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Santo - 1 day

In the end, it wasn’t exactly complicated, but it was more widespread than any of us had realized.

While Aurelio, Nino, and Lucky wrangled David into a chair for ‘questioning,’ Mass and I brought up the footage of the shop.

We rewound to see Aurelio looking around the shop, moving to glance out the window, likely looking for Dasha. She’d been running late.

As I watched, I regretted not waking her up before I left. Sure, something might have still happened to her, but it was less likely that she would be alone for it to happen.

Switching camera feeds, we checked out the inside of the garage.

I saw the exact moment David made the decision to leave, to track down and attack Dasha.

His gaze kept slipping to her empty office, his jaw twitching. Then he was gone.

Going back further, we watched cars come into the bays.

Two seemed legitimate.

Three were gone before a mechanic did so much as pop the hood. What they did do, though, was open the back doors of each of the cars.

The camera didn’t quite catch anything being put in the cars. But any idiot could draw conclusions.

The thing was… it wasn’t like it was just David running an operation. It was all of them. All of the mechanics were involved.

After some light interrogation of David, we got the name of his contact in Mexico and Columbia, found out their arrangement, and learned that Phil had started his little side hustle a few years before.

The shop had been struggling. He’d been falling behind on his mortgage. And, on top of all of that, he had been noticing a decline in his health. It was confirmed by his doctor that not only was it his blood pressure and cholesterol he had to worry about, but also advanced heart disease and a fatty liver.

It seemed like he thought there wasn’t much time nor anything to lose.

When he found out that a couple of his mechanics were low-level drug dealers, he got an idea.

Once he made contacts in Mexico, he sold his beloved vintage Mustang for a couple hundred grand, ordered his car parts and cocaine, and became a drug kingpin.

It scaled up quickly, making Phil decide not only to use his shop to continue dealing, but to reach out to many other drug-dealing organizations across the state.

In the end, it didn’t seem like David deliberately killed Phil.

Apparently, the two of them hadn’t been getting on for a long time, with David feeling like he was owed more than he was getting and Phil freezing him out more and more.

The day of his death, the two of them had a screaming match that had almost come to blows.

David said he’d stormed out.

And maybe he had. Maybe Phil, his blood pressure up from the argument, had started to feel shitty, gotten in his car to go home or to the hospital, and simply had the heart attack the police and medical examiner assumed.

For the sake of sounding like a good person, I’d like to say that David breathed another day. But he’d attacked Dasha. Twice. He was connected to dangerous people.

He had to go.

And while Dom volunteered to handle the body, I walked out of the storage unit he was dead inside to make my way across the docks toward the one full of cocaine.

Because there was something still nettling me.

The garage totes from the day before.

The ones that felt different.

Dante was already there, leaning back against the container. “You’re curious too, huh?” he asked.

“Gotta have the whole story to give to Dasha when I go home.”

“Minus the whole killing a man thing.”

“Well, I can’t tell her what we did.” The Family was big on plausible deniability. We never wanted the women or kids getting caught up in any possible legal issues because they knew more than they should. So while many of them assumed and drew conclusions, we never confirmed if we could help it. “But I think she’s smart enough to know she never has to worry again. Let’s check this shit out,” I said as Dante handed me gloves, then slipped his own on.

We made our way into the unit, the late evening sun brightening the inside just enough that we didn’t need a light source.

I grabbed the lid of the closest tote from the day before, whipping it off, and let out a low curse.

“Fuck,” Dante said as well.

There weren’t baggies full of white crystals inside like with all the first totes.

No.

This one was absolutely fucking packed with cash.

Stacks upon stacks of money.

Dante reached in, grabbing a stack and fanning it.

“Tens and twenties. Mostly twenties. That makes this, what?” he asked, trying to measure the size of the container.

“It’s easily five hundred k to two million.”

“Even if all the ones yesterday were only a million…”

“It’s a shitload of money.”

