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“Not a chance, woman,” I breathe against her lips when we finally come up for air. “But if you would like to reconsider, I—”
“Shut your stupid face,” she whispers, and then she kisses me again, mumbling, “I’m keeping you. Forever. No take backs.”
“Forever might be just long enough,” I say, wishing I could keep her here longer.
I want to make love to her by the softly glowing waterfall, want to promise her that she’s all I’ll ever need while I’m buried deep inside her, but we have a family to check in on. I’m nearly certain Amy and the others are safe, but nearly certain isn’t certain enough.
“Honeymoon,” I say as we start toward the exit. “We’re extending it. I’m going to need to celebrate our marriage for at least a month.”
“Maybe two,” Casey says, grinning as we emerge into the brisk sea air and start toward the cliff trail. “I’m sure Emily will give me leave from work once I explain how much I need to bang my husband in exotic locations.”
“She’s a reasonable woman,” I say. “And if she doesn’t give you leave, I’ll buy the old mill, turn it into a bar, and set you up as owner and mistress of potions there. The Pug and Crone will be out of business in a week.”
“Nah,” Casey says. “I don’t want my own bar. Not yet, anyway. I want to work for someone else and leave them with the business running headaches while I clock out and go home to my sexy husband and amazing little girl.”
“Sounds perfect,” I say, and I know it will be.
My life—my real life, the one I was meant to lead—is about to begin, and I couldn’t be more grateful.
I’m already a hundred pounds lighter, even before we arrive at the estate to learn that Colin’s men have already taken most of the second battalion prisoner and that the few outliers are being pursued through the swamp by a pack of shifters guaranteed to corner them before sunrise.
The Shadowbane threat is truly over, ended without a single casualty on our side, I’m relieved to learn once Ringer shows up with a badly bruised head but his heart very much still in his chest.
Nightfall can return to being the extraordinarily odd, but safe for all misfits place we know and love. And now we’ll love it a little harder than we did before, our refuge all the more precious for how close we came to losing it.
“Like us,” I say later, when Casey and I are tucked into bed with Amy and Annabelle snuggled in between us, softly rehashing the events of our eventful evening.
“Exactly,” Casey says. “Like that saying—you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone. I mean, I knew what I had, I just didn’t think I’d really be able to have it. Not until tonight.” She leans in, resting her forehead against mine. “I can’t believe we really get to be together. To be husband and wife.”
“Not in this bed,” comes a sleepy grumble from between us. “This is our bed now. The family bed. No hanky panky. I don’t shift; you don’t kiss. That’s the bargain.”
I glance down to see Annabelle’s beady little eyes glittering from just under the sheets, where she’s snuggled tight against Amy’s back.
Casey whispers, “What did she say?”
“She’s claimed this as the family bed,” I say, my lips quirking up on one side. “The ‘no hanky panky’ bed, as she put it.”
Casey laughs softly. “Well, tell her that’s fine. I still have my bed in the guest room down the hall, after all.”
“And when we renovate the fourth floor at your place, we’ll be sure to have three bedrooms built,” I say, adding with a bob of my eyebrows. “One with extra thick, padded walls so no one can hear you scream.”
“Ew,” Annabelle says.
Once I communicate the dog’s disdain to Casey, we both laugh, giggling like teenagers as we sneak out to the closet in the living room.
Chapter Twenty-Five
EDMOND
We come together at an awkward angle between the vacuum and Amy’s new, two-wheel bike without the pedals, I bought her as an early solstice present. But even with a vacuum handle digging into the base of my spine, being inside my wife is the best thing on this planet or any other.
“Every day,” I promise as I rock into her slick heat. “I’ll make sure you know how much I love you every day.”
“And twice a day on Saturdays,” she agrees, locking her legs tighter around my waist.
“I wasn’t just talking about sex.”
“I know, but I’m going to need a lot of sex,” she says, her breath coming faster as I find the angle she likes, the one that makes her tremble as I drive faster, deeper. “We have to make up for lost time. Oh Goddess, Edmond, I’m coming. I’m coming.”
