Never Been Worse (Evergreen Park #3)

Epilogue

EPILOGUE

Wes, Ten Months Later

“Shhh,” I whisper as my wife lets out a moan as my hands drift up her thighs. My hands continue to move despite the noise, helping to hike her dress up to her waist.

She glances over her shoulder as we sit in the back of a limo, double-checking that the divider is still up.

“It’s not moan-proof, Harper.”

A blush burns over her cheeks, but I can’t focus on that when my hand hits a patch of plastic on her thigh. “What the,” I say, dipping my head down, although there isn’t much room between us and even less light in the limo to see. But I don’t have to look that close to see the familiar design, one that’s been on my wrist for almost a year. I already know what it is, but I have no idea when it got there.

On the inside of her thigh, just below where her garter belt is, is a tattoo. A simple outline of a heart, with the letter W inside.

“Happy anniversary,” she whispers.

We decided we would get married again, this time with more thought and planning, adding in everything we could ever desire, including planning a much, much more satisfying honeymoon one year after we got married the first time.

The date our contract expired.

Harper called it perfectly romantic , but I just wanted to marry her again once it was all null and void and she wasn’t legally tied to me anymore. When it could be her choice, no outside forces encouraging her to make the jump.

We even got to have Stella and Riggs’s baby boy as our ringbearer and Ava and Jaime’s little girl as our flower girl. I made sure we spared no expense so Harper could have everything she ever wanted, elegant and elaborate, filled with all of our friends. Everyone in the wedding party was even dressed to the nines in designs my wife made.

The only thing we argued about was her insisting on sticking by the tradition of not spending the night before together. I thought it was stupid since we’d already been married and we stuck by that last time, but she insisted, and now I think I know why. I can’t stop staring at it, at my initial inking her skin forever.

“Do you…” She clears her throat, then looks at me nervously, biting her lip. “Do you like it?” I brush a thumb over the wrapped mark reverently. “It’s kind of permanent, so I can’t really undo it, but if you want, I could cover?—”

I shift, my hands shooting up to the sides of her face and pulling her to me in a bruising kiss. She whimpers into it, her hand moving back to the waist of my pants to undo them as she was doing before, but I stop her.

I’m going to fuck my wife on the way to our wedding reception, but I need her to be clear on this, first.

“If you ever talk about covering up that mark again, I’ll turn you over my knee and spank you until you fucking apologize,” I murmur against her lips. “That is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

Her smile goes wide. “You like it?”

My hand moves back under the skirt of her wedding dress, unbearably grateful it’s not a giant tulle one like Jules wore when she got married to Nate or the tight one Ava wore. No, my Harper opted for a thin, silky dress, hugging her curves.

“I can’t wait for it to be healed so I can kiss it and lick it and suck it.” My hands move further up, smiling at the fact she isn’t wearing any panties as if she anticipated this, and then I sink two fingers into her without hesitation.

“Ahh!” she moans, hips moving already to ride my fingers.

No foreplay was needed; she was already more than ready for me. Perfect, considering I haven’t had my wife in forty-eight hours, and the drive to our reception won’t last more than twenty minutes.

“When I eat your pussy, it’ll be right next to my face. The mark that you’re mine,” I groan, already thinking about how fucking hot that will be. I got my tattoo almost a year ago, and another three since. I started a little Harper Holden shrine sleeve on my blank arm: the logo for her business and three dates: the day we met, the day I “ proposed” to her, and the day I married her the first time.

The most important days in my life.

I have a feeling I’ll be adding today’s date to that stack soon.

“Ride your husband’s fingers, little wife,” I say, a refrain I’ve said many times before, but this time feels different because now we’re married with nothing holding us back. Simply because we both chose this and neither of us can picture life without the other.

She feels the difference too, knows it to her bones.

Her breath hitches, looking in my eyes. “I love you, Wes,” she whispers.

“I love you, Harper,” I groan, then her hand moves to the waist of my tux pants, undoing them quickly and working to get my cock out. I don’t stop my work on her pussy, her hips bucking and tiny, quiet mewls coming from her lips as I do.

