Epilogue
ONE YEAR LATER
ETHAN
“ M y dick was literally in your ass last night, princess,” I say, and Brielle’s cheeks grow dark. It makes her skin glow against the black lace and silk bra that matches her hipsters. Damn, she’s gorgeous. “Nothing you do in here is going to scare me off.”
She still hesitates, standing in front of her half of the long double vanity, a look on her face not unlike the one she wears when she’s worried Phoebe will spook on the trail. My patience wears thin after a few minutes of our impasse.
“Brielle,” I growl.
She winces, chewing on her bottom lip, her hands still grabbing the counter as she angles toward me. A whine spills from her lips, and I take a step toward her.
“Oh fine,” she mutters, stomping her foot. “That’s what I get for wanting to put something together for you.”
With a huff, she crosses the room, leaning against the glass wall of the shower, her arms crossed. It makes her tits press together and her nipples show through the thin silk.
Consider me thoroughly distracted. I take a step toward her, adjusting my dick, my jeans suddenly too tight for comfort. Mint fills the bathroom.
Brielle rolls her eyes even as her cheeks darken. “Seriously, Ethan?”
When I smirk, she shakes her head and waves at the vanity, urging me to look at where she had been standing. At first all I see is the mostly finished bathroom. It’s missing the final coat of light blue paint Brielle picked, and the mirror is just resting on the counter rather than hung on the wall right now. Lots of small things aren’t quite finished in the house, and our room and bathroom have been the lowest on the priority list. My eyes glance over everything again, trying to figure out what has her hiding out in here when the families will be here in just a few hours.
Three small white sticks are lined up in front of the sink, carefully arranged on their corresponding wrappers. I haven’t seen one of those since…
My smirk falls away as I shoot my gaze back to her.
“Really?” I ask. I don’t even need to see the result. Brielle wouldn’t be trying to hide out in here for a negative. And definitely not three of them.
As soon as she nods, I’m crossing the space and sweeping her into my arms, my shout echoing through the room. Her knees bracket my waist as she digs her hands into my hair. Her breath catches as I sweep my tongue into her mouth, kissing her until we’re both breathless and her lavender scent drowns out my own and has the bathroom smelling like a damn cottage garden.
“Brielle,” I murmur, and she wraps her hands around my neck, pulling me back to her lips, a whine deep in her throat. I nip at her bottom lip, grinning as that whine turns into a full-fledged moan. “Does Caleb know?”
She shakes her head. “I was planning on telling you both tonight after everyone left.”
“Fuck, princess,” I say. I run my nose along her jaw and kiss the delicate spot under her ear. She shivers in my arms and presses her hips into my stomach. “Tell me this is real, that I get to keep you forever.”
She smiles, her face lighting up, her entire being radiant. I’m filled with awe that I’m the bastard who gets to see it. I get to know how she smiles in the morning when she sits on the porch and watches the sunrise. I’m the one that gets to know what her moans sound like, the throaty ones when I’m rough with her the way we both love and the breathless ones when my knot’s locking us together or when my tongue is between her thighs. I know how she softens against me when I whisper in her ear when I’m deep inside her, soft little things that asshat never told her. I get all of it.
And now I get another one, this soft moment where she leans against me, her eyes betraying her vulnerability.
“I don’t know whose it is,” she whispers.
I run my thumb across her cheek. “We don’t care, princess.”
Her shoulders drop away, and she offers a tentative smile. Her lips are such a damn temptation. I glance over my shoulder, double checking the door to our bedroom is mostly closed. And then I press her against the glass of the shower, grinding into her as I kiss down her neck, biting at the pulse points that make her shiver.
“Let me bond with you,” I whisper against her collarbone.
I hadn’t planned to ask about the possibility until tonight after dinner. But fuck I need to ask her now, need to see if she’ll accept my bonding bite knowing that we’ve put a fucking baby in her. We’ve talked about it several times over the last year, but neither of us were inclined to rush it. There was so much we needed to rebuild, and I didn’t want to look back in another thirty years and worry we’d done everything wrong this time.
Her chest shudders with her breathing, her nails digging into my skin for a heartbeat. She runs her hands along my sides, pushing my shirt up. Her panties are soaked through already, her slick coating her thighs as she pushes her hips into my stomach.
“Is that a yes?” I ask, chuckling as she whines and rolls her hips again. “I’m not about to bond with you without clear consent, princess.”
Her throat ripples as she swallows, the lavender of her scent growing again, nearly as powerful as when she’s going into heat. Then she nods.
“Bond me,” she says, barely more than a whisper.
It races down my spine, straight to my dick.
Yes .
I rip her panties in the next second, more than ready to have her slick dripping down my legs.
“Dad!” Camden’s voice echoes down the hallway a moment before the rushing footsteps of his running follow.
Damn it .
Brielle curses, pushing me away and scrambling for the dress laid out over the edge of the tub. I readjust myself again as I watch her slip into the soft green fabric a hairsbreadth before Cam busts into our bedroom. I blow out a breath and turn around, crossing my arms, blocking her with my body. The dress clings to her body, and her cheeks are still flushed.
“Dad, did she like them?” he asks, skidding to a stop at the bathroom door. He bounces on his feet, his blond hair dropping into his eyes.
“Brielle’s getting ready. Damn it, Cam, you need to knock,” Caleb calls across the house.
His footsteps are softer than our son’s but relentless anyway. He comes up behind Cam, putting a hand on his shoulder. He raises an eyebrow as he turns Cam away, running his hand through our son’s hair as his gaze soaks in Brielle. Cinnamon overlays the mint and lavender already filling the small space, and Brielle whines, low in her throat. Her body practically vibrates with her need. If she hadn’t just gone through a heat last month, I’d worry she was dropping into one.
