“Yes, get me pregnant,” I plead with him as I go off, my eyes wide, the blue light streaming in across the ocean as we writhe together as one. “I’ll have your baby, Chris.”
My whole body throbs with waves of love, lust, and relief. I can’t do anything but hang on for dear life as he sprays his precious seed into me, heat whipping through my veins.
Love overtakes me.
I moan his name, over and over as he finishes inside me and his body stiffens. He ruts deep, hands on my breasts, lips on mine, digging deep in me until we both finish. Together.
Sobbing, I wrap my arms around him and pull his face down to my neck. After a long moment, his breathing steadies.
“I’m going to give you that life, Avery,” he says with certainty, kissing me with pure ownership.
“You already are,” I whisper back. “Right now.”
He lifts his head and looks at me with those ice-blue eyes, finally stripped of every defense, every mask he’s ever worn. Now he’s just a man.My man. And he’s looking at me like I’m the only thing in the world.
I pull him down on me, and for the first time since we met, he truly sleeps.
EPILOGUE
AVERY
Five years later…
My husband is burning the eggs yet again.
I can smell it from the couch where I’m editing photos on my laptop, my coffee going cold beside me. Smoke curls from the stove, and Chris curses under his breath and quickly scrapes the pan.
I just smile. This has to be the part of the morning I love most.
Not the eggs. Chris’s eggs are still terrible. Five years of marriage and the man still can’t get the temperature on the pan right. He can pick a lock in nine seconds, disarm a state-of-the-art security system, and rebuild a house from the ground up. But scrambled eggs are his Kryptonite.
Still, I love watching him try. Because Chris at the stove—barefoot, shirtless, his blond hair still a mess from last night’s sleep—always gets my blood pumping and my thighs scorching.
Now he’s got a kitchen full of smoke and a daughter screaming on the porch while his wife drinks cold coffee on the couch.
“Daddy! Daddy, I’m a crow!”
He leans back from the stove and looks out the window. “Rosie, come on. Get off the railing, you’ll fall and hurt yourself.”
“No, I won’t! I can fly!”
“Sweetie?” He glances at me, giving me a look that I understand. I get up from the couch, go out front, and scoop our daughter up into my arms. She giggles, spreading her arms wide like wings as I cover her with kisses and carry her inside.
Rosie is as stubborn as I am. I set her down, and she hops around for a moment, then bolts back out the door and into the front yard. I sigh, and we both laugh.
It still gets me. His softness. It wasn’t there five years ago. When he looks at Rosie—his ice-blue eyes tracking our wonderful little girl as she sprints across the yard with her arms out—I melt.
The man who once told me he never let anyone in now has a daughter who he watches like she’s the center of the universe.
Because she is. She and I both are.
Chris decided to name her Rosie, after my middle name which I whispered to him back when he laid out this life to me and I wasn’t yet ready to say yes.
But now I’m here with both of them. A family, living a dream I once didn’t believe possible.
The house is everything he promised and more. White clapboards, a green roof, and a porch that wraps around two sides. It’s perched above the southern Oregon coast.
When we first found it, it was a wreck, falling apart. Warped floors, a gutted kitchen, and plumbing that groaned like an old cow. But Chris smiled and told me, “It’s perfect.” And I trusted him.
