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“Carry me?”
He reached for her. She knew what he was going to do before he did it.
“I don’t want to be thrown over your shoulder. It hurts my stomach! I want a piggyback ride.”
He looked at her blankly. “A piggy what?”
She got to her feet, and said, “Bend your knees.”
She hopped on his back and wrapped her arms around his neck. He got the gist and supported her legs, which pointed straight ahead since he was too broad to wrap herself around.
“When Nora’s old enough, she’s gonna make you do this all the time,” she said.
“Fine with me,” he said.
“This is amazing. I’m over six feet tall.”
She bounced against his back as they exited the gym. She kept a lookout for Blade, but he was nowhere to be found. Blade always made himself scarce when Gavin came home since he knew what a horny bastard he was.
“Everything okay at work?” she asked.
“Yes.”
He climbed the stairs without effort. She rested her chin on his shoulder and nuzzled him.
“We should do this more often.”
“Fuck in the gym?”
She thumped his shoulder. “Piggybacking.”
“I’ll give you piggybacks if you fuck me more.”
“We fuck all the time, and this is supposed to be a couple’s goals thing. This is the kind of stuff women post on social media to show how sweet their hubby is.”
“We set our own goals, Lyla.”
He turned into the nursery, tossed their belongings on a chair, and stopped beside the crib. She slipped down his back and held her breath as she peered down at their daughter. Nora was flat on her back, black hair covering half of her face. Nora was coming into her personality and loathed bows or hair ties with a passion. Her favorite stuffed animal right now was a pink elephant she never went anywhere without.
Lyla leaned down to pat their dogs, Beau and Honey, who shadowed Nora. Their tails thumped the ground as she fussed over them. She wouldn’t admit it out loud, but it eased her mind knowing the dogs had appointed themselves as Nora’s personal security. One could never have enough safeguards in place. When she saw Gavin reaching into the crib, she shot to her feet and smacked his arm.
“Do you want to wake her up?” she hissed.
“Yeah.”
“No,” she said firmly and pushed him out the door. “It’s almost one in the morning. You’ll keep her up for hours, and her sleep schedule will be off.”
Thankfully, he didn’t fight her. When they entered their room, she slipped off his dress shirt and unwrapped her hands before she stepped into the shower. When he joined her, he slid her wedding ring on her finger. When she stood in front of the vanity to blow dry her hair, he came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her.
“Feel better?” he asked.
She nodded.
He kissed her cheek. “She’ll heal. Give her time.”
She watched him walk out of the bathroom. Since when did Gavin become a sage? He’d changed since they emerged from Hell. He was calm, confident … satisfied? Like Carmen, he could move on now that Manny and Vinny had been avenged, but she couldn’t. In her mind, it was only a matter of time before some other asshole rose up and tried to test them. Steven managed to put together an impressive committee of powerful men in the city. They had perished in Hell, but those men were part of organizations that opposed them and could cause trouble in the future. The Pyre name would always make them targets.
She blow-dried her hair and ran her hands through the shiny blond locks. Her mother used to have the same hair before it was shaved off. She looked at herself in the mirror. Her robe gaped, showing the gruesome scars on her chest. Her skin tingled as Steven’s soft, malicious voice slithered through her mind.
