Demon, but he missed fighting so much he thought owning the gym would be perfect. I couldn’t have agreed more and the gym was his within the next month. Brandon was still on good terms with Scarecrow, since he was providing more fighters that he and Konrad helped train, and in the five months since he’d bought out the gym, they’ve more than doubled the amount of members and McGowan's had never been doing this well.

Bree and Konrad were engaged, were getting ready to move into a townhouse in the same complex where we lived and had recently started their Junior year at SDSU. They were getting married at the beginning of November and I couldn’t be more excited for them. It always made me laugh thinking about how they’d both been when we’d started college. Konrad had been much the same as Bree and Chase, and wasn’t looking for any type of relationship outside of a bed. But from the moment they first hung out, it was over for both of them. I could see that even if Bree kept him waiting on actually being his girlfriend. And now? Two years later and they were anxiously counting down the days until their wedding. Konrad worked for Brandon at McGowan’s, and Brandon paid him extremely well. We both knew Breanna would never work, unless she could shop for a living, she didn’t want to do anything that would take too much of her time, so Brandon made sure they were always taken care of. Just another one of the million reasons I loved him.

“Hey babe!” He called from the wall of punching bags. After a quick word and instruction to the guy punching and kicking it, he jogged over to us and grabbed Liam out of my arms, swinging him up above his head and pulling him back down for a loud kiss. Liam squealed and chuckled. “How’s my little man doing today?” Liam was still giggling as Brandon wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me in for a long, slow kiss.

My body instantly warmed and it took Bree’s high-pitched laugh to bring me back to the gym.

“And how’s my wife?” His husky voice made my insides tighten and wish for our bed.

“I’m great.” I smiled softly, my cheeks flushed. “How’s it going today?”

Brandon’s hazel eyes hardened for a quick moment, and lost all expression as he forced a smile, “Pretty good, we got a group of guys that came in and signed up for memberships together.”

I frowned at his expression, “How many?”

“Eleven.”

“Eleven? That’s great Brandon! Why do you not seem happy about that?” There were days at a time that no new members came at all, eleven in one morning was unheard of.

“I am happy, so what brings you here?” He kissed my forehead and blew a raspberry on Liam’s belly, Liam slapped down on Brandon’s head and dissolved into a fit of giggles. We definitely had a happy baby.

“Well Bree and I have to go do some wedding stuff, but we were wondering if there’s any way we could talk you guys into lunch?”

His rugged face softened and his hand dropped to my hip, giving it a small squeeze, “I can’t leave Harper, Aaron called in this morning, so it’s just me and Konrad until a little later. He can go with you though.”