Epilogue
I walked up behind her in the bathroom as she put her hair up. I still couldn’t believe this was my life. Me, her, my son, all under one roof—it was fucking perfect.
I dragged my gaze over her luscious ass and my cock pulsed. “You wear that small-ass bikini one more time, I’m going to fuck you in the pool.” I brought my lips to the back of her neck. Dropping my voice, I coasted a finger down the crack of her ass. “And I’ll fuck you hard.”
Her back arched as her ass pushed into my touch. She smiled at me in the mirror. “Is that a promise?”
My dick went from hard to nuclear. “You wanna get fucked in public, sweetheart?” Damn , she was surprising me at every turn. Creative and voracious in the bedroom, sweet as hell out, and a fantastic mother to Mav. I was so fucking lucky.
Her small laugh was heaven to my ears, but her response was pure, unadulterated fantasy. “Maybe.”
Shit . I reached around and cupped her breasts under the nothing scraps of her bikini top. “Don’t fucking tease me, woman.” I’d make it happen. The pool, no, but the fucking Jacuzzi around the side of the building? Hell yes . Pinching her nipples, I dropped a hand to her bikini bottom. Her sweet cunt already wet, I shoved a finger inside her.
She moaned and her hips ground onto my palm. “Stop, we can’t. We don’t have time.”
I had all the time in the world. “Mav’s in the living room watching TV.” He was glued to the idiot box every time it was on. “The beach can wait. We got time.” I slid a second finger inside her and shoved her bikini bottom over her hips. Fisting myself, I dragged the head of my cock down her ass and through her slickness. “Fuck, beautiful. You are so damn sexy.” Her ass, round and full, was fucking perfect. “Grab the counter.” My fingers buried deep, I palmed her clit and nipped the sensitive flesh under her ear. “This isn’t gonna be slow or soft.” I was gonna pound into her until we both came. Later, after Mav was down, I’d take her slow.
“Oh God, Garrett .” She gripped the counter.
“That’s it, sweetheart.” I dragged my tongue along the edge of her ear, then bit the soft flesh. “Say my name. Tell me who owns this sweet pussy.”
“You d—”
I shoved into her.
She cried out as I sunk to the hilt in her tight heat.
Fuuuck .
“That’s right,” I growled, thrusting deep. “This is mine.” I grasped her neck and brought her head back to my shoulder. My lips against hers, I went cave man. “You’re mine .”
Long and low, her pleasure my fucking kryptonite, she moaned against my hand.
Jesus, she was beautiful. Next to Mav’s laugh, the sound of her pleasure was my favorite fucking thing in the world. “Do you know how much I love you?”
“No,” she panted, her arm snaking around the back of my neck. “Tell me.”
“I’ll show you.” I kissed her.
My mouth over hers, my body inside her sweet cunt, I kissed her. My attention one hundred percent on her, I didn’t hear the front door open until it was slammed shut.
“Hello!” Ariel called out.
“Auntie, auntie,” Mav yelled, a second before his little feet slapped across the tile .
“Jesus fucking Christ.” I looked down at Brooke. “Does everyone have a goddamn key to our condo?”
“I heard that,” Ariel yelled. “And for the record, only me. Actually, and Viking. And probably André, because boundaries mean nothing to him in the name of security. And maybe Talon. Did you give him a key?” Her voice got closer as she walked toward the master bedroom.
My dick still buried in Brooke, I kicked the bathroom door shut.
Heat hit her cheeks, and Brooke smiled sheepishly. “I told you we didn’t have enough time.” She reached back and pushed on my hips. “Come on, we can finish later.”
Cursing, I gave her a look. “For fuck’s sake. Blue balls? Are you fucking serious?”
Her smile turned one hundred percent vixen. “I’ll make it up to you.”
“Christ,” I muttered, thrusting once more, and easing out of her as Ariel knocked on the bathroom door.
“Come on, love birds, wrap it up!” Ariel chuckled. “Or cover it up enough to say goodbye to Mav. Viking’s waiting downstairs with Conner, and you know how he feels about wasting time .” For the last two words, she dropped her voice and perfectly imitated Christensen’s accent.