I should probably help her, but I can’t seem to make myself do anything but watch Harper and that tiny black heart on her thigh. My gaze shifts from her thigh to her face, and I smile at the look of desperation on her face.

Crooking my fingers, her hips buck when I graze against her G-spot.

“Please,” she whispers.

“What do you want?”

“I want you.” Her breathy pleas brush along in my ear. “I need to be full of you,” she groans, then gets her hand around my cock, pumping it once.

A low moan leaves my lips, and I take my fingers out of her, wrapping my hand around hers on my cock with a weak sigh before lining myself up with her opening. Once it notches, a little mewl falls from her lips.

That’s when my little wife decides to turn the table, slowly lifting and falling, fucking just the head of my cock. Our joined hands stop her from going any deeper, though she doesn’t seem to be irritated by that. I take my hand away to give her room, but she keeps it up, fucking just the tip with a small teasing smile on her lips.

“If you don’t sink down right now, I’m going to make you,” I say through gritted teeth, and her eyes sparkle with the threat because my wife loves when I follow through with my threats.

Harper licks her full lips, swollen from kisses, and I shake my head as she whispers, “Make me, husband.”

I grab her wrist, pinning it behind her, and with one hand on her hip, I slam her down onto me, filling her instantly. She moans loudly, head tipping back and copper hair tumbling as she sinks down to the base, and I have to bite back my response, knowing that, despite the divider, this limo is far from soundproof, especially when that sound is my noisy wife enjoying herself.

“Gotta be quiet, baby,” I grumble into her neck, hands moving to her hips and holding her to me. Her breath is coming in little pants, and she grinds her clit on me, the walls of her pussy gripping me tight.

“You feel so good inside me,” she groans into my ear, nipping my earlobe with her teeth. “So fucking perfect. I’m so full, Wes.”

That does it, as it always does. She sits back, hands on my shoulders, the small smile on her lips telling me she knows she won. Both of my hands move to her hips, and I lift her, shifting our position until her thighs are on either side of me. Then I slam her down onto my cock, filling her again.

“Ah!”

“Harper, quiet,” I say with a small smile that turns to a grimace as she lifts and falls again. She grinds at the base to get the friction on her clit. The moment is so hot, so filled with passion and need, I’m already getting close to the edge. From the look on her face, so is she.

“I can’t,” she moans, head falling back, riding my cock on a mission now, hips moving over me and fully forgetting where we are. I put a hand to her back, pulling her close until her face is buried in my neck, and her lips press there.

“Bite me if you need to,” I groan, lifting my hips to get inside her deeper. “Stay fucking quiet. I don’t need everyone knowing how perfect my wife sounds when she comes.” She takes the opportunity I hand her, teeth biting into the side of my neck as she continues to ride me. The pain of it sends me closer to coming, my hands moving under her dress to grip her ass tightly. “Need you to come, baby.”

“Mmmm,” she moans into my skin, panting.

“Right fucking now,” I groan, then slide a hand between us to her clit, pinching it hard. That does it, and her teeth dig into me as she comes and comes while I fill her with my cum. “Fuck, so good. So beautiful. So mine,” I grunt as I come, as her body goes lax with pleasure.

We lay there like that as she catches her breath and I come back to Earth.

“So, I take it you like the tattoo?” she asks with a smile when she finally slides off me, handing me a few cocktail napkins so I can carefully clean her up.

I laugh the entire way to our reception.

Even though I tried to fight her on it, Harper had the photographer edit out the photo where she and I walked into the reception, hands held high with a wide smile on our faces. But I slip the original one—the one where you can see the perfect, red circle on my neck from the impression of my wife’s teeth—into my wallet, right next to the one from three years ago.

Harper, six months later

“Shhh!” I say, looking over my shoulder with wide eyes. “Did we not learn our lesson the first time?” We’re walking down a slightly familiar street in a much too familiar neighborhood, and Ava can’t keep her mouth shut, giggling and yapping about revenge plots and girlhood and God knows what else.

