Chapter 278: Madeline
I giggle and say I don’t know what’s heavier—my ring finger or my belly. It's been a week since they proposed and I'm still not used to it.
They both smile like men who know exactly what they’ve done and pretend to roll their eyes. “The ring’s not that big,” Jake teases.
“It’s the biggest piece of jewelry I’ve ever had,” I gasp, and Reid’s mouth kicks at the corner, pleased and feral all at once.
He scoops me up before I can huff about it, one arm under my thighs, the other banded around my back. “Surprised you can still carry me with all this extra weight?” I murmur, dragging a fingertip over the neckline of his T-shirt, the gold oval on my finger catching and scattering light.
His brow lifts, deadpan. “There isn’t a day in my life I won’t be able to carry you—and both of them—at the same time.” The promise curls heat low and molten in my belly, and I give him the look I know he can’t resist. He rumbles—low, hungry, claiming—then starts for the stairs.
“Careful with her,” Jake calls, laughing into his coffee.
Reid kicks our bedroom door closed with his heel and my laugh turns into a breathless sound when my back meets the wall. His mouth finds mine—possessive, patient, a little ruined—kissing me like he’s been counting down minutes, hands bracketing my hips, thumbs sweeping over the stretch of skin where shirt ends and warmth begins. I fist his collar and kiss back, slow turning greedy, that delicious slide of tongue and teeth that makes my knees go soft and my ring click lightly against his jaw.
“Say stop and I stop,” he breathes against my mouth. “Say gentle and I’m a saint.”
I tip my forehead to his. “I want you. Just… slow. The way you do when you’re trying to drive me insane.”
“Yes, fiancée,” he says, voice gone dark with reverence, and it undoes me.
He carries me to the bed and eases me down like I’m something priceless, which, to him, I think I am. Pillows under my shoulders, a careful hand spreading beneath the small of my back, he kneels to kiss his way along my throat, down the line of my clavicle, across the soft places he’s learned by heart. Every touch is measured—worship with restraint—his palms big and warm at my waist, his mouth reverent at the tender edge of my breast, then lower, his breath painting heat over skin until I’m arching for him, whispering please in a way that sounds nothing like patience.
When he finally fits his body to mine he does it from behind, spooned close, my leg drawn over his, my belly cradled against a pillow and his palm spread there like he’s both shielding and praising. He noses the shell of my ear, counts a slow rhythm with his breath, and then he’s sliding into me in one long, unhurried stroke that steals mine away. I clutch his forearm and the sheets at once, eyes fluttering closed, the world narrowing to the steady, tender press of him—careful, claiming, exactly enough.
“Good?” he asks, words roughened.
“So good,” I whisper, already gone, “don’t stop.”
He finds a pace that feels like worship—deep, deliberate, unhurried—his mouth at my nape, his teeth grazing when I gasp, his thumb stroking lazy circles over the inside of my wrist where my pulse has gone wild. He keeps one hand on my belly, a compass and a promise, and I swear I can feel him smile into my skin when the twins give a tiny flutter like they know their father’s voice even when he isn’t speaking.
“You’re mine,” he says into my hair, velvet and iron, “ours. I’ve got you.”
I melt back into him and let the heat gather—slow tide, then faster—his hips rolling, the bed a soft drum beneath us. My sounds get higher, the kind I only make with them, and he answers each one with a whispered yes, a ruined good girl, a reverent that’s it, letting me chase what I want, giving, giving, until pleasure breaks over me in a bright, breathless rush. He holds me through it, holding me together, and then he follows—quiet, shuddering, buried against my shoulder, my name a rasp against my skin.
After, he stays as he is—still inside me, still wrapped around me—like moving would be blasphemy. His hand returns to my ring, thumb dragging over the oval stone, then back to my belly, palm spread and warm. He kisses the pulse in my neck; I card a hand through his hair.
“Never too heavy,” he murmurs, as if he can hear the foolish thought before I have it. “I can carry all three of you forever.”
I turn my face and kiss him slow—contentment and promise—until a pointed knock hits the door and Jake’s voice floats through, half dry, half smiling. “If you two are done making me jealous, there’s fresh coffee.”
Reid huffs a laugh against my shoulder. “Five more minutes.”
“Take ten,” Jake says, softer now. “You earned it.”
Reid nuzzles behind my ear, and I look at the ring, at his hand over our babies, at the future that keeps choosing us, and think ten will never be enough.