“Yeah, baby?” I asked as I eased my hands under her shirt so I could finally get my hands full of her breasts. They were different and I wanted to get my hands on them.

“I need you to touch my boobs,” she said in a throaty plea.

“Yeah, I need that too,” I replied, unable to keep the smile out of my voice.

“And I need you to make love to me,” she finished.

I cupped her ass and picked her up. She wrapped her arms and legs around me and kept kissing me. I was going to take her inside or to the barn—I wasn’t sure which was closest.

“No. Here. I can’t wait,” she said, tugging on my shirt as her legs slid back down my body.

“Here?” I asked.

She managed to pull my shirt off, and her mouth was on my left nipple as a small moan escaped her and I decided that right there was a pretty damn good spot.

I reached for her shirt. She lifted her arms and stopped flicking her tongue over the small metal bar in my nipple just long enough for me to get her topless.

I unsnapped her bra and slid it off her arms in one swift movement. Taking both of her shoulders, I held her back and took in the sight of her high, heavy breasts sitting over her now round stomach. She was beautiful. Perfect. And mine. All mine.

“I need time with those,” I said, looking at her breasts.

“Good, but let’s do that after I have you inside me,” she said, reaching for my sweats and slipping her hand inside to wrap her hands around me.

“Anything you want. Anything you fucking want,” I groaned.

*

A couple of hours later we’d managed to sate ourselves enough to make it back inside the house. Eva was curled up naked against my chest on the sofa, and we had the blanket pulled over both of us. Her eyelids were growing heavy as I played with her hair. There was a lot that needed to be done outside. Jeremy had made a list for me. But it wasn’t getting done today.

“I wasn’t sure what her middle name needed to be. But since her last name is going to be York, can we let her middle name be Brooks?”

I smiled and bent my head to kiss her neck. “Yes, I like it.”

“Bliss Brooks York,” she said with a pleased sound. “That way, she’ll have both of our last names.”

I froze. Both of our last names.

Eva’s last name hadn’t been something I’d been thinking about. I had been so focused on getting her back, I hadn’t thought about much else. I had always planned on marrying Eva. She was my always. But I knew it would be later. After school. After I had a job to support a family.

I slid my hands down over Eva’s stomach. I was about to have a family. Things weren’t exactly playing out in the order I imagined them. “I don’t even know her due date,” I said more to myself than Eva.

“March seventeenth,” she replied, laying her hands over mine.

We had three months before we became parents. I wasn’t going to let my baby be born into this world without her momma’s last name being York. But I needed a plan. Eva deserved something special.

“Cage?”

“Yes?”

“Will you cut us down a Christmas tree. We need one right over there in that corner.”

I loved that she had said us. “Of course. I’ll do it today.”

“Thank you. I’ll make you cookies,” she replied.

I moved my hands up to cup her breasts. “I like cookies, but I can think of a few parts of your body I’d rather eat,” I replied.

Eva shivered against me. “Okay. It’s a deal.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

EVA

Cage had to work extra hard to catch up on the work he didn’t get done the past two days. Between me begging him for sex and him happily obliging and our picking a tree and decorating it, he’d had very little free time.

Jeremy was coming back today. He’d texted Cage last night to tell him that he’d be here late, but he’d be here. Cage had mentioned we needed to hire someone else and let Jeremy go. I agreed. He shouldn’t have to continue working here. Not if he wanted to do other things.

It was just after nine when Jeremy’s truck came rolling over the hill and across the field. He was a good man. Daddy was right about that. I loved him and I wanted him to find happiness. I wanted him to fall in love with a girl who couldn’t imagine life without him. It would happen. I knew it would.

He wasn’t Josh, but he looked just like him, and Josh had been beautiful. Jeremy was just as special. His truck stopped, and he stepped out then headed toward where I stood under the magnolia tree beside the porch.

“From the smile on your face, I think I stayed gone long enough for you two to fix things,” he said as he put his hat on his head.

“Yes. Thank you. For everything. Thank you.”

Jeremy grinned and then turned his head to spit out that nasty tobacco I wish he’d stop dipping. “You’re welcome. For everything,” he replied. “I figure Cage York ain’t gonna let you get too far out of his reach again. I hope you get everything in life you want, Eva. You deserve it.”

“You too, Jeremy. You too.”

He straightened his hat and looked out at the barn. “I’d hug you, but I gotta go work with your man today, and he’s watching me right now like he might need to come up here and beat my ass at any second.”

I glanced back and, sure enough ,Cage was standing beside his truck with his hands on his hips and his hat pushed back off his forehead, a piece of straw sticking out of his mouth. He looked like a television ad for sexy cowboys. I blew him a kiss and laughed.

He shook his head and grinned before shooting Jeremy one more pointed look. Then he turned and walked over to the barn door. “Don’t see a ring on your finger. Thought I’d see one of those when I got back.”

I glanced down at my hand. I hadn’t expected Cage to purpose to me. “Why would you think that?”

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe because you’re pregnant with his baby,” Jeremy shot back.

Cage wasn’t like that. He hadn’t grown up thinking the way Jeremy and I had been taught. I wanted to believe one day Cage would ask me to marry him, but after the way I’d treated him and hadn’t trusted him, I doubted he would be trusting me with something that big for a while. I was okay with that. I understood.

“I just took another man’s ring off a few days ago, Jer. I don’t think he’s ready to stick his on there. He looks tough and he acts like a badass, but he is fragile. He expects people to leave him. He also doesn’t trust that I won’t leave him again. I have a lot of proving to do before Cage trusts me with something like forever.”

Jeremy frowned. “Really? You’re now taking the blame for all this? How the hell did that happen?”

Jeremy wouldn’t understand. No one had seen Cage with his guard completely down. I’d only seen it a few times myself. “I can’t blame him for his insecurities. His momma screwed him up emotionally. I knew that, and I didn’t stop feeling sorry for myself long enough to think about that.”

Jeremy shook his head, but he didn’t say anything else about it.

“I’m gonna help him find a replacement. Then I’m hitting the road.”

“Where are you going? I thought you didn’t want to go to school, that you wanted to stay here on the land?”

He nodded. “I did. I’ll be back. But right now I want to just ride. Go see other places. Not settle down anywhere, just find myself.”

I wasn’t sure what to say. I wanted him to be happy, but I didn’t want to be the reason he was leaving.

“Let me go help him before he decides to come get me,” he said with a wink, then headed down to the barn.

He seemed happy. This was what he wanted to do. Maybe he’d find that girl to make him complete out there on the road. Once he opened the barn door, I turned and headed back inside.

CAGE

Jeremy walked into the barn, looking pissed. “Why don’t she have a ring on her finger, York?”

I grabbed my work gloves from the bench I’d left them on earlier. “I’m working on that. Not that it’s your damn business.”