Chapter 1

“Jefferson.” Warm fingers stroked down my spine.

“Mmm.”

“Jefferson.”

I peeled open an eyelid. “What?”

“You know what today is, don’t you?”

I knew. It was New Year’s Day, 2013—our wedding day. Same-sex marriage had become legal in Maryland, where we lived on the Sebring family farm, a couple of months previous, thanks to popular vote, and today was the first day we could tie the knot, so that was what we were going to do.

However, if there was one thing I loved more than Ludovic Rivenhall, my partner of more than forty-three years, it was teasing him.

I grunted and turned my face into my pillow, pretending to want nothing more than a few more minutes of sleep.

“Jefferson!”

I buried my smile in my pillow.

“Fine. Be that way.” Ludo huffed and started to straighten. “I’m going downstairs. Mrs. Plum will have breakfast ready.”

I rolled over, caught his hand, and pulled him—my lover…my fiancé…my soon-to-be husband—down onto me. “Good morning, angel eyes.”

“You were awake all this time!” He attempted to push off, but all that did was bring our cocks into contact. And just like that, he was rock hard. Even after all these years, he was still as hot for me as I was for him.

“Did you think I’d be able to sleep, knowing in a few hours I’ll have you tied to me legally?”

He blushed—his fair British complexion betraying him—and sank down onto me again, his hips jerking as our cocks slid against each other. I wrapped my hand around them and tugged gently.

“We don’t have time,” he gasped.

I kissed him and ran my fingertips over the curve of his ass. “We always have time,” I whispered against his lips. “Tonight I promise to take my time, but now I’ll make it quick—”

“You will not!”

As it turned out, I didn’t.

* * * *

Afterward, it took some time for our breathing to get back to normal.

“Why do I let you do this to me?”

“Make love to you? Because you love me.”

“Arse.” He pinched my hip, then stroked the scar I’d had since I was nineteen. “I meant tease me.”

I smiled into his hair. “The answer is still because you love me. And because you know I love you.”

“You do, don’t you?”

I framed his face between my palms. “More than my life.”

He rubbed his cheek against my palm, then pushed himself off. “I’m famished, and I don’t plan to faint from hunger before I say I do.” He caught up his robe and slid his arms into the sleeves. “Don’t dawdle. The family will be here before we know it.”

“Go on. I’ll be right with you.”

He paused at our bedroom door and gazed back at me quizzically. “Did you ever think we’d reach this point?”

Fortunately, he didn’t wait for a response, because no, for the longest time, I’d never given it the least consideration. I’d been a major asshole.

I stacked our pillows behind my back and angled myself up onto them.

Yeah. Agent Oblivious—that was me. 1

Growing up bookended between an older brother who was the proverbial golden child and a younger brother who sat back and watched the world go past, I’d learned early my best option was to go my own way.

For five years I’d been the youngest brother. For the next five years I’d been the middle brother. And then, when I was ten, I became the second oldest when our sister Portia was born. She came as a surprise, since we’d all been expecting another brother—Sebrings ran to boys.

That was probably why we all loved her without reserve and would put our lives on the line for her.

In the years between our sister’s birth and her leaving home to attend college, the world marched on.

Tony, our oldest brother, joined the Navy to fight in World War II and wound up in intelligence in the Pacific Theater.

I joined the Army in ‘43, as soon as I turned eighteen, and Father was furious. He felt the least I could have done was follow my older brother into the Navy. The entire family was relieved that I made it through the landing at Omaha Beach with nothing more than a scar on my hipbone.

Bryan wasn’t old enough to enlist in that war, but he served in Korea, flying the planes that dropped bombs on the towns and villages of the enemy. When he returned home, he was more reserved than I’d ever known him to be.

Portia was too young to do anything but go to school, where she excelled in languages, and compete in horse shows.