“I think this is a bit different, Harper,” she says, shifting the duffel bag filled with supplies over her shoulder.

“No, it is not!” I say, shaking my head.

“Oh, it so is,” Sophie says, skipping alongside me, not even attempting to quiet herself.

“Soph! This is a stealth operation!” Jules says, and Sophie smiles, tugging the sleeves of her black long-sleeve shirt down over her hands. It’s a familiar scene, parking a few blocks away and tiptoeing to a house with a large duffel bag. This time, we’ve made sure our intel is spot on, and we’ve narrowed down our revenge.

Oh, and we brought a seven-year-old.

Because you have to teach them young, you know.

“When did you get so boring?” Ava asks.

“Be nice, Ava. Last time we did this, she was blackmailed for months,” Jules says.

“Yeah, and she got a hot rock star husband out of it. Life could be worse,” Ava counters.

I glare at my best friend, shaking my head in exasperation.

“Do you think I’ll have a hot rock star husband?” Sophie asks thoughtfully, and I snort out a laugh.

“Soph, I think you have to graduate elementary school before you can even begin saying things like that, or you might give your father a heart attack,” Jules says, pulling her adopted daughter into her side.

“I’m just trying to plan ahead. I hope it’s super romantic, and we fall in love the second he meets me.”

“I think she’s watching too many of your movies, Jules,” I say with a laugh.

“No such thing,” she says, pressing her lips to Sophie’s hair. “I’m giving her a much-needed education.”

Ava opens her mouth to say something, but I shake my head, putting a finger to my lips.

“The house is right there.” For once, everyone nods, going silent as we approach. “Who has the stuff?” I ask quietly, looking around and counting to make sure we have everyone.

Conveniently, this kid’s house is in the same development as Jeremy’s, though he doesn’t live here anymore. Much too expensive of a neighborhood for a man who has no job and is piling up lawyer fees and lawsuits. Thankfully, the rule of no cameras allowed still stands, so we should be okay.

Famous last words , my mind thinks.

“Me!” Ava says, then starts handing out boxes of white plastic forks, one box for each of us. This time, Ava isn’t pregnant, her sweet little Marigold home with a blissfully unaware Jaime. “ It’s for the best,” Ava said when we asked if he knew. “ He’s getting old, and this kind of excitement can’t be good for his heart. ”

We decided against glittering the lawn, thinking it would be too obvious it was us. Thankfully, since the Revenge Line went viral after my post, people started to put my story together. In response, forking shitty people’s lawns became a bit of a viral trend, so it could be anyone doing it.

Jules was incredibly happy about the trend being forks instead of glitter, in her mind reaffirming that the forks were a good idea all along.

I assign each of us a quadrant of the yard, and quickly and quietly, all four of us move around, stabbing forks into the yard. The boy who called Sophie ugly and stupid and whose parents defended him are away on vacation at Disney World, something we confirmed via social media instead of just assuming it this time.

His parents tried to give Jules the whole he just likes her thing, and when she argued they should have a talk with him about how to treat a woman, they called my best friend stupid and ugly. Because his parents are just as shitty as he is, I don’t feel bad that this is what they’ll be coming home to.

We’re almost done, the entire yard satisfyingly covered in white sticks, when tires crunch behind us.

PTSD-type panic starts to roll through me, and then it happens.

“Are you guys kidding me?” a familiar voice calls, and we all freeze, forks in hand.

Slowly, I look over my shoulder to find my husband with a wide smile, leaning out of the passenger side of a giant boat of an SUV. Jaime is in the front seat, glowering through the open window, and when the rear window rolls down, a smiling but pretending-to-be-disapproving Nate appears.

“Jules, you’re pregnant,” he says to his wife. She shrugs. “And you’re with a seven-year-old.”

“So, it’s a family affair then. Call it girl bonding.”

“Girls’ day!” Sophie shouts, then covers her mouth, remembering she isn’t supposed to be loud.

