Dream Five, Chapter Twenty-One

Later that night, I had just finished closing my bookstore (for once) and was on my way up to find Korrie when I glanced into Barrons's study and found him standing there in a crisp Italian suit, looking into his Silver with his arms crossed like someone staring contemplative at a fire or the stars. I looked up the stairs and thought for a moment, but I'm addicted to that man. Drawn to him like a moth to a flame. I found my feet moving me inside without receiving orders to do so. Then I was leaning my face against his back as my arms slipped around him below his crossed ones.

"What are you doing, Mac?" he asked softly.

"I believe it's referred to as 'hugging,' Jericho. I was going to go find Korrie and then I saw you in here and my feet moved of their own accord." He didn't say anything for a moment before he turned around in my arms. Then his mouth was crushed against mine and his arms were around me.

*You can talk to Korrie tomorrow*, he sent along our connection.

*But—*

*The only 'but' I want from you tonight is yours, Ms. Lane. *

I did my best to dramatically sigh with his tongue in my mouth before returning, *Fine. If you insist.*

&&&

I couldn't wait to no longer be pregnant. The best battlefield I've ever found is in Jericho Barrons's bed. We fight when we fuck because he makes me so violently and aggressively turned on. However, we now had to be careful and could no longer be in some of our favorite positions because I was pregnant.

Sometimes he piles the pillows up on the bed and teases me from behind by only putting in an inch or two before he drives it home, which always undoes me. There was no slamming me against a wall from behind, arching my neck back so hard that I'd break it if I tried to move it. I couldn't lie on top of his massive chest and rest my head in the hollow of his neck afterwards. He could even partially transform into the beast while inside me (I still remember my astonishment the first time he did that), but neither of us wanted to hurt the baby so we had agreed to hold off on that until after the baby was born. It's still unclear to me which one of us is more bummed out by that.

The baby is also why we hadn't spent much time in the sex dungeon and mostly fucked in the lair. We really get violent in the basement I made beneath the bookstore. It's incredible.

I thought kids weren't supposed to ruin your sex life until after they were born.

"Do you really think it's ruined?" he said softly, picking up what I was thinking.

I was lying on my back with my head resting on his chest. I got tired more quickly now, too. He would never complain about it, or about not being able to do what we used to, but I sure as hell would.

I also knew from experience that it often entertained him when I got bitchy. It turned him on when I was bitchy towards him and on rare occasions I would do it just to get him especially violent in bed because he'll still fuck me when he's frustrated with me or when I'm driving him bugfuck. (Men.) But when I was being bitchy about something or someone that wasn't him, it often got a smile or even a laugh out of this unbelievably controlled man.

It had once frustrated him that he wanted me. A normal person would have tried to deny it until a moment came when they no longer could. I'm not exactly normal, but that's what I had done. He had accepted that he wanted someone who was his opposite rather than exercise an act of futility by pretending he didn't.

This hard and controlled man had no cracks in his walls except for one that I had found and managed to slip through, getting under his skin like no woman ever had. A peacock strutting her feathers like one of the proud and ridiculous male birds trying to attract a mate, I'd caught the eye of the king of the jungle. I once thought I'd have to lose my feathers to remain in this man's bed but I hadn't; I'd grown claws instead.

His eyes were still closed when I turned my head to look at him. He never slept but he'd go into a deep meditative state while still being aware. I managed to push myself up off of his chest and moved so I was half-sitting and half-lying on my side up near his face. One hand propped up my head while the other came away from my stomach and began tracing his chiseled features. It was how I showed him tenderness and affection. Jericho Barrons wasn't one for pillow talk, only doing so when he felt it was necessary, so I told him I loved him by pouring all of my tenderness into my hands as they moved over his skin. He often watched with an unfathomable expression. The first time I had done it, he had looked both put off and entranced.

Back when I was still keeping some distance between us, when I was only 'Mac' in his bed or when I was dying, it was the only time I showed him affection as I poured all of the things I couldn't say into my hands. There'd been times I'd woken up to find he'd pulled me close and I felt his fingers moving gently across my skin, letting me know he loved me, too.

"No," I told him as he kept his eyes closed. This was no longer the only time or way I told him I loved him, but it was one way I always would. "Sex with you is still mind-blowing, Jericho. I just miss some of the things we used to do."

The look he gave me when he opened his eyes assured me we'd do them again some day. I snorted in laughter before I leaned down and kissed him. One hand came out from behind his head and he held me there for a minute as he slowly and tenderly kissed me back. Then he watched for a while as my fingers moved across his face.

Eventually that position grew uncomfortable and I moved so that my head leaned against his shoulder as I held one of his thickly muscled arms and traced the protective black and crimson runes etched into his skin. His head was turned towards mine and I knew he was watching me when he wasn't meditating. The hand of the arm I was holding was resting on my stomach and his thumb would occasionally move across the surface, sending pleasant chills throughout the surrounding area.

"What did you say to Dad?" I finally asked. "Before we left, he gave me a look that said he could and would bring Mom around."

"I told him how much I love you," he answered. Every part of my body froze. I'm pretty sure my heart stopped beating.

*Breathe*, he sent along our connection.

