One Year Later

Cara didn’t like whales. For someone whose ancestry was rooted in the lush culture of Capri and the beautiful coastal living that city enjoyed, my wife didn’t have much love for the water at all. Which made the move back to Seattle a little odd.

“Porca miseria, Kiel, what the hell is in this?” she fussed, her arms full of a box marked JUNK KIEL DOESN’T NEED.

That stung a little. I pulled the box from her arms before she could tear into it. It was stuff that wasn’t important, but it was still my stuff, and I couldn’t let go of it. Most of it was relics from high school, my old class ring and yearbooks, possibly a garter Melissa Dix had worn at junior prom—I’d kept it on my rearview mirror like a real douchebag for six months after I’d finished high school. There were also letters in that box, stacks of them that I’d written to Cara after I’d come back home, after she’d had Johnny throttle me like I’d stolen something and didn’t know where I’d put it.

“Why won’t you let me see?” she asked, growling when I held the box over her head. The round curve of her stomach peeked out from her oversize shirt, and I forgot all about the box and Melissa Dix and the stupid things I’d written Cara when I was so sick over her and hurt that writing it all down was the only way I got through most days.

Hmm. Maybe I should give Dale a heads-up about writing that shit down. It might get that asshole out of the stupid-shit habit he’d been in since Gin left for Portland.

“It’s nothing, Little Goddess. Just stuff that used to mean something to me.”

“Oh,” she said, stepping back to cross her arms over her ever-growing chest. “So, old girlfriend crap?”

I shrugged, more interested in that belly and the size of her already ample tits. She tried pushing me away from her as I dropped the box and curled my hands around her hips, my mouth already heading for her cleavage. But Cara gave up the fight, making a sweet sound that had my cock twitching. “I like it when you make that sound,” I admitted, pulling her onto my lap as I flopped to the floor.

“Stop…don’t!” The fussing wasn’t real. There was too much laughter, a bit too much moaning in her words, and Cara gave up, letting me kiss her stomach when I pushed her shirt up. “Don’t mess with my fat belly.”

“I made this belly, Goddess. If I wanna mess with it, I will.” She groaned, pushing on my shoulder before she fanned her fingers through my hair. “You’re wasting time. Your brother and Kit will be here to help us unpack.”

“So?” I said, pushing the shirt up to get at those full breasts.

“So, you don’t want them to walk in on us being all coupley while we’re supposed to be unpacking our new house, do you?”

“Please,” I admitted. “Do you know how many times I’ve showed up at their place and had to listen to repeated and endless moans of ‘Oh yeah, baby. Squeeze me, harder!’ and worst of all, ‘Fuck, Kit, you’re so tight.’ It’s embarrassing.”

“Exactly my point,” Cara said, shoving me off her as she came to her knees. She grabbed the box I’d thrown to the floor and opened the top, shooting glances my way as though she wanted to make sure there wouldn’t be retribution, the hot kind, if she opened it.

“If you must,” I told her, leaning back on one elbow.

She took out the ring, tilting her head like it was sweet, seeing that dirty gold ring with the stock figure of a football player and the school crest in the center. Cara slipped the class ring onto her thumb and continued to pilfer through my pointless shit.

“Ah. Old girlfriend?” she asked, twirling the garter on a finger. The elastic band was frayed, and the dark maroon ribbon threaded between the lace had dulled in the sun coming from my windshield and was now bright pink.

“No, junior prom date. She wasn’t a girlfriend.”

“Then why’d you keep this?”

“Because,” I told her, reaching for the nasty thing to take it out of her hand. “Teenage boys think shit that remotely implies you got laid is the coolest shit ever.”

“So you didn’t fuck her?” She nodded to the forgotten garter I’d tossed near the stack of crumpled newspaper and flattened boxes. “Miss Junior Prom?”

“Oh no, I totally fucked her. My first.”

Cara wrinkled her nose, muttering something low and offensive in Italian before she went back through the box, and I said a little prayer, grateful I’d convinced her to move back to Seattle to raise our baby. New York was a fine city, but it wasn’t home, and God knew there were too many criminals flitting in and out of her father’s home, even through the museum, to keep my mind clear of worry over her and the baby.