“You’re trying to make our children criminals?” he asks with a smile, unable to hide his laughter. “And I told you it’s going to be a boy.”

Jules shakes her head, convinced she’s having a girl.

My gaze shifts to my husband as he catches my eye, lifting an eyebrow in question, before he shakes his head.

“This kid is a douche,” I say with a shrug.

“Isn’t he seven?” Jaime argues.

“And?” Ava asks. “Are you saying seven-year-olds can’t be douches? Plus, his parents are just as bad.”

Nate closes his eyes and breathes in because I’m sure he’s heard this argument plenty of times. Our brush with revenge made Jules bloodthirsty, it seems. She’s constantly suggesting crazy shit toward anyone she decides wronged any of us, from journalists who write something unflattering about Atlas Oaks to the checkout lady who looked a little too long at her husband.

“He deserves it, Dad,” Sophie says with her hands on her hips, just as sassy as her mom and aunts. For a split second, I kind of regret encouraging this because I feel like it’s only going to breed a very strong, very specific sense of justice in the girl. Then I shrug because, not my kid, not my problem.

“Get in the car before you’re all arrested again,” Wes says.

“You should be thankful. The last time we were arrested, you got a wife,” Ava says.

“Get in the car , guys,” Nate says, losing patience.

“We can’t; my car is around the block,” Ava says with a shrug.

“Get in the fucking car, Princess,” Jaime says.

“Ex cuse me?” she says. “You don’t?—”

Nate opens his door, and when I spot a car seat next to him, I squeal, nearly knocking him aside as he steps out to fold the seat down and let Jules and Sophie climb in the back before he joins them. Begrudgingly, Ava slides in the truck but I’m not paying attention to my best friend, instead, the new best friend she made me.

“How is my girl?!” I say, putting my head into the car seat next to me. A squealing, giggling Marigold greets me, two teeth visible in the overhead light before Ava slams the door shut. My niece has a giant bow on her head I instinctively know Jaime put on her, and she claps her hands, eyes wide.

“HAHA!” Ava’s daughter yells.

“Yes! It’s your Auntie Harper!”

“Is everyone in?” Jaime grunts.

“Yes, but lose your attitude, you grump,” his wife says.

I widen my eyes at Marigold, who giggles more.

“Ava, love of my life, mother of the biggest blessing I’ve ever known, I think I’m allowed to have an attitude when my wife almost gets arrested.”

“I didn’t almost get arrested!” she shouts, tossing her hands in the air.

I poke Marigold on her belly. “Oops, they’re going at it again!” I say in a silly voice, and she giggles hysterically.

“Because we came and got you,” Jaime says, putting the truck into drive and moving down the street.

“I think not,” she says, and if she were outside the car, she’d probably stomp her foot.

“Please, like—” Jaime starts, and I look over my shoulder at Jules, who also knows if we don’t stop this now, we’re all going to have to either listen to Jaime and Ava argue for the rest of the night or have them urgently need to go home because they need to fuck. Arguing is like a weird mating ritual for them.

“I want ice cream,” Jules says loudly. “Baby wants ice cream.”

“Ice cream!” Sophie yells.

“I don’t know if you earned ice cream, Soph,” Nate says to his daughter.

“Oooh, I could go for ice cream. Wes, can you bring us to that place with the dairy-free option you know of?” Ava asks, leaning forward.

“Why are you asking Wes when I’m driving?” Jaime asks, his jealousy peaking in.

“It’s all good, big guy. Let’s just bask in the fact that no one got arrested tonight, yeah?” Wes asks, a hand on his bodyguard's shoulder. And because Wes has a magic touch, Jaime sighs then grumbles, but the arguing stops.

And we all get ice cream.

“How do you feel, knowing you finally got away with it?” Wes asks with a smile as we walk into our home.

I step toward him, putting my arms around the nape of his neck and smile, telling him the whole truth.

“Never been better,” I whisper against his lips, and then I kiss my husband, knowing getting this—this man, this love, and a group of friends who make me laugh until I cry—is the best kind of revenge.