Page 64 of Knocked Up By the Silver Foxes

He comes with a groan, hot ropes of come across my face, my lips, my chest.

He watches it drip, then smears it into my skin, rough hands spreading his come over my breasts, my neck, like he’s marking me.

Then he kisses me—deep, claiming—and when he pulls back, his voice is low, final.

“You’re ours. No more fucking games. Understood?”

I smile soft. “Yes, sir.”

23

MADDOX

This is what it’s supposed to feel like.

I’ve been running that thought on a low loop since I woke up two hours ago because I keep needing the reminder that this is real and not something I’m going to blink out of. Two weeks of performing detachment and then one honest night and the whole estate feels different this morning. Lighter. Like someone opened a window in a room that had been closed too long.

Killian’s suite is the biggest of the four of ours and it has a proper dining table which is why we’re here, all four of us, Asher having appeared from his kitchen at seven with a bag of provisions that became the kind of breakfast you get at a place you pay significantly for, which is his version of marking an occasion without making it an occasion. Harper is across the table from me in one of Killian’s oversized shirts and her own shorts and her hair is loose and she’s got both hands around her coffee and she’s talking to Asher about the midsummer florals which is about as far from the conversation we had two nights ago as you can get, and she looks easy. Relaxed in a way she hasn’t been in two weeks. Like she put something down and decided not to pick it back up.

I want to look at her for the rest of the morning.

I look at my phone instead because I have things to do.

The security firm, Castle Hill Consortium, is based in New York. As a majority stakeholder, I’m able to utilize their resources. See, I’m not just a pretty face, I make smart investments. They sent through an initial profile on Jason and Rebecca Miller at six this morning. I’d called Marcus, who runs the day-to-day out of the city, the morning after Harper told us what happened, before the sun was fully up, while she was still asleep in Killian’s suite. Killian had been at his desk in his shirt with his coffee and I’d come in and told him quietly what I was doing and he’d looked at me for a moment and then nodded once, and that was the conversation.

I’d called Asher from the corridor. He’d said do it.

The profile confirms what Harper told us and then some. The Millers have done this before. Not to Harper specifically, but the pattern is established, the paper trail is there for anyone who knows where to look. Marcus wants to meet in person, go through the full file, discuss options. That’s the New York part of this trip that I have not mentioned to anyone outside of Killian and Asher and am not planning to mention to Harper until there’s something concrete to tell her.

Milan is real. The investor meetings are real, the portfolio review is real, the property walkthrough in the seventh is real. I had all of it on the calendar before any of this happened and I’ve been rescheduling it for two weeks because I couldn’t make myself leave. I’m going to Milan, again.

I’m just stopping in New York first.

It’s not a lie. It’s an incomplete truth and I’ve told myself much worse things in my life and I’m telling myself this one with a clean conscience because I’m not keeping it from Harper to protect myself. I’m keeping it from Harper because she told us what happened in the state of high-emotion honesty and she hasn’t had twenty-four hours to settle into having told us yet and walking in right now with a security firm’s preliminary file on her parents is too much too fast.

When there’s something to say, I’ll say it.

Until then, Milan.

“The east wall of the boutique space still needs its lighting resolved,” Harper is saying, making a note on her phone. “Mallory has the fixture order in but the installer isn’t confirmed until next week and I want to be sure it doesn’t get pushed past the launch window.”

“I’ll put Marco on it,” Killian says.

“Thank you.” She doesn’t look up from her phone. “And the catering handoff for Rosé’s opening, specifically— Asher, can we do a walkthrough of the floor plan this week? I want to make sure the service flow for the event doesn’t conflict with the main tasting room evening schedule.”

“Thursday after prep,” Asher says. “Kitchen is clear by four.”

“Thursday at four.” She adds it to her phone and then reaches for her coffee and catches me watching her and narrows her eyes slightly. “What.”

“Nothing.”

“You’re doing the thing.”

“I don’t have a thing.”

“You have a very specific thing where you look at someone like you know something they don’t.”

“That’s just my face.”