Wild Man

Epilogue He Got His Wish

The alarm went off.

It was music, Tim McGraw, and Brock heard Tess murmur sleepily, “What on earth?”

He grinned before he even opened his eyes.

She shifted away from him but before she could touch the button to turn off the music, he opened his eyes, caught her about the waist and pulled her back into his body.

She rolled in his arm and tipped her green eyes up to him, her light brown hair with its blonde highlights tousled and partly in her face.

“Who’s that?” she asked, lifting a hand to shift the soft tendrils out of her eyes.

“Tim McGraw,” he answered, understanding her question and knowing she had no fucking clue who Tim McGraw was. He’d spent more than a year introducing her to his music and she spent more than a year mostly ignoring these efforts.

The music started to get louder.

He watched her eyes narrow and it wasn’t because she didn’t have her glasses.

“How’d that get on my player?”

“I put it there.”

“You –” she began but he rolled into her so his body was on her soft, sweet one and he dipped his face close to hers.

“Baby,” he whispered, “it’s my birthday. I’m not wakin’ up to Fiona Apple.”

“Fiona wasn’t in the scheduled mix,” she informed him.

“Or Tori Amos,” he added.

“She wasn’t either.”

“Or Sarah McLachlan.”

“Her either.”

“Or Paula Cole.”

She snapped her mouth shut.

Yeah, there it was and Paula fucking Cole was definitely not scheduled for his birthday.

He felt his body start shaking and he heard Tim McGraw start to get louder.

He controlled his humor, dipped his face closer and again reminded her, “It’s my birthday.”

“I need to turn off the music.”

“Yeah, you can do that after you start my birthday right.”

“It’s getting louder.”

She wasn’t wrong. It was getting louder.

“Tess,” he growled as he pressed his body into hers, she bit her lip then the door flew open.

His head jerked back and he watched Joel and Rex walk in just as they had last year, just as Tess organized for him, her and Joel to walk into Rex’s room two days later with his cake and for them with Rex to walk into Joel’s room four days after that with his.

Joel was carrying a beautifully decorated birthday cake, undoubtedly carrot, his favorite, that held an abundance of tall, thin, blue candles all of them lit.

They were sing-shouting “Happy Birthday to You” over Tim McGraw and smiling like idiots.

He looked down at Tess who was grinning up at him, not like an idiot. Her eyes were warm, her face was soft and her smile was sweet.

All Tess.

He grinned back, bent his neck and touched his mouth to hers then he rolled off his wife onto a forearm in the bed and she rolled to the alarm, turning off Tim McGraw at around the time Rex and Joey were standing by the bed and drawing out, “Happy Birthday dear Daaaaaaaad,” to which Tess sat up in the bed and joined them for the last four words.

Joel shoved the cake forward and demanded, “Blow out the candles and make a wish.”

Brock “Slim” Lucas looked at his oldest son, his eyes moved to his youngest son and then they slid to his wife.

And when his eyes hit her shining ones he realized he had not one thing to wish for. Not one. There was nothing he wanted.

He had it all right there.

Except one thing.

So he leaned over Tess, silently made his wish and blew out the candles.

She hooted and clapped.

Rex stated, “So freaking cool! Just like last year! Cake for breakfast three days this week!”

Joel, having shot up in the last year, now well taller than Tess and definitely a boy-man only a week away from his fourteenth birthday, turned on his bare foot and started marching to the door declaring, “I’ll get plates.”

Rex, also having grown though nowhere near as much as his brother, still he was taller than Tess and nearly twelve therefore maintaining boy status but only just, followed him announcing, “I’ll get the milk.”

Tess threw back the covers and decreed, “I’ll start the coffee.”

He let her feet hit the floor before his arm curled around her waist again; he pulled her back into the bed and rolled over her.

Before she could say a word, he took his birthday kiss, he made it long, he did it hard and it was wet.

When he lifted his head and saw her eyes slightly dazed but mostly happy and still shining, he got his wish.

