The early-September evening when we approached the forest surrounding Chitamauga was crisp, the sky a breathtaking array of incandescent violets and golds. The sunset wasn’t nearly as gorgeous as the man walking beside me, though. Leon hadn’t been this relaxed since the very first days I’d known him. His loose gait made his ass sway inside the tight jeans, but every time I tried to linger behind a pace or two to admire him, he pulled me forward with a wicked grin. He gabbed a mile a minute in a husky mixture of what Liz called Cajunese.
I fell in love with him all over again.
We’d remained in Delta for two weeks, just long enough to bury CEO Cutler’s remains in a small cemetery with an even more negligible headstone. No one else was in attendance. His sons had wished him dead, both for years of deception and for the devastating acts he’d perpetrated—not just on his own family, but their friends and lovers, as well as an entire nation. But each murmured a few words aloud before his coffin was covered in dirt.
We stayed a bit longer to begin the long slog of turning another authoritarian stronghold into a viable democratic assembly, including key people from all communities on the continent.
Two weeks during which Leon and I had done little more than hold hands and softly kiss. We’d abstained from lovemaking in equal agreement because the next time we were together, we wanted to be as close as we could, skin to skin, soul to soul. We needed to make sure we were both completely clean after the botched virus attempts, and we didn’t trust anyone more than Doc back at the commune.
Just because we’d agreed to these measures didn’t make it any easier. I was bone-hard almost every waking moment. I went to sleep with an erection that had Leon’s name on it and woke up in the same state.
At least I knew Leon was as hard up as me. Literally.
Leon’s eyes went wide and his free hand pumped into the air in time to his shouts. I looked ahead, where his gaze was aimed. Chitamauga. It was the first time the big wooden gates protecting our village were open and unmanned. The people of Chitamauga hadn’t waited in the town square. They streamed out of the commune en masse. Their whoops and hollers roared, deafening my ears as my eyes filled.
Altogether, eleven of us returned, and our three new additions—Val, Denver, and Darwin—were enfolded with the rest of us in arms that hugged, hands that shook, smiles that broadened ever wider. People passed us from one embrace to another.
It was a beautiful sight that nearly rivaled Leon.
I kept my hand resolutely on his waist lest he get tugged away by the tide of friends and family and Freelanders who never thought they’d see him alive again. Children swarmed his legs. He laughed boisterously, beaming at all who surrounded him, blushing from time to time, awed and humbled by the love he inspired in people.
He had no idea the effect he had, on me most of all.
Evangeline appeared like a whirlwind before us. Her summer-green eyes were wet and hazy as she grasped Leon to her. Just as quickly, she shoved him away with a whack on his arm.
“Grand beede! You make your maman scared like dat when you say you’re gonna kill yourself? Next time I kill you myself.”
Tears overtook her, and Leon wrapped her up close. “Sorry, Maman. I didn’t mean to cause la misère.”
“Mais, yeah! You always make cette misère. Dat is why I love you. Si embêtant.”
I heard Miss Eden giving similar treatment to her two sons and their spouses before she broke down, too. When she recovered, she took every other person in our crew—new or not—to task as well, her hand raised, finger pointing, strawberry-blond hair falling into her eyes during her tirade. As was Eden’s way, she then forgave each of them with a kiss and a warm hug that made even Denver stumble over his polite words.
Sebastian snickered at his discomfort.
“Miss Eden?” I called to her as I approached.
Her hands lifted to my face. “What is it, son?”
“I owe you thanks. Cutler never would’ve agreed to the deal without you.”
“I would’ve done anything, just like you. You don’t owe me anything except a hug.”
My arms wrapped around her. I held her tight for a brief moment, a lump of emotion in my throat making any further thanks impossible.
When I released Eden, Leon’s mother rounded on me. “Big handsome, dat be what my son call you. C’mere.”
I didn’t have a choice. Evangeline hustled me right into her arms, giving me a moment of soft maternal comfort I’d been lacking for too many years. My face heated with her canny regard as she clasped both my cheeks.
“Mm-hmm. Tall, dark drink of water. Now I be wonderin’ about your intentions with Leon de Bellisle Cheramie.”
I stuttered over words that tangled my tongue. “I’m sorry, ma’am. I tried my best to keep him safe. I…I love him.”
“Maman.” Leon interrupted, getting himself tutted by several stern village matriarchs.