And we still hadn’t cleared out all of the units. No matter what was in them—cash or drugs—it was going to be a fuckton of money making its way to Dasha, even after the South American crew was paid.

“You got yourself a sugar mama,” Dante said.

I didn’t give a fuck about the cash.

But I was happy for Dasha.

And whatever she wanted to do with that money.

“Speaking of, I’m gonna go get home to her.”

I snapped the lid closed on the tote.

All of that shit could be dealt with another day.

Dasha had been hanging out with my mom and brother all day.

I wanted to get home to her.

I wanted to tell her it was all over.

There were still things to do. Employees to fire. Cocaine to sell to an established kingpin. Money to count and hide.

But it could all wait.

I wanted to have a quiet night at home with my girl.

Dasha - 1 week

“What is it?” I asked. I looked between Santo and Luca, who were leading me into a building at the docks.

I hadn’t even been able to take in the scale of their operation—the hundreds or maybe even thousands of shipping containers piled all around, the men milling about working, the forklifts, the freighters pulling up and waiting to be unloaded—before they ushered me inside, then back into a windowless room featuring a long table.

And on that table?

Money.

Just piles and piles and piles of money.

“Is that real?” My voice gasped out of me as my brain refused to compute the amount that was laid out before me.

“It is,” Luca said.

“We checked every single bill to make sure,” Santo added.

“What… how… who…” Not a single thought was completing itself in my mind.

“What… about sixty million. Who… it’s all yours. And how, well,” Santo said, reaching for something in his pocket and then handing me an envelope. “This will explain it all much better than I can.”

“What is it?” I asked.

My name was scrawled on the front in blocky penmanship.

“It’s a letter from your uncle explaining everything.”

I barely got one sentence in before I found myself sinking into one of the seats around the table. A mix of shock and grief tore through me as I read my uncle’s words.

He recalled me coming to live with him, how my presence had given him a purpose his life had never had before. How sad he was to see me go, but how thankful he’d been for our time together.

He maybe had some choice things to say about my father that—while harsh—were valid.

And those feelings about my father were what eventually fueled his goal in life.

Not necessarily to leave me a crumbling house and a repair shop he knew I’d have no passion for.

But the ability to never have to worry about money again, to be so wealthy that I could simply live a life of leisure and pleasure.

He’d confessed to some greedy motivations—paying off his house and the mortgage on the shop. But everything beyond that went to reinvesting in more drugs… or piling cash up to let me inherit.

He begged me to not tell the police since ‘all the crimes are done, and if you’re reading this, the guiltiest party is already dead.’

Then he demanded I sell the shop and distance myself from David and the mechanics because he had lost a lot of trust in them over the years.

‘Most of ‘em are just idiots. But David can’t be trusted.’

Boy, did that part prove true.

“We think he was divesting,” Santo told me after I finished reading. I reached up to wipe a tear off my cheek.

I didn’t know my uncle well. I was embarrassed to admit that I hadn’t even given him much thought in the past few years. While he’d been working hard to secure an easier future for me.

“What do you mean?”

“From what we can tell from our records, he got a shipment roughly every four months. But there was no shipment before he died. And there should have been,” Luca explained.

“That’s why most of the units were full of cash instead of drugs,” Santo said. “He was done and just wanted to sell off the rest of the product and move on.”

“But David and the other mechanics…”

“Yeah, I don’t know what his plan was for them when he stopped importing, when there was nothing else to cut them in on. He passed before it came to that.”

“I can’t… I can’t wrap my head around this.”

“It’s a lot to take in,” Santo said, coming up behind me to rub my shoulders.

“The drugs are gone?” I asked. I’d been worried about those since I first found them. I didn’t want to be connected to them. And I didn’t want Santo or his Family to be connected with them either.

“They’re sold. Because we were transferring any potential problems with the suppliers to the new dealer, we took a bit of a hit.”

“A bit of a hit?” My voice choked out of me. Sixty million dollars was a bit of a hit?

