“Are you sure you don’t mind it?” Jessi asked, her voice small and muffled as she curled up against my chest.

I pursed my lips, feeling a slight ache in my chest. I’d never thought much about having children of my own but knowing Jessi could have been pregnant was having a strange effect on me.

“You don’t have to feel bad about it,” I told her gently. “You did what you thought was best for you at that time. You’re allowed to think of yourself, Jessi.”

Besides, back then I was still in a lot of denial about how I felt towards Jessi. If she’d come up to me to ask what to do, I felt afraid I might have told her to do exactly what she did. And the scare might have been enough to stop me from looking for her anymore, and I would have missed out on so much because of my pride and stupidity.

“Besides,” I added, “there’s no way to know that anything came from it. You might not have got pregnant anyway, you were just taking precautions.”

She sighed and finally lifted her head to look up at me. “I’m not exactly young anymore, you know. I’ll be hitting thirty soon, so it’s a race against biology, and if we’re going to have any kids, I’d like it to be before I’m so old I get tired trying to take care of them.”

I grinned down at her. “You’ve thought of having children before? With me?”

That had her blushing and ducking her head back down, and I let out a chuckle as I held her close again.

“I have,” she admitted after a minute, voice small. “Ever since I was a teenager. Probably long before that, but let’s say since I was a teen because that’s when I knew how babies are made and born.”

I hummed. “How many did you wish we’d have?”

She didn’t answer me, and I chuckled again.

“Anyway,” she said, a little wildly. “I had my period while I was at the beach, so I know I’m not. But… we always have the future, right?”

The words were stated tentatively, and she’d pulled back to look at me again. I noticed some traces of guilt lingering in her eyes, her expression, and I pecked a small kiss on her forehead.

“There’s always the future,” I reiterated. “So don’t worry so much about what happened in the past, okay? I’m happy that you took the initiative, that you were thinking of protecting yourself. Let it go and we’ll have ourselves a nice, bright future to try again, all right?”

The smile she gave me was a little shaky at the corners, but it was genuine.

“Do you mean it?” she asked.

I gave a serious nod. “Definitely. If it’s what you want, we can try. We could see a doctor, just to make sure nothing is wrong first. Although I would have loved to have you all to myself, at least for a little while,” I added with a sigh.

“You can have me as much as you want, Trent,” she reassured. “In fact, you can have me right now.”

My eyes widened in shock as she suddenly shoved my chest. Then she threw a leg over my lap and straddled me, her arms going around my neck. I relaxed against the couch, looking up at her with a growing smile. Her eyes practically sparkled at me, and I thought to myself again just how beautiful she was.

“You’re beautiful,” I told her because where was the fun in just keeping that to myself?

She grinned bashfully down at me, her arms circling my neck.

Before we could start anything, my phone rang. We both sighed in disappointment as I pulled it out of my pants pocket. I frowned at the number that I didn’t recognize but was pretty sure came from the hotel.

“Hello?” I said cautiously.

“Mr. Thompson? My name is Margaret Jones. I’m head of the cleaning department at the hotel.”

I frowned. “How did you get my number?”

There was a short silence, then came the tentative answer, “I called the office to talk to Matthew Thompson, but the secretary let me know he would be out of the office for the day. She gave me your phone number instead.”

I rolled my eyes. Dad should have been back to work, not taking days off. And if he’d only done it so he could visit me, I was going to get mad. Besides, he’d left my place a long time ago, and even with the detour, I’d arrived back at the hotel already. So where was he?

And also, if the secretary was handing out my phone number, it was probably for something serious. My eyes narrowed as it sunk in that she said she was the head of the cleaning department, and I got a suspicion.

“What can I do for you, Margaret?” I asked, bracing myself.

“I’m calling to make a complaint,” she said, and I closed my eyes in defeat.

“Let me guess,” I said before she could continue. “My brother Mason had another party?”

“Yes, sir,” she returned eagerly. “He set it up a couple of days ago and invited a lot of guests to the hotel. A lot of them are here for a few days extended stay.”

Dammit. I step out to deal with an internal crisis and my brothers slack off. Or maybe it was his way of acting out after he found out the whole ruse with Dad’s heart attack. I wondered what Kevin would do. He might just pack up and leave as was his usual habit.