“Alors. He say what I wanted to hear. You hush up, Leon.” Reaching up on her tiptoes she didn’t even brush my chin, but Evangeline’s expression was fiercely emotional. “Merci. Merci.” She rubbed a suddenly damp cheek against my shirt, where her whisper was both felt and heard. “He survived ’cause of you, Darke.”
I leaned down to her. “I live because of Leon,” I said quietly. “Thank you for being his maman.”
As soon as she released me, Leon launched into my arms. “You survived the inquisition.”
I laughed, dragging him against me. “Is that what that was?”
Old Man Hills made his way toward us through a tunnel of familiar Freelanders. Micah, Kamber, Hatch, Smitty, Lyra, Gruff Tommy, and Gal the mutt were there.
Hills had his dandelion-fluff hair tucked behind his ears. I’d always thought of him as the sun. Tonight he was the moon preparing to let a new sun rise in his wake. I recognized his time was waning. He accepted it with satisfaction for the years he’d been given. I hoped one day, in the far-off future, to know the same sense of contentment with a life well lived and well loved.
It all started with Leon, whose palm I lifted to my heart.
Tommy, on the other hand, crackled with crisp energy. He’d probably outlive us all.
Regal as any monarch in these down-home surrounds, Hills raised his palms to the heavens. “We have learned through the ages there are no spoils of war. There can be no winners when blood is spilled and life is taken. But tonight I count you all as victors! It was not just one battle. It was a war for the heart of humanity.
“When we got the word from Darke, from Delta, I…” He bowed his head. “I gave many thanks for your lives, warriors. We also felt the sorrow of those who passed by your hands as need be, by the soldiers who undertook a fight they did not understand, and by the man we will also mourn because celebrating death is not just.
“Warrior Darke.” Hills pulled me tight against him, where I felt his frail bones. “Welcome home.
“Leon Cheramie. Savior.” He motioned my lover forward. “Thank you.”
And so he gave his benediction to each and every one of us while I committed to memory his many blessings on former Corps soldiers and commanders and even those who had worked for Cutler in order to bring him down in the end.
“Welcome home…and welcome to your new home.”
The cheers were cut short.
“There’s someone else I cannot neglect,” Hills continued. He lowered his head. “Jonquil died in childbirth. We thought it wise to wait until you returned from your mission to tell you.”
“The baby?” Cannon croaked.
The cry of an infant pierced the air. Eden came forth, and she passed the squalling red-faced parcel to Caspar and Nathaniel. Their hands seemed too big to comfort the tiny crying package. Cannon rocked unsteadily on his feet. Nathaniel passed a hand over his mouth, stepping back from his husband.
Cannon swore. “Fuck. Don’t leave me alone with it. I’ll drop it!”
A few titters passed around the engrossed onlookers as Nate crept back to his side.
“Not it—she. She’s a girl.” Eden hovered close enough to wrap the little girl tighter in her swaddling before pressing her fully against Cannon’s chest.
He looked aghast for a moment, then immediately in love. His huge fingers rested lightly, oh so gently, on the creamy skin of her teeny puckered face.
“Where’s the father?” Nathaniel asked, appearing both reluctant and enraptured.
“He turned out to be a no-good layabout,” Evangeline said. “He wasn’t ready to handle the responsibilities of bein’ a papa. Took off a couple of days before Jonquil went into labor.”
A ferocious frown cranked down Cannon’s brows, and Nathaniel similarly scowled.
“That ain’t right. What kind of a man does that?” Nathaniel peeked with so much longing at the baby in his husband’s arm. “Who’s lookin’ after her?”
Lyra came forward to kiss the baby girl and then both men. “This was Jonquil’s last wish. That her daughter would become yours.”
“Wait. She’s ours?” Cannon looked up from his mesmerized study of her small fingers wrapped around his thumb.
“You are her fathers.” Eden nodded, wiping the tears from her eyes.
“She’s ours.” Cannon turned toward Nathaniel just before his face crumpled.
Hoarse sounds came from the massive man. Nathaniel cradled the baby in one arm, his other one looped around the stoic military commander so overcome with emotion it spilled onto everyone in sniffles, soft words, sighs.
The wee thing screeched again, much louder than a person that size should have any right to do.
Cannon jerked his head up to peer at the baby buffeted between their bodies. “She’s got a temper.”
“Should be right at home!” some smart-ass or other called.
They cuddled and cooed at their newborn daughter as we made our way into Chitamauga proper. Torches shined as bright as the night stars constellating the sky above. Trestle tables had been filled with a feast for the stomach and drink enough to sate any kind of thirst.