* * * * *

Brock walked up to the door that was opening before he got there. When he arrived, he jerked up his chin to the older man, the man tipped his down and stepped aside.

Brock stepped in.

The man closed the door and turned to him.

“Would you like coffee?” he asked, like he always asked.

Brock shook his head like he always shook his head, shoved his hand in his overcoat, pulled the envelope out of the inside pocket and handed it to the man.

Donald Heller took it. He didn’t even try to hide his eagerness when he instantly opened the folded-in flap and pulled out the pictures.

He never tried to hide his eagerness.

Head bent, he studied the snapshots of Tess with Joey, Rex and his family at Christmas.

Tess decorating a cake in the back of her new bakery. Tess standing in their kitchen, phone to her ear, laughing at something Elvira was saying. Tess in an ass to heels, knees to chest squat, her arm around Ellie’s waist, her head bent to listen to what Ellie was whispering in her ear, her body hidden by Ellie’s exceptionally girlie, pink flower girl dress.

And he stopped at the last and studied it for a long time.

It was a picture of Tess standing next to him in a classy ivory dress that hugged her rounded figure and skimmed her knees, her hair twisted in a sophisticated knot at the back of her head, her feet encased in a pair of high-heeled, fuck-me shoes, one hand holding a bouquet which was a mixture of blood-red and bright pink roses, the other arm wrapped around his back. Rex was to her back left, Ellie standing to her front left. Joel was to Brock’s back right, Levi at Joey’s side with Dylan and Grady in front of them. Martha was standing at Rex and Tess’s sides. Family and friends were scrunched all around behind the front crew.

The best part about the picture, to Brock’s way of thinking, was the twinkling diamond you could only just see on Tess’s ring finger which was curled around the ivory-ribbon-wrapped long stems of her bouquet, that huge-ass diamond sitting on top of a very wide, very brilliant gold band that, only minutes before, Brock had slid on her finger. A band that matched a wider, no less brilliant one that Brock now wore that, that day, she had slid on his.

And, of course, another best part were those fuck-me shoes, an invitation he’d accepted approximately five hours after the picture was taken.

And, lastly, the fact that her smile was wide, her beautiful white teeth showing, her eyes shining because she was laughing.

Donald Heller studied that photo for a long time.

Then, head still bent to the photo, he whispered, “She looks happy.”

“She is,” Brock confirmed and Heller’s head came up.

Brock didn’t come often but he came regular. He did this because the man in front of him loved Tess. He also did it because the man in front of him sired an asshole but the last act his asshole son perpetrated on this earth was trying to keep Brock’s Tess from harm.

Damian Heller had picked apart the bones of Brock Lucas’s life and in doing so, Damian Heller had learned about Josiah Burkett. And Damian Heller had the means to keep an eye on Burkett and an ear. He knew Burkett was planning revenge. He should have told Brock and, if not Brock, then the cops but if he did, he couldn’t play out his knight in shining armor act.

Even so, he went down so Tess wouldn’t. He was an asshole, his play was foolish and could have caused Tess the harm he wanted to shield her from but Brock couldn’t deny his going down was worth something.

There was no way he was going to try and talk Tess into letting this man and the demons he didn’t want to hold for her but couldn’t avoid back into her life, a life Brock took pains to keep demon free, an effort that had, for nearly a year, succeeded and he’d do just about anything to make certain that streak continued.

But he owed this man the knowledge those pictures shared.

“Vegas?” Donald Heller asked.

“Yep,” Brock answered.

“When?”

“Late last month.”

He looked down again at the photo then up at Brock.

“Her mother and sister made it,” he noted.

“Everyone did,” Brock replied.

And everyone did. It had been a fucking blast, wild, two days of family fun during the day then Kalie, Kellie, Joel and Rex looked after the kids and it was two days of drunken adult fun at night. Then they had the wedding after which they ate, drank, danced and laughed themselves sick and the next morning everyone left. Brock’s Mom had looked after Joey and Rex while Brock and Tess stayed in Vegas and had four days of adult one-on-one fun, the first two of which they didn’t leave their hotel room.

