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I withdraw my hand from between her legs and wrap my arm around her back, supporting her as she sags into me, sedated bliss taking over. I chuckle as she makes happy little sighs and smiles with her eyes closed as she rests her head against my shoulder. I bet she’d fall asleep right now if I let her.

But unfortunately, we don’t have time to rest.

I kiss her forehead and then straighten her before lowering her legs to the ground.

“Come on. We need to get ready.”

She lets out a deep breath and finally opens her eyes, blinking a few times before nodding and letting her arms drop from around my neck.

“Fine. But if we don’t get dessert, I want us to do that again.”

She brings a smile out of me as I slide my fingers through her hair, pushing it behind her ear as I stare down at her.

“We can do that again even if we are fed dessert, wife. What my Sunshine wants, she gets.”

I don’t know if it was wife or Sunshine that had her freaking out on me, but I don’t take it back. I just let the words sit between us for a moment before I kiss her parted lips once and turn my back on her.

She needs to get used to me saying them. Not only to make her family see we’re together and not somehow think this is a farce to get her out of yet another marriage, but also to know that I mean them.

Each and every word.

Every. Time.

Dinner isn’t as intimate as I was expecting. Unless being surrounded by fifteen members of the Yakuza is a traditional family meal.

And Nat and I are seated right in the middle.

Her grandfather is at one end of the table, her uncle at the other. People I’ve seen in the house are present, along with Gina, and then there are others I don’t know. But from the way Natalie has been stiff the entire time since we came into this room, I know not to let my guard down.

I’m confident I can protect her if something were to happen right now. As long as they don’t use guns. Or swords. The Japanese have a thing for them, I think, and I might know how to beat a dozen men up at once, but I never learned how to defend myself in a sword fight if I don’t have one.

Duck, I guess, would be my only move.

The food is… well. I don’t recognize half of it, but it’s not bad. Lots of things with legs and rice. At least I know how to use chopsticks, because they’re the only utensils in sight.

The conversation flows around us, all in Japanese. None of it seems to be directed at us, but it is all about us from the lack of subtle looks we’re getting.

For her, I get it. She must be considered back from the dead. Along with tainted blood and whatever else these ignorant people thought of her before she left. Totally missing or just not caring to get to know the amazing woman she is.

Their loss, my gain.

As for me, I just smirk. I know exactly why I’m a topic of conversation.

The outfits sent up for us to change into were formal wear. Suit-and-tie type of shit—hell no. Instead, I wore what I had: jeans, tees, and my club vest. Sure, it’s a day old, but it was fresh when I put it on after I showered. They should be honored that I have this on and not the crap I wore for what felt like an entire month up until yesterday.

“Were you part of the group who went to Colombia?” a man across and down the table, closer to Nat’s uncle, asks. I’m not sure if he’s glaring or if he just always looks like that.

“No. I was recovering from bullet wounds in the hospital.”

Another man snorts in the opposite direction. “Dogs can’t even take a little pain and keep going,” he says with a laugh, a few others joining in.

“Dogs might not take the pain. But a Hound? Oh, we revel in that shit. I would have been there, but my doctor had me under anesthesia as he pulled three bullets out of my lungs. Bullets I took when his,”—I point to the head of the table—“granddaughter was snatched.” I tilt my head and look up one row of people, then the other. “Can anyone here say the same thing? Anyone at all? Doesn’t have to be a bullet wound. Can be a cut from a knife, or even a hit to the face. Hell, a stubbed toe while trying to prevent Natalie’s kidnapping. Anyone?”

Not a single person speaks. Most look away. All but two. Her grandfather and another man who looks very similar to him and sits to his left.

“You’re her dad, aren’t you?” I call him out, and I see Natalie out of the corner of my eye looking over at him. I’m proud as hell that she doesn’t shrink away from him, holding his stare across the table.

“Hai,” he says with a curt nod.