Chapter 55

Kendall

“Yes,” I said while my whole family just stood there and stared. “Yes,” I said again as we walked them to the door. Dad had wanted to have a bit of a celebration, but Mum sensed what was building and steered him towards the door with a promise of an engagement party. I hugged my brother, my mum, and my dad and then…

“Yes?”

Van picked me up and pressed me against the wall the moment the front door was closed. I felt his effortless strength and the way his body pressed into mine, making clear how he wanted to celebrate this momentous occasion.

“Yes,” I said again, breathless now, and my only source of air was the breath he exhaled as we kissed.

Married? Wife? My mind swirled. The thought of wanting to marry someone a week or so ago would’ve been ridiculous, and yet here I was. Kissing the lips of a man I loved, touching his face and feeling the sharp slope of his cheeks, rubbing my fingers through the short stubble and knowing there was nowhere else I’d rather be.

Mm, maybe here.

“You just asked our fucking girlfriend to marry you?” Gage’s low growl had Van spinning us around to face him. “Our girlfriend.”

There seemed to be something primal riding him right now as he stormed forward, his hand sliding up my neck to tilt my head back and force me to present my lips for the taking.

Yeah, I liked that a whole lot.

Being utterly at their mercy, Van keeping my legs locked around his waist as Gage kissed me senseless. Hard, bruising things that I met with equal ferocity, the two of us working hard to mark the other as Connor stepped forward.

“Wife…?” He’d looked shell shocked when Van proposed, and that hadn’t dissipated. His eyes flicked from one guy to the other before narrowing when they got to me. I watched him raise his hand, brushing his thumb against my now swollen lips, a small frown forming as I sucked it in. Connor was transfixed by the slow movement of my mouth, my tongue against his thumb, until he was forced to jerk it free. “Kendall can’t become our wife. A domestic partnership with all the legal security of—”

“Don’t.” Van dropped me down and then pushed me behind him, blocking my sight of Connor. “I know you’re the smart one and the practical one, but don’t do this now.” I heard Connor suck in a breath to answer him, but Van pulled me into his side. “If this is a pie-in-the sky dream then… let me dream, Connor. Let us dream.”

I had their entire attention, and as a kid, that would’ve been terrifying, meaning they were going to turn on me and tickle me into submission or something, but the joke was on me. All of that intensity had transmuted into something else entirely.

Love.

“What if she could be our wife? What if the world pulled its head out of its arse and let the four of us declare to it what we know is true? That there’s no one else in the world for us but each other.” Van shook his head. “Imagine we have just got married. The party has wound down and my dad is puking in the bushes somewhere.” He snorted. “Kendall’s too. We’ve slipped out the door and up to our suite…”

Each one of us glanced down the hallway, not seeing the granite tiles or grey-hued walls now, but this. A dove-grey carpet perhaps, along with muted, discreetly tasteful lighting. A bland but stylish hotel corridor and our room was just a door down. Van took the lead, grabbing my hand and then opening the bedroom door, ushering me in with kisses, more kisses, right before he turned me around to face them.

“Imagine this was our first night as a married quad.”

“Is that what we call this?” I asked, looking back at him over my shoulder. “Does that mean I’d have to take all of your names? Because Kendall Slater-Cooper-Woods seems kind of ungainly. God, what if we had kids…?”

That was exactly the wrong thing to say—or maybe it was right. A little growl and Connor was surging forward. His hand went to my jaw, tipping my head up his way, but right as I went to kiss him, he stopped and stared.

“What if it was just Kendall Kennedy?”

“What?”

“We’d change our names to be the same as yours.” Connor smiled then, really smiled. “I’ve always felt like I was more a part of your family than mine. I’d be Connor Kennedy.”

I slid my hand up and around his wrists, pressing my thumbs into his pulse point. I felt the rapid skitter there and blinked.

“Gage Kennedy…” I turned to find the man himself stepping closer, nodding as he considered that idea. “Yeah, I like it.”

Van turned me back to face him and his smile was like the sun rising. It felt like it warmed me all the way through as he offered me his arm.

“If I might escort you to this very fine bed, Mrs. Van Kennedy?”

We were just being silly, dreaming big like Van said, and that allowed me to grin along with him. My hand clasped that very nice arm, and I felt the muscles flex, right before he picked me up and tossed me on the bed.

I felt weightless, for just a moment, as if I was suspended in the air and never going to come down. But I did, hitting the soft plush of the mattress. As soon as I landed, Van did too. He shot me a boyish grin and then rolled over, partially pinning me to the bed as he stroked my hair back from my face.

“Why the fuck is that so hot?” I didn’t get a chance to answer. He kissed me long and slow, like he needed to memorise the shape of my mouth, until I was sighing, my hands clasping his shoulders. “Mrs. Kennedy. My wife.”

“Because then you’ve got a means to tell the whole fucking world what we know.” We looked up to find Connor had climbed on the bed with us, tearing his shirt up and over his head. Yeah I liked that a whole lot. My brain felt like it was recording it in real time, ready to be stored as a core memory. Because while he was really fucking hot, with that came the knowledge that he was mine. “A ring on your finger, a Mrs before your name.” He reached down and stroked my face. “It’d tell every bastard to keep his fucking eyes and hands to himself because you belong to us.”

“I’m not sure guys are lining up—”

I was silenced by Connor’s thumb sliding into my mouth.

“Don”t do that.” He was always so damn intense but right now his eyes were like lasers, etching his words on my soul. “Don’t make jokes at your own expense. Don’t try and deny what we know. You’re beautiful, Kendall. You always have been and always will be to us.”

I pulled my lips free.

“Even when I’m old and grey?” I asked.

“Especially then,” he replied with a gentle smile.

“What about if I’m senile and incontinent, sitting in an aged-care facility?”

“That’s the point of getting married, isn’t it?” Van said. “So that when you’re too old to do anything else, you’ve still got your best friend beside you, wearing adult diapers. I’ll change yours if you change mine.”

The whole idea was stupid and kinda disrespectful to older people, but I couldn’t help but smile.

“Deal.”

“So if that’s settled.” We all turned to see Gage approach the bed. I watched him pull off his old footy jersey up over his head and then shove his shorts off. “How did you want to spend the first day as our wife, Mrs Kennedy?”

“Oh…”

I had something glib to say, but the words died in my throat as soon as he crawled closer. We were having this sweet little moment, but the sight of him, naked and hard, had my thighs rubbing together. We might never get a wedding like they described, but a honeymoon? His body hovering over mine, those massive arms supporting his weight effortlessly as he stared down at me had my eyes, my hands roaming. To trace the shape of the tattoos that covered his body, to slide down, down, wanting that concrete evidence of his attraction for me in my hands, throbbing. But he jerked his hips away and then shook his head.

“Whaddya think, fellas? How about we show Kendall just what it would be like if we went on a honeymoon.”

“We still could, y’know,” Van said. “We’re almost done with the house we’ve been working on, and surely we have some leave saved up.”

“Since we’re the ones that dictate what leave entitlements we have, yes,” Connor replied drily. “Of course, there’s the matter of getting our fourth partner’s approval.”

I went to answer him, but he slid his hand under the shirt I was wearing. His skin felt like it seared mine. Everything had been clenched so tightly due to the stress of last night that his gentle touch couldn’t help but encourage me to relax. “Yes,” I said, to his question, to all their questions, to everything that might come. Yes to the potential of us, the possibilities. Connor smiled and dropped his head down, kissing me so slowly he had to have caught the hitch in my breath as the others tore my clothes off.