Cannon considered the vast spread of roasted meat and vegetables, the tankards of mead waiting to be drunk. He swayed in a slow side-to-side motion, watching as the infant brought his finger to her mouth to suckle on it. “How the fuck are we gonna feed her?”
Eden smacked him on the ear. “Language.”
Guffaws came from all quarters of the town square.
“She has a wet nurse, Caspar,” Eden explained. “No one’s expecting you to start a’lactatin’, but we do expect you to make sure Liberty doesn’t grow up with your bad mouth.”
“Little Liberty, is it?” He smiled down at the child. “On my honor, I’ll be on my best behavior around Liberty.”
At the dawn of a new freedom, the child’s name seemed only fitting.
Cannon and Nathaniel found a bench to park it on, where they ignored the rest of the carousers. When Nathaniel began to sing in his rich, melting voice to the daughter in his arms, everyone turned to stare.
Cannon carefully kept his finger within Liberty’s tight fist, but now his gaze wandered over his lover’s face. As the song ended, he leaned in to Nathaniel, kissing him with slow fire before whispering something in his ear that caused the blond man to blush.
Sometime later, Leon strolled up to me, the baby in his arms. I’d kept my eyes on him the entire night, but my hands off of him. I wasn’t at all sure I’d be able to stop once I started touching him. He was talking to the baby while she kicked and gurgled in his arms. He looked so comfortable with her, so adoring. I took another knock to my chest.
He pressed a kiss to my lips, letting out a soft moan. I slipped my fingers through his thick, wavy hair, trailing a hand down his back.
“I’m just gonna help them get Libby settled. Dey ain’t got a clue what they’re doin’.” He jerked his thumb back at the pair of parents, who were looking sheepish.
“And you do?”
Leon sent a seductive fingertip down the center of my chest, leaving me gripped by a rush of arousal. “I can sweet-talk just about anyone. You know dis.”
I did.
It was the first time I’d let him out of my sight since we’d moved out on CO HQ in Delta, but I didn’t think my heart could withstand seeing him with adoration in his eyes for anyone but me, even if it was a child. I wanted Leon to myself first. I was a selfish bastard where he was concerned.
He returned a half hour later, coming to stand in front of me. The swells of his ass jolted my cock to life. My lips skimmed along the back of his neck, raising goose bumps I licked with my tongue.
“Time for bed.” I dipped my mouth to his ear, letting my deep voice rumble across his sensitive skin.
He turned in my arms. “Where?”
I snorted in disbelief. “With me, of course. Tonight.” I kissed his cheek. “Tomorrow night.” I grasped his bottom. “Every night.” I took his lips in a possessive kiss, barely keeping myself in check.
Boisterous catcalls interrupted our caresses, which were growing more daring by the second.
“Get a room!”
“Get a caravan.”
“The lake works for me.”
“Oh, Christ,” Tommy grumbled. “Don’t tell me I’m gonna be shacking up next to another Love Hovel.”
* * *
We headed to our caravan, and I guided Leon inside.
“Home,” I said.
Evangeline and Eden had been through, tidying the rooms and airing them out in my absence. I’d also asked Evangeline to deliver Leon’s belongings. His spare boots rested beside the door, and the moko tools he hadn’t brought overseas were displayed on a shelf next to my books.
“Our home,” I pronounced in a gruff voice.
Leon shook his head slowly, turning to inspect the two rooms. His fingers ran across my belongings and his. My heart was filled with pure love and peace. I turned away to hide my emotion, lifting our packs to a low table. I removed the guns and other weapons we’d tucked away earlier in the day, knowing we wouldn’t need them here. With Leon watching me, I opened a wooden gun case I’d carved years ago. I’d never shared it with anyone before. Inside I placed our weapons side by side before stowing it on a high shelf.
Leon leaned against the wall, his smile growing.
I shed my clothes with deliberate slowness while he watched, his eyebrows rising higher and higher the more flesh I revealed. When I went to wash briskly from the water in the ceramic basin, I heard him mutter an oath. Then I reclined on the bed, naked and inviting.
“Come to bed, angel.”
He skimmed out of his gear faster than I had, joining me with a bounce of the mattress. I laughed and pulled him tight against me before draping the blankets over us.
“You arranged all dis?” His thigh crossed over mine, and his warm words sent damp kisses across my chest.
“Yes. Is that okay?” My hands roved across his bare, silken skin and flawlessly muscled back.
