Never conventional.

Mansion 2.0 was... a genuine mansion. Jennifer had impeccable taste, in his opinion, decorating it in classic Tudor style. The master bedroom was the most impressive part — enormous, with a giant four-poster bed, a walk-in closet, and its own private tea room. He knew it had cost a fortune; they made plenty of money now, but you never quite shake that poor-kid mentality — you always end up thinking about the cost of everything.

But his favorite part was the pool. He could see it from the bedroom window — down below, Eve and Alex sunbathing naked as the day they were born.

The view got him a little worked up, but he wanted some alone time with his queen first.

"Quite a view," Jennifer said, looking out at the horizon behind him.

She was undressing — they'd just arrived and hadn't even finished unpacking, but the girls wanted to catch some sun, so they'd decided to call it a day.

"Getting better by the second."

He came up behind her, helped unzip her dress, and started kissing her neck. She turned into him, kissing him back, wrapping her arms around him. He lifted her and carried her to the enormous bed, finished undressing her while she undressed him, and they made love wrapped around each other, slow, unhurried, until they both finished together — no screaming, no theatrics, just holding onto one another.

"What a life," they whispered, not wanting the moment to end, still holding each other.

"The one you deserve."

"Such sweet things you say."

"The ones you deserve"

"Stop, you sap."

They paused, and Nick finally worked up the nerve to say what he wanted to say.

"I want to marry you."

"I know."

"God, would you stop knowing everything for one minute."

"Sorry."

"The thing is, I don't want to get married to you. I want to be married to you."

"I understand. I've thought about it too."

"It's too much — family, friends, having to hide our life, pretend around everyone for some ceremony I don't even care about, because everything that matters to me is already right here in front of me."

"I understand."

"But you'd want a ceremony, and I want to give you what you want, and that's where I'm stuck."

"I used to. I'm not so sure anymore."

"Why's that?"

"Because for us, that day is supposed to be about feeling special — and I feel special every single day."

"You ARE special."

"That's exactly what I mean. You make me feel that way every day."

"I try."

"You succeed, and you're right — I don't feel like dealing with all that. I just want to be married to you too."

The wave of joy that hit Nick was unlike anything he'd ever felt — this was the moment he'd been dreaming about for weeks, finally here.

Nick reached under the pillow and pulled out a small box, opening it for her.

"Will you be married to me?"

"Yes, I will," she said, through tears.

He slid the ring onto her finger — gold, with a massive ruby that had cost a fortune. He'd known the moment he saw it in the shop that it was the one — the deep red glow it gave off couldn't hold a candle to his fiancée's lips when she smiled, but it was close enough.

She cried, overwhelmed, staring at it.

It was, without question, the least conventional proposal in history — right there in bed, both of them naked, the room still full of half-unpacked cardboard boxes — but that was their life. Never conventional.

They made love that afternoon, over and over — that was their emotional language, the way they told each other how much they loved one another, how badly they wanted to spend the rest of their lives together; something as earthbound as words simply couldn't hold it. Rose came to let them know dinner was ready, but they asked not to be disturbed; she caught the glint on her mistress's hand and her eyes welled up as she withdrew, happy for them. They kept going for hours, pausing, promising each other eternal love, then starting again with renewed energy, again and again, until their bodies finally gave out well into the early hours of the morning, and they collapsed, exhausted but happy.

Nick floated lazily in the pool, then sat on the edge and leaned back. Jennifer and Alex had gone shopping and taken Rose along after he refused to be their pack mule — Rose, ever eager to serve, had even offered to drive.

He'd expected Eve to jump him the moment he got out of the water, but there was no sign of her. Once he'd dried off, he decided to go find her.

He headed straight for her room, and heard her crying before he even reached the door. He knocked.

"You okay?"

The least convincing "yeah" in recorded history came back through the door. He decided to just walk in — there weren't any locks in the house anyway.

She was on the bed, wearing one of those barely-there bikinis that always made Nick lose all sense of direction, but he was on an emotional-support mission and tried to focus.

He sat beside her and said nothing. If he'd learned anything from his wife — his wife, he still couldn't get over how good that sounded — it was patience; you let people open up at their own pace, you just have to be there.

