Total pages in book: 67
Estimated words: 68576 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68576 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
She was right.
We were.
And when my cock sank deep inside of her, I knew that we were going to have another baby in nine months.
Maybe she wouldn’t conceive today, but it’d be soon.
Our lovemaking was wild and out of control.
Our urgency made it damn near impossible to hold off, and we were both coming in an embarrassingly short amount of time.
“Hey, babe,” she whispered into the aftermath.
“Yeah, Pepper?” I was half on, half off the couch.
She was half on me, half on the couch.
Note to self, don’t buy a tiny little couch.
“I want to adopt Forest,” she murmured. “I want him to be mine.”
“He is yours, paperwork or not,” I promised. “But I’ll look into what we need to do to accomplish that tomorrow.”
She sighed, nuzzling my neck.
“We should probably head back out there,” she grumbled, pushing off of my chest.
The flash of my wedding ring on her hand caught my attention.
A feeling of rightness consumed me.
“Yeah,” I said. “But only after we’re finished here.”
And I made love to her one more time.
Walkin’ around my house like who the fuck closed last night?
—Pepper’s secret thoughts
PEPPER
I was fighting for my life.
For one, I had no bra on.
For two, I was doing a whole lot of jumping, lunging, swinging my arms, and dodging.
Three, there was a horse fly in my office, and I couldn’t kill it with the long-sleeved t-shirt of Atlas’s that I’d worn out of the house this morning.
Today was just supposed to be a quick run up to my office, where I would submit the payroll that I’d forgotten to last night.
Except the apartment at the bakery that we’d turned into a huge office space for both Maven and me had an outside entrance that I liked to use over having to run into the bakery, behind the counter, through the kitchen, and upstairs to the office.
The only problem with the back entrance was that when you used it, you had to go up the enclosed stairwell.
And last night, I’d forgotten to turn the light off as I was leaving, and every fucking bug on the planet was in that stairwell.
With nothing to do for it, I’d had to enter into my office, and I’d accidentally let three mosquito hawks and a horse fly into the room with me.
The mosquito hawks didn’t bother me.
It was the horse fly, that hurt really bad when it bit, that bothered me.
Another buzz had me spinning around, terror sliding through me.
I reared back and swung with the shirt.
I felt my left boob go one way, and my right boob go the other.
The short top I was wearing was precariously close to not holding the girls in.
They’d been that way since we’d had our first child four years ago.
When I was finally done with breastfeeding—I’d breastfed my first for nearly a year and a half—there I was delivering another one.
That was also why we’d turned the top apartment into an office. Off the main room where our computers and workspaces were was another enclosed room that we’d set up as a playroom for the kids.
Between Maven’s and my own, we had six kids—Maven with three and me with three.
If we were both working at the same time, we’d either get Garnett, one of our sisters-in-law, or even a very few trusted babysitters, to watch them for us.
That way, if there were any issues with them, we would be close in case they needed us.
And just sayin’, but having half Carter genes, there was always an issue.
Another buzz right past my face and I whirled, eyes scanning the space.
I jumped, dodged, and did everything but roll across the ground.
I knew I was making a lot of noise, but I couldn’t help it.
I did not want to be bitten by the big bastard.
“I am going to send you straight to hell,” I snarled, trying in vain to get the stupid thing with my next hit.
I didn’t.
ATLAS
“Hello?” I answered.
I was tired.
But I’d been tired since our second son, Glades, had been born.
Glades—like the Florida Everglades— was named after Pepper’s mother, Gladys.
Our first born son, Ware, had Emmanuelle’s name as a middle name.
Ware was one and a half, and Glades was just shy of a month old.
“Hey, pull up your app for the nursery at the bakery.”
Auden’s amused voice had me shifting, even though I’d just gotten Glades back to sleep.
Catching my phone with a foot so I wouldn’t move the colic-prone child too much—his sleep was precious to us both—I swiftly opened the app, knowing instinctively that it had something to do with my girl.
I opened the app, and the camera watching over the nursery was still. Yet, I could hear sounds.
“Listen here, you little dictator,” I heard my wife’s voice growl. Gosh, she was cute when she was mad. “I’ll kill you. I’ll kill your brother. Your sister. Your mother. Your other mother. Whoever the fuck I have to kill, they’ll die. All because you’re a fucking fucker.”