“D’ac. I should thank you.”
“Leon,” I muttered in warning. We still needed to see Doc tomorrow, and my cock couldn’t stand any more foreplay without payout.
“Just a kiss.” He spun on top of me; then he lowered himself over me until every part of our bodies touched.
My head flicked back. My hips snapped up. Breath whooshed from me in a groan. “That’s not a kiss.”
“Dis is.”
He cajoled my tongue into his mouth after thoroughly nibbling my lips. Once inside, he sucked on me the same way he sucked my cock. Unsurprisingly, my cock pulsed with every pull of his lips.
I fell back when he released me, all my muscles coiled with restraint.
He snuggled against me. “I love you.”
I slit one eye open, taking in his flushed face and bright eyes and mussed-up hair. “I love you, too. Now go to sleep.”
“Still bossy.”
I cupped his ass, the two globes muscular enough to withstand my teasing squeeze. “Extremely fucking horny. The sooner we sleep, the sooner tomorrow gets here and we can get the all clear.”
It took a while for my body to calm down, but he was out almost immediately. I didn’t mind the ease with which he shut off; it gave me time to hold him, knowing he wasn’t going anywhere.
* * *
We showed up at the low-lying wooden medical building washed, fed, and watered well before lunchtime. I went in first and underwent an examination more thorough than I’d ever had before or ever wanted again. That was after Doc took a maddeningly long time looking over my moko, those that had scarred on my back as well as the fresh angel wings on my chest.
“Our Leon did this in Omega?” Doc wore a pair of spectacles that kept sliding down his nose, and his curly gray hair formed a close cap on his head.
“Yes.” I turned toward a mirror over the sink and once again took in the sight of the unfurled wings, swelling with pride.
He gave a low whistle of appreciation. “Damn fine work. Talented young man.”
“He is.” I nodded my head.
I waited with Leon, bouncing my legs, for the time it took Doc to process my tests.
Eventually he stuck his head out the door and grinned. “Clear.” Pushing up the glasses that wouldn’t grip his nose, he peered at Leon. “Your turn, son.”
I went outside and paced around the building for the duration. My fists clenched and unclenched. I should’ve brought my weapons and done some target practice, starting with the same stand of trees I kept passing. The wait was infuriating.
What felt like hours later, I rounded the building for the umpteenth time to see Leon walking toward me.
“Well?” The kick of adrenaline galloped through my veins.
He smiled. “We’re good.”
I let out the loudest yell before wrapping him in my arms. Then I growled, “Caravan, now.”
We almost ran down the roads that were bustling with midday activity. Heads peeped out of buildings—the kitchens, the forge, the barns, town hall. I heard murmurs, knowing our good news would be all around the commune in less than an hour, especially if Tommy the town crier had anything to do with it. He spat a glob of tobacco juice when we sprinted past, dipping his head, which did nothing to hide his toothless smile.
“Go get ’im, boy.”
The door of the caravan banged against the wall, and I booted it shut. It bounced back in protest. Leon laughed until I latched it closed and came at him with the full force of all the want I’d ever had for him.
“Mon Dieu.”
He stood his ground, a moan rippling from his throat when I ripped his shirt down the center and flung it aside. Called to action by my greedy haste, he kicked off his boots. One almost went through the window. His laugh that time was breathless. He yanked at my pants while I dragged my top up and off. The zipper stuck, but that didn’t stop my lion from palming me through the rough cloth barring his way. Then he crouched down to nip the thick, hard roll of my cock, and I lost it completely.
Shouting in a hoarse voice, I knocked his hands away. I backed him to the table and tore at his jeans. His engorged shaft was in my mouth in an instant. The taste of his precome made me moan. He swore as his hands steadily guided me.
I looked up over the lean, hard lines of his body. The sun worshipped him, making him tawny and smooth except for the sprinkle of hair that thrived in soft curls around his throbbing cock. I lifted my mouth from him, giving one long, languorous lick around the leaking head. Another bead of moisture appeared from the tiny slit. I sucked that up, too.
He cursed again, throwing his head back, eyes shut tight.
“Got a problem, baby?” I asked, nuzzling low to his pink balls. They smelled so earthy, so masculine.
“Get your goddamn pants off.”
I stood to my full height, pushed his thighs open, and stepped between them. “You do it.”
His hair shimmered on his shoulders. His lips looked so plump, like he’d already blown my cock. I pushed my thumb into his mouth, my eyes rolling back when he sucked fast and hard.
