“’Kay,” she said, all Molly, meaning all smiles.
He let her go and she aimed that bright smile D’s way.
It hit him where it always hit him, right in the chest, warm and sweet.
Then she launched herself his way and he had to unfold his arms to catch her since, when she made it to him, she jumped up and wrapped her arms around his neck. He turned his back to the door, she wrapped her legs around his hips, and she didn’t even get out his name before he took her mouth and walked her in the house still doing it.
She was the sweetest kisser he’d ever had. Even after years, their Molly was timid with her tongue, but greedy taking her man’s, and the contradiction never failed to score right through his cock.
He was almost to the couch before he broke their kiss, grinned down at her, and greeted, “Hey, baby.”
The smile was back in place. “Hey, D.”
He dropped her to her feet at the front of the couch and she immediately dropped her purse that was hanging on her shoulder to the coffee table.
They heard her bag hit tile and both turned to see Maddox was in, her weekender at the end of the hall, and Maddox’s eyes were on their woman.
“Beer?” he offered.
“Please,” she answered.
She bent and dug in her purse as D twisted around her, falling to his back on the couch in a lounge where his body was taking up the space, his shoulders to the arm, and the second she had her phone free, he grabbed her hips and yanked her on top of him.
She stretched out, settled in, smiled into his face again and he had no choice but to smile back.
“Drive good?” he asked.
“They need to make it three lanes all the way,” she answered her standard answer anytime she went or came back from Tucson. “Arizona drivers drive way too offensively for two lanes ever.”
“We’ll start our petition about that after you wind down from the trip,” he teased and the smile stayed pinned to her face.
And that was Molly.
She worked with doctors, they could be a pain in the ass, but she never let it get her down.
The drive to Tucson was always busy and full of jockeying for position, she found it stressful, but she never let it get her down.
For D she had to pretend Maddox was just a friend on the rare occasion any family member of his (but Rebel) was around, and she never let it get her down.
Maddox had the confidence, the chill, the ability not to give a shit about anything or anyone who didn’t matter.
Molly had the strength of will to keep on keeping on no matter what hit her, she left it where it needed to be the minute she walked over the threshold into the home she shared with the men who were her life.
It was D who had the baggage.
It was D who weighed them both down.
Maddox moved in at their sides, handed Molly her beer, she took it while D reached out to get his at the same time shaking off his thoughts, and Maddox retrieved his own before throwing himself on the other end of the couch.
This time, Molly there, he settled in a tangle with D’s legs, as well as Molly’s, as Molly sucked back some brew.
She pressed into D to put the bottle to the floor and engaged her phone, eventually turning it D’s way.
“This is the dress,” she declared.
He looked at the snap.
“Shit,” he whispered
On her phone was a picture of her in a long, very light pink dress that seemed to have lots of material and a high neck where the material latched onto a string that wound around her lower neck, but her shoulders and arms were bare. There was a sweet slit in the front and a belt at the waist gathering all that material to her body. It was feminine, innocent, almost angelic.
Absolutely Molly, from hem to collarbone.
“Baby, gorgeous,” he said quietly.
He felt her kiss his jaw and that was the only reason his eyes moved from the photo to her to see her shifting so she could reach out and show Maddox.
D knew the instant Mad clapped eyes on it because he said, “Jesus, fuck.”
“I take it my boys approve,” Molly noted.
Approve wasn’t the word for it and he hoped like fuck Holly and Dylan were having their reception somewhere with a private space big enough to fit three because he had no clue how he was gonna get through a ceremony without having her while she was wearing that dress and he knew from Mad’s tone he felt the same.
“Approve is one word you could use,” Maddox said.
Yup.
He felt the same.
She collapsed back on D, but he felt her feet burrowing into Maddox’s thighs, and she looked at the picture of herself.
“I’m the only one who gets this style. The other three are in something else and their color is dove gray. It’s totally gonna work,” she murmured.
D cared nothing for what the other chicks were wearing.
He was just glad Holly had taken care of her sister and not dressed her up in something heinous.
She tossed her phone on the coffee table and pressed into D again to retrieve her beer as Diesel asked, “You best those budget cuts?”
She slugged some back and looked at him.
“So, get this, she had eight different kinds of hors d’oeuvres being passed around. We cut it back to six, and that saved sixteen hundred dollars right there,” she declared.
Sixteen hundred on snacks?
“Christ,” he muttered.
She looked to Maddox. “And we scaled back the table flower arrangements from the massive size to the middle massive size and saved another thousand.”
“Sounds like you got on the right track,” Maddox remarked.
She turned her attention back to D. “We also switched up the brand of champagne she picked for the toasts and saved another five hundred bucks.”
Diesel was getting the idea that the ring for Molly’s finger wasn’t even the half of it.
Not near.
Even with her parents in to give her some cake.
Shit.
“We hit a snag because she refuses to cut back on the bridesmaid gifts she’s buying,” Molly went on. “But I managed to talk her out of the shoes she was going to wear, which cost twelve hundred dollars. I found ones she still loves, but isn’t going to spend twelve hundred dollars on to wear once, because the ones she picked scream, ‘bridal,’ and she’ll so totally not ever wear them again. The ones I found, they’re awesome, they’ll work with her gown, but she might also be able to wear them again and they only cost three hundred dollars.”
D could not imagine a three hundred dollar pair of shoes. He wasn’t even going to attempt to imagine a twelve hundred dollar pair since that shit was impossible.
“And the DJ package was cut back from Studio 54 to Nice Wedding in Tucson and that saved another four hundred,” Molly continued, and at that, D chuckled.
“So you made a good dent in it,” Maddox noted and Molly looked back to Mad.
“We had it out over the guest gifts. She’s determined to give everyone a little pot with a succulent in it or a personalized split of champagne, both way expensive. But Mom found some things on Etsy that were really cute, and tons cheaper, so she’s going to think on it.”
There was humor in his voice now when Maddox repeated, “So you made a good dent in it.”
Molly did a thing with her head that was both nodding and shaking that was so fucking cute, Diesel could barely stand not trying to kiss her through it as she shared, “She’s got a little less than three grand to go and bridesmaid gifts to buy. I told her maybe for her shower, she should ask for donations to the wedding, but she said she wanted people to be free to give her what they want her to have.”