Definitely wild. Definitely a blast.

Perfect.

Heller looked back down at the photo then again at Brock.

“You have good-looking sons,” he remarked.

Brock didn’t thank him for telling him something he knew.

Instead, he informed him, “They love her.”

“Hard not to love Tess,” he whispered.

That was the damned truth.

Then he asked the last question he always asked before Brock left.

“Can I keep these?”

And Brock gave him the answer he always gave.

“Yeah.”

He nodded.

Brock nodded back.

He opened the door and Brock went through it, turning as Donald Heller murmured,

“Until next time.”

Brock jerked up his chin and walked to his truck.

* * * * *

Brock crouched in the wet grass. They’d had a relatively warm winter, a couple of snows, nothing that really stuck and when it did it didn’t stay for too long.

Tess loved it.

The boys hated it.

Brock didn’t care either way.

He shoved his hand into his inside overcoat pocket and pulled out the photo, another copy of the one that fascinated Donald Heller. A photo that, blown up, was framed and sitting pride of place on the shelves in their family’s living room.

Then he reached out and set it at the base of the grave stone.

“Shoulda been there, Dad,” he whispered to the gleaming marble.

The marble had no reply.

* * * * *

“Shit,” he heard Mitch Lawson say and his head came up to look across their desks to his partner.

If someone told Brock two years ago that he’d be partnered with Mitch Lawson, he would have laughed or, possibly, growled.

Lawson was involved in the situation with Hawk Delgado and his now-wife Gwen.

Lawson had a thing for Gwen then, he had another thing going now, a much better thing, a thing that had been a pain in his ass to win but, then again, most things worth winning were worth a pain in the ass to win them. But back then, Lawson had also not been happy with the plays Brock made that put him into contact with Hawk and Gwen Delgado.

But, like many cops, Mitch heard that Brock’s woman was in the hands of a sick, dangerous man bent on revenge and, like many cops, he’d dropped everything to hunt for her.

Sharp as a tack, something that was good to have in a partner, Mitch contacted Delgado, a man who had more money and more resources but less strictures than the DPD, and they searched together. It was intel that Brock had handed over that took them to her. Burkett wasn’t stupid, it was not where Brock had found him years ago after what he did to Bree, but it was information he found when he was hunting him. A house kept in the family but for some reason unused, Bree’s great aunt’s house, Burkett’s mother’s house, where he grew up.

Luck or good instinct, it didn’t matter which, sent Delgado and Lawson there first when the information Brock gave started making the rounds. This meant they got to her quick. This meant she’d only been in the hands of a madman for less than an hour before she was safe.

After it was done, Lawson told him Tess had taken care of the situation herself before they arrived. Although Burkett was old, this surprised Brock but not as much as it alarmed him.

This was because Burkett was armed and very willing to use his weapon and he’d demonstrated this to Tess. Still, somehow she did it and outside of getting clocked on the jaw, which caused her a few days pain and brought up some swelling and minor bruising, she miraculously did it without getting hurt.

In other words, that day, Brock Lucas learned the power of prayer and he still didn’t utilize it often but that didn’t mean God didn’t hear from him more than He used to.

These days, though, sweet days, his messages were a lot different.

And Tess had told him Delgado and Lawson had been gentle with her. Tess told him that within minutes of their arrival she felt safe and, more importantly, within minutes of their arrival they got word to him that she was safe.

That last part was what had done it for her. When he made it to her fifteen minutes later, she was more worried about his state of mind than herself. When he arrived, she’d been in tears in Delgado’s arms, Hawk had turned her into Brock’s and it didn’t take long before she pulled herself together and turned her attention to him. She’d witnessed three men get shot, two of them shot dead but this didn’t faze her, not at all. She slept like a baby in his arms that night, all through, and he knew this because he didn’t sleep a fucking wink. And they’d gone to Aruba as planned and she’d enjoyed the fuck out of that vacation, his boys did too.

