Epilogue
Maxie
One Year Later
“If you don’t get out of my kitchen, Shepherd, I swear I’m never going to suck your cock again.” Even though I whispered the words at my husband, I still blushed at the idea of someone else overhearing. No matter how filthy my men and I got, I still couldn’t shake all of the fear of judgment. Just most of it. “You’re dirty from the ranch, you smell like sweat and…”
“Sweat and what, baby?” Shep closed the distance between us and yanked me against his chest. He knew me so well, too well, and he knew he’d already won. “Yeah, I know my baby. You like your men a little dirty, don’t you?”
God help me but I did. The smell of them after a long day of work just got to me. They smelled like man in the best way possible. I melted into his arms and smiled.
“Fine. You can have one cookie and blow jobs are back on the table.”
“I’ll have two cookies and blow jobs were never off the table.” He kissed me hard and growled. “Fuck, woman. I’m goddamn proud of you and the bakery but I miss you at home.”
He was being silly. With their help and encouragement, I’d opened my dream bakery in town. With a new baby in the picture, though, I only opened the bakery three days a week. Eventually I’d do more but our son, Hank, demanded and deserved most of my attention. I still spent plenty of time at home on the ranch with my men but it was never enough for them. I knew if they had it their way, they’d keep me strapped to their chests, not unlike the way Arlo had Hank strapped to his chest right then.
We were having a small birthday party for Rhett at the bakery and all of our friends and family were in the tiny storefront on the other side of the wall from where I was standing in my kitchen with Shep and Arlo. I was trying to put the finishing touches on Rhett’s cake before he got there but Shep had insisted on distracting me.
I planted a kiss on Hank’s head after pulling away from Shep and gave his daddy a kiss on the mouth before going back to Rhett’s cake.
“Is he coming soon? Do you think he knows we were planning something for him?”
Arlo snorted.
“Yeah, baby, you’re not exactly the best at keeping secrets. You’ve been grinning and staring at him like a loon for days.”
“Did you tell him?!” I spun on Arlo with an icing bag in my hand. “If you told him, Arlo, I’m going to—”
“He didn’t tell me, sweetheart.” Rhett stepped into the small kitchen from the backdoor and came straight to me. He picked me up and spun me in a tight circle. “You did. You’ve been talking in your sleep about my party for days.”
I wrapped my arms and legs around him and scoffed.
“No way. I’m a vault. No secrets leak past these lips.”
“I beg to differ.” He kissed me deep and put me down on the counter next to his cake so he could deepen the kiss while running his hands under the dress I had on beneath my Pinkie’s apron. When he didn’t find any panties in his way, he pulled back and growled. “Happy birthday to me?”
I shuddered and nodded.
“Happy birthday, Rhett. I love you.”
He’d just slipped his fingers through my wetness when Nellie popped her head in from the front. She didn’t see or didn’t care that we were being inappropriate.
“Hey! You’re supposed to come in through the front so we can all shout surprise at you, asshole.”
Rhett groaned.
“Come on, Nellie. I don’t want to be shouted at.”
I giggled at the way they acted like siblings. We’d all gotten closer in the last year and Nellie and my husbands really did feel like a pack of feral siblings some days.
“I’ll send him out the back and around, Nell.”
She grinned at me and then turned on Arlo.
“And you. Stop hogging my nephew.”
Arlo growled when she reached for Hank but Nellie didn’t back down. She scooped the chunky little boy out of his carrier and held him to her chest, letting his butt rest on her swollen belly.
“Heaven. I swear you gave birth to an angel, Max.” She turned and left the kitchen without another glance back at us. She’d gotten what she wanted, her nephew.
Arlo pouted.
“I’m starting to think we’re all too close to your family. Maybe we should move. To Australia or somewhere else where Nellie won’t find me and take Hank from me.”
I pushed Rhett away and burned with desire when I watched him suck his fingers clean. Whatever I was going to say to Arlo went up in smoke as I swayed into Rhett.
“So hot.”
He laughed and pinched my chin to lift my face to his.
“If I go out and come back in that front door, you owe me tonight.”
I nodded with a goofy smile on my face.
“Sounds fair.”
He grunted and pulled away.
“You’re lucky I love you.”
Shep smiled.
“We know that we’re the lucky ones.”
I remembered the cake and pushed all of them away.
“Out of my kitchen so I can finish this not so surprise cake! Go, go, go. I love you all, but you’re all terrible for business.”
They left on a trail of laughter, Rhett slipping back out the door he’d entered while Shep and Arlo went out the front. I could hear Arlo arguing with Nellie as I put the finishing touches on the cake and then I heard everyone shout surprise way too fast for it to have been Rhett. Even if he’d run around the building, there was no way. The hush that fell over the room right after didn’t make me think it was Rhett, either.
Feeling a budding sense of nosiness, I walked to the kitchen door and looked out. Standing just inside the front door was a beautiful woman with raven black hair and the bluest eyes I’d ever seen. She wasn’t what had me gasping, though. The baby in her arms with the two different colored eyes was. The tiny boy, probably no older than Hank, had eyes like our big brother, Gray, but the scowl on his little face was Mills through and through. It was like staring at the baby version of my oldest brother.
The woman looked up as I pushed into the room and smiled but it was shaky. With everyone staring at her, all of us seeing the same thing in the baby in her arms, she looked overwhelmed and ready to run. She didn’t, though. She straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin.
“I’m looking for Mills, Tate, and West Hellstone.”
Well, shit.
The End.
I hope you found as much enjoyment in reading my book as I experienced while writing it.
For more enthralling tales, continue with the ‘Southern Heat Reverse Harems‘ series and grab your copy of ‘Sold to the Single Daddies‘ the forth book in the series.