“I think you’ll still be able to feed yourself,” Santo teased.

“I don’t… where can you even keep this much money?”

“Well, that’s the part where the shop comes into play.”

“You mean… money laundering.” The words felt funny on my tongue.

“Not for all of it, obviously. This is too much. But you can learn to pay for everyday essentials in cash. But you can fix the books at the garage to have it seem like more is coming in than there is. Which would allow you to take some of that money and put it in banks or investments. We always recommend investments. Other businesses or stocks. Multiple layers of separation between the dirty money and you is always a good idea.”

“My head is spinning.”

“It’s not as complicated as it sounds. But it does give you things to think about.”

“Like what?”

“Like how you want to invest. If there are businesses you’re passionate about that you’d like to open,” Luca said.

“And if there are charities you want to give to,” Santo added. “I won’t lie to you; things are going to be a little complicated and confusing for a while. But I’m right here. I will walk you through it all.”

That was all I needed to feel my anxiety slip away.

Santo would be there.

That was all that mattered.

Everything else would fall into place.

Eventually.

Santo - 1 month

The repair shop was a whole new place.

Not just because the entire staff had been fired and replaced with mechanics that weren’t drug dealers, but also treated Dasha not just with respect, but fondness.

She’d been firm about not wanting to sell the shop. Now or ever. It was her uncle’s pride and joy for his whole life. She wanted his legacy to live on.

But she did want it to be a nicer-looking legacy.

The first stacks of cash she spent went to updating the waiting room, bathroom, and office. And adding a small, well-stocked break room for the employees.

“Oh, Dasha,” the receptionist called in a singsong voice after hitting the intercom into Dasha’s office. “Your gorgeous man is here for you.”

“Oh, yeah? Which one?” Dasha asked, tone playful, knowing she was on speaker. “I’ll be right out.”

A few minutes later, she was. Wearing one of her new sundresses that she hid in a garment bag in the closet so she could ‘surprise’ me with them. This one was covered in brightly colored flowers and showed a generous amount of cleavage.

“Sorry. I was dealing with a… staffing issue.”

“What kind of staffing issue?” I asked, body tensing. We’d worked hard vetting the new mechanics.

“Apparently, we have two full-grown men who both need to attend an adult Easter egg hunt on the same day. Yes, really,” she said with a smile before I could ask if I’d heard her right. “So I was trying to figure out who to move around. In the end, I decided we are just going to have a paid day off that day.”

I loved her compassion and generosity.

Aside from a new car, repairs at the shop, and a few new clothing items, her money had been funneled toward great healthcare plans for her employees and charities for elders. She hadn’t solved the scheduling issue by just telling someone ‘too bad, you have to work’ or by closing the shop and making everyone lose a day of income.

She was a great boss.

And the shop was in the black again.

Though, if you looked at the books, they were cooked enough to make it seem like it was doing even better than that.

Dasha had made plans on how to slowly invest her money. It was going to be a long time before most of that money was ‘clean,’ but with David dead and the other mechanic dealers now working for someone else, there was really no worry about anyone finding out where her money came from.

Even if someone came in and accused the shop of being a drug front, all evidence pointed to things changing almost as soon as the business came into Dasha’s hands.

“I’m not ready for this,” Dasha admitted as I led her out to the car.

“Not ready for what?”

“Meeting your family.”

“Baby, you’ve already met my family,” I reminded her. All my brothers and my mother, at least. And several of the cousins.

“I know. But this is the official meeting.”

That was true.

We were heading over for dinner at my mother’s house.

Normally, my mother never would have let a full month pass without demanding I be at her table. Especially if she knew I had a woman in my life.

That said, given the craziness of the situation, my mother had been surprisingly gracious, giving us time to just be together and recover from the whole thing.

Plus, I mean, she’d gotten a chance to meet Dasha when she’d come to her rescue, swinging a skillet.

“You remembered to grab my pie, right?” Dasha asked, tensing in the passenger seat.

