She snuggled close. "Just threaten to take away their doors. That'll shut 'em up."

Tyler laughed. "You're vicious, pet. And I love you."

"Love you, too, Evil Genius." She kissed him, then Tom. "Love you, too."

"Love you both," Tom said.

Tom and Tyler laced fingers, resting their hands on Nevvie's hips. As they all drifted to sleep, Nevvie thought about the next generation of their family in the process of being born down in Tampa.

Sometimes, she thought about that mousy, scared little cleaning girl who secretly dreamed about her two love gods and wished for a better life-and love. Then she always thanked the Universe for the rough path she'd walked early in her life. She wouldn't change a thing. She had a life full of love and an ever-growing family because of it.

But most of all, she had peace.

THE END.

TYMBERDALTON.COM.

AFTERWORD.

I'd never planned for Love Slave for Two to become a series. Originally, it was going to be a one-off book, with no planned sequels. And while I knew the characters' backstories, I never planned to write a prequel, either. But one day, the story for Love Slave for Two: Family Matters popped into my head, and I thought hmm, that would work. It didn't hurt that I was getting several e-mails every week from readers asking not if, but when, a sequel would be released.

Fortunately for me, the characters started "talking" to me again, and I wrote it. During that process, I got the ideas for books three and four. The prequel, however, started chattering to me the loudest at that point, because events in the prequel set up events in book three.

While I won't say there are no more books to be written in this series, for now, the characters have gone silent on me.

Ironically, as I was writing this, we were dealing with TS Debby here in Florida. While it wasn't a major wind event, it dumped record-breaking amounts of rain on our state, as well as pushed a lot of water onshore, causing storm surge flooding. The Tampa stations showed, a couple of weeks after I'd already written the scene, video of the Bayshore region of Tampa completely flooded.

It was a sobering reminder.

A lot of people like to joke about throwing hurricane parties, but as a lifelong resident of this state, I can attest to the horrific power of Mother Nature. Most people don't realize that deaths in storms are due mostly to drowning, not the wind. People want to stay behind and watch the waves, or they don't think it'll be that bad, and before they know it, they're trapped in rising waters and emergency officials can't respond.

Or they do something stupid like drive through standing water and get washed off the road.

I know it's a pain in the ass, but as a storm survivor myself (evacuated from Andrew and went through the No-Name of '93, Hurricane Charley, and Hurricane Wilma) please heed the warnings of emergency officials when they ask you to get the heck out of town. Have your hurricane party at a hotel or a friend's house somewhere safe. I guarantee you, the waves don't look so neat when you're climbing up into an attic with nowhere else to go. And many emergency shelters now accept animals, so you don't have an excuse to not evacuate with your pets. Familiarize yourself now, before the storm, with where pet-friendly shelters are, or have plans to stay with friends or family in a safe zone.

Please, stay safe.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR.

Tymber Dalton lives in southwest Florida with her husband (aka "The World's Best Husband"), son, and too many pets. She loves to hear from readers! Please feel free to drop by her website and sign up for her newsletter to keep abreast of the latest news, views, snarkage, and releases. (Don't forget to look up her writing alter egos Lesli Richardson, Tessa Monroe, and Macy Largo!) http://www.tymberdalton.com.

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