“I’m sorry my brother has made a mess,” I said, keeping my voice polite while internally wondering why I was apologizing for my brother’s behavior. “I hope he didn’t make too much trouble for your people…”

“It’s not the mess that I am complaining about,” she said. “It was a bit much but it was taken care of. My problem is with the nudity.”

My eyebrows shot up at that, and my gaze drifted over to Jessi, who was looking at me with curiosity.

“Nudity?” I repeated, not sure I wanted to know where this was going.

Jessi’s eyes suddenly widened in recognition, and she slapped a hand over her mouth as she broke out into giggles. I arched an eyebrow at her but didn’t complain because she looked too cute. I gave her a slight poke on the chin that had her giggling some more, then focused on the phone.

“Yes, sir,” Margaret said. “Nudity. And only his, I might add, right around when the party was winding down. We can take care of a little mess, but…”

But Mason’s wild ways were a little too much for the hotel to deal with. It was too much for me to deal with, too. Here I was, having a serious discussion about the love of my life, and I had to cut it off because my brother was getting himself into trouble again.

“Thank you for letting me know,” I said after a beat. “I’ll make sure to speak to my brother about his conduct at the hotel.”

“Thank you, sir,” she said, sounding satisfied.

I groaned when I cut off the call, dropping the phone on the couch beside me.

“What the fuck, Mason. Nudity?”

Jessi laughed again.

“Laura told me about that,” she said with a snicker. “When she came here with Emily. She said she was there when it happened, and so were a lot of other maids there to clean up the mess. You might want to make sure no one caught it on camera or something.”

I let out a heavy sigh. “Dad is going to be so annoyed with he finds out. And I’m the one that’s going to have to deal with it because I’m the eldest.”

It was another reason I’d stopped going to his parties. Even though he had lots of friends, because I was his older half-brother, I was automatically his guardian when he went overboard, which he tended to do often.

“Ugh. If this is him acting out, I’d hate to see what Kevin would do.”

Jessi arched her eyebrows. “Acting out?”

I nodded. “From the news about Dad. It probably affected them as it would me, and I do know quite a bit about my brothers. I know Kevin would probably just up and leave if he were annoyed with Dad, so I hope they had their talk already.”

“Aren’t you going to go look for your brother?” she asked.

“Why the hell would I?” I retorted. “Besides, they only called for a complaint, not to go pick him up, so he must be at a room in the hotel somewhere already. I don’t want to catch my little brother in the nude, thank you.”

She giggled a little more. “You know, I don’t think Laura minded the nudity all that much.” She grinned. “I don’t mind yours, either,” she added cheekily.

I stayed still as she leaned closer to me to kiss me, her lips moving softly against mine before adding a little pressure. She took my lower lip between hers and sucked on it, nibbling on it with her teeth, then smoothing over it with a lick. When she pulled back, her gaze was full of desire, and it was enough to have me half hard instantly.

“I wouldn’t mind a little of that, either,” I said huskily.

I reached for her, pulling her into my arms, with one under her knees and the other behind her back, then stood up from the couch as I lifted her into my arms.

“Why don’t we take this to the bedroom?” I asked as I made my way there. “The couch is a little small for me, but we can play on it some other time if you’d like.”

She moaned and wrapped her arms around my neck. She leaned up to press a kiss to my chin, then another, and another, moving along my jaw. Then she nibbled a little on my ear, and my hands tightened on her as I tried not to trip.

“We’re moving your things to my room tomorrow,” I reminded her.

Jessi nodded and hummed her agreement, and I took it as enough. Carefully, I moved us over to the bed and set her down, then followed right after her.

I knew things weren’t completely resolved. There was still the issue with my family, and with hers, and I would have to sit everyone down together shortly so I could explain things, but one thing was for certain; Jessi and I had a long future ahead of us. And I didn’t want to miss a moment of it.

Like she echoed my thoughts, Jessi murmured, “This is our future now, you and me.”

“Yeah,” I whispered, pausing our little love session to bury my head in her shoulder and hug her to me. “The two of us, working together like we should have always been. Working out the snags instead of starting petty fights,” I added with a little grin.

“And love,” she added in a whisper. “Most of all love, Trent.” She tugged on my hair until I lifted my head. “I’ve been waiting for it for so long, you have no idea just how long. And finally, it’s here. It’s going to change the both of us. I just know it.”

I grinned as I ducked down for a kiss.

“I’m hoping it will,” I admitted. “For the better, for both of us.”

I leaned in for more kisses as we continued this small moment of our future, together.