Released (Caged #3)(91)

I couldn’t hold back any more.

“Oh, f*ck yeah…” I moaned as I held myself deep inside of her. Tria’s fingers dug into my backside, anchoring us together for a minute before we finally parted.

I flopped down on the bed on my back, stared at the ceiling, and tried to get my breathing back to normal. Tria lay on her back with her legs in the air, but I didn’t laugh at the pose.

Not again. I learned my lessons well.

“So?” I asked. “Did it work?”

“Well, I think we have to wait a week or so to find out.”

“Not us!” I laughed. “You said you talked to Nikki today.”

“What makes you think I’ve heard?” Tria asked with a sly, secretive smile. I captured her smile with my own lips.

“Good news then?” I prompted.

“Not only did it take this time,” Tria said, “but Nikki and Brandon are having twins!”

“Fan-flippin’-tastic!”

They had tried in vitro twice before, and both times had been failures. Taking money from us had been hard enough on Brandon’s pride—something I understood wholeheartedly. There was no way he was going to take money again, and the initial fee only paid for three attempts.

“If they decide to join us for Christmas next year, your parents’ house is going to be full of kids.”

Like Mom was going to mind.

“Well, we already knew there would be at least two more,” I said. “I have to admit, I wasn’t expecting Ryan and Mandi to have such an instant family, and now Brandon and Nikki, too?”

My cousin and his wife had gone overseas to adopt a child and ended up coming home with two—an orphaned brother and sister ages four and six. Amanda couldn’t stand the thought of splitting them apart, and Ryan apparently agreed. They ended up adopting both.

“I don’t think your mom is complaining,” Tria said. “She loves the whole grandmother thing.”

“She loves hyping Katie up on junk food and sending her home,” I muttered.

Tria propped herself up on one elbow and looked over at me.

“And you never do that, do you?”

“Who, me?

“You took her out to the grocery store last weekend, and she came back covered in chocolate.”

“It was her ‘special snack’,” I reminded her. “She helped find all the stuff on the list.”

“Whatever!” Tria rolled to her back and rolled her eyes at the same time. “It took me two hours to get her to go to bed while you were at the gym last weekend.”

“Well, once I’m in school, you won’t have to worry about that,” I reminded her.

Tria sighed, and her hand came up and traced over the side of my face.

“You sure you want to?”

I shrugged.

“I always meant to go to college,” I told her. “I was always supposed to run the business.”

“But you don’t want to,” she said.

I shrugged again.

“It’s not that I don’t want to; I do. I just don’t know about running the whole damn thing. Ryan’s better at it, and he enjoys it. I also know he can’t really do it all himself. Sometime Dad and Michael are going to want to retire, and no matter what I say, Dad insists it’s all going to me.”

Tria nodded. She’d been witness to those conversations plenty of times.

“My next option is to just turn around and sign it all over to Ryan the day it’s given to me, but I can’t really do that to Dad. So, I have to do something.”

“Business school,” Tria stated dryly. “You could have had a UFC contract.”

“I wasn’t going to do that to you,” I said quietly. I reached over and tucked her hair behind her head, which brushed the bit of cookie dough onto her shoulder. “Not to you, not to Katie. Besides, I’m closing in on thirty-five. There’s no way I can keep fighting into my forties.”

“You like making rings.”

“I do,” I said with a nod. “Ryan and I have talked a little bit about maybe keeping him on the finance side and me on the operations side. I could be more involved in the day-to-day shit then—focus on jewelry making.”

It was Tria’s turn to sigh as she snuggled up against me, and I wrapped an arm around her shoulders. With her nose against my chest, I kissed the top of her head.

“I just want you happy,” she said softly.

“I have you, don’t I?”

She nodded.

“And Katie?”

Another nod.

“Working on another one as often as possible?”

A giggle and a nod.

“Then I’m happy.”

“Daddy?”

I quickly grabbed the blanket to be sure it was strategically placed around us.

“Whatcha need, Artichoke?” I asked as I looked over to the opening bedroom door.

“I had a scary dream, and I woke up,” Katie said as she padded over to the edge of the bed.

It was a crock of bullshit because if she’d had a nightmare, she’d be crying.

“Do you mean to say you just don’t want to be alone?” I asked her as I reached out and stroked her hair.

“Yes,” she replied.