I shook away the thought of the life we could have had in New York and just watched her. God, she was beautiful. Her skin glowed, actually glowed, and I wondered if it was supposed to be that way. Did all pregnant women look that luminous? That beautiful? Was it hormones, or was it just sheer happiness that lit them up from the inside?

“What…” She pulled out the stack of letters, frowning, holding them in her lap so she could flip through them. They were labeled with her name but not addressed. “What is this?” she asked, holding up the thickest letter among the stack. “My name is on all of these.”

“It is,” I said, slipping closer to her. I fingered the corner of one yellowed envelope, then leaned back on my palms, watching my wife as she kept that frown hardened the more she fanned through the envelopes.

“When did you write them?”

It was embarrassing to admit, but there weren’t any secrets between us. You didn’t fall in love with a mafia princess and get away with keeping secrets. There were things I knew about her family, her father, thanks to the long conversations we’d had working on his anonymous real-crime biography, that would scare the most violent of thugs straight. Cara knew as much as I did. I knew the things she’d sworn she’d never tell a soul. This would be no different.

“When I got back to Seattle.” I shrugged, not bothered by her surprise. “If you want to read them, you can. But I gotta warn you, there’s a lot of anger and hurt in those letters. I hated you for a long fucking time.”

Cara’s face fell as she watched me, and the grip she held on the letters loosened the longer she stared, blinking, likely recalling everything we’d said and done and wanted for our lives before she got scared and I got stupid.

“I…I don’t think I wanna read about how much you hated me.” She closed her eyes, dropping the letters as she rubbed her face. “I’m sorry I…”

“Baby,” I said, stopping the apology before she could finish it. “I got shot at for you. I beat some asshole bloody for you, so did my brother and Dale. Hell, I married you twice and have spent hundreds of hours listening to your father talk about the shady shit he’s done in his life.” I pulled her close, draping one of her muscular legs over my thigh. “Monumental things, remember? Every one is for you.”

“Kiel,” she whispered, pulling my face close to take my lips. Her mouth was firm, and the seductive graze of her skin on mine made my chest constrict. Cara never failed to seep down inside me and squeeze my heart—in the best possible way. When she pulled back, soft fingers still against my face, my wife exhaled, giving her head a small shake. I didn’t know what she thought or what she wanted, but there was something sweet, something determined, glinting in her eyes.

“Monumental,” she repeated, running her thumbs over my cheeks. “This is it, isn’t it?”

“What?” I asked, holding her hand in place when she tried to move it away.

“Our forever.” She motioned around the room and to the small swell of her growing stomach. “You, me, and him. Is this it?”

“Yeah,” I told Cara, pulling her close. “This is the forever we’re making. It started a long time ago.”

“When you came back to me?” she asked, leaning against my chest. She played with the loosening collar of my T-shirt, and her warm breath flirted against my neck.

“No, baby,” I said, kissing her forehead. “Forever started the first day I saw you.” It had been in her modest office with the chestnut desk. There’d been a small mug of espresso in the center of that desk and nothing else. “You didn’t stand when I walked into the room, but you smiled at me, and that was enough.”

Cara sat up, watching me, her eyebrows pushed together and a faint line working between her eyes. “Enough for what?”

Head shaking, I brushed back the damp hair from her forehead and spent a few long seconds kissing her lips, never wanting it to end. “You. Me, Goddess,” I said, smiling at my beautiful wife for the monumental things we’d done and the greater one we were working toward. “You and me and forever.”

Thank you for reading TIED DOWN. We hope you loved Cara and Kiel as much as we do!

Don’t worry… There’s MORE to come. Johnny and Dale are too hot to not write their stories too! Want to know when their stories release?

If you loved Kiel, you’ll love his alpha older brother who’s good with his hands in .

Kit Carlyle isn’t just some woman. Beautiful? Yep. Seductive? Damn straight. She’s also my best friend and my co-worker. But, hell, I’m a guy with a pulse. Every once in a while, I take a look and think filthy things about her that maybe I shouldn’t.

But when her cousin dies and leaves her with a long as hell and sexy bucket list, Kit turns to me for a helping hand. What can I say? I’m a sucker for a woman in need. Besides, I’m damn sure not about to let another man steal away my girl, occupy her bed, or fill my shoes.

But as the stakes get higher and the items become hotter, I’ll have to face the toughest challenge of all: admitting I want more than Kit’s friendship. I want to make her mine.