“Of course,” I said. I reached over to give her thigh a squeeze.

“And you’re sure that was the best version of the recipe?”

As soon as she’d heard we were going to my mom’s for dinner, she’d been working on perfecting her apple pie recipe. Quite frankly, I was pretty sick of apples at that point. But even I had to admit that she had perfected the recipe.

“It’s perfect. Everyone is going to love it. And you. You have nothing to worry about. Besides, it’s too late to go back,” I told her as we pulled up my mother’s driveway.

“Oh, wow, she really does love to garden,” Dasha said. She was leaning forward to look out the windshield at my mother’s sprawling gardens. “I think we need more flowers,” she decided as we climbed out of the car. “We have mostly shrubs.”

We.

She used that word a lot.

And each and every time, it made a warm sensation move across my chest.

“Trip to the garden center this weekend?” I asked.

“We could invite your mom.”

“Sure we could. She will take over and dictate what we buy, though, just a warning.”

“That’s okay.”

“And then ask you how many babies you want and when you’re going to give them to her.”

“Well, they are definitely part of the plan. But we should probably, I don’t know, paint the extra bedrooms before we stick any babies in them.”

“Probably smart,” I agreed. “And we can always remind her that we aren’t married. Yet,” I said, watching as Dasha shot me a hopeful smile.

“True. And we can drag out the wedding planning for a long time as we continue to practice making those babies.”

“Keep looking at me like that and I’m gonna say Fuck dinner and drag you home to bed instead.”

But there was no time to make that decision.

The door opened. And there was my sister, Valley.

“She made ravioli,” she said, passing Dasha a glass of wine. “Apparently, it’s a ‘thing’ for you two. And I’m not at all upset that I didn’t get to meet you first. Or second. Or fifth or sixth. I mean Dom got to meet her first?” Valley asked, giving me a pointed look.

“To be fair, Dom broke into my house the night he met her first,” I told her.

“He crashed dinner tonight too,” Valley said, swinging the door wider to reveal Dom standing in a window.

“What is he doing?”

“Watching the birds at the feeder,” Valley said, lips twitching.

Beside me, Dasha was slowly relaxing. The women in our family had that ability. To make you just immediately feel like part of the fold, like you’d been there all along.

“Oh, you baked,” Valley said, looking at the pie in Dasha’s hands. “Mom’s gonna love you. Come on. Let’s go give it to her.”

With that, she was led away from me and taken into the kitchen.

“Don’t worry. Traveler is in there,” Massimo said, speaking of August’s woman. “She’ll make sure Dasha is comfortable. Whoa, little man,” Mass said, reaching down to scoop up Judah—Nino and Claire’s toddler—right before he made a grab for one of Ma’s ceramic vases. He flipped the toddler upside down, getting little squeals of glee out of him. “Oh, I know that look,” Mass said as he swung Judah side to side for a second before flipping him and setting him back on his feet. “Picturing having one of your own already?”

“One… six…” I said, getting a laugh from Mass.

“She on the same page?”

“She was an only child. She’s excited to be part of a big family. And have one herself. Eventually.”

“Yo,” Dante said. He came up, passing beers around. “I got in touch with Mark Mallick. He said he can get the yard all fixed up at Phil’s old place. And he recommended someone to fix the foundation.”

It hadn’t been a hard decision to sell Phil’s place.

It was too small for us to even think of moving into it. Besides, everything Dasha owned was now in my place. Her cutesy little mugs were in the cupboards. Her bunny lamp was in the living room. The pink couch had made it into one of the extra bedrooms.

“I mean, chances are, we will have a little girl one day. We will need somewhere to sit and read to her. It’ll be perfect,” Dasha had said as the movers carried it up the steps.

But to sell Phil’s place, we had a lot of work to outsource. We’d personally gone in to remove all of the paperwork, wanting to go through it all to make sure nothing linked back to the cocaine, shipping containers, or storage units that were all now closed.