No, she’s just that desperate for us.
The feeling’s mutual, and neither Caleb nor I will deny it.
“Since they’re still on the island, she probably hasn’t seen them yet,” Caleb says. His voice has dropped an octave. Brielle’s scent grows stronger, and her breath catches in her throat. “Let’s give them time to finish getting ready and then we can show her both of them together.”
The doorbell rings, and Caleb sighs. Camden’s head jerks up, twisting toward the front of the house.
“Nana’s here!” he says.
Before any of us can say anything, he’s bolting out of the bedroom and back toward the rest of the house, Brielle’s reaction to the flowers I’d picked out this morning forgotten.
Caleb runs a hand down his face.
“Don’t take eight years, Ethan,” he says, already turning back toward the door to our room.
I scoff. “You took an entire day. Everything will keep for an hour.”
He chuckles. “I’ll hold off your mom that long, at least,” he says. He glances over his shoulder as he pauses with his hand on the doorknob. His gaze isn’t locked on me, though. He drinks Brielle in again, his cinnamon scent so strong it wafts over to us in the bathroom and blends anew. “Can’t promise more than that, though.”
He locks the door before closing it behind him.
Not going to complain about that gift.
I grab Brielle and pin her to the glass again, lifting her and moving her legs to grip my hips, groaning at the slick coating her thighs.
“Ethan,” she admonishes.
I respond with a hard pull on the pulse point just beneath her ear, grinning against her skin when she melts into me, her gasp making me even harder. She scrapes her hands down my chest, pushing up my shirt before tracing the phoenix that spans my left side. The soft intimacy of the touch has me groaning, undoing my jeans and shoving into her before she can prepare for me.
“Oh shit,” she moans, throwing her head back as I work into her, short, hard thrusts that have her legs trembling. I pause when I’m buried to the hilt, watching her pulse flutter and her throat ripple with her swallow.
She’s fucking gorgeous.
She tilts her hips, grinding against me, and I adjust my stance with a low grunt.
“Ethan,” she moans, pushing into me, her breath catching as she squirms. “Please don’t tease me. Your mom...”
I kiss her, not needing to hear anything about my family while I’m inside her. Her chest flushes as I take her hard and fast, the sounds of our skin slapping filling the space, nearly drowning out her moans and curses. I loop my arms under her knees, making the angle more intense. She whimpers, clenching around me.
“Fuck, princess,” I say against her ear, taking one hand and twining our fingers together, bringing them above her on the glass. “I meant to make this way more romantic. Take you to your favorite spot and bond you where you don’t have to be quiet.”
Her laugh is breathless. I push my hips forward, forcing myself even deeper, and she tightens her grip on my neck, her nails drawing blood.
“Tit for tat, Ethan,” she says. She bites back a whine and rolls her hips. “I wanted to do the same with telling you about the baby.”
How did I get so lucky?
Her moan rips through the room, her body locking, her legs pressing my hips harder into her. God, she’s beautiful when she’s coming around my cock. Her cunt ripples, gripping me tighter. I let go, burying my face in her shoulder as I empty inside her, my groan blending with her breathless curse. A moment later, my knot locks us together. I already have my teeth biting into the crease of her shoulder, breaking skin as my knot swells. In an instant, her sated desire and unadulterated, smug satisfaction roar through me.
My knees buckle, but I force myself to stay steady, pressing her harder into the glass to keep her from falling.
“I love you,” I whisper against my bite. “Fuck, I love you, princess.”
She shudders in a breath and kisses the phoenix spread across my chest.
And later that night, when our friends and family are crowded around the large outdoor table she’d commissioned to fit the patio of our new home, she takes my hand and kisses the new tattoo centered on the back of it. A small cabin, nestled against the forest around Emily’s house.
“Mommy!” Camden says, running out of the large sliding doors we’ve opened all the way. “Look what we got you!”
Caleb walks with him, his eyes on our Omega, one of the large bouquets of purple daises in his hand. Camden carries the other one, the water sloshing in the opaque white vase but not quite spilling over.
“Oh! Mommy, can we grab ours, too?” Iris asks. “Please?”
Jude sighs but stands, crossing the patio to the small bag I hadn’t noticed he brought in. Iris and Rose both jump up and grab a small package from their dad. Their eyes are just as bright as Cam’s as the three of them approach us.
Brielle chuckles beside me. Her amusement is a warm balm in my chest. Caleb’s happiness is fainter but not foreign enough to be odd. I focus on him as he stops in front of the table and sets the vase of flowers on it, just in front of Brielle. It’s been a long ass time since I could feel him through a bond.
The thought doesn’t hurt, even as I remember what it was like to feel Kayla, feel Brandon. He smiles at me, feeling the surge of emotion. Brielle leans against me, squeezing my hand.
“Okay, girls,” Carter says. “You can give yours in just a minute. But let’s let Camden give his first.”
The girls nod, standing on either side of Caleb as Camden rounds the table and hands Brielle the vase of flowers. She takes them. And then Mom hands Camden the envelope, and his grin explodes. Brielle raises her eyebrow in question, glancing first at me and then at Caleb.
Her hands are steady as she opens the envelope. And then her eyes flood with tears.
“It’s final?” she asks.
“Yes!” Camden cheers, raising his hands in celebration. “You’re my mommy, Bri!”
Brielle laughs as Camden hugs her, climbing into her lap.
Our friends and family cheer even as a baby cries and Emily rushes into the house. Beau follows her a moment later, clapping Caleb’s shoulder on his way past.
“Hey,” Brielle whispers, kissing my cheek. “Love you, cowboy.”
I wrap my arms around her, pulling her and my son into me.
“Good, princess,” I tell her. “Because I love you, too.”