His fingers didn’t fail this time. Belt off, button undone, zipper down, he bunched the fabric to my thighs and then took me tight in hand.
“Fuck!”
He smirked around my finger.
“All fours.” We weren’t making it to the bed. The floor would have to do. The first time, at least.
Leon complied, head thrown back, back arched, ass raised, and his cock lying flat and rigid against his belly. I crawled beneath him, my head between his thighs and my dick rising up to his lips. His hungry moan made me buck.
“What’re you doin’?”
“Taking the edge off. Suck me,” I demanded.
All that was left were grunts and groans and swallowed moans. There wasn’t another word, just the noise of hard, hot, wet male flesh thrusting in and out of sleek tight mouths. I curled my shoulders up and dragged his thighs wider. I took him to the base and back over and over. Leon devoured my cock just as relentlessly, his hair draping over my legs, his back bowed, his body writhing above me.
His scent and his cock and his taste and his sounds drove me to the brink just as fast as his powerful lips and the fast flicks of his tongue before he engulfed me each time. I slapped his ass twice with both palms, warning him I was going to come—and come fucking fast.
Those loud spanks were enough to set him off. He lifted his head up to howl the same time he sank his cock all the way into my throat and blasted ropes and ropes of seed. My hips grinded up into the air, pleasure shooting up my spine. My saliva-wet cock danced before the first jet raced up my length to shoot out the head. Leon took the first hit on his neck. He guided my wild cock into his mouth, moaning with each load to hit his tongue while I swallowed everything he gave me.
I slid from beneath him, my thighs quaking. With him in my arms, I tasted his lips. The leftovers of warm, wet come rolled between our tongues, and he made me hard again, just like that.
Leon leaned from my arms to drag the covers down on the bed. I pushed the pillows to the floor and laid him down. He lifted his legs, immediately pulling his knees to his chest.
“Encule-moi.”
“What?”
“Fuck me.” He licked a single digit before pressing it inside himself.
My eyes slammed shut at the insanely hot sight. When I could speak again, my voice had dropped an octave lower. “Not this time.”
I licked around the pink aperture where his finger disappeared. I made my way up to his round balls, sucking on each, slowly lipping across the delicate stretched skin. “You’re gonna be inside me this time. No protection and no precautions.”
A predatory grin slid across his puffy, well-kissed lips. He pulled his finger free with a gasp and a wiggle of his hips. Then he pounced on me, throwing me to my back. I chuckled, but the laughter shifted to a groan when he skirted his tongue—so soft and wet—around my nipples.
He shimmied lower, slinking down my body, led by his tongue and puckering lips. Down the flexed muscles of my abdomen and along the deep cuts of my pelvis. He kissed his way along the tight black curls that thinned to my groin. I held his hair back to watch him. His face full of pleasure, he seemed to be sipping from my heated skin.
Each touch lifted more fire to the surface. It flamed even brighter when he raised my cock to the side, bypassing the thick length to feast around the base of my shaft, wetting my pubes and nosing the root where I was heaviest. Moving fast, he jerked my legs open wide in rough palms, biting at my rump until I rolled my legs up to provide him open access to my twitching hole.
The bites became softer the closer he roamed to my opening.
Looking up with heavy, heated eyes, he curled his lips in a half smile and then licked his lips. The next thing he licked was my entrance. My head dropped back. All the air left my lungs. I raised my ass higher, seeking his mouth when he pulled away.
His hands gripped both sides, holding them apart. “So fuckin’ tight. So fuckin’ delicious.”
Leon pinned my thighs to my chest with one strong forearm and swooped down to slake his need on my hole. My channel opened more and more to each long lunge of his tongue. I shouted, thrusting up, when he dragged his softly whiskered chin down my taint, using the same friction to torment my aching ring.
By the time he got to lube and fingers, splicing me open, I was delirious. Gulping for air, I alternated between squeezing my eyes shut and watching his every move. He talked through everything, tantalizing words about how good he was gonna love me and how long he was gonna fuck me. He slowly stroked my cock in a loose circle, finger-fucking me and nibbling on the dam of muscle leading from my scrotum to my ass.
“Please fuck me now. Jesus Christ, Leon, please!”
He stopped his torment with a double-handed swat to my ass. I almost shot right then. He kneeled beside me, his cock bigger than ever.
“Get me wet.”
I opened my mouth, ready to take him deep inside, but he pushed my forehead back with a low chuckle.
