As Loch was getting ready to leave for the day, Nox stopped him, knowing the shop was empty save for them. “What’s up with Joey?”

Uncomfortable with what was now evident to the others and not wanting to spill any of Joey’s secrets after they’d talked more over the afternoon, he told his brother, “He just needs some space.”

“You sure, man? You’re closer to all the guys than Levi or me. If there’s something I should know, you need to tell me.”

Not wanting to play games and just get home to Sage, Loch said, “Look, if he wants us to know, Nox, he’ll speak up. It’s Joey, he can’t stay quiet for long.”

“Yeah, maybe.” Nox seemed distracted.

“What’s up, bro?” As much as he wanted to leave, he couldn’t when his brother had something on his mind.

“Elianna. Soph is worried because she hasn’t heard from her. I know her and Asher had their issues, but it’s more than that. Somethings going on with her.”

“She’ll come to you when she’s ready. She’s not exactly the most open person, man. She’s locked up tighter than Fort Knox.”

“I guess,” Nox muttered. “You and Sage doing okay?”

“We would be if I could get to her.” Loch deadpanned.

“Sorry, kid. Get out of here.”

“Later.”

Finally free, Loch wasted no time leaving. Cruising the few minutes it took to get home, it went by quickly as he nailed every green light on the way.

Grinning as he pulled up to his small Tudor style house, Sage was sitting on the front steps, Braxton beside her. Right where she belonged. With a throw blanket across her shoulders, long billowing skirt swishing in the wind, and a cup of something warm in her hands, she looked at peace.

“Lochlan.” Her cheerful voice brought a huge grin to his face as she dismounted the steps towards him.

Meeting in the middle of the sidewalk, he pulled her into his arms. “Hi, Angel,” he whispered as he kissed her lips gently. A soft touch to keep them from devouring each other.

“Mmmm,” she hummed into his neck.

“Have a good day?” he asked her, briefly meeting Braxton’s hard gaze.

“Yes, I just love your home.” She smiled up at him again.

“I’ll be around,” Brax announced as he walked past them.

“Thanks, man.”

They stood in their embrace for a while after everything went quiet again. Neither felt the need to move or break the silence. Holding Sage close to his heart, Loch sensed he was more settled than he had been in a long time. Knowing she was there and safe appeased his active mind from all the things he couldn’t and hadn’t protected her from.

“You hungry?”

“Famished.” She pulled his hand as she walked towards the house.

“Have you eaten today?” He worried when she wasn’t with him.

“Ummm…”

Frustrated, he admonished her. “You have to remember to eat, Sage. You’ll only get sick again if you don’t.”

“I know. I got distracted, and I was agonizing over stuff this morning. I forgot.” Her blush was immediate.

“I have some frozen lasagna in the freezer, shouldn’t take long to heat up.”

“I love lasagna.” She sighed as they walked through the front door.

Closing it behind them, Loch led her into the kitchen, bypassing the living room with the overstuffed furniture and empty shelves. Even though he’d spent quite a bit of time and money on decorating and getting the place up to par for starting a new life, he hadn’t personalized it much, waiting to see the path he would travel. Pictures of his family littered a few walls and sat on a couple of shelves. There were some model cars he’d built and painted for his dad when he was younger displayed in a hidden nook by the stairs. When he’d passed on, Loch’s mother gave them back to him. A treasure she called them.

“I really love the calming tones in here,” she commented and befuddled Loch.

“It’s white.” He looked around, trying to see what she did.

Twisting her lips from side to side, only enticing him to kiss her again, she said thoughtfully, “It’s not just white. You have all these other things to bring balance to the room.”

“Like what?”

Pointing to the screened patio door off the back of the house she explained. “You have the natural light pouring in rather than flooding it with fluorescent. The black marble in your planters brings in a bit of balance between the white walls and cabinets and the dark appliances.”

Looking at the room through her eyes, he saw what she did. Maybe he had made it a home after all. He always figured that would come when a woman’s touch had entered each room.

“Huh, I hadn’t realized that.” Pulling the lasagna from the freezer, he placed it in the oven to be heated. Taking Sage’s hand, he guided her to the small bench seat beside the patio doors and said, “Tell me about Morgan.”

* * *

Morgan.

The epitome of all things evil.

Her nightmares come to life.

“I don’t… What do you want to know?” When he said they would talk, she hadn’t thought he meant about this.

“Why he wanted you, what he was like when you met, what happened to his wife?”

“Why?” It wasn’t easy to talk about the man who stalked her every thought.

“Because Frank and Braxton told me some things, and I want your opinion on him and what he’s done. I know your nightmares are mostly about him and what he could have done to you. I want to know how to ward him off for you.”