After he watched her closely for days and ascertained she wasn’t burying anything, she was actually all right, putting it behind her, moving on, Brock enjoyed it too.

And this was because, he realized, she felt safe. Shit happened, she survived and even though it wasn’t him who made her safe, men he’d connected with did it for him, not to mention she did her part. To Tess, this incident was a blip and the next morning she was up and making breakfast for his sons like she did every morning, drinking coffee, being a smartass to him and making his sons laugh.

But Delgado and Lawson got to her, they made her feel safe and they were gentle with her.

Therefore, he owed them too.

And he had no problem being Lawson’s partner. Mitch was younger than Brock but smart, diligent, a good cop who had since become a good friend and not just because they were partners.

Now he was looking beyond Brock like he’d just learned the world was going to end.

Brock looked over his shoulder and saw what Mitch saw.

Fucking great.

On his fucking birthday no less.

Olivia.

“Slim,” she muttered when she came to a stop by his desk, her eyes shifting to Mitch then back to Brock.

“Olivia, for fuck’s sake, it’s my birthday.”

“Yes, well, for some of us, this isn’t a special day. For some of us, this day is just like any other day.”

He made no reply. Just sat back, looked up at her and waited for her to be done.

In the last year, Olivia had made short work of getting her talons in another man.

Therefore, obviously, she’d stopped being saccharine sweet and gone back to her true self, in other words, a complete bitch.

Though, the good news was, with her claws in another man, she had stopped fucking with him.

When he said nothing, she announced, “Jordan’s being transferred to Portland, Maine.”

Holy fuck.

He felt his gut start to get light.

“And?” he asked.

“He wants me to go with him.”

Holy fuck!

He felt his gut start to get lighter.

“And?” Brock repeated.

“I’m going.”

Brock said nothing more but he did this because he was expending a great deal of effort not to smile.

She waited for a response.

Brock still said nothing.

She sighed then stated, “Obviously, I’ll expect the boys out for a couple of weeks during the summer and alternating Christmases.”

Brock fought back another grin.

Losing the boys alternating Christmases would suck. Having them the vast majority of the time and losing Olivia three quarters of a continent away would not.

“Have your attorney contact my attorney,” he told her.

“No, have your attorney contact my attorney.”

Whatever.

“You got it,” he told her and she blinked.

Then she asked, “Will you tell them?”

Christ. Fucking bitch.

“No,” he answered.

“Slim –” she started.

Brock sat up in his chair but did not get up, just kept his eyes on her saying, “Olivia, honest to God, don’t. Nothing you could say will make me do your dirty work. They’re your sons, you’re movin’ most a country away from them. This is your decision, this is your consequence. Listen to me, serious to God, for once in your life, listen to me. I am done dealin’ with your consequences, I am done dealin’ with your shit and I am done dealin’ with you. You’re my kids’ Mom, that’s all you are, nothin’ more. I do you no favors; you are not in my life at all except when I have to deal with you through them. Please, God, give me one thing in our miserable history and get that through your fuckin’ head.”

She turned her eyes to Mitch and remarked, “Always so charming.”

Lawson strangled down a bark of laughter and this was because Lawson was around before she got her talons in another man and let him loose so Lawson knew all about Olivia and Lawson, being sharp as a tack, didn’t like her much. That was to say, not at all. And Mitch Lawson was a good guy but not good enough not to advise his partner, repeatedly, to be a lot less charming than he was to Olivia which was not charming at all so that was saying something.

Brock sighed.

Olivia’s eyes cut back to him. “Fine,” she snapped. “I’ll tell them.” And she said this like she was doing him a favor.

Brock didn’t reply.

She crossed her arms on her chest and held his eyes.

Brock said not a word.

She tapped her foot.

Brock finally spoke. “We done?”

“Don’t you have anything to say?” she asked, flipping out a hand.

“Like what?”

“I don’t know,” she answered. “Something. I’m moving to Maine, for God’s sake.”

“And?” he asked.

“And?” she asked back.

Brock sighed again.

