Vaughn shook his head. “Never again,” he warned.

Darren nodded, biting his lip, probably to stop himself laughing. Asshole. “I always wanted a dog,” he announced finally.

“No. You’re joking.”

Darren held up a hand as Vaughn advanced toward him, edging him back and to the bed. “Okay, okay, I’m kidding.”

Too late. Vaughn had caught the teasing tone in Darren’s words, and he was going to pay for those words in the best way Vaughn knew how. Darren yelped when Vaughn pushed him back on the bed, laughed when he yanked at his clothes, and sighed audibly as he swallowed Darren whole in one quick move.

Having Darren bucking up into his mouth while gripping Vaughn’s hair was intense. He stopped his sucking and instead moved up his body until he could nestle between Darren’s spread thighs and kiss his lover senseless.

When they came up for air, they stared at each other for the longest time.

Vaughn could lose himself in Darren’s gray eyes forever. “Love you,” he whispered.

“Not as much as I love you.”

They kissed again, this time the caresses were soft, quiet, and Vaughn set a rhythm to have Darren spilling in his hands. Vaughn opened his eyes as Darren arched and came with pure, unadulterated passion in every line of him. Enough to have Vaughn finishing himself off on Darren’s smooth skin. They were in each other’s arms for the longest time before Vaughn knew exactly what he wanted. He grabbed lube and led Darren to the shower.

“Need you inside me,” he asked.

Vaughn started the shower and tested the temperature, making to step in, but stopped when Darren pulled him aside.

Darren cupped Vaughn’s face with his hands. “I can do that.”

And he did.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

The first week of August, work started on the planning for the old property, the same day that Sean turned up with a notebook and recorder to talk about weddings and all things gay.

That meant Riley was alone with Sean for the ten minutes it would take Jack to get back from the old house. Ten minutes to get Sean to reassure him how this was being done and how much exposure the Campbell-Hayes family would have.

“An article in the quality press. No TV, no audio. A one-off.” Sean summarized. He was a writer full-time now, of fiction and nonfiction. He was doing this article as a favor and because he honestly believed in the equality that had been handed down.

Jack arrived in a flurry of motion, put his hat on the table, some coffee in a mug, and wore intent written onto his expression. “How are we doing this?”

Sean chuckled. “I want to get your take on the vote. On what it means to you, how you think it will affect you, and I had another idea I wanted to run by you. I want to interview your family and friends and have their opinions and views about you and what you’re doing.”

“Really?” Jack sounded skeptical.

“Marriage equality isn’t only about the couples at the center of it. It’s kids, and parents, and adoption. The whole issue of what is and isn’t a nuclear family.”

“And you can do this?”

“I can,” Sean reassured. “First off, though, and I am asking this for Eden, not for me.” Sean shook his head. “What date is your wedding celebration? I should mention she’s already arranged three possible dates and somehow I need to get you to agree to one of them.” Sean was poised with his pen above the notebook, waiting for an answer. It wasn’t that Riley and Jack hadn’t considered a date, both had said September, but neither had suggested an actual date.

“We’re thinking about Anna and the baby being due in September. Maybe we should push this to October.”

“Eden already talked to Anna, who assures us that whatever date it is, even if she’s in labor, she’ll be there.”

Jack coughed a laugh and muttered, “Yeah, right,” under his breath.

Sean shrugged. “What can I say? The women in this family are crazy.”

“We’ll text you,” Riley said. This was something that needed deciding carefully.

“The nineteenth. Anna isn’t due until the end of September,” Jack said at the same time. Both Riley and Sean looked at Jack, who smiled enigmatically. “It’s an anniversary,” he said.

“Of what?” Riley had all the anniversaries in his phone. Their first marriage, the unofficial vows, the day they met…. What had he missed?

“When you did that thing.” Jack said.

He trailed off, and Riley frowned. What thing?

Sean coughed next to him, and the cough turned into a laugh.

“Jesus, guys,” he said. I don’t need details. All Eden wants is dates, and that’s one of the ones she had, because—”

Now it was Riley looking at a grinning Sean. “What? Because what?”

“Because she needs to pin down all the catering and—” He checked the list. “—tables and stuff.” He passed them a very long list, then cleared his throat. “Also,” he began with a red flush on his cheekbones, “she wants to get an idea if she needs to buy a looser dress because of the bump.”

Riley wasn’t following—then, all of sudden, he was. “Eden’s pregnant?” He leaned forward in his chair.

Sean nodded. “She’ll be—” He paused and closed his eyes. “—eighteen weeks by then.”

“And everything is okay?” Riley attempted to hold back his worry, but hell, that was his little sister, and after what had happened to Anna in February, his first instinct was panic.

“Everything is fine. We had a scan yesterday. She’s twelve weeks, and she was going to come with me to tell you, but there was some kind of funding crisis at the hospital.”

“Should she still be working there still?” Protective-big-brother mode kicked in with a vengeance. In Riley’s head he had his sister sitting somewhere with her legs up on a sofa, focusing completely on being pregnant. Not rushing around with her fundraising role.

Sean sighed. “She’s determined and stubborn, and focused.”

“But should she be—?”

“You can talk to her if you like,” Sean interrupted.

“You think I should?”

“I promise you, Riley, she’s well, everything is normal, all her tests are good, and the scan we had a few days back is of a beautiful baby.”

Riley nodded. He knew his sister well. That didn’t stop him worrying; it never would. He pulled out his cell as Sean and Jack talked.

“Why didn’t she tell me?” Riley asked softly.

Jack glanced at him, but Riley needed to know. He felt like he was outside the circle a little with this news.

Sean fiddled with the pen in his hand. “You are literally the first people we’ve told. Not my parents, or yours. She wanted you to know first, but she’s only just come to terms with it herself. We didn’t know ourselves until a couple of weeks back. She’d had the flu, or we thought it was the flu.”

“But she’s okay?”

Sean smiled. “She’s okay. Nauseous, but fine.”

Sean told us. Love you, little sis, he sent with a kiss. He didn’t have to wait long for the reply.

I love you too, big brother, she texted back, adding a kiss and a smiley face.

Take care of yourself. Riley reworded that quite a few times before sending.

Always, Uncle Riley.

Uncle Riley. That sounded good to hear that from her. He couldn’t be happier. He turned his attention back to Sean and Jack, who apparently at some point had stopped talking and were now staring at him with amused expressions on their faces.

“Better?” Jack teased.

“My baby sister is having a baby of her own,” Riley announced, realizing he was a little dazed.

Riley held out a hand to Sean, who took it, then the two men stood and hugged it out.

“Congratulations,” Riley said.

They sat down, and Sean began writing notes. “So, the nineteenth, then….”

The party for the twins was a joint affair between Cameron, who had turned one on August 1, and the twins who were two on the fifteenth.