I stripped us both slow, reverent, mapping every new curve of her body with my hands and mouth. When I slid inside her, we both groaned. I kept my weight on my forearms, moving careful and deep, watching her face for any discomfort. There was none… only pleasure, her nails digging into my shoulders, breath hitching with every thrust.
“I love you,” I whispered against her neck, pace steady, relentless. “Love you so fucking much.”
She came with my name on her lips, clenching around me, and I followed seconds later, burying my face in her hair, spilling inside her with a broken sound.
After, I pulled her close, her back to my chest, hand splayed protectively over her stomach.
“Happy Valentine’s Day, Mrs. Stonewood,” I murmured into her hair.
She laced her fingers with mine.
“Best one ever, Mr. Stonewood.”
Outside, the February night pressed cold against the windows, but inside, everything was warm.
Two heartbeats.
Two futures.
And the woman carrying them both curled safe in my arms.
I was never going to let her out of my sight again.
Epilogue
Chrissy
One Year Later, Christmas Eve
Bayview smelledlike cinnamon this Christmas.
Not the cheap-scented-candle kind, but real cinnamon. Lucia had insisted on baking for the entire staff, and every resident in the place, and nobody had been brave enough to tell her no. So the whole nursing home smelled like her kitchen, warm and soft and safe.
Ben carried a car seat in one hand, like it weighed nothing.
Connor — my sweet, big-eyed boy — slept inside it with the smug serenity of a baby who ruined my sleep every night but pretended he was an angel for everyone else.
I carried Alecia against my chest, swaddled in a red blanket and chewing on the corner with serious purpose.
“You ready to see what kind of day Granny’s having?” Ben asked quietly as we approached Granny Irene’s door.
I nodded.
“Yeah. On the way in, the nurse said she’s been alert since breakfast.”
We visited her almost every single day, unless someone was sick or there was a damn good reason we couldn’t visit, like my short hospital stay back in late August when I gave birth to the twins.
He leaned down, kissed my temple.
“Then let’s give her the kind of joy she deserves in her day, whether she can remember it afterward or not.”
God. This man…
It’d been a year since everything exploded — Vivian’s arrest, Ben reclaiming Ashgrove House, the staff rebuilding their lives, Lucia moving into Henry’s guest room ‘temporarily’ (which turned permanent exactly ten days later). And us.
Married.
Safe.
