“You didn’t have to get up with us,” she whispered.

She said the same thing every morning, worried about my lack of sleep and a long workday ahead. But this, right here, was my favorite part of the day.

“I’ll bundle her up and go for a run when you’re done.”

Sara watched me in the darkness. “I love you.”

I swallowed, nodding as I struggled to work past the lump in my throat so I could repeat the sentiment. I’d barely been able to sleep last night after realizing I’d been so focused on enjoying Sara the Mother that I’d barely let myself enjoy Sara the Woman.

“What’s wrong?” she whispered, watching me struggle.

“I think we need to make a deal to return to us before we can get pregnant again.”

“ ‘Us’?” she repeated.

“I think I heard what you were saying last night.”

Her brows pulled together and I could tell she wasn’t exactly sure what I was saying. “Oh?”

“I want to be the husband you need again. Photographs. Film. Knowing I’m giving you what you need.”

“What I need?”

“What we need.”

She licked her lips, blinking down to the baby. “You’re so much more than I could have ever hoped for. You know that.”

“I’d like to occasionally outdo myself,” I said, and she giggled, putting her hand over her mouth when the baby pulled off her breast in surprise.

“Shh, shh,” Sara murmured to her. “Come here.”

“Maybe Mum can watch little Beloved and we can start with dinner out? Slowly work our way to something else?”

She looked up again, eyes wide. “Like the club?”

I watched her holding our child in her arms and felt a protectiveness so violent lash over me I wasn’t sure how I would handle letting others see her so vulnerable, so ripe.

“If that’s what you want,” I managed.

She nodded, gently answering the question in my voice. “It is.”

I folded up the stroller and stowed it in the foyer closet before stripping off my shirt. Although so far it had been a mild winter, it was still January and the long-sleeved running shirt I wore to keep me from freezing outside immediately felt claustrophobic upon entering the warm apartment.

Bending, I unzipped the carrier and pulled out the extremely bundled child inside.

“Was that good, baby girl?” I murmured, kissing her pink cheek. She was warm and drooly and her enormous brown eyes crinkled exactly like her mother’s when she smiled. “Got a good run in, didn’t we?”

I sat on the couch and laid Annabel on my chest while I caught my breath.

“You’re sweaty and sitting on the couch, aren’t you?” Sara called from the master suite.

I stuck my tongue out at Anna and she tried to grab it. “Very sweaty,” I answered my wife. “Quite disgusting, actually.”

Sara’s heels clicked down the hallway and she froze when she saw us. “Max.”

“I’ll wipe it down, Pet—”

“I don’t care about that,” she said, walking closer. “You’re shirtless with the world’s sweetest baby cuddled on those muscles. Put a shirt on, you beast, or I can’t be held responsible for my actions.”

I fucking loved it when Sara looked at me like that. “Imagine how I feel when you’re feeding her.”

She gave me a bright smile as she bent, kissing Anna’s chubby thigh. “She looks like a little peach on you.”

I took in her outfit and immediately wondered if we’d be able to get the baby down for a nap this early in the day. I hadn’t seen Sara in work clothes in months and didn’t realize until just then how much I missed it. Her little black skirt hit just below her knees, giving a tiny flash of skin above her soft leather boots. Her tits looked fucking unreal in the gray sweater she’d put on.

Following my attention, she looked down at her chest. “I think I need to go shopping today. Everything is too small in the chest.”

“Don’t you dare get rid of that one.”

She pulled her lip between her teeth, blinking over to me. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” I murmured, and the moment grew heavy. “You look bloody beautiful, Petal.”

“Is it . . . inappropriate, though? I mean, the way you’re looking at me makes me think this sweater is no longer very professional.”

“I guess it depends on where you’re headed.”

She shrugged, sitting down next to us. “I thought I’d go into the office for a couple of hours, just so next week doesn’t feel so disorienting. I’m meeting the girls for breakfast and then heading in.”

I kissed the top of Anna’s head. “Want me to take her with me?”

“Either way. I could, too.”

What was it about her face in that moment, right there, that made me feel so many things at once it was overwhelming? With her dressed and headed out the door, it was like I was seeing this combination for the first time: my lover, my wife, and also a mother, a nurturer and . . . fuck, a bird with the best pair of tits I’d ever seen.

Standing, I motioned for her to follow me back down the hall. I grabbed Annabel’s musical baby seat from the nursery and put it beside the dresser in our bedroom, facing the set of framed photographs of trees that she loved, and then guided Sara to the bed.

“Max . . .”

“Just a minute.” I retrieved my camera from the shelf, stabilized it on the tripod, and set it to automatic shots every five seconds. Sara’s breath was rapid and shallow when I bent low, kissed her neck, and told her, “I won’t keep you long.”

“Anna’s fine,” she said, pulling me closer. “Keep me as long as you can.”

Laying her back, I pushed her skirt up her hips and began kissing my way up her stomach, feeling my cock tighten with each nostalgic click of the shutter, with the feel of her hands digging into my hair. I moved her sweater up her stomach, revealing smooth, bare skin. She tasted like rain, like fruit, and had the same sweet scent I’d always worshipped on her body. Reaching behind her, I unhooked her bra and pushed it up over her breasts.

I’d always loved Sara’s breasts but I’d never particularly been a breast man until recently. The weight of them, the soft smell of her skin, and the odd spike I felt in my abdomen whenever she fed our child . . . it was an odd reflex to want to look at them, touch them like this, and one I realized I’d been fighting the last few months.