“Slim, we were married and in each others’ lives for over a decade and you’ve got nothing to say after I just told you I’m moving away?”

“Bon voyage,” Brock muttered, Mitch tried to strangle down another bark of laughter, failed and quickly knifed out of his chair and headed toward the hall.

Olivia’s face got red.

“Nice,” she hissed, gave him a long glare, turned on her high heel and marched her bony ass out.

He didn’t watch.

He turned to his desk, instantly grabbed his phone, flipped it open and hit buttons without looking at them because he’d memorized them.

She answered on the second ring.

“Sweetness,” he said the minute Tess finished her greeting, “you are not gonna believe the surprise birthday present I just got.”

* * * * *

“Brock, honey?” Tess said in his ear as he walked through the backdoor into their kitchen.

After they finally got Rex’s room sorted, he sorted the one car garage in the back that was old, had no garage door opener and thus Tess didn’t use it and parked on the street. And he sorted it as in he had it scraped and a massive two car garage built in its place. He did this because he was not a big fan of scraping ice off his windshield. He also did this because he was less of a fan of Tess doing it so he did it for her and since he didn’t like doing it on his own fucking truck, he didn’t like adding her car. And, lastly, he did it because it was a fuck of a lot safer for her to drive into a garage that had a door to a fenced backyard that had motion sensor lights that lit up the backyard from both garage and house the instant she exited the garage, something else he installed.

This took up a fair amount of the backyard.

Tess didn’t say a word. Somehow, she sensed when something was important to him and she didn’t argue. Ever.

He liked this. He also liked that she didn’t make a big fucking deal about stupid shit like him (or his boys) drinking from the milk jug. If it mattered to her, she had a quiet word with him (or his boys). If she could find a fix without having her quiet word, she did. Case in point, they each got their own milk jug, she wrote their names on them in magic marker before putting them in the fridge.

This way, she could give him (and his boys) sweet mostly all the time.

And she did.

It made for a beautiful life.

For him.

And his boys.

“Babe, I’m in the house, you don’t have to call me,” he said into the phone, smiling because she had to be there somewhere too. He was meeting her and the boys there and they were going out to dinner with his family at The Spaghetti Factory.

“Um… well, I’m not in the house, I’m at the hospital.”

Brock stopped dead, his eyes, unseeing, on a fancy-ass cake stand on the corner of the counter that held the remains of his birthday cake that had been nearly decimated by him and his boys that morning.

She went on quickly, “I’m okay, the boys are okay, it’s just Lenore. She’s kind of…” she paused, “not okay. She went into labor about three hours ago. Levi got her to the hospital and was separated from her because he was told both mother and child are in distress.”

Fuck.

Fuck!

He did the calculations in his head and came up with an unhappy number.

Lenore, who became his sister-in-law three weeks before Christmas and not because she was pregnant but because Levi loved her, the baby was just good news on top of good news, was only six months pregnant.

“Which hospital?” he asked.

“St. Joe’s,” she answered.

“I’m on my way,” he stated, turning back to the door. “The boys with you?”

“No, I called Dade. He went to get them at school. They’re at his house helping him with Grady, Dylan and Ellie.”

Even though many would think it was fucked, Dade McManus had slid into their lives naturally and this was because Tess made that happen. He was a good addition because he was a good man, he loved Brock’s boys and he adored Tess. Brock grew to like him, grew to respect him and he’d earned that back from McManus. This worked, how, he had no clue, but it did and Brock was glad that it did. As far as he was concerned, anyone who loved his boys and adored his wife was welcome in their lives so Brock welcomed him. And, just then, he was happier than usual that he did.

“Right.” He was out the door and locking it.

“Baby,” she whispered in his ear.

“Yeah?”

“Hurry.”

Fuck.

* * * * *

When Brock arrived in the waiting room at St. Joe’s, Levi was sitting with his elbows to his knees, his torso bent double, his fingers laced at the back of his head.

Brock’s eyes slid through his wife, his sisters, his mother and his brothers-in-law as he walked to Levi.

