I’m seeing a hallway that will take us to all the rooms needed by a family, especially one that’s planning to grow.
Blaise isn’t looking around anymore. He’s looking at me. “I’ll pay everyone back. I’ll just find out how much everyone donated and I’ll—”
“You can’t pay people back for a gift.”
“Some of these guys don’t really make that much money. I can’t take it from them. But this is . . .”
“This is our home.”
Blaise’s grin breaks into a sort of manic happiness he generally saves for chaos and Donovan. “This is our home. We have a home!”
I squeal in excitement because holy cow, we have a home, and throw my arms around him.
“It’s our honeymoon in our home!” Blaise shouts at a game day volume, but I don’t even care as he scoops me back up, this time with my legs around him. He makes a beeline for the stairs and charges up them so quickly I bounce with him even as I rain kisses down along his cheeks and neck, streaking the last remnants of my lipstick on his face. At the top of the stairs, he plows into the first room, but it’s a nursery.
Donovan’s going to have his own room.
My eyes start to water.
“Don’t you start,” Blaise rushes out. “This is our goddamn honeymoon. We’re going to explore tomorrow.”
I nod, but yeah, I take a quick peek, and already, my brain is swimming.
Blaise gets it right the second time, finding the master bedroom, its furniture a king-sized four-poster and matching nightstands and dressers that are far too nice to have been furnished by a realtor. And the bed is covered with an incredibly ornate quilt, unquestionably one of Joss’s.
The moment Blaise drops me on the bed, I’m running my hands over it, noting that she didn’t use a machine-programmed pattern to quilt it. I can’t even imagine how much time she spent on this.
I need to thank her. God, this was all too much.
“Nope, I know you want to call Joss, and it’s not happening.”
I pout. “Why not?”
Blaise leans over me, shifting the mood with a single dark chuckle. “Because I bought you for the night, Trixie.”
I rest my weight back on my elbows and raise my foot back up to him, this time carefully rubbing the sole of my shoe over the visible tent in his pants. Some poor dry cleaner isgoing to be questioning that, but Blaise just rumbles as I say, “Oh yeah? I don’t think you’ve paid me yet, John.”
“No?” He nips at my earlobe, my jaw, my bottom lip. “I think I’ve paid enough for you already, Trixie.”
I push a little harder with my foot, enough that he buckles before leaning into it. His eyelids flutter. He likes it. “You know what my rates are,” I remind him.
“Fine,” he sighs, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a folded wad of cash and letting it unfurl next to me on the bed so I can count it.
It’s $87.
Epilogue
Merrick
Wes Foster thinks he’s getting away with something. He’s had his hands all over Cora all night, keeping his arm around her waist as they walked around during the tapas hour while the happy couple had their photos done and groping her on the dance floor, even holding hands with her like a lovesick puppy in the buffet line.
Pathetic.
Cora thinks she’s getting away with something, too. She thinks she’s getting away with teasing me. She thinks she’s safe, that Wes Foster is going to protect her, that she can torment me and even pick a fight with me without being punished.
The moment Blaise and Tilly leave, the full bar comes out. We weren’t trying to hold out on them or anything, but I think we’ve all been groomsmen for friends who got too drunk andended up ruining their wedding nights with whiskey dicks. Blaise doesn’t drink like he used to, but a lot of people aren’t themselves at weddings.
Cora isn’t herself at weddings, apparently.
