Page 67 of Eternal Light (Fated in the Stars #5)

Luca pointedly doesn’t mention that he might also feel violent toward anything that made his baby cry. “Yeah,” he says instead.

“And today, I just need you,” Nix whispers. “You always make me feel like I can handle the hard stuff. Like, you believe I can do it, so I do.”

Luca’s heart swells with pride and joy. It sounds like something so simple—to just be where Nix can lean on him, and all he has to do is be himself. That is enough. That he is enough. “Yeah?”

“Of course. It’s part of what I love best about you. Next to your juicy butt, it’s my favorite thing.”

“Yeah, it is,” Luca replies, grinning. This time, he wasn’t agreeing about the butt—though it is objectively true, even covered in shorts as it is right now. No, he was agreeing about being exactly who Nix needed. About being proud of the person he is.

Lauren rolls up in a sleek black SUV, Winnie waving from the passenger seat. Luca stands so he can haul Nix to his feet, pulling him into a hug.

“Are you ready, baby?” he asks, brushing his mate’s pale cheek.

Nix slips a little yellow ribbon into their joined hands, the keys jingling softly between their palms. “Let’s do it,” he says, scent blooming sweet and surprisingly content.

Luca kisses his temple and nods.

Let’s do it .

Jay

They’d arrived back home, flying straight into the coldest winter Nashville had seen in fifty years, two days before Valentine’s Day.

The compound was just as they’d left it three weeks ago, Doodle and Domino greeting them like they were guests in their own home.

Frankie and Antonio had arrived shortly after they’d stepped across the threshold, claiming Tsuki wouldn’t come back into the house after doing her business, sitting by the car until they figured out she just wanted to go home.

She hadn’t wanted to leave Nix’s side, which had only made the onset of Gideon’s rut last night much trickier.

Antonio had chuckled when Jay met him at the door to pick her up again—not twenty-four hours later—with offers of help should they need anything over the next few days.

Jay couldn’t think of anything they might need, as his in-laws had stocked the fridge and cupboards full of ready-made meals that were easy on the stomach and eaten quickly.

Pulling out two boxes of maki, fresh-cut fruit, and some cheese, he places them on a tray before collecting some juice for Luca, who claimed it gave him the necessary energy to keep up with his soulmate.

Gideon had still growled and snapped when Jay crept out of the nest, but Jay should have known that decades of hypervigilance wouldn’t fade overnight. Ruts brought out their most base instincts, after all.

Finn and Rowan had proved helpful distractions, persuading the alpha that he’d much rather enjoy them than chase Jay down to the kitchen.

Flipping the lights on under the counters, Jay took a moment to stretch, rotating his still-sore shoulder and valiantly trying to ignore his sore ass. He pops open the carton of chocolate milk, and it is halfway to his mouth when he hears soft footsteps on the stairs.

“Jamie Rhodes, use a glass,” Nix said dryly, fetching one for him from the cupboard. There is a cartoon wolf on the side making a finger heart, and it was no bigger than the palm of his hand.

“Nix, come on.”

“No. If you’re going to drink out of the carton like a child, then you can use this very nice glass from Lauren. Be happy it’s not the new sippy cups she ordered for the girls. They have handles.”

He crosses his arms over his belly like a disapproving parent—and the move only highlights how beautifully disheveled he is: skin golden in the low light and smelling like pack. A well-satisfied pack, at that.

So Jay sucks it up, pours the milk into the cup, and, holding it between two fingers, shoots it back like a shot of tequila.

Nix laughs at how foolish he must look and gets him another, larger glass, pouring it full and slipping the carton back into the fridge.

“You are going to make a great dad,” Jay blurts out. He hadn’t intended to say it—he’d meant to compliment how beautiful his beloved looked, so well-loved and glowing. He blames Gideon for scrambling his brains ten minutes ago. “Fuck, I mean, you are so pretty.”

Tilting his head, Nix lifts himself onto the counter and pulls Jay in between his thighs. He hasn’t had the pleasure of making love to him since before they were on that rampart, and suddenly it feels like a lifetime.

“Oh, yeah, Big Daddy?”

The words send mixed signals to Jay’s brain and his cock—because Daddy means fucking and now, it’ll mean parenting.

“Okay, no. We have got to figure that out before they get here, baby boy, because that is messing with my brain-to-dick pathway,” he tells him, running his palms over Nix’s thighs, thumbs pressing into where they meet his groin just to hear him catch his breath.

Surprisingly, Nix sighs and nods, throwing his arms around Jay’s neck and pressing their foreheads together. “You are right. Hmmm. Have you thought about what you want to be called?”

Of course he had; he knew he didn’t want to be “Dad” the way his father had been.

It didn’t feel right. He was going to be a better father and mate than his sire had ever been, but Jay didn’t want to get into that in the middle of the night—when Gideon would be coming in search of them in the next ten minutes.

His hesitation alerts Nix that there may be more to this conversation, so his eyes narrow. “You can tell me anything, you know?”

Jay knows that. He knows now more than ever how lucky he is, and how close he came to losing it all. He understands what a gift this man is to him—to them—and he has plans to treasure him for the next hundred years, in this life and into the next.

But that doesn’t make telling him this secret any easier. “Well, actually…I like Big Daddy,” he says, so quickly and quietly that Nix doesn’t react right away.

“Did you just say that you want our children to call you Big Daddy?” he asks incredulously.

“Fuck. Yes, I do—but that means you and Luca absolutely can’t.”

Nix barks out a laugh, his expression full of surprise. “Okay. If you want that, then who are we to deny you this important thing?”

Huh. That was easier than Jay thought.

Big Daddy .

It had a sound to it that seemed right. Maybe the kids won’t call him that when they’re in their teens…fuck, that’s hard to imagine. But until then, Jay’s going to love every minute of it. He’s going to be a Big Daddy. The anticipation shoots a bolt of happiness straight to his heart.

Nix jumps off the counter and grabs Luca’s juice and a box of maki he’ll make Rowan feed him by hand. Walking backward toward the stairs, he grins.

“I think it makes sense, honestly. You are the big alpha around here—and you are BIG, if you know what I mean, Big Daddy? Wink wonk ,” he says, nodding toward Jay’s half-hard dick.

Jay cannot be blamed when he goes from half to full hardness at his beloved’s giggle and waggling eyebrows, because there is nothing sexier to him than a joyful mate causing trouble.

Seriously.

His house is full of sexy troublemakers—it’s like a requirement.

A gift he deserves, according to a higher power and one he’ll treasure for always.

Still, he plays his role, grabbing the tray as he shouts after his laughing mate, following him up the stairs two at a time, “You are in so much trouble, Nix Rhodes.”

“Bring it, Big Daddy,” he crows.

Oh, Jay plans to—tonight, and every night, until the end of time.