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Chapters (31)
  1. The Long and Winding Road
  2. Table of Contents
  3. Dedication
  4. Epigraph
  5. Prologue: Or, Where Bear Answers the Door
  6. PAST
  7. 1. Where Bear Makes the Wrong Assumption
  8. 2. Where Bear Finds Out
  9. 3. Where Bear Makes a Decision
  10. 4. Where Bear Learns the Art of Breathing
  11. 5. Where Bear Has Bro-Time with Creed
  12. PRESENT
  13. 6. Where Bear Attends the Most Awkward Homecoming Ever
  14. 7. Where Bear Tells Tyson Everything
  15. 8. Where Bear Makes a Promise
  16. 9. Where Bear Goes to Lamaze Class
  17. 10. Where Bear Gets Advice About His Sex Life
  18. 11. Where Bear and Otter Role-Play at a Hotel Bar
  19. 12. Where Bear Faces the Reality of Married Life
  20. 13. Where Bear Sees Everything Change
  21. FUTURE
  22. 14. The Long and Winding Road
  23. Epilogue: Or, Otter’s Perspective, As It Were
  24. Coda
  25. No. Absolutely not. No way.
  26. More from TJ Klune
  27. Readers love the Bear, Otter, and the Kid Chronicles by TJ Klune
  28. About the Author
  29. By TJ Klune
  30. Visit Dreamspinner Press
  31. Copyright

And he grins at me, that crooked smile I know better than almost anything else. He reaches down and slides off my dress shoes one by one, dropping them to the floor. He pulls off my socks, tossing them over his shoulder as I laugh. My feet are ticklish, and he always tries to fuck with me about it. He lifts both my legs up and tugs on the bottom of my dress pants. I raise my hips and let him pull them off. I take off my shirt and toss it over the side of the bed.

And then he’s crawling on the bed, arms on either side of me, and he kisses my stomach, my hip, before he leans up and bites my nipples, first the right and then the left, the barest scrapes of his teeth that causes goose bumps to crawl along my chest and arms.

He’s above me now, and he’s looking down at me, like he’s studying my face. I wonder, sometimes, what he thinks about when he sees me, if I make his heart stutter or his breath catch in his chest like he does for me. I think I do.

“Such a good boy,” he says quietly, and fuck, I hate how that’s an apparent weakness of mine, and the sound that comes out of my mouth then is low and painful.

“You can’t keep doing that,” I growl at him.

“Oh? I think I can.”

“Okay, Daddy.”

He grimaces. “That’s… wow. That’s not good.”

And then he’s laughing, and I’m laughing, and it’s such a grand thing, being almost naked with my best friend who I also happen to be married to. It’s so good that we’ve gotten this far, that after everything, we’re here, we’re together, and we’re living. And it’s when his mouth is on me, cheeks hollowing, my eyes rolling back in my head that I send up a little quiet thank you to whoever or whatever might be listening that this is mine, that I get to have this. Because there was a time when that wasn’t a sure thing.

It’s when he’s hiking my legs up around his shoulders after having dug the lube out of his pocket, when he’s grunting as he fucks into me, his forehead sweating, whispering my name against my neck, almost bending me in half, that I know how close it could have been. My hands are running down his broad back as I call out his name, and they’re on his hips, and then his legs that are curled underneath him, and I trace along the jagged scar there, knowing there’s metal underneath. It was close. It was so close.