None of their faces were happy birthday faces.

Then he crouched down in front of his brother.

“Brother,” he murmured, Levi’s hands unlaced and just his head came up.

“Slim,” Levi whispered. “Fuck, Slim.”

Brock’s arm moved out, his hand curling around the back of his brother’s head.

“Keep it together,” he whispered.

“Fucked it up with her, she was in and outta my life for three years before –”

“Get that out of your head.”

“Never made it official, never made it permanent, she came to Thanksgiving on a fucking rotation. Had a girl at Easter, a different one at Fourth of July, she was due up.” He paused then the next two words came out tortured. “Due… up. ”

Brock squeezed his brother’s neck. “Levi, get it outta your fuckin’ head.”

Levi held his eyes.

Then he whispered, “Under my nose, at the tips of my fingers, never saw her, never felt her, what she was givin’ me not until Tess pointed it out and I opened my fuckin’ eyes.”

“Brother, keep it together.”

Again, Levi held his eyes.

Brock returned the gesture, keeping his hand on his brother’s neck.

Then he said, “She’s in there, I’m out here. Nothin’ I can do. She’s battlin’ and there’s not one fuckin’ thing I can do.” He swallowed then asked, “This what you felt like when Tess was taken?”

Brock had told Levi what had happened and where he had to force himself to be in order not to fuck up and do something stupid. For once, his brother kept that knowledge to himself.

The only people that knew the full penance he was forced to pay for fucking up with Josiah Burkett were his colleagues, Levi and Tess, the last being brutal penance in itself.

“In a way, I reckon… yeah,” Brock answered.

“Brother,” Levi whispered, that one word saying one hundred more.

Brock didn’t reply.

Levi sucked in breath.

Then he sat up, Brock’s hand dropped and he straightened out of his crouch. His eyes went to Tess. Hers were bright at the rims with tears. She sucked in her lips before she let them go and gave him a trembling smile.

He tipped his chin up at his wife and sat down next to his brother.

Half an hour later, a woman in a white doctor’s coat walked in.

“Levi Lucas?” she called but Levi was already up and walking across the small room, Brock at his back, his family behind him.

“She okay?” Levi asked.

“She’s fine, baby’s fine. We’ll have to discuss curtailing activity for awhile to see this through but right now, both are safe and healthy.”

“Thank God,” Fern whispered and Brock heard Jill’s shuddering breath and Laura’s choked whimper.

“Can I see her?” Levi asked.

“I’ll take you to her.”

Levi didn’t look back at his family as he walked away.

Brock watched his brother then felt Tess burrow under his arm.

He curled it around her shoulders and looked down into her eyes.

She caught his for a second before she did a face plant in his chest, her arms moving around him, her body giving his her weight.

He held her.

Then he sucked in breath.

An hour and a half later, in his truck while Tess was in her car on the way to get the boys from Dade’s, he ordered a Famous pizza for his birthday meal.

* * * * *

In the middle of studying his face, the tips of her fingers moving over it, Tess started giggling.

This was unusual. Not her studying his face after he made her come, after he came and when he was still buried inside her. She did that often and he let her because he liked to see what was working behind her eyes as they moved over his features. He liked it a fuck of a lot.

Her giggling in the middle of doing it, now that was unusual.

He found instantly he liked that too. Then again, he liked it anytime Tess laughed.

“What’s funny?” he asked, getting the question in over her escalating laughter.

“Ma… Ma… Martha,” she stammered, lifting her head to shove it in his neck, her hands sliding around his shoulders so both her arms and legs could convulse around him.

“Martha?” he asked her pillow.

She sucked in breath and dropped her head back down, her eyes coming to his as she nodded.

There was a lot that was funny about Martha. The bitch was a scream. She hadn’t toned down the drama and likely at her age, she never would. But she loved Tess and she’d cottoned onto the fact that Brock would accept her drama in Tess’s life as long as it had no negative affects and she saw to it that was so. She also loved his boys and didn’t hide it. They thought she was a scream too. So, since her drama was mostly humorous and not annoying, Brock liked her and she made no bones about liking him and, he had to admit, he liked that too.

