Page 133 of Stand Your Ground

She nodded. “I want it, too, Carter. Besides… it would be a little strange for our baby to have to travel back and forth between two houses, wouldn’t it? Not to mention pretty exhausting for us.” She chuckled, maneuvering to sit up a bit more. She winced as she did. Her stomach was still just barely showing that she was pregnant, but she was feeling it more, and I reached out to help her get comfortable. “But that’s not the only reason I want to do it. I love you, Rook,” she said, looping her arms around my neck and giving me a swift peck on the lips. “I want to spend all the time I can with you.”

The sigh I let out was filled with relief.

“You act like you were worried I’d say no.”

“And you act like that’s unreasonable.”

She frowned, picking at her nails. “Well, that’s fair. But I’m in this. I’m with you.” She looked back at me. “And… I was thinking… what if we use some of the money from our deal for this?”

I blinked. We hadn’t talked about the money, not since that final payment hit her account. I was perfectly content to just leave it behind us. She’d more than fulfilled her part of the contract, and I was a happy customer.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean yes, I love your little home, but… let’s buy a new one. Together. One that’s ours.”

“Yeah?”

She nodded, smiling. “Yeah. Listen, that money is still going to be used for what I intended it to be used for — to set our kid up for life.” She rubbed her belly. “And this is step one of that.”

“I don’t know what I did in a past life to earn this one, but I really want to thank that motherfucker for doing it right.” I kissed her as she giggled against my lips, and then I was pulling her into my lap.

Instantly, my body reacted to her. If I thought Livia was hot before, it was nothing compared to now. There was just something about knowing she had my baby inside her that made me absolutely fucking feral.

I didn’t care how caveman that was of me, either.

I inhaled on a groan, deepening our kiss and wrapping my arms flush around her.

“You know,” she said against my lips, nipping at the bottom one. “We still haven’t broken that thing in yet.”

I arched a brow in question.

“The collar.”

Oh.

My cock twitched in my sweatpants, and Livia must have felt it, because her grin doubled, and the little vixen ground herself against me.

“Are you up for that?” I asked tentatively, though my body was screaming for me to run and grab that damn collar right now if it meant I got to be inside her tonight.

“I can’t think of anything I’d like more right now than to hold tight to that collar while I ride you.”

She hummed the words low in my ear before licking it from the lobe up, and I cursed, grip tightening on her hips.

And then I was up in a flash, spanking her ass playfully and sprinting to my bedroom for the collar. Zamboni scrambled at my urgency, giving us both a look before he huffed and waddled back to his dog bed in my room.

When I slid back into the living room on my socks, Livia was already naked, her sweats discarded, and she lay on her side like a Renaissance painting.

She was so beautiful it stopped me in my tracks.

I tracked every inch of her rich, velvety skin, from the slope of her nose to the small swell of her belly all the way down to the red polish on her toes.

“Fuck, Liv,” I breathed, shaking my head. “Look at you.”

“I’d rather look at you in that collar,” she said, curling her finger.

I took my time walking to her, and when she reached for the key around her neck, I held the leather in my hand out for her to unlock. It unfastened with a softsnick, and then Livia ripped it from my hand.

I saw it happen in real time, her slipping into her dominance.