“Daniel fucked up our plan right off the bat.” Dagr grinned when Daniel flipped him the middle finger.
“In our defense,” Daniel began, “we hated how he handled you, Gray, and we wanted answers. He’s never lied to us before.”
“We wanted answers,” Jonathan finished.
As they sat down, a waitress came to take their order. Once she walked away, Gray asked, “And did you get answers?”
Daniel and Jonathan shook their heads no. Dagr lifted a hand to stop them. “Not necessarily true. We know how he feels about Gray. I think we also know he is struggling greatly with whatever he isn’t saying.”
It took everything in Gray not to ask how he felt about her, but she refused. After his treatment of her and his lies, she wasn’t sure it mattered. She did ask, “Did you tell him about the baby?”
“God, Gray,” Jonathan started, “of course not.”
Gray wasn’t sure if she was relieved or disappointed. She really wasn’t looking forward to that conversation.
“I plan on telling him in a few days over the holiday. I was only waiting to finish the end-of-year tests.”
“In other news,” Dagr looked like he was about to fall on a sword, “Ciar is moving himself and his daughter to Dublin.”
Gray felt her heart begin to pound out of her chest. “Not with you, surely,” she looked desperately toward Daniel and Jonathan. Being neighbors again would be a step too far.
“No,” Daniel told her gently. “He had the building he bought for you both finished. It’s move-in ready, I guess. Not decorated, but well enough to move in.”
She felt her cheeks burn. Yet another thing he’d done behind her back. “I see.”
“What a prick,” Mags sneered. “Why can’t that asshole stay in London? I’m sorry, Gray. Unexpected and not easy news for you.”
Blair signed something quickly to Bébhinn that Gray missed, but Bébhinn cleared her throat and suggested, “Why don’t we drop this conversation for now. Mags is right, it’s unexpected and needs some digesting. Besides, we have something to celebrate.”
Signing slow for Dagr, Blair said, “It’s a boy!”
thirty-five
JOSEPHINE
“According to the moms,the kids are all saying the same thing,” Josephine said while cutting up vegetables for a beef stew for their dinner. Making the correct quantity was always tricky. She never knew whether her son would eat at home or at Laith’s, or whether both boys would show.
In a house with large, starving Scotsmen continually waltzing in and out, food never went to waste. She glanced at her husband, who had yet to acknowledge she’d spoken. He was brooding. He’d been brooding since he realized their dream of having Gray home was slipping through their fingers.
Jo set her knife down and joined Thomas at the table. “Scootch back.” He eyed her warily but pushed his chair from the table.
Jo sat in his lap and looped her arms around his neck. “Kiss me,” she whispered against his lips.
She yelped in surprise as he took her mouth quickly. It was her intention to relieve some of the stress tensing his shoulders, but the assault of his tongue and hands relieved her of everything, including her mental faculties.
Somehow, her clothes littered the kitchen floor, and she was straddling her husband’s lap, where he used her hips to glide their clothed sexes together. “Christ, Thomas, your mouth is sinful.”
He let one of her nipples pop from between his lips to kiss her again. She sucked in deep lungfuls of oxygen when he finally let her up for air.
“Take me out, baby. I want you riding me right here, right now,” he growled, nipping her bottom lip.
Thank heavens for sweatpants and well-hung men. He was already halfway out of his pants. It had been months since they had been this ravenous for one another.
He lifted her easily and lowered her down slowly until his hard length disappeared inside her. “Thomas,” she moaned as her body adjusted.
“Josephine,” he hissed her name between clenched teeth. “I'll never get enough of you.”
This was one of those times she loved her long legs. She was able to plant her feet on the floor and ride her husband to her heart’s content. Every time she bottomed out, she would give him her full weight and circle her hips.
