Then she smiled, and it made her eyes twinkle like a thousand stars in the sky. The smile sealed the deal. The smile was everything. She was everything. And I wanted to kiss that smile and those lips every day for the rest of my life. Even on days we fought, I wanted to kiss that smile.
We weren’t perfect, but we were perfect for each other and better together.
She was everything I’d ever wanted, and she was worth the wait.
“I’m going to love you forever, Dr. Cutie.”
“Not if I love you forever first, Officer Handsome.”
The End
EPILOGUE
Jenna
“Come on, babe. Do we have to do this?” Mark asked, squaring his stance and crossing his corded forearms across his chest. His tattoos danced as he flexed, and I bit my lip, watching his muscles ripple, a tingle building in my core. His eyes turned molten as they focused on my lips, and he spread his legs further apart.
God, he knew what seeing him standing there like that did to me—all alpha and unyielding. I loved his voice, his hands, his jaw muscles. I even loved the crease he got in the middle of his forehead when he concentrated. It all turned me into a puddle of desperate need. I padded forward on bare feet and dragged my nails up his bare chest and over his caramel-colored nipples before threading them through him his hair.
A low rumble started in his chest as he leaned into my touch and ran his nose along my collarbone. My back hit the cool granite island in our kitchen, but it did nothing to squelch the heat of my skin as his fingers ran down my arms and lovingly caressed my swelling stomach.
“Please, baby. Let me take you upstairs and erase that needy look in your eyes with my tongue.”
My body hummed with desire as I trailed my hand back down his chest and to the waistband of his briefs, running my fingers over his rapidly hardening cock.
“You know we can’t. Hmm…but we are the guests of honor.” The rumble in his throat turned to a full-throated growl as he bit down on the sensitive spot where my neck met my shoulder, then soothed the sting with his tongue. “And I wouldn’t be opposed to arriving fashionably late.”
Achy, desperate moans escaped my lips, and he took over, knowing exactly what my body craved.
“Good. Where would you like to come first?” he asked, pulling off my T-shirt and leaning down to take one nipple in his mouth. He sucked hard, knowing how sensitive they were, and rested one hand protectively on my enormous baby bump. His tongue licked and nibbled over my trembling flesh, and I fisted his hair, holding him to me and arching my chest, so there wasn’t a millimeter of space between us.
“Shower.” I sighed, grinding my hips to the enormous bulge protruding from his gray sweatpants. Seeing water droplets cling to his thick, blonde hair as he wrung pleasure from my body while we stood under the hot shower spray had become my new favorite place to come.
He tilted his head and let go of my nipple, licking up between my breasts to take my lips in a possessive kiss. When he pulled away, and I was breathless and panting, his lips pulled up in the corners, and he grinned, scooping me up and carrying me to the bathroom.
“We’re only thirty minutes late,” he said, pulling into the large parking lot on the far side of my mother-in-law’s townhouse. “How are you feeling? And what do you think they have planned?”
He unbuttoned the second button on his green shirt and rubbed his clean-shaved neck before threading his fingers with mine.
“Ugh, my hands are swollen. And I have no idea how I feel, to be honest. I’m still trying to wrap my head around the idea that your brothers are throwing us a gender reveal party.”
“Yeah, me to babe,” he said, locking the Tahoe and glancing around the open space.
A breeze lifted my hair, and I smelled the chlorine from the pool and the flowering bushes along the walkway leading toward the clubhouse. It reminded me of summers spent lounging in the sun without a care in the world. I rubbed my belly, smiling at all the ways my life had changed. My wedding ring hung from a long chain around my neck because my fingers had swollen to the size of Vienna sausages, but it didn’t matter. The man beside me unconditionally loved my swollen fingers and toes, and I loved him right back.
We walked past the clubhouse on stilts surrounded by palm trees with comfy tables and chairs underneath and headed toward the Olympic-sized pool. Why this party had to be outside instead of in the cool air conditioning was beyond me, but the girls assured me Mark’s brothers went all out. I knew it was too much to hope for that there’d be a relaxing recliner and two burly men standing by to feed me grapes and fan me with palm fronds, but a girl could dream.
“What are you thinking about, Dr. Cutie?” Mark asked, squeezing my hand as he led me through a wrought-iron fence with Hawaiian garland strung through it. I touched the flowers and smiled, wondering if his brothers had decided on a Luau theme. Maybe the palm fronds weren’t as far off as I had hoped.
The hard concrete of the pool entrance made my feet throb, so I stopped, looked up at Mark, then glanced down, barely able to see my toes.
“Getting out of these shoes and a mocktail.”
“Say no more.”
Mark tugged me to him then scooped me up like I didn’t have a watermelon-sized belly, striding through the covered patio and back into the bright sun where we were greeted by a sea of our friends, family, and every flower within a ten-mile radius. There were catcalls and clapping, whistles and cheers, but I buried my face into Mark’s shirt, embarrassed that he picked me up without so much as breaking a sweat.
He nudged me with his shoulder, then leaned down so I could feel his breath on my neck. “Just think, Dr. Cutie. In a few short minutes, we’ll know if our baby is a boy or a girl.”
