Page 29 of Lieutenant

“Wait,what?”

He’s heading toward our bathroom. “What?” he calls back without turning.

I follow him. “That’sallthe conversation we’re having about this?”

“It was a yes or no question,pet. Is your answer still yes?”

“Well, yes, but—”

He turns, his expression now full of dark thunder. “Devotion,” he snaps.

I can’t help it—I drop into the formal bow right where I stand on the bathroom floor. My heart’s pounding in my chest even as my forehead presses against the cool tile.

I hear him moving around, the sound of him opening the medicine cabinet, taking something out.

The sound of something landing in the garbage can.

The bastard extraordinaire’s fist grabs my hair and wrenches my head back. In his other hand is the bathroom garbage can.

He tips it so that I can see inside it are my packages of birth control pills.

“When I flip you back to pet,” he softly growls, “and you don’t safeword, you donotfucking get to question me or forget to ‘yes, Sir’ me.” His tone sounds low, deliberate, threatening, andveryfucking sexy. “Do youunderstandme?”

“Yes, Sir.”

I’m…wet. I mean, I can feel my juices running down the insides of my thighs right there, and my clit is throbbing something crazy. We haven’t had any playtime in the past couple of weeks, and I know tonight all we’ll do is collapse in exhaustion.

But right now, if he wants to bend me over and fuck me…yeah. I’ll happily do it.

I forget how fucking hot it is when he forces me let go to him.

How much I want andneedthis from him sometimes. Ineedthe bastard extraordinaire, and I’d be lying if I denied it.

Thisis what I can’t get with Owen, because Owen doesn’t have a bastardly cell in his body, much less a bastardly bone.

Although the bone he does have is very, very nice.

“Iwill handle Owen,” Carter says. “If you’re changing your answer to no, then tell me now.”

“I…” I swallow, trying to figure out how to phrase it. “Not changing my answer, Sir, but I’m not giving up my current office or my career.”

“I’m not asking you to give up politics, pet.” He chuckles. “We’rehere. We’ve done it. But when I sat down and thought about it this morning, I realized how much time has passed, and how old we’re getting.”

His grip in my hair gentles and he sets the garbage can aside to sit on the floor with me with a soft, pained grunt. “If we’re going to have kids, we should probably have them sooner rather than later.” With his free hand, he brushes the hair away from my face. “At Ease,” he softly says.

I rise into the position. Like this, I’m looking into his eyes.

“I’ll talk to Owen,” he says. “I’ll handle itmyway. We’re not kids just starting out now. We’ll figure it out, how to juggle everything. If he’s okay with me being listed as their father on their birth certificates, then we’ll do it. I really think he will. Back then, I honestly don’t think he could have handled it. But we’re all older and tougher now.”

“Time is never our friend, and it’s never on our side,” I say. It’s one of Daddy’s favorite sayings, and Carter knows that. “And take time to make time, or we’ll regret it.” That was one of Nana’s favorite sayings.

He knows that, too.

Carter slowly nods as he smiles. “Exactly.”

I study him for a moment. “Is this about what happened at the school, Sir?”

I don’t have to clarify. He damn well knows what I mean.