Page 74 of Happily Ever After… Again and Again

Why the alpha hadn’t just made an excuse to sit and watch like Gideon had, he’ll never understand.

“Don’tdammit, Kittenme, Gideon Carnell. You’re getting soaked. What if you get what Tate has? What then? You are the most difficult patient,” Nix says over the steady beat of rain in the courtyard.

He pulls down the long white T-shirt he’s wearing over his belly before sticking his hand out from the cover of the porch.

“Hey! It’s warm!”

Gideon nods, suddenly overcome by the urge to see his kitten dancingin the rain.

Holding out his hand, he makes the come-hither wiggle of his fingers and Nix steps into the downpour with a peal of laughter.

Gideon almost can’t look at how beautiful Nix is, with water streaming down over his short brown hair, slick like a seal’s, and his bare, freckled face tipped up—turning his freckles into stars under droplets of water.

Mouth open, he sticks out his tongue. “Tastes weird,” he says with an adorable grimace.

“You’re not supposed to drink it, silly. There’s like…acid rain and shit.”

“You’re such a stick in the mud.” He spins in a circle before finding a shallow puddle to jump in with his bare feet. As if he could read Gideon’s mind from earlier(he can’t, right?), he murmurs, “Let’s dance.”

He licks rain off his lips and shimmies his shoulders, making eye contact that Gideon refuses to break. It’s a challenge, as most things are these days. They’re still figuring out how their dynamics play out—in the bedroom and in life—but more and more, Gideon is realizing that Nix loves to toe the line: to tease and taunt, to draw him out of his shell with laughter and silliness, to dare him to live out loud.

Nix turns in slow circles, breaking into a song Gideon doesn’t recognize. He begins to swivel his hips while raising his arms. It’s pure sensuality in every line as he tilts his head back, eyes closed, enjoying the rain on his face.

In the next moment, he opens those beautiful gray eyes and winks. “Don’t tell me you can’t dance, Gideon?” he teases.

It’s another challenge, so Gideon raises an eyebrow before showing him exactly how well Gideon can dance. The choreography is from a K-pop group’s latest choreography that Luca’s obsessed with.

When he’s done, Nix applauds. “Holy shit, that was awesome!”

“Mmm,” Gideon murmurs, before grasping Nix’s hand and twirling him around, careful of the rough stones under his mate’s feet.

So careful that he won’t lose his precarious, ever-shifting balance.

With his white T-shirt soaked through and raindrops caught in his lashes, he is the picture-perfect vision of joy.

Gideon’s joy.

“You can dance, Gideon! Ooh, that was so sexy. Who knew?” Nix giggles, turning in Gideon’s embrace and grinding his plump butt up against Gideon’s rapidly hardening dick.

“I’m not fucking you out here, Kitten.”

Or at all, sadly.

Finn said that it’s too close to the birth, and penetration is not approved for omegas in the last month. It’s proven difficult to convince Nix that he isn’t the exception to this rule, as he is to so many others.

“Pooh. Since when are you a rule follower?” Nix pouts and starts a slow twerk.

Gideon wishes it weren’t as arousing as it is hilarious. “When it comes to your health, I am followingallthe rules.”

He grabs his mate’s hips and spins him around, pulling him into a slow dance, humming under his breath.

Nix snuggles up as close as he can with their babies between them.

“Who taught you to dance like that?” Gideon asks, already knowing the answer.

“Luca, of course. He’s a good teacher of a lot of things. If you know what I mean. Wink wink, nudge nudge,” Nix says. His lips are pressed against his bond bite on Gideon’s throat—his vanilla-bread scent mixed with the fresh rain and his own stormy one.

“I certainly do,” Gideon whispers. “You two are double the trouble.”