Page 69

"Yes, you are, baby boy." Ma patted his cheek reassuringly. "You'll grow as big as your dad."

My mother sent my father an appreciative leer, causing the shit-eating grin I'd cast at my brothers to drop. In unison, the three of us groaned.

"Ma!"

Our mother ignored us all and focused on me. "Gunnar Blackwood, what did you do to your wife?"

Rosalind stirred. Her head lifted slowly from my chest, pale eyes barely open. "He chased me through the woods, caught me, bit me, and fucked me."

Silence.

Rosalind blinked sleepily at the room. "Oh. I thought it wasn't rhetorical."

Dad pushed his chair back and pointed toward the hallway. "Gunnar. Take your wife to bed."

I'd never been happier to obey an order in my life. "Yes, sir."

My bare feet echoed softly against the hardwood as I carried Rosalind out of the kitchen and up the stairs. I felt Addie's and Nell's gazes on my ass as I went. My suspicion was confirmed a second later when a deep growl carried to the kitchen island.

Wait? To the kitchen. I looked down to find my little she-wolf glaring over my shoulder. I tapped Rosalind's ass to get her attention.

"What?" she demanded, her lips petulant. "I like them, but they need to understand I'll cut a bitch for looking sideways at my man."

"I'm not looking at anybody but you."

"Good, cause I've never bothered to look at any other man but you."

There it was again. That feeling of being dropped right on my ass. Like the floor disappeared beneath my feet, and my stomach got left somewhere two stories above me. Except this time, I knew what it was. Knew there was no catching myself. No grabbing hold of something on the way down. No getting back up now that I hit the bottom.

I was completely in love with this woman.

Fuck, it hurt.

Not a bad hurt. More like something inside my chest had been cracked open to make room for her. It left me exposed in a way I'd never allowed myself to be. She could hurt me now. Really fucking hurt me.

I should've felt weaker for it. Somehow, I felt stronger. I tightened my arms around her and kept climbing.

Man, love was a bitch.

I set my wife gently on the edge of the mattress, my hands lingering on her hips. I looked down at her flushed skin, her swollen lips, the wild, beautiful woman who had just ruled me in the woods.

Rosalind was brilliant. Calculating. A mafia princess who could move men around like pieces on a chessboard and have them believing they'd chosen the square themselves.

And she was still keeping secrets from me.

The thought slipped beneath my ribs and twisted. What if tonight had been another move? The chase. Her surrender. Those possessive words she'd growled against my skin. What if she'd figured out exactly what I needed and given it to me because she needed something in return?

My gaze dropped to my hands, still wrapped around her hips.

These fucking hands. Everyone needed them eventually. Magnus pointed at a problem, and I broke it. Vidar found a threat, and I eliminated it. Dad needed the family protected, and I made sure whoever came for us regretted it. I was good at that. Fuck, I was great at it.

Maybe Rosalind needed the same thing.

The thought should have pissed me off. Instead, my thumbs stroked her hips. Because I'd fallen. I'd fallen so hard there was no climbing back out, and whether she'd lied to me or manipulated me or was still moving pieces around a board, I couldn't see didn't change the one thing I knew for certain.

She was my wife.

My mate.