Page 67 of Labor of Love

“His bar would go out of business because everyone would see what a terrible jerk he was.”

“Broke and destitute, double check.”

“He’d think about me every day,” Bracken added, getting into it now. “Wishing he’d done otherwise.”

“Miserable and pining, triple check.”

Bracken considered what else might be fitting. But all he could think about was little Fern without her papa. And Bracken without…

Well, who else would he want, if not Tanner?

Bracken licked at his lips, thinking it over. “But maybe—maybe I’d return, after Fern was born. Show him what he was missing.”

Tanner hummed, resting his cheek on Bracken’s head. “He’d be so sorry, wouldn’t he?”

“Yes,” Bracken agreed. “And I’d—I’dmakehim take us in.”

Tanner pressed a kiss to his hair. “Of course you would.”

“But I wouldn’t forgive him,” Bracken said quickly. He couldn’t have hypothetical him being a complete pushover, could he? “Not right away. He certainly wouldn’t be allowed to touch me.”

Tanner made a vague, sympathetic noise. “He’d be miserable.”

“He would,” Bracken confirmed righteously. “And I’d—I’d pleasure myself every night with the door open, just to taunt him.”

Bracken squirmed in place, something hot swirling in his lower belly at the thought of it. He could feel slick leaking, and he grabbed Tanner’s free hand, guiding it under his waistband. Tanner very wisely began caressing and stroking Bracken’s cock, coaxing it to full hardness.

“What else would you do, baby?” Tanner asked, his voice husky with lust now.

“I’d—I’d walk around scantily clad every morning, and I’d look so beautiful, and he’d be so—” Bracken moaned as Tanner thumbed at the head of his cock. “So horny and so sad.”

“Mm,” Tanner agreed. “He would be. He’d be itching to touch you.”

“Yes,” Bracken panted. “Now take off your pants.”

And this nonhypothetical version of Tanner was the best one because he immediately stripped down, allowing Bracken to climb onto his lap and sink down onto his thick cock.

Bracken moaned at the stretch, and Tanner hushed him gently. “Sh, sweetheart. The baby’s sleeping. You have to be quieter than that.”

“Make me.”

So Tanner kissed him, capturing Bracken’s moans in his mouth, rocking up in time with each roll of Bracken’s hips.

“You’re so gorgeous like this, sweetheart,” Tanner whispered, pressing hot kisses to Bracken’s neck and chest and shoulders. “I’m so lucky to have you.”

Yes. Yes, he was. And Bracken was lucky too. He knew that much, no matter how he acted some days.

“I love you, nonhypothetical Tanner.”

It had taken Bracken until after Fern was born to say it back. He’d been exhausted and sweaty and shaking with relief to be done with it, and Tanner had been there, holding a wet washcloth to Bracken’s head, murmuring sweet nothings to him and the baby both, just as he had when Fern had still been inside Bracken’s belly.

What else had Bracken been supposed to do, other than tell the horrid man he loved him?

It was still vaguely mortifying to say out loud, but it was getting easier each time.

Especially at times like this, when—after finishing in each other’s arms—Tanner was petting his broad hands down Bracken’s back, whispering, “I love you, too, my prickly fae.”

And Bracken let all other possible realities go. The ones where he’d never gotten pregnant, or the ones where he had but hadn’t mustered the bravery to come back, or the ones where he’d raised the baby on his own in the fae realm. None of them mattered because none of them werethisreality, the one where Bracken had his baby and his human and the life he’d been too scared to ever admit he wanted.

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