Dasha had also taken one of those singing fish plaques back to our house, keeping it in the garage—where she claimed she would always think of her uncle most.

“Hey, look,” Dasha said, coming out of the kitchen with a small plant held between her hands like her greatest treasure. “Your mom gave me one of her spider plant babies!”

She was fucking beaming, clearly seeing the offering like a representation of my mom’s approval. And it was. My mom didn’t give her plant propagations to just anyone.

“I did explain my limited plant skills, so she said she would pop in now and then to check on it.”

“Don’t let her fool you. That’s just an excuse for her to stop in and ask you when we’re going to be getting married.”

“I mean, it would have to be a spring wedding, wouldn’t it?” she asked, eyes going dreamy, and I just knew she was picturing the flowers, the table linens, the rustic barn venue she learned that Matteo ran.

“Spring sounds good to me,” I agreed, taking the plant as she passed it to me.

“I have to go help make the garlic knots.”

With that, she was gone, leaving Dante and Massimo smirking at me.

“Spring, huh?” Mass asked. “Guess you better start looking for a ring then.”

Dasha - 1 year

“Thank you so much for this,” I said as I approached Antony at the end of the hallway.

I’d spent the whole morning in the bridal suite with all of the Grassi women. It had been loud and full of laughter and so, so perfect.

We’d sipped champagne, pinned flowers to the hair of the flower girls and to the chests of the ring bearers. We put them in our own hair.

They helped me zip up my gown—white, of course, but it had a pretty pastel flower pattern as well.

When I’d mentioned to Santo roughly a year ago that I was picturing a spring wedding, I hadn’t exactly expected for it to be the very next spring. But now that it was here, it felt so right.

There was no reason to wait.

We’d both known our road was going to lead here eventually. Almost from the moment we’d met.

“Oh, sweetheart, you have nothing to thank me for,” Anthony said, offering me his arm. I slid mine into his and his free hand came up to hold my arm, giving it a reassuring squeeze. “I never got to have a little girl of my own. Nothing makes me happier than to get to walk you down the aisle.”

I shot him a smile, my eyes watering.

My own family, small as it was, decided not to make the international trip for the wedding. And while I wasn’t surprised, I had to admit it stung. But the love of Santo’s family—soon to be called my own—was a balm. Soothing and healing.

I would never again have to worry about there not being someone there for me. I had dozens of new loved ones to lean on, to rely on to be there for important moments.

“Hey, none of that.” Antony reached into his pocket for a handkerchief, dabbing under my eyes. “At least not until Santo gets to see how beautiful you look.”

I blinked the rest of the tears away.

“Let’s officially go make you my niece,” he said, giving my arm another squeeze, then leading me up toward where the Grassi bridesmaids were waiting to start down the aisle.

I expected to feel nerves when the music signaled our turn to make our way to the altar.

But all I felt was a marrow-deep sort of rightness .

Everything in this life—my early losses, my lonely childhood, my disappointing family life, my bad choices in men, my move across the country, and all of that fear and uncertainty and nail-biting scenarios that came with—had been nudging me here.

Right here.

To this very moment.

As I looked down the aisle to see Santo standing there in his tux, looking as emotional as I felt.

My heart doubled in my chest as Antony led me down toward my future husband, pausing to kiss my cheek as he gave me away.

“Last chance to run away,” Santo teased, eyes watery as he took my hands.

“Nah. You’re stuck with me now.”

“Thank God,” he said.

Then we turned to the preacher.

Santo - 12 years

I leaned down to snatch a tricycle off of the front path, taking it back to the garage as the sound of laughter drifted toward me from the backyard.

My lips curved up, never sick of that sound. The belly laughs, the squeals, the tap of little feet? It was all music Dasha and I danced to every day.

I made my way through the back gate to see our four youngest out in the yard, three of them playing on the massive playground their grandmother had given them as a gift.

