“Mmm…yeah, maybe,” I said, biting my lip.

Her eyes went all dark when I did.

“How do you want me, Baby Girl?”

“However I can get you,” she replied.

“Is that right?”

She nodded. “You’re my greatest strength and my unholy weakness. Whatever you want, I want that, too.”

“Oh, Baby…” I breathed. My chest tingled as though my heart had stopped. Looking into her eyes, I felt that wonderful calm peace I always got when I was with her like this. Reaching over, I took the crop from her hand and tossed it to the floor. “What do you want from me now?” I whispered, my lips moving over hers. “Let me give you what you need.”

“Just you,” she whispered. “You’re all I’ve ever needed.”

I loved how the skin on her face was soft, like a peach, and just as supple. Delicate and delicious and all fuckin’ mine. Sitting back, I kissed and licked my way down, tasting every inch of her from face to waist. Then, I bit into the lace of her panties and took them off real slow.

“Just you and me,” I told her.

No belts, crops, or restraints.

“You and me,” she replied, a smile brightening her face.

This was gonna be one of those times where I’d lose a part of myself to her. I loved these moments—when she was as open to me as she could possibly be. I got to see her as no one did, feel what she had inside that she kept hidden from everyone else.

Spreading her wide, I lowered myself between her thighs, my eyes never leaving hers, as I sank deep into the only place that was truly home. Soft, hot, wet, and so tight, she wrapped around all of me, holding me inside her, a part of her.

“I love you,” she sighed, breaking my heart and healing it up all at once.

She usually never said it first, always saving it for when I needed it most. For my Baby Girl, those words meant something. She didn’t throw them around lightly.

“I love you, too,” I told her, pulling out and sliding back home. That tiny heartbeat…fuck, she unmanned me.

This was my absolute favorite, watching her give herself up to it, to me. Her eyes closed, and her lips parted as a raspberry flush covered her from her chest to her cheeks. Fuck, I loved that color. It told me I was doing my job right. Her brows knitted together as I pushed all of me, all I was, into the one place I belonged.

“So beautiful,” I muttered, just in complete awe of the gorgeous sight before me.

“Not…as beautiful…as you,” she replied between breaths.

My eyes burned. I knew she believed it with her whole heart, but she was wrong. There was nothing more beautiful than Kenna, no human more precious. My miracle. I fuckin’ felt it to my core. She was everywhere and was everything, and I was lost in her.

“My other half,” I whispered against her mouth.

“My whole life,” she replied.

The guys and I stood huddled, arms wrapped around each other’s shoulders, heads together.

“All right, guys,” said Jason. “Fuckin’ Vegas. Let’s tear her a new one, yeah?”

“Fuck yeah!” barked Flipper, bouncing.

“Let’s go out there, and have the fuckin’ time of our lives,” I told them. “Let’s give ’em hell. I wanna leave these fuckers sore for days.”

“Too fuckin’ right,” grunted Connor.

Little brother had come a long fuckin’ way since that first show in Bethel Woods. Like his sister, he was cool and calm, and I ain’t ever known a motherfucker more focused during a show. There was something in the MacGregor kids’ DNA that didn’t let them freak out too much.

Kenna had told me what she imagined it was like for us going up on stage and performing before thousands of people. She’d likened it to a wave of energy crashing over us, and from her point of view, I could see it. But what it was like on the inside, at least for me…it was a high that couldn’t really be described.

There was the excitement, sure. I’d long ago lost the nervousness. Somehow, it had turned into a buzz. Seeing all those faces, screaming for us, roaring our words back at us, pounding the earth in beat with the music—it was un-fuckin’-believable.

Kenna stood off to the side, smiling and laughing with Alys and Lili. She looked so sexy, her hair tucked up under a black cabby hat, shadowing her eyes, but I could see her blazing smile, felt the warmth of it like the rays of the sun.

Memories of last night washed through me, and all of me warmed up.

“Just you and me.”

The stage lights went black, and the roar of the masses called out to us.

Running out to center stage, I jumped up and down, letting the surge reach to my fingertips and toes. It shivered its way down my spine. Huh. Never thought of it before, but I would feel the same shit when I was close to blowing a load.

Jason let a chord rip, and— BOOM!—lights went up, showing a sea of faces rippling before me.

“Hello, Las Vegas!” I roared into the mic.

Something came over me that wasn’t wholly me when up on stage. That was what Kenna called Phil fuckin’ Deveraux. A rush of strength, of power, held me up to be a cocky fucker up there. It got the crowd up and going and kept them wanting more.

When we played like this, time didn’t exist. The music beat its way through us, distorting the fabric of the universe, and we loved the feeling so fuckin’ much that, by the time the set should finish, we just wanted to keep going. It wasn’t a fuckin’ job. It was who we fuckin’ were. It was the five of us at our most basic, most raw.

Two hours later, dripping under the cooker lights, with the tide of energy ebbing to a sustained thrumming, we all came together and put our arms around each other to thank the audience. We knew it was the fans who had given us this. They were the ones who had made it possible for us to be who we really were, and for that…

Namaste, motherfuckers.

Kenna

Officially on vacation in Las Vegas, my girls and I headed down to one of the bars inside the Bellagio to have a beer after lunch.

The guys were in another meeting. The hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico was now a Category Five, and the trajectory promised it would hit land back home. Every effort was being made to save the equipment in the studio.

Connor and I had convinced Da and Gloria to go stay at either the Plantation House or Grandma’s—well, my house. It was built to hold against moderate flooding. The eye of the storm was heading straight for New Orleans, and La Place was twenty-five miles west of it. There would be winds and flooding, but it certainly would not be as severe as what could happen in the city.

Moreover, someone had to board up my house.

People were evacuating the city, and our parents had insisted that we stay where we were rather than come home. Gordy, Siggie, and the Devil’s Advocate crew would take care of the studio, and they had been invited to remain in La Place until the storm blew over.

“Well, it’s not like we’re not used to such storms. It comes with the territory,” said Lili.

“True,” I replied. “So, what’s the plan for tonight?”

“Lewis was saying something about getting us into the fusion restaurant here. I think he talked to the guys about it,” said Lili.

From my seat at the bar, the sight of a petite blonde slinking in under the radar snatched my attention. Brigid still looked rough around the edges. Either she hadn’t seen us, or she was pretending she hadn’t. She made her way to a table where a girl with a black rocker bob sat. The girl stood and warmly hugged Brigid.

“I wonder what’s up with Devon,” muttered Alys.

Both Alys and Lili stared at the women over their beer glasses.

“I think he’s finally out of the Cannibals,” I said quietly. “He mentioned his contract ended with them on the thirty-first.”