Taking a deep breath, she swallowed the fear of speaking the man’s name and filled him in. “Morgan came to our community about nine years ago; before that girl went missing. His wife was nice enough. She was never outside and active as much as other wives. I always got the feeling she was afraid of something. Then Jossilyn told me what happened. I hadn’t known he’d beaten her to death.”

“How does she know that?” They never found a report on the woman’s death.

“I don’t know. She must have overheard them talking or something, I suppose.” Sage had never thought to ask how her sister had known.

“When did he become interested in you?” Loch’s hand reached for hers as he asked his questions.

Sage spent the next hour answering all the things he wanted to know about the horrid man. Telling him how whenever Morgan had come to the house, his gaze would always follow her, from the time she was a young girl. She had never been able to get away from the man.

When her parents announced that she was to marry him, his leering grew worse. He’d found ways to make sure they were alone in a room together. While he didn’t touch her, she always felt dirty afterwards.

As her eighteenth birthday had approached and her feelings for Lochlan became known, the situation grew worse. He’d trail his fingers down her arms and across her cheek. It was always provocative but looked innocent to anyone observing them.

“Your parents, were they always dismissive of his advances?” Loch appeared to be torn between confoundedness and complete astonishment.

So was she.

“At first, he hid it. When I turned sixteen, he gave up on pretense and started becoming more forward with his want for me. Father never cared enough to stop it.”

The timer rang before he could respond to her comment. She watched as he walked away, his jeans molding to his buttocks as he moved. She could see his strong thighs flexing as he shuffled around the kitchen getting their plates ready.

For the first time, she truly admired him as a virile male. He wasn’t just a boy she crushed on anymore, he was a man she desired. His arms flexed as he reached into the cupboard for dinnerware. While he wasn’t as muscular as Braxton, he had a softer strength to him. One that came from the heart. It was one of the things she loved most about him.

As he turned with their dinner plates in hand and came to sit at the table, her mouth opened, and a question she never thought she’d ask popped out. “Are we going to have sex?”

They spoke about it very briefly at the hospital, but she hadn’t thought any more about the specifics of it. Lochlan was her first everything, and while she knew the semantics of the act, the decision to do something so intimate was terrifying.

His blank stare worried her. He seemed to be frozen in place as he processed her question. Clearing his throat, he finally spoke, his hand reaching for her cheek. “Angel, I told you that when I take you, it’ll be as my wife, not before.”

He didn’t really answer her question. “But we’re going to have sex?”

A small blush fought its way through his tanned flesh as he answered her. “Yes, Sage. One day we’re going to have sex.”

“Okay.” After that, they sat quietly eating their dinner. Sage was left wondering what was wrong with her, changing from such a serious topic to such an intimate one. Watching as he wrapped his lips around the fork, her body lit up imaging him doing that to certain areas of her body.

She had so many questions and desires that she couldn’t concentrate on the delicious food in front of her. “Eat, Sage,” Loch demanded.

His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed. His gaze never left hers, waiting for her to take a bite. Picking up her fork, she did as he commanded only so she could continue watching the erotic way his tongue touched the side of his mouth, licking the small dot of sauce off.

A shiver raced up and down her spine as he smirked. His lip on the one side quirking a tiny bit and a dimple appeared. “You have a dimple.” She sighed. He was making her feel goofy. Not herself.

Is this lust?

* * *

The way Sage watched Loch throughout the rest of the evening made his body hunger for her in an uncomfortable way. His dick wouldn’t stop throbbing as he thought about taking her body and melding them into one person.

When she’d asked him if they were going to have sex, he couldn’t have been more shocked or aroused and it was all he could picture now. Her lithe body hidden by long layers of material, nude beneath him as they explored each other.

He finally had to send her up to bed in the spare room an hour ago so he could calm down and not break his promise to take her before she was his wife. His self-control only carried so far before he would snap.

Figuring she would be asleep for the night, he went up to his room, leaving all the lights off so he didn’t wake her. Loch stripped to his boxers and climbed into bed, shocked when he felt Sage’s warm body lying there. Right in the middle, too.

Her arm snaked around his waist before he could move. Her soft fingers splayed out on his hip. The desire to stay with her, hold her through the entire night instead of just when she had her nightmares was strong.

“Please don’t leave me, Lochlan.” Her sleepy voice beckoned to him.

“I won’t. Not ever.”

Quiet surrounded them as darkness enveloped the room, the moon lost behind the clouds as a storm moved in. Lightning could be seen flashing through the windows as thunder crashed on the horizon. Winds whipped tree branches against the house, and with every boom, she flinched.

Lying in his queen-sized bed, he began playing with Sage’s curling hair. Loch confessed, “I was serious when I asked you to marry me, Sage,” wanting to distract her.