The youngest, though, was standing over a toy truck we’d bought. It was one where you could pop the hood and take out the engine parts. It came complete with a toolkit and everything.

That was a gift from the mechanics at Phil’s when they’d found out Dasha had been pregnant the first time. It was a toy that had interested only our eldest. And now, our youngest.

She stood there in front of the popped hood, hands on her hips, staring down at the engine.

“What seems to be the problem here?” I asked as I walked up.

“Da oil,” she declared, grabbing the dipstick and pulling it out. Then, I shit you not, wiping the damn thing, then setting it back in. “There.”

“All fixed?” I asked.

“Yep.”

“What do I owe you?”

“Fifty-hundred.”

“Fifty-hundred? For an oil change? What kind of racket are you running?” I asked. “How about one hug instead?” I asked, holding out my arms.

She walked right into them, letting me lift her up and swing her around. Until the other kids caught sight of me and ran over to say hi as well.

Dasha and I had gotten busy on the baby-making pretty immediately after the wedding. Then she’d popped them out all in quick order.

“I’m gonna go see what Mommy is up to,” I said. But they were already taking off on some new adventure.

I made my way in the back door, finding our eldest, a boy that looked almost identical to how I had in pictures at the same age, sitting at the kitchen table, pieces of a model car spread all across the wood.

His brow was furrowed and his lips curled inward in concentration.

“Hey, bud,” I said, rubbing his head in passing, knowing better than to interrupt him when he was working on his cars. He had a whole acrylic showcase in his room full of them.

“Hey you,” Dasha said, shooting me a smile over her shoulder as she stirred sauce on the stove.

“Your kid out there tried to rake me over the coals for a makeshift oil change,” I told her, coming up behind her. “Didn’t even use a rag to check the dipstick or anything. Just wiped it right on her pretty dress.”

“She is the strangest mix of me and her Uncle Phil,” Dasha said, leaning back into me, her eyes drifting closed.

“Long day?” I asked, nuzzling into her neck.

“ Your children…”

“Uh oh. It’s never good when they’re just my children. What’d they do?”

“Oh, the usual antics. Only one of them found that damn fish plaque in the garage and decided to put new batteries in it.”

“That thing can’t possibly still work.” It had been old when she’d inherited it from Phil.

“Oh, it still works. And the kids have really taken to that damn song it sings. Did you know that if you hit the button under the fish over and over, it makes it sing the song faster and faster until it sounds like chipmunks? Because I now do.”

“That why you shooed ‘em outside?”

“It was that or murder the fish,” she said, letting out a little laugh.

“What are you making?” I asked.

“Just some simple—“

“Hello, hello!” my mom’s voice called from the front of the house.

“G-ma!” our son declared, shooting out of his chair, his model car forgotten.

By the time they came into the kitchen, my mom had her arm around our son’s shoulders.

“Oh, no. I’m too late,” she said, looking over at us.

“Too late for what?” I asked.

“I was going to take the kids out to eat. Give you two some time off.”

“Not too late. Not too late at all,” Dasha said, flicking the flame off under the pot she’d been stirring.

To that, my mom gave her a smile and a head nod. “I remember those days. What do you say to me taking them out to eat and then over to my place for a sleepover?”

“I say you’re an angel among us and just give me five minutes to pack their bags,” Dasha said, already heading upstairs to collect the kids’ pajamas, toothbrushes, and special toys.

“Why don’t you go tell your brothers and sisters,” my mom said, rustling my son’s hair. He rushed out to do just that, and a chorus of squeals could be heard through the walls. “Five kids is a lot,” she said, nodding with the memory of raising so many small kids herself. “But you know what’s better? Six.”

“Your answer to us needing a little break from five kids is to add another on top of them all?”

“Six is just such a nice, even number.”

“Speaking of six children, shouldn’t you be pestering the other five you have about making more grandbabies?”

“Well, today is your day, not theirs,” she said with a light in her eyes that said she wasn’t even joking.

