“I love you,” he whispered before deepening the kiss. Jack slipped his other hand between them and yanked at the cotton that pressed into his fingers. Finally he could move his hand under to gently play with Riley’s balls as they moved against each other. Riley’s breathing hitched, and he let out his own whimper at the touch. They knew each other so well, which buttons to press, where to touch, and all too soon Riley was spilling over Jack’s hand with Jack not long after. They stood in the embrace against the wall for a few seconds before they separated. Riley glanced down at his hand and grimaced.

He looked over his shoulder at his pristine pool, his pride and joy, then back at his hand.

“Maybe we should stick to the barn,” he said.

Jack couldn’t help but laugh. “Guess no sex in the pool after all, then,” he said.

Riley quirked a smile. “No.” They kissed and Jack couldn’t have been more in love at that single moment than he had ever been.

“I love you, het-boy.”

They kissed again but this time when Riley pulled back, he looked thoughtful. “You ready for the meeting?” he asked gently.

Jack sighed. “As ready as I’ll ever be to justify why we want to grow our family.”

“I don’t think it’s like that. I don’t think we’ll need to justify a damn thing,” Riley said fiercely. “And if we do, then we leave and we find somewhere else to help us. It’s that easy. I need to eat,” he added.

“You always need to eat,” Jack said.

“Today is a day for bacon,” Riley said firmly. Then with a grin, he indicated they should go through the door, and Jack followed. They stopped at the sink and washed their hands; then with a few more snatched kisses they made their way to the kitchen.

Riley fell on the coffee as if he hadn’t had any in days. Jack watched from his seat where he nursed his own coffee as Riley virtually inhaled the first cup followed by two muffins and the bacon he fried on the stove.

“Done?” he asked wryly as Riley slid into the chair opposite him.

Riley patted his flat stomach. “Done,” he said.

“Daddy, can you tie this for me?” Hayley, dressed in the navy and red uniform of the Bryant Faraday School for Girls, came and stood next to Riley. She handed over a bright red tie.

Without argument or discussion, Riley pulled back Hayley’s long blonde hair and tied it expertly with a few twists of his hands. Jack tried but he never quite managed to get her hair looking quite as cute as Riley did. Riley grabbed her in for a close hug, but she pushed him away quickly.

“Don’t crease me,” she said quickly. “We have school photos today.”

Riley pouted his best daddy-pout. “Can I at least get a kiss?” Hayley placed a smacking kiss on his cheek, then stepped back.

“Do I look okay?” She smoothed a hand over her skirt and frowned down at herself. Jack thought she’d never looked prettier than at that moment.

“Gorgeous, sweetie,” Riley offered. “No running off with the photographer.”

“I’m only a kid,” she huffed. Seeming to need some more reassurance, she turned to Jack. “Pappa? What do you think?”

“Always gorgeous,” Jack replied. He got a similar kiss to Riley’s, and then she left the kitchen in a hurry.

“Remind me to clean the shotguns for when the boys visit,” Riley said with a small groan.

A knock on the door interrupted what Jack was about to say and was followed by Robbie poking his head around the corner. “Mornin’, did we need anything besides me checking on the feed order?” he asked.

“Nope, we’re good,” Jack answered. “Thank you again for taking Hayley to school.”

“No worries. Tell her I’ll be in the car waiting.”

Robbie closed the door behind him, and Jack looked pointedly at Riley. They’d spent a long time talking about building another place on the property for Robbie and Eli—after all, they couldn’t live the rest of their lives in the apartment over the barn. The only thing stopping them was Riley talking to Eli. Jack could swing Robbie by saying it was part of his salary here, but Eli would know different. Riley was an open book, and his sweeping statement about building a place for the new couple had been met by an outburst of stubborn pride from Eli.

“I’ll talk to Eli,” Riley said quickly. “As soon as this morning is out of the way. Okay? I promise.”

“And you actually will?” Jack asked.

“Daddy, sign this,” Hayley interrupted, and Jack could see the relief clearly written on Riley’s face. Riley and Eli arguing wasn’t a nice thing for anyone—each was as stubborn and intractable as the other.

“What is it, hun?” he asked as she laid the paper flat on the table. Jack glanced at the heading and groaned inwardly. Careers day meant only one thing to Riley. Him standing in front of a room of Hayley’s classmates talking about ethical oil exploration and coming home to say he’d watched each one of them die a death through boredom. Riley could talk passionately to adults all day about what he did, but he seemed to struggle with Hayley’s cohort. Last time he’d nearly convinced Jack that it was his turn to go and, in his words, do something horsey. Because, as he pointed out, little girls liked horses.

Unfortunately for Riley, Jack had been away delivering Catty to her owners, which left Riley home alone with nowhere to hide.

“Are you sure you want me to do this again?” Riley asked carefully. “Last time I could swear your friend Abbey was sleeping through the whole thing.”

“’Course I want you to,” Hayley said immediately. “You could make a ‘hunt the oil’ game up or something. Or Pappa can do it—he can talk about the horses.” She glanced at Jack, who smiled at her. Every so often he realized she hesitated before asking him to do things at the school or helping her with her homework. He didn’t have to have a degree in childcare to know what that meant, and he resolved to sort out the issue. He wanted Hayley to look on him as a dad that didn’t just deal with the fun stuff like horse riding. But first he couldn’t resist teasing Riley.

Jack nodded. “Hunt the oil sounds good.”

Riley looked at him meaningfully and narrowed his eyes. He knew Jack was laughing at him, and Jack really tried his hardest to not let the mirth escape.

“If it’s okay with you, Hayley, I’d love to take my turn,” Jack asked.

“Are you sure, Pappa? I know you’re busy and all…”

“I would love to. Maybe after school we could write down some ideas?”

“That would be so cool,” she said. Then she pushed the piece of paper to him, and Jack scribbled his name at the bottom and indicated in the information box what he would be talking about. Then she dropped the bombshell. “Megan Hunter’s dad is on the same morning as you.”

Riley snorted into his coffee. “Aiden Hunter, the actor? The one from the action films with the multimillion dollar box office returns. The one married to the model. That’s Megan’s dad, isn’t it?”

“Yep, Megan’s really cool.”

Jack listened with dread growing in the pit of his stomach. Riley had lucked out on this one. Jack was going up against an actor? How sexy could he make horses compared to red carpets and action movies? Hayley grabbed the letter, kissed both her dads goodbye, and left. As soon as they heard the car leave, Riley collapsed in hysterical laughter over the table.

“You are so screwed,” Riley said between crying with laughter. “You against Aiden Hunter. At least I had Emma Granger’s mom, and she’s a professor of physics and was as dry as a cracker.”

“I might be ill that day. Or I’ll send Robbie, he can take Eli and some models,” Jack said thoughtfully.

Riley stopped laughing. “You wouldn’t?”

Jack stood and stretched tall. He needed a shower and to get dressed for this meeting. Walking behind Riley, he dug his fingers in his husband’s hair and used the grip to tilt his head back. The kiss was long and drawn out.