"My sister," she said between sobs, "hates me."

He lay down beside her. Out of embarrassment, she'd turned onto her stomach, and the bikini bottom was basically a thread from behind, which didn't help him focus on anything besides that sculpted ass.

He started stroking her back gently, hoping to calm her down.

It worked; she seemed to relax, then turned toward him and hugged him tightly, still muffled against his chest, but being held was calming her down.

"I want what Alex and Jen have."

"With your sister — Helen, right? I know you two grew up in foster care, or an orphanage, something like that?"

"Yeah."

"But?"

"But she's not like us."

"Everyone's like us — that's Jen's theory, anyway. Everyone just needs a little push, to shed the shame."

"She'd need to get hit by a bus, honestly."

"That closed off, huh?"

She handed him her phone. He scrolled through the messages between them, where she'd confessed the nature of her relationship with her boyfriend, that she slept with men and women, without going into much more detail. Helen tore into her — called her every name from cheap whore on up, threatened to tell their parents.

"Jesus Christ."

"And you wanted her... more involved in your life, or..."

"Yeah, and everything else too, but you can see she's already slammed the door on me."

"When you say everything else..."

"Yeah, I'd love it, honestly. I get so jealous watching Jen and Alex, so natural, so... free, with you, with each other. She's not even really my sister, biologically."

"She might as well be, if you two grew up together — but I get what you mean. Either way, if you two were actually blood-related, it wouldn't matter to us at all here. Let me see what we can do."

"What are you going to do, she's my sister—"

"Women are kind of my specialty, if you hadn't noticed."

"Not this one. She's a virgin."

"But she's what, thirty?"

"Twenty-eight, and a virgin, saving herself for marriage — which is never going to happen because she's unbearable with men."

"I'll talk to my better half. She's good at this stuff."

"Seriously? I don't even know what to say."

"You're one of us now. You bring something to this house — well, your boyfriend does, technically, whatever — and that doesn't just mean we can fuck. It means we help each other be happy, get what we want. Is just that all people here wants a lot of sex, but if you want this, we are on the case"

"That's incredible, thank you."

"You're welcome."

"But right now I want you to fuck me. You're so hard."

"It's the bikini. It's killing me."

He devoured her lips hungrily, hands going straight for her ass, pulling the thin thong aside, and slid into her, her cries starting almost instantly. He didn't want to go as rough as he did when he fucked her for his wife's benefit — he took his time, savoring her small, athletic figure, licking her nipples, groping her ass — his favorite part. He carefully flipped her onto all fours and spent a long time just tasting her from behind, ass and pussy both, worshiping that well-toned ass — a tribute to an active life. He slid back into her from behind, gripping her hips, watching that masterpiece collide with his pelvis on every thrust. He liked it so much he picked up the pace, making her squirt almost immediately. She got up and knelt between his legs, still wrecked from her orgasm, and started sucking him with both hands. "Give it to me, I need it, please make me swallow," she begged, stroking him between sucks.

He didn't need much more — he came across her mouth, face, and chest with a groan. She grabbed her phone quickly and snapped a selfie, covered in cum.

"For Dan," she said, licking her fingers clean.

Nick found it insanely hot, and it wasn't long before he was ready for round two.

"Should we make him a video?" he suggested.

They went at it again with renewed energy. Eve filmed herself sucking him off, tossing in the occasional comment: "It's so huge, look at it, look how sexy I am with a real cock in my mouth," then propped her phone up on the table pointed at the bed and asked him to take her from behind again, so her boyfriend could see her face when she came. She screamed even more theatrically than usual: "God, yes, I need this, god, fuck me with that huge cock," "Cum inside me, please, knock me up, I want your baby, a real man's baby." He knew it was mostly performance to turn her boyfriend on, but the idea, deep down, didn't bother him either — something primal in him found the idea of getting all these attractive women pregnant appealing. He obliged, filling her pussy until it overflowed the moment he pulled out. He grabbed the camera himself and gave the audience a nice close-up shot while Eve, flat on her back, fingered herself and brought her fingers to her mouth with ravenous hunger. He stopped recording.