“Is there some sort of competition between you and Aunt Adrian over who has the most grandchildren or something?” I asked.

“Of course not. Though, I do think I would be winning…”

“Okay. We’ve got toothbrushes, pajamas, toys, favorite books, and even a couple of tablets if you need a break,” Dasha said, making her way back into the kitchen with five of the backpacks that my mother had bought each of the kids solely for the purpose of sleepovers at her house.

“You are a doll,” my mom told her, taking all the backpacks just as the kids started rushing toward the back door. “Now, stick that sauce in the fridge, order in something, and have a nice, quiet night alone. Just the two of you. Privately.”

With that, any possible future conversation was drowned out by the kids and their little demands of what to get for dinner, what to play when they got to her house, how late she was going to let them stay up.

“She really is incredible with them,” Dasha said as she watched my mom lead all the kids back out the same way she’d come in just moments before.

“She is,” I agreed. I mean, as soon as my brothers started to settle down, she’d sold her trusty sedan and replaced it with a minivan that was big enough to seat seven passengers—aside from herself. More than enough, so far, to pack any one set of grandchildren inside.

She also had multiples of each different car seat and booster to make sure everyone was safe while in her care. And that wasn’t even to mention that she’d bought little plastic craft containers with compartments that she filled with snacks for car rides or park trips. Or that she’d converted her entire basement into a child’s wonderland. Or had taken CPR, first aid, and child development classes.

She was Super Grandma. And we were beyond blessed to have her assistance when we occasionally needed an extra set of hands. Or a break.

“That’s gotta cool before we can stick it in the fridge,” I said, giving the sauce a stir. Hey, we had half of dinner ready for the next day. That was a win. “What do you want to order?”

“Anything that I don’t have to cook,” Dasha said, leaning her head against me. “I’m going to go sit in the living room while we wait.”

With that, I ordered Chinese before joining her.

“Hey, no,” I said, taking the toys out of her hands that she was trying to straighten up. “No kid stuff. We can deal with that tomorrow. Come sit with me.”

Dropping down on the couch, I patted the spot next to me.

Dasha was clearly grateful for an excuse to relax, kicking a little stuffed animal out of her way before falling down onto the couch, resting her feet on my thigh.

I reached out, grabbing one foot and starting to rub the ache out.

It wasn’t often that she was left alone with all the kids like she’d been. I’d just been called in to help on a big job with one of my brothers, so I’d been away from home a lot more than usual the past week.

Clearly, my girl needed a little pampering.

But you can’t blame my cock for stirring as she moaned and sighed through one foot rub, then the next.

Lifting one leg, I pressed a kiss to the inside of her ankle, watching her for her reaction.

When her gaze cut to mine, there was heat sizzling in her eyes.

That was all the encouragement I needed.

I shifted up onto my knees as her legs spread like an invitation as I kissed my way up her calf, the side of her knee, her thigh.

Dasha reached to pull her skirt up as I settled between her thighs, pulling her panties to the side, and running my tongue up her cleft.

A shiver coursed through her and her hand slapped down on the back of my neck, holding me to her like I had any intentions of moving away until she was writhing and moaning.

My tongue circled her clit as two of my fingers slid inside her. Her walls tightened around them, and her hips rocked in rhythm with their thrusts as I drove her up, up, up.

“No, wait,” she cried, grabbing a handful of my hair and pulling me away. “No, I need you inside me,” she said, her tone desperate, making my cock twitch.

I damn sure wasn’t going to deny her that, now, was I?

I moved away, dropping onto my ass and working my belt free as she pulled off her panties.

“Come over here,” I demanded, fisting myself at the base, “and ride my cock.”

A little whimper escaped her at that as she moved to straddle me.

Her gaze held mine as she positioned herself, then took me inside with one long movement.

When I was settled deep, she let out a little moan, pressing her forehead to mine for a second.