He figured his wife’s sudden onset of humor had something to do with the fact that Calhoun had come into Tess’s bakery about five months ago. When he did, Tess had gone direct into matchmaking mode and hooked him up with Martha. Calhoun took the bait and was still hooked. Martha didn’t hide any of her drama from Calhoun and, surprising the fuck out of Brock, Calhoun apparently got off on it.

Whatever. To each their own.

And anyway, the crazy dance between DEA Agent Calhoun and Martha Shockley provided his wife with a variety of things to giggle over when she told him about them. And he was happy with that.

She released her legs from around him, planted her feet in the bed and bucked her hips slightly telling him what she wanted.

He gave it to her. Sliding out gently, he watched her lips part, her eyelids get soft, that sexy-as-hell look that communicated both pleasure and disappointment at losing him being the second best part of fucking her (or the third, maybe the fourth, though it could be the fifth). Then he gave her what she wanted and rolled them so he was on his back, she was on top.

She placed a forearm in his chest, her other hand at his neck under his jaw and suddenly her face got serious.

“What?” he whispered, her eyes slid from her hand at his jaw to his, she tipped her head to the side and she gave him more of her weight, her soft flesh pressing into his.

“When you came back,” she started, her voice soft, “after what went down with you and me with you investigating Damian…” She trailed off then started again, “When you came back, later, when I was at the shower and I confessed to Martha about everything that went down, well, you know, honey, she wasn’t your biggest fan back then.”

His hands which were spanning her hips slid down to cup her ass.

“I know.”

Her lips tipped up in a small grin. “Well, she said I had my head in the sand. She said most women would take one look at you and know you were fun to play with but you weren’t the one for the long haul. But me, she said I took one look at you and had visions of white picket fences and making you birthday cakes until the day you die.”

She swallowed, the smile died and her eyes grew bright.

Brock held his breath, his fingers clenching into her ass and he waited.

“She was wrong,” Tess whispered. “I was right.” She drew in breath through her nose, dipped her face closer and the pads of her fingers dug into his neck then she finished, “We don’t have a white picket fence, baby, but I’m going to bake you birthday cakes until the day you die.”

He let out the breath he was holding, the burn in his lungs moving to become warmth in his gut, his hands sliding from her ass up her back, one arm curving around, the other one going up her spine, her neck so he could sift his fingers in her hair as he whispered,

“Sweetness.”

“I’m glad it’s me who gets to bake your birthday cakes.”

He was happy she was glad but he reckoned he was a fuck of a lot happier he had Tess making his cakes and not just because they were the best fucking things he’d ever tasted.

He closed his eyes, shoved his face in her neck and rolled her to back, groaning, “Tess.”

“My Brock,” she whispered, her lips at his ear, her limbs moving to grow tight around him, “he’s not so wild.”

He lifted his head and brought it close, locking his eyes with hers.

“You’re wrong, darlin’, I got wild in me. And I’ll never lose it. It’s just that my wild is a safe place for you and it always will be.”

Her eyes got soft and one of her hands slid from around him to cup his cheek as she nodded.

Then her thumb moved to trace his lower lip as she asked, “Did you have a good birthday, Slim?”

He grinned against her thumb and answered, “I started it in bed with you wearin’ a sweet nightie and I ended it in bed with you wearin’ an even sweeter nightie, so, yeah, outside the drama at the hospital, I had a great birthday, Tess.”

She grinned back and asked, “So you liked your birthday present?”

His hand glided down the emerald green silk at her side as he dropped his mouth to hers and muttered, “Fuck yeah.”

Her fingers slid from his cheek and into his hair as she muttered back, “Good.”

Brock was done talking and he shared this with his wife when he slanted his head. Tess read him loud and clear and tilted hers. He put pressure on her lips, she opened hers, his tongue slid inside and she welcomed it.

And, with that, his sweet Tess made a great birthday even fucking better.