My heart began beating again first because I remembered someone else was relying on the blood it pumped as much as I do before I finally took a breath. We spoke in a code that meant more to both of us than saying "I love you" ever could, but hearing him say that caused everything in me to freeze in shock. It was just so unexpected.

"And only as a formality because I've already made you mine," he said and I heard the dull scratching sound of wood on wood as he pulled open a drawer in a nightstand, "I asked his permission to give you this." He held up a small black velvet box and I forgot how to breathe again.

*Breathe, woman*, he fired at me.

"I don't understand," I said breathlessly, exhaling so I could inhale. "Jericho, I told you I didn't need a wedding to know we'll always be together."

He didn't say anything as he moved and pulled me out of bed with him. I found myself on my feet and shivering. He was gone and then he was holding up the black silk shirt he had been wearing earlier. I was cold because I was tired and in shock. The candles he had lit kept the room comfortably warm, but I slowly turned and slipped my arms through the sleeves. Then he was in front of me again, taking my hands in both of his, my fingers brushing against the velvet of the box.

"I don't want you to have any regrets when they're no longer here. As silly as it would have seemed to you, you'd regret not having your father walk you down the aisle or dancing with him at your wedding."

I frowned up at him. He wasn't one for sentimentality or human customs. He'd thrown the birthday cake I'd once gotten him at the ceiling. Not wanting me to have any regrets about my parents wasn't enough to garner a proposal and I told him so.

"No, it's not," he said with a swipe of his head to the left. "It's also because you know I'm never going to leave you and you're never going to leave me without the need for a wedding that you're getting one." My eyes grew wide and my mouth took on the shape of an "o" as he got down on one knee in front of me, my small hands engulfed in his massive ones. "Will you marry me, Rainbow Girl?"

I stood there and stared, committing the moment to memory because this beast of a man was actually *kneeling* to me, before my mouth was smothering his. He was immediately on his feet with his arms wrapped around me.

"Of course I'll marry you, Jericho Barrons," I whispered against his lips, my hands in his thick hair. I didn't have a pet name for this man; didn't need one. He'd been "Barrons" to me for so long that calling him Jericho was enough. He liked it when I said his first and last name; I had to say it every time I wanted him to fuck me. It meant I was there, willing and present, knowing I was me and he was him and that I wanted him, all of him.

"Did you want to see the ring?" he asked an indeterminable amount of time later. The only clock in the room was on our phones and watches. I hadn't even opened the little box before climbing back into his bed. He had a pillow pushed against the headboard and was leaning back against it, his chest supporting me as I leaned back against him.

"Yes," I said with a grin. He lifted me up a little as he sat up to retrieve it from the nightstand before settling me back down against him. I turned into him as much as I could, my head on his shoulder, my hand on his chest, and his arm around me. He glanced down at me before he flipped it open. I sat straight upright when I saw it and said, "Fuck, is that real?!"

He laughed, sending a thrill of pleasure through me at the sound before he nodded and said, "Of course it's real."

It was HUGE. He pulled it out and slipped it onto my finger, telling me how many carats it was but I didn't even hear him. The band was platinum with diamonds inlaid halfway around the entire thing. One giant circular diamond stood up out of the ring. Despite its flare, the platinum somehow made it seem elegant and the design was sleek. It might as well have cracked opened up a mouth and sang that I was off the market, it was so flashy.

Just my style. He knows me so well.

I tuned back in just in time to hear him say, "What do you think?"

"Jericho, it's perfect," I gushed before I kissed him.

"Good, because there isn't going to be time to get another one," he said as he gently pulled me back down against him.

"Wait, what? Why?"

"Dani's going to be your Maid of Honor, isn't she?"

"Yes, of course."

"If you want her at the wedding, we should probably have it before she leaves again."

He was right. I didn't know when she'd be back and our lives were so unpredictable as it was that we needed to have the wedding as soon as possible. I swore under my breath and did my best to crawl off the foot of the bed to grab my phone from the pocket of my discarded pants.

"Dani?" I said the moment she answered.

"You have the worst timing," Ryodan's voice told me. Dani was arguing with him in the background.

"Would you just put Dani on the phone?" I snapped.

"Mac! Sorry about him. You'd think a fecking king would have better manners and not take people's fecking phones when one of their best friends/kind of sister's fecking calling!" Her pointed tone indicated that she was more talking to him than to me. I was only mildly startled to hear him laughing in the background. "What's up?"

"How long are you back for?" I quickly asked.

"I negotiated for two weeks. Why? Something going on?"

"Yes. She'll tell you about it tomorrow. And tell Ryodan Mac can time things however she likes," Barrons said, having swiped my phone out of my hand and moved out of reach before I could even blink.

He ended the call just as I said, "Hey!"

"You need to sleep," he said as he held the phone up in the air when I tried to grab it.

"Barrons, give it back!"

"You're exhausted and pregnant. Wedding planning can wait until tomorrow. You won't be doing anyone any good passing out on the Chesterfield. Your phone will be returned in the morning. Get back in bed."

I wanted to argue with him that I was fine but it would have involved talking through a yawn that would only prove his point so I humored him and passed out moments after laying my head down, his arms wrapped tightly around me.