"Eli-"

"I know, I know, I'm getting it."

"Okay good, I just want to make sure we have everything we need. Are you sure she wants to go straight to the courthouse from her game? I mean, I know she's going to change, but what if she doesn't want-"

"Babe, babe, calm down. Everything is going to be fine. Elodie will look beautiful for our pictures no matter what, and it was her idea to go straight there anyway. She's just excited to finally be coming home with us."

Fear struck me to my core at his words. We weren't married yet, but it was implied to be happening sooner rather than later, which would basically make me Elodie's...stepmother? Mother? Aunt/mother? I wasn't sure I wanted to analyze the complexities of our relationship, especially when she was in such a vulnerable place to begin with.

Eli brandished the stack of papers that we were to bring to the Miami courthouse later that afternoon once Elodie's final basketball game was finished. Relocating to the sunny state was more than a big decision and I was happy to let the final chapter close on my past when Elodie was officially ours.

Over the past year and some odd months since our reunion, Eli and I had fought with everything in our power with lawyers and police officers alike in order to prove his mother and stepfather unfit to raise Elodie, and that meant moving back to the place that I dreaded most. Eli had even signed a contact with the Miami Heat despite having his pick of the litter when it came to contracts on the table, but family was more important that that. To Eli, family was everything.

The evidence of bruises on Elodie's skin from an apparent beating from her father and the willful neglect from her mother had proven our point for us, and the judge had placed her in the care of a nearby relative for the time being considering the fact that Eli was still traveling more than he was at home for any judge to agree to placing her with us.

All of that changed, however, when Eli filed an injunction with the courts and since Elodie was old enough to verbally choose which family member she wanted to stay with, everything had fallen in place until it was finally time for Eli to legally adopt her.

The kinship adoption would be finalized later in the day, and to say my nerves were on fire was an understatement.

There were talks of me adopting her as well once we were married, but I would leave that up to Elodie herself. She was fourteen going on fifteen and Eli still hadn't proposed. It was inevitable that we'd be together forever, but we weren't in too much of a rush to start the whole marriage/having babies train quite yet.

Eli's honey caramel hair shone in the early morning light breaking off into separate beams through our sheer white curtains, and I had to catch my breath when he boxed me in with his arms by my head and pushed me lightly up against our front door of our quaint cottage style rental.

My stomach dipped, eyes capturing mine with a rapture request brimming in their depths, like he was asking for something that couldn't be taken.

"Are you sure about this? When we get married, Elodie will be yours. I don't want you to feel like you're going to be stuck in something, and-"

"Elodie is mine just as much as she's yours. I couldn't walk away from the both of you even if I wanted to, which I don't, and I never will. I told you a long time ago that I was in this til the end."

The scrunched lines on his tanned face evened out, and instead of the worried concern that was usually hiding in his eyes, instead a lustful tempest swirled around in them, desire blowing out his pupils as he took in our position, how he had trapped me against the door in his fervor.

One arm placed by my head as he leaned against the door behind me for support, the tendons and muscles in that appendage twitched and pulled taut underneath my stare, while his other large hand encircled my waist, tugging me away from the surface behind my back and into his warm body.

All hard planes and sculpted muscle, he was rigid against me while I melted, soft curves sinking into the expanse of everything masculine and perfect about Eli.

His new cologne that I'd bought for him-musky vanilla-invaded my senses and I breathed out a soft moan as his lips found the delicate skin of the shell of my ear, trailing featherlight kisses down my neck and to my collarbone until he was releasing me from his hold and tugging the v-neck of my blue sundress away from my form and exposing the tops of my breasts to him.

"Eli, her game starts in thirty minutes."

"That's plenty of time," he grumbled out, voice lowered to something akin to a growl, pleasure distorting his normal speaking voice.

I laughed at his assessment, the giggle transforming into a gasp as his teeth sunk into the soft pliant skin covered by a lightly padded bra.

"Okay, maybe just a quickie."

"That's my girl."

His mouth silenced mine as he angled my face towards his and then we were a blur of two people desperately in love and insatiable for the other, wondering if anything could ever be better than this.