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“I know.” I lower my head so our foreheads touch. “But we could be together whenever we can, right? And that means moving into my house so I can spend every night worshipping you.”
Lainey brushes her lips over mine. “I think I can commit to that. But only if I’m allowed to reciprocate the worshipping. You stopped me this morning, and I want to finish that someday.”
I capture her chin with my hand and angle her head so I can kiss her deeply, stroking her tongue against mine. “Not until you’re pregnant.”
She laughs, a little breathless. “What? But I told you, it’s not even the right time of the month. We’ll calculate when we’re most likely to conceive, but…”
“No buts.” I frown at her, then kiss her again, unable to stop myself. “I’m not wasting even a drop of my cum until I’ve put a baby in your belly.”
She drops her head to my chest and giggles. “I want to pretend that this doesn’t make me wet, but if I’m demanding radical honesty from you, I need to do the same. So, um, I’m honestly okay with that plan. Yeah.”
I push her back onto her seat and give her one last, quick kiss. “Good. Now strap yourself in, because I have a bed waiting for you at my house, and I’m not letting you leave it until one of us has to go to work.”
She clips in her seat belt and grips my thigh again, harder this time. “Hurry, Daddy.”
Epilogue
Lainey
Three months later, Christmas Day
Bowen’s mom, Mabel, hugs me goodbye, squeezing me close to her ample chest. “I’m so glad we got to celebrate together. Maybe your parents could join us next year?”
After a long discussion back in October, Bowen and I decided to spend Thanksgiving with my parents and Christmas with his family, at least this year.
“We’ll see,” I murmur. “They don’t love traveling for the holidays.”
The truth is, my parents weren’t exactly happy their oldest daughter left Denver for good to move to a small town in the mountains, and they said Bowen and I were moving too fast, especially with the age difference between us. They always thought I’d eventually return, get a proper job in the city, and marry someone with a big condo and a fancy car, so they could brag about me to their friends.
To say we left that conversation on a chilly note would be an understatement.
The easy acceptance I found with Bowen’s family puts my parents’ doubt in even sharper focus. I think they’ll come to terms with my life decisions in time, but right now, I know who I’d rather be spending my time with.
“If you get any time off,” Bowen is saying to his brother, Sawyer, who’s a year younger than him, “we’d love to have you over for lunch. Just call me anytime, okay?”
“Probably won’t happen until after the New Year.” Sawyer frowns. “Too many chances for tourists to do stupid shit on the slopes. We’ll have our hands full.”
He’s a skiing instructor and a member of the Mountain Rescue team, and he barely made it to Christmas lunch today because some guy decided he was a good enough skier to leave the safety of the developed trails and ended up with a broken femur in the middle of the forest.
“Good luck.” Bowen claps him on the back.
The other Webber brothers line up to wish us Merry Christmas one last time, and Grady, the baby of the family, who’s only a few years older than me but matches Bowen in height, hugs me and lifts me off the ground.
“Put her down,” Bowen growls at him.
I giggle as I’m released, and move to his side, wrapping my arms around his waist. “I’m fine.”
It’s a tiny lie. I’ve had an upset stomach for the past few days. I didn’t want to alert Bowen too soon, thinking I might have caught a bug of some sort. But now I’m over two weeks late with my period, and I have a pregnancy test waiting for me at the cabin, ready to be peed on.
I avoided alcohol today just in case, and stuck to simple food, though the Webbers all came together to create a family feast unlike any I’ve attended. I caught Mabel giving me a meaningful look once or twice when I passed up the heavy gravy during the main course and the whipped cream that was served with the decadent chocolate cake Reed, one of the twins, brought as his contribution to the party.
I was the only other woman besides the guys’ mother present, though Gabriel, the eldest, brought his toddler son, Jackson. He’s the only one absent now because the kiddo was cranky after too much excitement and had to take a nap.
I suspect Gabriel might have fallen asleep beside him, given how exhausted he seemed.
As Bowen exchanges back-slapping hugs with the rest of his brothers, I walk to his truck, then glance back at Mabel’s house and the family gathered there.
I won’t mind our baby being born into a community this loving and close-knit. From everything I’ve read, parenting is always hard, but at least we’ll have a great support system. The way they entertained and took care of Gabriel’s little boy is proof enough that we’ll never be alone on this part of our journey.
