Page 20 of Before. Then. Now.

“Dunno.Don’t think we even figured that out last night before Shaw pulled us in here and dropped to her knees for me,” Luca answered, pressing a kiss to the center of my back before rolling away.“As much as I want to stay here and eat nothing but our wives for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, I gotta carb up or I’m not gonna have the energy.”

“Sucks for you,” Jagger called after him as he shifted me so he was cradling me against him.“Just means I get to love on my Vi for a little longer.”

I barely heard Luca joining Shaw in the shower or her laughter at whatever he said to her.I was too lost in the look in Jagger’s eyes as he slowly spread my folds with the head of his cock and pushed inside me.I was still full of Luca’s release, making Jagger’s invasion easier.

“I need something from you, beautiful.I need it so bad I can’t think straight.”

“Yeah?”I stroked my hands down his back, the muscles clenching under my touch.That glitter in his eyes burned brighter.Higher.Hotter.Every inch of my body felt like a living torch.It hurt so much, each nerve begging for relief from the pain.“Take whatever you want from me, Jags, because I need it just as much as you do.”

CHAPTEREIGHT

shaw

Taking a sip of coffee,I walked out onto the porch and stopped.It was a nice view.Plenty of trees mixed in with the two other houses in the distance.A clear sky.Kids laughing and playing, enjoying their freedom.But it lacked the one sight I wanted most.

Vi.

Frowning, I glanced around the front yard.She’d said she was going out when she’d come downstairs earlier.But I assumed that only meant outside, not actually leaving.Luca was inside playing a video game with a few of the kids in the common room, and Jagger had been in the kitchen helping his dad and our girls make cookies.I didn’t need either of them to keep me company when all I wanted was a little Vi time.

If I’d thought for a second she was going to be leaving, I wouldn’t have let her out of the bedroom without me.Walking down the steps, I went over to where Aidan and Ciaran were climbing the rock wall on the play set.“Where’s your mom?”

Aidan pointed toward the house next door.It was dramatically smaller than the one we stayed in when we visited Creswell Springs.More like a cottage compared to the hotel-sized structure behind us.“She said she had to talk to Sammy.”

I paused with my mug halfway to my lips, my body tensing.Why the fuck had she gone to talk to Samara?That girl made me twitchy.And it had nothing to do with the fact that Samara was beautiful, with her dark hair and perfect skin.It definitely didn’t have anything to do with how Samara watched Vi.I’d noticed that she watched everyone closely.It was weird.Fuck, she was weird.But when those blue eyes of hers fell on my Violet?Every damn time, I got hit with a surge of possessiveness that made me irrational.

But it wasn’tjustbecause of that.

Samara was all bubbly to everyone, but there was a fire deep in her eyes that spoke of a banked rage that had yet to be unleashed.If it were ever set free and Vi got burned, I’d have to take up a life of crime because I would kill that girl.

“Thanks, buddy.You two behave.Remember the rules.We want to stay as close to the ground as possible.No jumping off roofs,” I cautioned, blowing them a kiss before I turned to walk down the driveway toward the cottage.Just to be safe, I glanced back at them a few times, not fully trusting either baby Thornton.

When Ciaran had broken his arm the first time, Violet had been inconsolable until he was sedated and the bone was set.That was three breaks and five emergency room visits for stitches ago.She didn’t have complete freak-outs like that now, desensitized to the trauma of having a wild child unleashed upon the world.

That boy gave me more gray hair than any of our other kids combined.

Before I reached the front door of the cottage, it swung open.Violet stepped outside, Samara behind her.It took restraint not to grab Vi and push her behind me.I wasn’t crazy for thinking that this woman with those blue eyes that saw everything was dangerous.Even if Jagger laughed whenever I mentioned it to him, convinced I was only being territorial.

Which was also true.

Samara saw everything, and by that, I meanteverything.She knew who Vi belonged to.Me.And outside of Jagger and Luca, I didn’t share well.That meant anything.Not her precious laughter or her soft touches, and most definitely not her valuable time.It was all mine, which I graciously bestowed on a few select people outside of the family we had created together.

Samara wasn’t one of those people.

“Hey,” Vi greeted, slipping one arm around my waist.

I dropped a kiss on her lips, not giving a single fuck who saw.We hadn’t been hiding our relationship, but we hadn’t flaunted it either.Everyone in our family knew.It wasn’t a secret that we kept from our kids or parents.We simply didn’t want the paparazzi vultures to harass us.Of course, that hadn’t stopped the press from making assumptions—like the time some idiot speculated that I was madly in love with my bestie’s husband and was going to leave Jagger and our kids for NFL money.

As if I needed that shit and hadn’t built a billion-dollar career all on my own.And there was the time a photographer had snapped a picture of Jags smiling down at Vi and posted it with some random headline that had been so ridiculous I’d laughed at it and promptly forgotten about the article.

I kept the picture after my mother-in-law was done suing the motherfucker, though.It was on a canvas in my library at the house in Santa Monica.I loved how it had captured the true depth of Jagger’s love for our Violet.That stupid paparazzi hadn’t realized the pure gold he’d found with that one picture.I would have given him triple what his tabloid bosses had paid him for it if he’d simply offered it to me first.Instead, he’d been left bankrupt with no one willing to risk Emmie Armstrong’s wrath if they dared to hire him to so much as mow their lawn.

And I still got the full copyright to that beautiful photo.

“Hi,” I murmured, slowly lifting my head.

Vi’s smile filled all the places inside me that felt bare when she wasn’t close.I tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, letting my thumb trace over her bottom lip.“I missed you.”

“Did you?”she teased, stepping closer.

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