“You didn’t really ask me, Lochlan.” A little bit of sass was starting to shine through. “It was more of a demand.”

“I meant it, nonetheless,” he murmured softly, their bodies somehow becoming closer. As if magnets were trying to fuse them together.

“I know you did,” she whispered, only a hairsbreadth away from his lips.

Loch ached to kiss her more than taking his next breath. To feel her soft lips against his own. Her tentative touches mingled with his. “I want to marry you, Sage.”

He could feel the heat of her blush. “But why?”

“So many reasons,” he replied, brushing his lips against hers.

“Tell me”—she breathed—“please, tell me.”

Loch couldn’t deny her if he tried. “You’re everything I’ve ever wanted in a partner. You’re soft, caring, sweet. You don’t hide anything from me. I may not know what you’re always thinking, but your feelings are wide open for me.”

“Do you love me, Lochlan?” He sensed the answer was more important to her than she would ever let on.

“What I feel for you–” He stopped to think of how to phrase it without sounding like the answer was no. “I’m not sure if I know what love is. Sure, I love Ma and my brothers. Soph and Hayes are like sisters. But what I feel for you is so different. It’s more than anything I could ever explain.”

“Try,” she gasped, sounding out of breath.

Rolling on top of her, he needed their hearts to be aligned, for her to feel the erratic beating of his own. He settled between her naked thighs as he tried to explain further. “I have this unrelenting drive to make your entire world perfect. To make you happy. I’m consumed with thoughts of you during the day. Wondering how you are, if you need anything. Wanting to know if your day is bringing you joy.” Loch took a moment to gather his resolve as she wiggled her hips, pressing her core against his already hard cock, stealing his breath. “Christ, Sage.” His head bent forward, losing strength when she didn’t stop. “You gotta stop, Angel,” he begged her.

“I can’t, there’s something there,” she moaned. “It’s building in my womb.” He could feel her little pussy throbbing against him, begging for relief.

“Fuck,” he growled, meshing their mouths together as he snaked one hand between their bodies to rub her clit to a release.

Her back arched as she came apart from the light touch. Seeing and feeling the orgasm roll through her tight frame had his own balls drawing up close to his dick as he pressed harder into her. “Sage,” he groaned as his own release chased hers. His toes curled as he pushed himself against her pelvis, needing to know that some small part of him marked her as his.

“I love you, Lochlan,” she cooed, rubbing her body on his like a kitten. Purring through her pleasure while he silently fell apart.

“Angel…” His voice was thick with need.

“That was amazing,” she whispered in his ear, kissing just below it.

Who is this vixen? Where did she come from?

“What I feel for you”—he was out of breath now—“surpasses love. But if you’d like a title for it, then yes, I love you. More than I ever thought possible. For longer than you’ll ever know, I love you, Sage.”

“I’ve loved you from the moment our eyes met, you know,” she admitted. Thunder clashed in the background as they lay in the mess of their pleasure.

“You’re going to kill me, Angel.”

“That felt unbelievable.” She ignored him. “It was like sparks went off in my head, and I could see the stars up close. Will it always be that way?”

“I have no idea,” he told her honestly.

She was quiet after his confession, but he refused to be embarrassed by it. “You mean you’ve never?”

“Just my hand in the shower. Usually to thoughts of you.” Might as well go for broke.

“I like that.” She kissed him for once. Their mouths mating in a soft caress. Leaning the full weight of his body on hers, one hand sunk into her hair while the other massaged her breast, plucking at her tiny nipple as her thighs tightened around his hips.

“Marry me.” He groaned when she brushed against his cock again.

“I already said yes.” She giggled, and he loved the freeing sound.

“Tomorrow.”

She froze.

“We’ll go to Vegas.”

He felt her heartbeat pick up speed.

Kissing her neck, he murmured in her ear, “You’ll be mine”—he kissed along her jaw—“and I’ll be yours.”

“Yes.” She was so quiet, he pulled away, needing to see it in her eyes, hear it in her voice. “Yes.” She responded stronger that time, with more conviction.

“Yeah?” He asked, needing confirmation again.

“On one condition.” She looked shy about it.

“Anything.”

“I want babies.”

“However many you want.”

“I want to be a housewife. It’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

“God, do I love that idea.” Loch rubbed his stubbled cheek against hers. “At my beck and call twenty-four seven.”

“Until the baby comes.” Her voice was husky, eager. “I want a real wedding night, too.” She paused. “You’ll take me, every part of me. You’ll complete me and make me yours.”

“You’re already mine, Angel.”

The kiss he delivered was fierce. Full of ownership and need. The desire to have her in a way they were both holding back from. Her enticing moan was heard throughout the room.

Hunger for her man.