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stern and stared at them.
    “Sorry,” she called out to it. “We’re not fishing today.” It wasn’t unusual for gulls to follow them out, or to investigate them, always on the search for a handout of bait or chum.
    “I bet the boys would like it if we minionized you,” Mac teased.
    “No.”
    “But you’d look so cute,” Sully said.
    “No. Don’t make me mom-voice you two.”
    The men laughed. “Yeah,” Mac said. “That’s sort of a chubby-killer when you use that tone.”
     
    * * * *
     
    Sully wasn’t going to argue with Mac. The man knew his own mind and was capable of making decisions. And that was why he also wouldn’t feel guilty about the abbreviated boat rules day, either.
    After their years together, if Sully couldn’t trust Mac to know what he needed, then there were more serious issues to be dealt with.
    Clarisse turned on the radio and plugged her iPod into it. The sounds of Jimmy Buffet rolled through the cabin and out over the water.
    “That’s more like it, babe,” Mac said, doing a silly little naked bump-and-grind against her. “Let’s party like we don’t have a babysitter awaiting our return and two cranky toddlers to soothe.”
    Sully laughed. More because of that fact than their dance. “Ooh, that’s so romantic. Talk dirty diapers to me.”
    They all laughed. It was a running joke with them in some of the precious alone time that they got, about merging parenting with their dynamic without either suffering.
    So far, they’d managed it, even though it meant an end to nakey days for Mac and Clarisse, and they weren’t free to scene whenever they wanted to.
    Because there were days when Sully had stared at Mac as he laid in the hospital bed and wished and prayed for the man to open his eyes.
    Days he couldn’t erase from his memory. Days that couldn’t have been less like the beauty of this afternoon. Days where he thought times like this were a thing of the past.
    Days when he realized that, without meaning to, he’d taken Brant for granted in many ways, that the man would always be there for him, indestructible. He was the one who had issues, between his bum leg and nightmares of the shooting that permanently and prematurely retired him from the force. He was the one he assumed would be the weaker of the two of them regardless of Brant being his slave.
    Or maybe Clarisse was stronger than both of them put together. Not just the love of their lives and the mother of their children, but she’d faced evil head on and blown its brains out.
    Literally.
    A fact no one else knew besides the three of them.
    A fact no one else would ever know for certain.
    He hadn’t been able to protect Brant. He hadn’t been able to protect Clarisse. And yet these two people looked up to him as their Owner and Master and husband. They had two sons who looked up to him as their father.
    He liked the boat rules days to remind him of that fallibility. Not that it was a state he wanted to occupy full time, but it was a nice escape on occasion.
    With a soft breeze and smooth, glassy rollers on a light current, the boat barely bobbed on the water. They spread towels on the deck and stretched out for a nap, sunning themselves, enjoying the brief respite today provided. Yes, once their boys were old enough to go to school, the three of them could snatch little moments of time here and there at home and not have to go out on the boat or rent a hotel room to do it.
    Sully preferred the boat, though. Not just for boat rules, but it was also where Clarisse had originally burst into their lives, literally, when she’d stowed away on it thinking it still belonged to her uncle.
    And despite it being the place where Brant almost lost his life, Sully still loved it. Because it was where the two of them became three.
    And he wasn’t entirely sure that at least one of their sons might have been conceived while aboard it, too.
    They had survived, healed, and moved on, their family growing, while Clarisse’s