“Touch me with that mouth and this is all over, beb. Use the lube, an’ get me nice and slick.”
I briefly wondered how long he’d waited to order me around. But I didn’t care. Leon in charge was the fucking hottest thing I’d ever seen. Once I’d coated his cock until it shined with oil in the afternoon’s sun, he moved me where he wanted me—on my back, legs spread, my feet in his hands.
“You know, I went easy on you the first time.”
Holy Christ. My stomach tightened. My cock rose up from my abs. Leon trickled a line of lube over the broad cap, avidly watching it streak to my nuts.
“Does that mean you’re going to take it out on me right now?”
He brushed his wet tip against my contracting hole until I moaned. Then he visibly relaxed, held his gorgeous cock with one hand and my neck with the other, and slipped into the ring of muscle.
“Non. It means I’m gonna love you like it’s not the last time.” He eased inside, eyes glittery. “It means I’m gonna love you so good, love you forever, cher.”
“Oh!” The tantalizing strength of his cock, bare and hot, opened me up.
My thighs rose to his hips as his heavy balls slapped my ass. I could barely breathe as this gorgeous man throbbed inside of me, spellbinding me.
“Touch me,” Leon breathed.
“You feel so good.” I pulled him to me, my hands sliding up and down his back. I loved him this way, something masterful in his movements he’d never unleashed on me before.
“Mmm. I could get used to this.” He bit his lip, swiveling to the left, to the right. Leon pulled back and thrust in with brute force that belied his smaller body.
My toes curled and my hamstrings strained.
He pushed me back to the bed with his palms flat on my chest. He grunted with every long, hard lunge but lingered inside, gyrating, grinding my cock between our bellies. Folding over on top of me, he kissed me between sharp gasps and sheared-off words.
I gathered his hair in my fist, his pumping ass in my hand. “I can’t wait for you to come in me.”
He didn’t go faster, but his thrusts deepened, punching my glans, making me swell and shout. His face took on the sharpest look of desire when I screamed in my climax. It catapulted up my cock and took me by surprise. Took my breath away. Gripping Leon within my seizing body, I released all over both of us.
As he got closer, Leon let out a series of harsh grunts interspersed with soft mewls. Overtaken by pleasure, he opened his eyes wide, the pupils swallowing all the color of his irises.
“Ah, ah, oh, oui. OUI! Darke.”
He came a moment later with shivers and jerks and thrusts that powered his come inside of me, where I wanted to capture it. Leon’s arms trembled. His throat corded. His mouth fell open. He was so stunning my heart stopped.
When he dropped on top of me, I wrapped all the way around him as I had while we’d made love. Every sated moan pulled him more fully into my heart.
“Sticky,” he murmured.
“Do you care?” I kissed the top of his head and then wiggled down so we could be face-to-face.
“No. Feels good.”
Our hearts knocked against each other, our pulses still racing. I kissed his fingers, then his palm, then his lips. I caressed his spent cock gently, waiting for the whimper he breathed out.
“Lie down, my love.”
With his eyes closed, his arms and legs spread from one end of the bed to the other, he seemed to be asleep when I returned with a warm, wet cloth to clean him up. He mumbled sleepily with a smile. He laughed outright when I jumped onto the bed, sending the washcloth sailing somewhere across the room.
I kissed his chest, rubbing my lips over his heart, which boomed in response. “I want you to be mine.”
“Mmm. I am.”
I nipped his chin. “I want you to marry me, be my forevermore.”
Still sleepy, he caught his lip between his teeth without opening his eyes. “Bein’ impulsive? You?”
I took his face in my hands. “I’m not being impulsive.”
Hearing the serious tone of my voice, he slid his eyelids open. He wound one leg around mine to bring me back against him. “I am yours, forever. You know dat. Don’ need a ceremony.”
“I want one,” I rumbled.
His breath hitched. “I don’ want it to be too soon for you, cher.”
Dammit. When had my impulsive man become so fucking annoyingly wise?
“It’s not because of our circumstances, if that’s what you’re wondering, Leon.”
“Je sais.”
“Then?”
“I think you need more time.” His tranquil smile absorbed all my frustration.
Gone was the impetuous kid who’d caught my attention and held it fast for nearly a year. The man beside me wasn’t rash. He wasn’t totally reckless.
He was smart, sure, confident…and sexy as hell. He’d been reborn, the same as me.
We weren’t going anywhere, and I had all the time in the world to woo him.