Bottom line was, he wasn’t cut out to be a father. Never had been. Biology, however, had jacked him into the role, and now they were all chained to his past: As much as he couldn’t imagine living without Bella, there was no fathoming how he could be the dad Nalla deserved.

With a frown, he pictured Nalla’s coming-out party, something all females of the glymera had one year after their transitions. The daughter always had the first dance with her father, and he saw Nalla dressed in a flowing red gown, her multicolored hair up, rubies at her throat…and himself with his fucked-up face and his slave bands peeking out of the cuffs of his tuxedo.

Great. Helluva picture.

Cursing, Z went to the bathroom, where Bella was getting ready for the evening. He was going to tell her that he was heading out on a follow-up from the night before and that as soon as he was finished, he’d come home and they would talk. As he looked around the corner, though, he stopped dead.

In the mist that lingered from her shower, Bella was drying off her body. Her hair was wrapped in a towel, her long neck exposed, her creamy shoulders working this way and that as she made quick work with the terry cloth across her back. Her breasts swayed, catching his eyes, hardening him.

Fuck him, but as he watched her, all he could think about was sex. God, she was beautiful. He’d liked her rounded by the pregnancy, and he liked her as she was now, too. She’d thinned out quickly after Nalla’s birth, her stomach as tight as it had been before, her hips regaining their lean contours. Her breasts were bigger, though, the nipples a deeper pink, the swells heavier.

His cock punched into his leathers, a criminal wanting out of jail.

As he rearranged himself, he realized he and Bella hadn’t been together since well before the birth. The pregnancy had been difficult, and afterward Bella had needed time to heal and had been rightfully consumed with taking care of her infant.