My hands went out, taking her straps down, then the bust of her dress. And, finally, I removed her bra so my hands could slide up and cup her breasts. I rolled her nipples as her hips started to rock. Slowly at first. Then harder and faster as the need overtook us both.

“You ride my cock so good, baby,” I groaned, leaning in to press my face between her breasts, breathing in her familiar honeysuckle scent as her walls tightened around me. “There you go,” I said, voice tight as I sat back to watch her. I’d never get sick of how gorgeous she was as she came. Her skin all flushed, her eyes heavy-lidded, her lips parted. “Come on my cock,” I demanded.

Then she did, the pulsing of her pussy taking me right along with her as her cries filled the empty house.

“Missed hearing you like that,” I said as she fell into me afterward, her warm breath on my neck, her heartbeat hammering against my chest.

The kids had brought untold amounts of joy to our lives. But I knew we both missed our loud, uncontrolled lovemaking sessions that had led to their existence in the first place.

“And being able to do it right when and where the mood strikes,” she agreed. “I wanted to climb you like a tree yesterday.”

“Oh, yeah? When? What was I doing?”

She sat back at that, the laughter dancing in her eyes before it made it to her lips. “You were folding the fitted sheets.”

I joined her in a laugh at that.

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“We needed this.”

“Yeah, we did.”

It was important—more important than anything—to us to be a family. But it was almost as important that we took time to be people and, yes, a couple. Just two people whose love had changed, strengthened, and deepened through the years. But sometimes needed time to show that to each other. Without anyone asking for a snack. Or complaining that their sibling was annoying them.

“I need a nap,” she declared, resting her head on my shoulder again.

My hand moved up and down her back, finding knots and working them free as she lounged against me.

“I bet this wasn’t what your mom expected us to be doing when she took the kids. With all the chores that have clearly piled up around here this week.”

“She doesn’t judge, you know that,” I reminded her. My whole childhood, I remembered her tripping over toys and drowning in piles of laundry. She knew all about the way the house could get messy when you had a large family of young ones running around. “But, actually, this is probably exactly what she had in mind.”

“What?” Dasha asked, sitting back, her face twisted up.

“She may or may not have implied that this would be a nice break for us to work on baby number six,” I told her, fingers drifting up and down the tops of her thighs.

“Oh… my God.”

“She wasn’t being gross or—“

“No,” Dasha cut me off, exhaling hard, her eyes far away for a second before she looked at me. “That’s it.”

“What’s it?”

“That’s why I’ve been feeling so crappy this week. I’ve been so damn tired. I haven’t felt this tired since—“

“Since the first trimester of the last baby.”

It was that way with all of them. She didn’t struggle with the horrific morning sickness that my sister or cousins did, but she spent the first three months so exhausted she could barely get out of bed.

It actually became how we knew she was pregnant after we noticed it with the first two. Well before the stick changed colors, she was falling asleep sitting up on the couch or napping on the hammock out back while the kids played. Or, once, literally passing out in a pile of clean laundry she was folding.

“I’ve been so grumpy because I’m so damn tired and there hasn’t been any time to nap.”

It was summer, after all. And the kids were two full-time jobs without school to allow Dasha to get some free time.

“Are you alright?” I asked. We hadn’t actually discussed a sixth kid. Though we also hadn’t exactly been taking precautions against one.

“I’m honestly relieved,” she said, letting out a deep breath. “I was getting really upset about how moody I’ve been. But it makes sense if there’s an actual reason for it.”

“You haven’t been moody,” I assured her. I would have noticed. It wasn’t like her.

“I’ve been feeling moody,” she clarified. “But it’s because I’ve been so tired.”

“Sounds like it’s time to dump off my workload onto someone else,” I said, reaching to tuck her hair behind her ears.

“No, that’s not—“

“You are going to be getting as many daily naps as you need from here on out,” I cut her off.

“You need to be able to work,” she insisted.

“Why?” I asked, shooting her a smirk. “Last time I checked, I married a really wealthy woman.”

XX