Page 254 of Masters of Control

“As a special occasion treat, it’s a good choice.”

“Noted.” But she wasn’t saying anything about what he really wanted to know. “Um. So. Did you hear me? When I said I loved you.”

She looked at him in surprise. Maybe she hadn’t heard him.

“Yes, but I didn’t think it counted.”

“Why wouldn’t it count?” He frowned as he shouldered open the door to the bedroom, turning to the side so he could carry her through without banging her head on the frame.

“I don’t think it counts if you say it while you’re having sex. Sometimes, it just slips out or something, and the guy doesn’t actually mean it, so it doesn’t count.”

Ah, okay. He saw where she was coming from, and that was a thing that people really did say. For good reason. However…

“I had my hand inside you, not my dick. It counts. That’s when I intended to say it.”

“It is? Why?” Morgan blinked owlishly at him.

He shrugged as they went into the bathroom. Setting her down next to the tub gave him a minute to think, but the truth was, he wasn’t sure. He’d been thinking that it was an intimate moment, a way to show her how much he appreciated her trust, trying to be emotionally vulnerable while she was so physically vulnerable…

All of that sounded really silly now and not like anything he wanted to say out loud. He stared at the water as it poured into the tub.

“Asad.” Morgan touched his arm. “I love you, too.”

Green eyes met his, and he felt the tension in his shoulders melt away.

“Sorry I kinda fucked it up the first time. I’ll do better the second.” Leaning over, he pressed a kiss to her lips. When he pulled back, she was smiling.

“I think it was perfect for the first time… for our first time. Because we’re not perfect. We’re a little messy and a little different, but we’re in it together. And that’s what matters.”

He liked that.

Good thing she felt that way, too, because the second time he said it was when he was balls deep in her ass thirty minutes later, and he was pretty sure that wasn’t actually the perfect time, either.

But it was perfect for them.

Epilogue

Brian

Living with a happy couple while being unhappily single was a form of torture. Not that they were there all the time. Sometimes, he ended up walking around a completely empty house, knowing they were off somewhere else, being happy.

It wasn’t that he begrudged them that. He wanted Morgan to be happy. Asad made her happy. They were ridiculously cute together, too.

The club’s biggest playboy had turned into the club’s most devoted and slavishly sweet boyfriend—though doing so definitely hadn’t curbed any of his sadistic tendencies. Talk about the ‘magic vagina’ effect.

Too bad he didn’t have a magic penis.

The woman he really wanted had had no problem turning him away after their night together.

“You okay back there?” Asad asked, glancing in the rearview mirror to look at Brian in the backseat. “You look like you’re constipated or something.”

Morgan turned around to look at Brian, a frown on her pretty face as she looked him over.

“I’m fine,” he said to them both, making a shooing motion at her to turn back around. Rolling her eyes, she obeyed. Asad really was good for her. A few months ago, there was no way she would have rolled her eyes at him for giving her an order. Definitely not where he could see, and probably not even when he couldn’t. “Just worried about how much of my furniture you’re going to have sex on before I get back from this trip.”

“All of it,” Asad said immediately, making Morgan giggle.

Now it was Brian’s turn to roll his eyes. Not that he actually cared. He just liked to give Asad a hard time, just like Asad did to him. It was how they showed each other love.