Page 128 of Bully for Sale

“All right.”

Ezer pulled Ned toward the door to their cottage, his smile growing. “Let’s do it.”

“Wait,” Ned said, pulling Ezer to a stop. “Why were you so angry then? When I got home? Why did you pull apart all those roses?”

Ezer’s eyes darted to the garden’s path and then back up again. “I want to try for a breeding.”

Ned’s head was shaking no before the meaning of the word even sunk in.

“The likelihood of twins happening again is—”

“I can’t lose you.”

Ezer’s smile was tender, and he touched Ned’s chin with the tips of his fingers. “I know. It’s scary. It’s a risk.”

“We have two sons. We don’t need more.”

“They’re betas. They can’t inherit.”

“I don’t give a damn. I’ll leave it all to them anyway.”

“That’s not how the law works, and you know it.”

“Let’s not argue,” Ned said. “You wanted to sign, and if we argue, you’ll change your mind.”

Ezer laughed again. The flowers in the garden bobbed their heads in the wind. “I’m not that changeable, Ned.”

“Okay, but I can’t. Not this time,” Ned said. “No breeding this time.”

Ezer tilted his head.

“You have a few more heats ahead. We can take them one by one. But please, Ezer. Not this time.”

“All right. We’ll wait. It’s not as if the heat won’t be fun without it.”

“More fun, even,” Ned said. “We can just play and not worry about the outcome.”

Ezer nodded. “‘Play’. I like the sound of that.”

In the cottage, sitting at the kitchen table, the tablet placed in the middle, they listened together to the terms of the marriage contract being read aloud. When it was done, and Ezer had no questions, he looked at Ned and said, “I choose you.”

Ned replied, “And I choose you, Ezer.”

Ezer then took up the tablet and added his signature next to Ned’s from two years prior.

He chose me.

Ned’s heart filled to bursting as Ezer kissed him.

The road tothe heat house by the ocean was familiar in a dizzy sort of way. Ezer wondered if they might have been better off taking Heath’s offer of his mountain cabin. Would the memories of their first heat here mix everything up for them? Would the horror and fear and rage come rushing back in like the tide?

But Ezer found his fear was groundless.

As the days slowly passed and the coming heat drew near, Ezer paced the beach missing his sons, and listening to the music of the waves and the seabirds. Earlier in the day, he’d felt the start of the first wave rising. He’d nearly forgotten the intense beauty of it. Closing his eyes, letting the sensation build and strain against his skin, he recalled that this was what he’d fought before.

But this time, he didn’t have to.

This time he could trust that his alpha would find him, take him to bed, and knot him until he couldn’t see straight.