Asa (Marked Men #6)(86)

I had also found a tiny hole in the wall in LoDo that I was dying to turn into an old-fashioned cigar bar. The place sat maybe fifty people max and it was tucked away and hidden enough that I knew I could transform it into an exclusive spot that the trenderati would be dying to get into. Because he had been so good to me from the very start, I asked Rome if he wanted to buy in with me and was stunned when he told me no. When I told Royal his response she just smiled at me and told me the place was mine. Rome wanted me to have something all my own to either sink or swim with just in case the rest of it fell apart. He was trying to take care of me in his own gruff way. So tonight I had been talking with Zeb because I finally signed a lease on the place and wanted him to get in there to remodel the interior. The planning had gone longer than I expected, so I was quiet as I walked through the house just in case Royal was already in bed.

The lights in the house were off as I made my way through to that incredible kitchen and poured myself a scotch from my own private stash. The sliding glass door that led to the deck off the back of the house was cracked open and Tom Petty was playing softly from somewhere outside. Royal still liked her bubblegum pop, but when she was in a mellow mood and just needed to unwind after a long day, she tended to fall back on the classics, which I had to admit, I much preferred.

I took my drink and pulled the door open, my eyes automatically going to the set of Adirondack chairs that occupied the far corner of the deck opposite the hot tub. She was sitting in the dark outside in the cold; it was the first part of February, so there was still snow on the ground, and I wasn’t at all surprised that all she had on was one of my long flannel shirts and a pair of Uggs. I swear she was antipants as soon as she hit the front door. Not that I would ever be stupid enough to complain about it. She had a beer in her hand and a soft smile on her face, which reminded me every time I saw her here that this house and these moments of making it a home meant nothing without her in them.

“Did you wait up for me?” I walked over to the chair she was curled up in and pulled her up to her feet so I could kiss her. She tasted like the outside and cold beer. She tasted like heaven and hell all mixed together. I snagged the seat she had been sitting in and pulled her back down so that she was sitting in my lap with her back pressed up against my chest.

She lifted the beer to her lips and snuggled into me. I sighed in pure contentment and wrapped an arm around her trim waist.

“Yeah. I didn’t want to go to bed alone.”

I rubbed my nose in her soft hair and told her, “You should’ve called me. I would have come home.”

She put one of her hands over mine and I set my glass down on the ground because she was far more interesting to hold on to.

“I was actually talking to Ayden and lost track of time. I knew you couldn’t be much longer, so I thought I would just sit out here and wait for you.”

“Half naked.”

She laughed and lifted an arm up to curl around my neck. “Of course.”

“How’s the drive from Austin going?” Ayden refused to get on a plane this far along into her pregnancy even if her doctor had informed her it was perfectly safe. She insisted she wasn’t taking any unnecessary chances with her little girl, so she and Jet were driving in the unpredictable weather so they could be here next week for Rome and Cora’s wedding.

“She sounds fine. Jet was the one suffering. He’s doing that guy thing where he wants to drive straight through, and with a wife that’s six months pregnant with a baby sitting on her bladder that just isn’t happening. She told me he looks like he’s going to shoot an embolism every time she tells him she needs to stop and use the bathroom. Knowing your sister, she’s doing it on purpose every fifty miles or so just to aggravate him.”

“Probably. I’m excited for them to get here.” I had Skyped with Ayden a few times, so I could see the way being an expectant mom was changing my little sister physically. I wanted to see how she was handling it up close and personal, with my own two eyes. And I wanted to put my hands on the baby bump that held my niece.

“Me, too.” She fell quiet for a second and then asked softly, “Do you ever think about getting married and having kids?”

I took her beer out of her hand, set it down next to my scotch, and put my hands on her hips so that I could lift her and turn her around so that she was straddling me and we were face-to-face in the dark.

“Do I think about marriage and kids in general, or do I think about them with you, Red?”

She put her hands on my shoulders and shrugged, which sent her auburn hair slithering across my hands in a sexy, cool glide.

“Ayden’s due in a few months, Rome and Cora are getting married in a week, Rule and Shaw are living in domestic bliss, Salem just told everyone she’s expecting, and Saint couldn’t tell Nash yes fast enough when he proposed over Christmas. There’s just a lot of kids and forever-after going on around us and you never mention it. I just wondered if it was even in the cards for us.”

I untangled one of my hands from her hair and put a finger under her chin so that she couldn’t look away from me. “You want to get married, Royal?”

She rolled her eyes at me like that was the stupidest question I could ever ask. “Yeah. Eventually.”

I nodded at her and leaned forward so I could kiss her lightly. “Then eventually we’ll get married.”