“Oh god.”
“Fuck.”
Inch by excruciating inch, I rock back and forth, going deeper as her walls stretch to take me. We’re both panting by the time I’m seated fully inside her. Pure heaven.
Our frantic movements slow with an understanding of how precious and important this moment is. It’s a new beginning of endless possibilities. A chance to start over and build something spectacular.
Douglass cups my cheek with her right hand, keeping our eyes aligned and connected as our bodies begin to move. Slowly, exquisitely. An explosion of emotion overtakes me. Lust. Hunger. Want. Need. Love. It’s intense.
Her bangles tinkle like bells with every thrust, and I turn my lips to her wrist, kissing her scar. I hope one day she’ll stop wearing them. Her scar isn’t a weakness, but a strength, just like my sobriety coin she’s currently wearing around her neck.
I search her face, wanting to memorize every detail. But it’s when I look into the beauty of her fog-misted forest eyes and see so much love reflected back at me—a love born ten years ago but which has only begun to bloom—that I remember something Mom had said.
Two days before she passed away, Mom told me, “One day, this amazing person will walk into your life and flip it upside down in the most amazing way possible. You’ll finally understand the meaning and the gravitas of the words ‘I love you;’ not because you say them, but because they are embedded into your soul and tattooed onto your heart. It’s then you realize you found your soulmate.”
As I make love to the girl who is my forever, I take her hand and lay it on my chest, over the heart that belongs to only her. “Thank you for loving me, Douglass Donnelly.”
Her smile is exquisite as one lovely tear spills down her cheek. “Thank you for loving me back, Jordan Hammond.”
Epilogue
Six Years Later
“Are… we… there… yet?”
Her question comes out metered with every exhale she makes, which are timed with her tiny footfalls on the black asphalt. It’s also the tenth time she’s asked in the last fifteen minutes.
“Quarter mile to go, baby girl, give or take.”
Her long, red ponytail swings side to side like a runaway pendulum as she increases her speed, knowing the finish line is just up ahead.
I keep my jogging pace steady with hers, pride filling my chest at how well she’s done so far in her first 5K.
“I… want… ice… cream.”
A smile breaks across my face. “Cookies and cream double scoop with extra whipped cream,” I promise her.
“Don’t… forget… the… hot… fudge,” she pants out.
“I wouldn’t dare,” I tease and point up ahead of us.
“Yes!” she shouts upon seeing the inflatable red archway designating the finish line and takes off in a dead sprint. For such a short little thing, she’s fast as lightning.
With her arms waving over her head in victory, she crosses the finish line—and keeps running toward the row of huddled people gathered along the road.
“Mama! I did it! Did you see?” Our five-year-old daughter launches herself at Douglass’s legs, careful not to bump into her distended belly.
We found out a week after I proposed that Douglass was already two months pregnant. It was an unexpected, but very happy surprise. Seven months later, Cassidy Samantha Hammond came screaming into the world like the fiery redhead she is. A little mini-me of her mother with the pale blue eyes of her father. In one month, we’ll welcome our son. Douglass wants to name him Jack, after my grandfather.
“I did! I got it all on video too.” Douglass brushes her hand through Cassidy’s sweat-soaked hair.
“Daddy promised me ice cream.”
Douglass’s eyes lift from our daughter to me, a knowing smile curving her perfectly lush lips. “I bet he did.”
As with every other time over the sixteen years since I first saw her at Bailey’s Bookstore, her beauty slams into me like a wrecking ball and steals the breath from my lungs.
“Can we take some to Grandma Nat?” our sweet daughter asks. Kindhearted to the core, just like her mother.
