“Promises, promises,” I teased as I hopped off the stool and righted my dress. “Let’s get this over with.”
As soon as I opened the door, my beautiful niece, Sasha, pulled in a gasp so big I thought her lungs might pop, then, pointing at Rollie, she shouted, “Doggie!” at the top of her lungs.
Her excitement was so intense, you’d have thought she’d never seen a dog in her life. She squirmed in my brother’s hold until he placed her on her feet, and as soon as she was within reach, Rollie was on her, bathing her face in kisses as his back end shook so hard he had trouble staying on his feet.
“Rollie, calm,” West ordered. For his part, the dog tried to contain himself, but he was practically vibrating with glee as the tiny human used him as a jungle gym.
“Aw, look at them,” Kira crooned. “That’s so cute—no, Sasha, down. You can’t ride the dog like a pony,” she said when Sasha hauled one leg up and over Rollie’s back in an attempt to do just that.
Bending down, I scooped my niece up in my arms and clutched her close as I turned in a circle. “My baby,” I singsonged. “Auntie Stella’s missed you so much.”
“You gonna pass some of that love around or spew it all out on the toddler?”
My chest felt light as I lifted my eyes to my dad. God, I’d missed him. I’d missed all of them. “Hi, Dad,” I said in a suspiciously croaky voice. When the hell had I gotten so touchy-feely?
“Hey, Starshine,” Dad returned, sounding just as emotional as I did before pulling me into one of his famous bear hugs. Ah, my dad and his world-righting hugs.
He pulled back and placed a kiss on my forehead before being shouldered out of the way by my mom. “My baby girl,” she cried dramatically. Her hug was even tighter, and I was afraid she might re-injure my ribs if she didn’t let up.
“Hi, Mom,” I wheezed.
“It smells so good in here.” She released me and sniffed the air as she crossed the threshold. “I’m assuming that has nothing to do with you?” she asked with an arched brow.
“No,” I sighed with a roll of my eyes. “West is cooking.”
“Ooh! He’s handsome and he cooks? If he knows how to provide pleasure in bed, you tie that man down, honey!”
“Jeez, Mom,” I yelped, feeling my face begin to burn as West chuckled deeply. Five seconds in and it was already starting.
“Swank pad,” Spencer said to West after placing a kiss on my temple. “Bet you have some pretty nice stuff inside.”
“West’s stuff will stay where it belongs,” I barked, drilling my finger into my brother’s chest.
“Don’t worry,” Kira assured me as she shoved her husband out of the way so she could get to me. She took Sasha from my arms and passed her to Spencer before giving me a hug. “He’s just trying to assert dominance early because he knows he won’t be the toughest guy in the room.”
“Bet I could beat him at arm wrestling!” my brother shouted from deeper inside the house.
“You leave all valuables where you find them,” Kira shouted in warning as she followed her family into the house.
“Well, look at you.” Serenity gave me a huge smile as she sauntered up, looking gorgeous in a pale green shift dress that hugged her in all the right places. “You look great!” We embraced each other tightly before she took me by the arms and held me back so she could give me a scan from top to toe. “It’s amazing what regular orgasms can do, right? Your skin has never looked better. It’s downright dewy!”
“I’ll kill you,” I hissed at her, knowing exactly what she was gearing up to do. She’d come here tonight to try her hand at making a big man blush, and she was ready to pull out all the stops.
“You picked the right Ryan sister, stud,” she said to West, giving him a pat on the chest. “Not only because she’s beautiful and smart and awesome, but because I’m pretty sure I’d have broken you.”
I jerked around to gage West’s complexion and saw there was no change in his skin tone whatsoever. “Nice try, but you’ll have to do better,” he told her with a wink.
Serenity glanced back at me, approval shining in her eyes as she threw her thumb at West. “All right, I like this guy.” Then to West, she said, “You have my approval. Unless you fuck it up, then they’ll never be able to find your body. Or at least not all of it.”
Ah, just another dinner with the Ryan family.
Twenty-Six
West
My house had never been this full, never had so many sounds coming from different places that I couldn’t possibly keep up with which voice was coming from where. Despite Stella’s earlier worries, dinner had gone off without a hitch.
Not even two minutes after they’d arrived, her mom, Liza, had made herself right at home in my kitchen, helping me finish cooking and shooing Stella away from any and all kitchen appliances at the same time. If her daughter so much as attempted to set foot past the bar, she was yelled right back out by every member of her family. I hadn’t bothered to try and hide my laughter, earning her scowl that held absolutely no heat behind those intoxicating grayish green eyes.
In the—admittedly short—amount of time I’d known her, I’d never seen her so relaxed and at ease. The shit with O’Brien had been a constant worry weighing on her. Even when she was trying to hide it, it was obvious that concern was still very much there, front and center. But tonight, surrounded by her family, she blossomed. Her eyes still held a bit of that darkness that came with the anxiety she wore around her neck like an albatross, but it wasn’t nearly as noticeable. It had faded over the hours to a dull smudge, the light shining through enough to push it back.
Her earlier concerns about me not liking her family were completely unwarranted. The Ryans might not have been the most conventional family out there, but the love they had for each other was obvious. They ribbed each other every chance they got. They laughed. They hugged for no apparent reason. Hell, even I’d been included in the affection with her mom taking my face in her hands on multiple occasions and pulling me down to lay a smacking kiss on my cheek.
They weren’t criminals, they weren’t immoral. They were just a family that loved the hell out of each other enjoying a meal together, and seeing Stella thrive under all of that made a warmth bloom deep in my chest, growing so big it filled everything, making me feel like I was standing beneath the sun on a bright, cloudless day.
It also made me realize that when I finally had this shit with O’Brien sorted, I had absolutely no intention of letting Stella go. I could feel her holding herself back. She was giving me what she thought I wanted, while keeping the rest of herself tucked away behind a protective barrier. I’d done what I could to batter at those walls, but every time I thought I’d knocked them down for good, they’d start piecing themselves back together. I could practically hear the tick of the clock in her head, counting down the minutes until she went back to her old life and left me to mine. That wasn’t going to happen.
She hadn’t accepted it yet, but this was her life now. No more going it alone, no more trying to fix everything by herself for the ones she loved. And no more feeling like she wasn’t good enough. That fucker Valentine had only reinforced that idea by pulling the shit he’d pulled, and I was going to tear it the fuck apart if it was the last thing I did.