“Couldn’t stop thinking about what it would be like.” She took a shaky breath. “If that was us. If I was the one in that bed. If we had a?—”
Her voice broke.
He cupped her face in his hands, thumbs brushing away the tears that had started to fall. “Hey. Look at me.”
She did, her grey eyes swimming.
“Do you want a child with me?” He kept his voice steady, though his heart was pounding. “Because if that’s what you want, kitten, I want it too. More than I can say.”
“You do?”
“From the moment I met you, my wolf has wanted to give you pups.” He smiled at her startled laugh. “It’s a werewolf thing. But it’s also just a me thing. I want everything with you, kitten. A family. A future. All of it.”
“But what if I’m terrible at it?” The words tumbled out, raw and frightened. “I never had a family, Adrian. I don’t know how to be a mother. I barely know how to be a person some days. What if I?—”
“You won’t.”
“You can’t know that.”
“I know you.” He pressed his forehead to hers. “You’re the smartest, bravest, most stubbornly determined woman I’ve ever met. You walked into a pack of werewolves and made them love you. You stared down an Elder who wanted to destroy you and didn’t flinch. You saved my family, Harper. You think you can’t handle a baby?”
She let out a wet laugh. “When you put it like that…”
“I put it exactly like that.” He kissed her forehead, her nose, the corner of her mouth. “But if you’re not ready, we wait. There’s no rush. We have all the time in the world.”
She was quiet for a long moment.
“Not yet,” she finally whispered. “I want to, but I need to be sure. But soon, I think. Maybe soon.”
“Then soon it is.” He pulled her into his arms, holding her close. “Whenever you’re ready, I’ll be here.”
They stayed like that as the sun set over the city, painting the sky in shades of gold and rose. Her trembling eventually stilled, replaced by the steady rhythm of her breath, the warm pulse of the bond between them.
He thought about his father. About Derek and Julie and little Robert. About the family he’d lost and the family he’d found. About the woman in his arms, who had been alone her entire life and was learning, slowly, that she didn’t have to be anymore.
Whatever she needs, he thought. However long it takes.
He would wait.
The penthouse was quiet when Harper found him.
He’d been reading in the living room, too restless to sleep, his thoughts circling endlessly around the day’s events. The city glowed through the floor-to-ceiling windows, a constellation of lights that never quite went dark.
“Adrian?”
He looked up.
She stood in the doorway of the guest bedroom, wearing one of his shirts—soft flannel, worn thin from years of use, falling past her thighs. Her pink hair was loose around her shoulders, her glasses absent, her feet bare on the polished hardwood.
She looked small and brave and determined.
“What’s wrong, kitten?”
“Nothing’s wrong.” She crossed the room to him, climbing into his lap with a confidence that still surprised him sometimes. Her hands found his face, her eyes locked on his. “I’ve been thinking.”
“About?”
“About what you said. About being ready.” Her voice was steady now, none of the earlier trembling. “I spent my whole life being afraid, Adrian. Afraid to get close to people, afraid to want things, afraid to hope for anything permanent. And then I met you, and I was afraid of that too. Afraid of how much I felt. Afraid it couldn’t possibly last.”
