Rowan leads me toward the bed, pausing only when we reach the edge.
He doesn’t hesitate as he lifts the sweater over my head and pushes the sweatpants down my legs before crouching to remove them and my shoes.
When I’m standing before him in nothing but cotton panties and my favorite sports bra, he presses a kiss to my belly. “Perfect,” he murmurs.
Rowan pushes to his feet and lifts the covers for me, urging me to get in beside Asher, and I find myself following the silent direction without hesitation.
Asher rolls, dragging me across the bed until I’m pressed to his bare chest, and when I glance over my shoulder, expecting to see Rowan leaving, instead I find him sliding across the mattress behind me, only settling once I’m pinned between the two of them.
“Did you try to run, Little Doe?” Asher asks sleepily.
“Yes,” I whisper.
He chuckles. “You should know, Hannah, we really like the chase.”
Rowan sighs but doesn’t refute his son’s words as he presses a series of gentle kisses down my spine.
I tell myself I’ll stay for just a few minutes. I’ll let myself live in this perfect moment, and then I’ll make a plan.
But for what feels like the first time in my life, sleep comes to me with ease, and I fall into a dreamless state that feels a whole lot like peace.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
ROWAN
I’ve dreamed of this moment for years. Now it’s here, and I don’t know how I ever lived without it.
Hannah sleeps peacefully between Asher and me, her chest rising and falling as she lets out soft, adorable snores.
Every woman who came before her annoyed me when we slept side by side, but, of course, my girl is the exception to the rule.
She always is.
At some point during the night, she turned, and now her head rests on my chest, her breath whispering across the tattooed skin, and I can’t help but stare at her.
I have been for the last two hours, so why bother stopping now?
“She’s cute when she sleeps, huh?” Asher rolls onto his side and presses a kiss to her bare shoulder.
I nod, not wanting to wake her with a response. Because when she wakes up, there’s a chance she’ll try to leave again, and there’s only so many times we can stop her.
He glances over us at the time, his brows rising into his hairline. “It’s eleven?”
I nod again. I’ve never slept this late. I’ve never even stayed in bed past seven, and that’s only if I had a particularly late night. But finally having Hannah sleeping beside me allowed me to rest in a way I never have.
Even before I had the pressure of being a single father resting on my shoulders, my home life was so volatile, it wasn’t safe to fall into a deep sleep.
But now everything I care about is in this room.
The rest of the world could burn, and I wouldn’t care as long as I had my son and our girl.
“You won’t wake her,” he tells me. “She’s a deep sleeper.”
“I’m just soaking up this moment,” I reply, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.
Even if we convince her to stay, it’s unlikely she’ll crawl into bed between us again, at least for a little while.
Her mind is too at odds with the situation for her to give in to what she needs.
