Wild Like the Wind (Chaos #5)(114)

Shit.

He went perfectly still.

Every inch of him.

God.

Oh God.

Shit.

He wanted a baby.

“Hound,” I whispered.

“You’d give me a kid?”

That question was guttural.

Oh yes, he wanted a baby.

“Well, uh … my parts still work, I love you, you love me and—”

Christ, I was babbling … about having a baby.

“You’d give me a kid.”

“I’m not twenty-three anymore but my lady parts haven’t shriveled up yet, honey,” I joked.

“We’re not laughin’ about this,” he declared.

And that declaration was flinty.

“You gotta be sure about this,” he decreed. “You don’t say that shit to me unless you’re sure about this. What it means to you. What it might mean to Dutch and Jag. What it means for us. What it means for me. You just don’t throw that out. Not that. Not you and me makin’ a baby.”

No.

Hound didn’t want a baby.

Hound wanted a baby with me.

I stared at him in those jeans and that tank with those tats and his badass hair and his amazing eyes and that look on his handsome face, and for the first time in the years of us being together when we were not and in the past months of us being together in a way we actually were, it was only then I felt the true fullness of the decades of love he’d given me.

It was overwhelming.

And it was exquisite.

Plus my boys were gone. On the path to building their own lives. They’d been the only true, long-lasting joy in mine. I still had them but I had them in a way I missed them, because they weren’t my little boys anymore.

I could make another one. Another one with lapis-blue eyes and a handsome expressive face who every time I looked at him, he reminded me not only how much I loved him, but how much I loved his daddy and the love we had for each other that made him.

“He has to have your eyes,” I whispered.

“She has to have your hair.”

Oh my God.

Shit.

Oh my God.

Hound and me were going to make a baby.

“No cursing rule in this house until she’s thirty-three,” I said, sounding croaky.

“Get your ass over here,” he said, sounding bossy.

“We can’t make the baby now,” I said, sounding panicked. “We have to tell Chaos first.”

“We’re not making the baby now, Keekee,” he said, sounding amused. “We have to tell the brothers and then we gotta move to a different house. Sayin’ that, we’re gonna practice up real good so when it gets down to doin’ it with a purpose, we got it set.”

“I think we already have it set, honey.”

“We’re still gonna practice.”

Oh yeah we were.

I got my ass over there.

Hound didn’t attack me.

No.

What Hound did was reach with both hands, grab my head, yank me to him and then wrap both of his arms around my head.

He held me to his chest that way.

I’d never been held that way in my life.

There was something poignant about it, profound.

Amazing.

Oh yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

My man wanted to make a baby with me.

I circled him with my arms and clutched his wife beater in my fists between his shoulder blades.

When we’d stood that way for so long and it was either crack a joke or burst into tears, I made the only decision I could.

“Thanks for partnering up, cowboy, and folding the laundry.”

He dropped his face to the top of my head and held me tighter.

“Christ, I fuckin’ love you.”

I let his tank go and wrapped my arms around him as tight as I could.

“You sure?” he asked my hair gently.

I smiled.

“I’m sure,” I answered his chest nearly inaudibly since my face was smushed there.

“Startin’ all over again?” he pressed.

“With you?”

“Yeah.”

“Then absolutely.”

He held me tighter.

I let him, and when I was worried he’d dislocate my nose, I gave him a squeeze.

He didn’t release me but he did release some of the pressure, so I turned my head and laid my cheek on his chest.

I saw his tatted arm cocooning me.

And I hoped like fuck our little girl got her daddy’s eyes.

“Boys would love a baby sister,” I muttered.

“We gotta get on Chaos,” he said.

Fuck.

He was right.

My lady parts worked but time was marching on.

Not to mention when those assholes made my man stand the gauntlet, he had to heal up so we could fuck with a purpose and also I had to have plenty of time to hold my grudge against the brothers before I eventually forgave them … for Hound.

“So, uh … this going fast thing, we’re breaking all the records, yeah?” I quipped.

“That’s us, baby. Wild like the wind. Can’t rein that shit in.”

He was so right.

So right.

And anyway …

Why would we?

“I love you, Shep.”