Page 38 of Taken Home By the Grizzly

A chorus of whoops fills the air.

I dart over to him. The whole clan seems to be standing in front of their cabins, watching us expectantly.

“Um, were they waiting to find out?”

“Maybe,” he says with a sheepish grin. When he takes me in his arms, my cheeks warm at theawwsthat greet us.

Then he kisses me and I don’t think about anything else, apart from how much I love my gorgeous, protective bear mate.

EPILOGUE

One year later

“Sorry, sorry!” I call as I bustle through the front door of our cabin. “Ellie and the girls kept me talking and I couldn’t get away?—”

When I catch sight of Lock, I burst out laughing.

He’s carrying our son, Aiden, in a sling on his chest while stirring a bunch of pots on the stove. But his hair is kinda standing on end and judging by the puce shade of Aiden’s face, the baby’s been grizzling for a long time. My usually easygoing mate looksharassed.

The eyes that meet mine are wild, but in a second, he dissolves into laughter, too.

I rush over and wrap my arms around the two of them. “You seem a little stressed, huh?”

He mumbles something about multitasking and kisses me on the lips tenderly.

I melt a little bit. Even when he’s busy or overwhelmed, he takes a moment to show me how much he loves me. Then I kiss our son on his velvety forehead, inhaling his delicious baby scent at the same time. He looks just like his dad, with plenty of thick dark hair, and his eyes are already lightening to a startling emerald green. I can’t believe there was a time when I didn’t want kids. I fell in love with this little guy the moment he came out of me. And it seems like I have pretty good instincts for childcare. Which is just as well as it turns out a lot of the stuff in that old handbook I bought is not relevant to shifters. At three months old, Aiden can already hold his head up easily, and he’s just learning to crawl.

“Let me take over cooking,” I say.

“It’s okay, I’ve got it. You take Aiden if you want.”

I reach for the straps on the sling eagerly, always happy to nurse my baby.

By the time we sit down to dinner, Aiden’s little belly is full, and he’s drowsing contentedly. Lock is a great cook. Tonight it’s Greek moussaka, and it tastes as good as it smells.

“The girls are asking when they can babysit Aiden,” I say. Jenny and her big sister Becky love him. They think of him as their own little brother. Meanwhile, Alec and Jaxx can’t wait for him to be old enough to join in their rough and tumble games.

“I think he’s old enough now to go out into the world by himself,” Lock says.

“Ellie will be supervising, of course.”

He reaches for my hand across the table. “It’ll be great to spend some time just the two of us.”

“So happens I’ve got some plans for you tonight, as soon as Aiden’s gone down,” I say.

I hear his breath catch. “What kind of plans?”

“Naked ones.”

Heat flares in those intense eyes of his, and a thrill goes through me. We mateda lotwhile I was pregnant. He couldn’t get enough of my pregnant belly swelling with his young, and we had sex at least twice a day right up until Aiden was born. Since then, we’ve had to be a little more gentle, but I’m dying to get back to our wild, take-me-anywhere mating.

I slipthrough our bedroom door and close it softly behind me. “Deeply asleep,” I say. “Baby monitor on?—”

I don’t get to finish the sentence because Lock is on me. He pulls me onto his lap, pressing burning kisses to my neck and chest. Burying his face in my cleavage, he makes short work of the buttons on the front of my dress, then my nursing bra.

I’m self-conscious about my post-baby body, but he worships every inch of it with his tongue, drawing my big nipples into his mouth and sucking gently. When he flips me onto my back and presses his face to my panties, I try to push him away.

“Lock, this was supposed to be about you,” I protest.

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