I pulled my shorts up and eyed Brooke. “I thought you, me and Mav were going to the beach.” Fuck, my dick was hard, and I wasn’t liking this change in plans. I had the weekend off and I wanted to be with my kid and my woman. Alone.
“We’ll meet up with them later.” Brooke adjusted her bikini and slipped a cover up over her head before turning to face me. Going on tiptoe, she kissed me once. “I have something to show you first.” She reached for the door.
I grasped her nape. “You already were showing me something.”
Ariel pounded on the door again. “Don’t make me come in there.”
“Jesus fuck.” I opened the door and glared at the woman holding my kid. “You spend too much time with Christensen. You’re starting to act like him now. ”
“Daddy!” Mav held his arms out to me.
Laughing, Ariel handed him over. “You’re just pissed your alone time got interrupted.”
I growled as she laughed, and the two women hugged hello.
“I have Mav’s bag all packed.” Brooke walked to the living room. “He already has sunscreen on, and I told him to mind you and Neil.” She picked up Mav’s diaper bag and handed it to Ariel.
Mav rested his head on my shoulder. “Daddy come too.”
I rubbed his back and kissed his forehead, wondering what the fuck Brooke was up too. She looked nervous, and she hadn’t looked nervous since the day she walked into my hospital room. “I’ll see you in a little bit, Mav. Be good for Aunt Ariel and play nice with Conner. No throwing sand this time, you hear me?” I gave him a fake stern look.
“Daddy.” Mav shook his head. “I no throw.” He held his arms up and his eyes went wide. “ Big sand castle.” He nodded. “I made it.”
It was everything I could do not to laugh. He’d made it all right, right on top of Ariel’s son, Conner. The last time we’d watched Conner, we’d taken him and Mav to the beach, and Mav had used a shovel to throw sand on Conner while Conner held a bucket over his head. Both boys and me and Brooke had gotten covered in sand faster than you could blink. The whole thing was a train wreck.
Ariel reached for Mav. “What’s a little sand? Boy are boys, right, Mav?”
Mav nodded seriously. “I’m a boy.”
We all laughed as Ariel carried Mav toward the front door. “Okay, love birds, see you two soon. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” Grinning, she walked out with Mav.
Not happy to see my kid go, but more than ready for some alone time, I cupped the back of Brooke’s neck. “Okay, fess up. Tell me what’s going on?”
A shy smile touched her full lips. “I’d rather show you.”
“Now you’re talking.” I reached for the hem of her cover up .
She swatted my hand away and grabbed the truck’s car keys. “Not that kind of show you. Come on, I’m driving.”
I rubbed a hand over my still hard cock. “This is cruel and unusual.”
Picking up her purse and stepping into her flip-flops, she smirked. “You can wait.”
“Like I said,” I bitched. “Cruel and unusual.” But my ass followed her out to the elevators because I had to admit, I was curious. This wasn’t typical Brooke behavior. “Do I get a hint?”
“Nope.” She stepped into the elevator. “And I’m not answering any questions either.”
“Interesting.” I crossed my arms and leaned on the opposite wall to study her. Brooke had been full of surprises these past couple months as we navigated our insta-relationship and family. I’d discovered she was quiet unless prompted, she loved to read, she could cook a mean meal, she liked shit neat, and she was patient as fuck. When Mav went to bed, she was insatiable. I fucking loved every minute of it. But cagey and secretive, she wasn’t. So I didn’t have a fucking clue what she was up to. I eyed her bikini under her see-through cover up. “Are we going swimming?” Both she and Mav lived to be in the water.
Staring at the descending numbers, she half shrugged. “If you want.”
I wanted to bury myself in her sweet body. “I want a lot of things.”
Heat hit her cheeks as the elevator doors opened to the underground parking of my condo. “You have a lot of things.”
So she’d mentioned, multiple times. The condo was full of frivolous shit I didn’t need. One week with her and Mav had quickly opened my eyes to priorities, and it wasn’t a TV in every bedroom or a collection of rifles I hadn’t taken to the range since I’d been out of the Marines. She and Mav were all I needed.
I didn’t comment as we walked to the Raptor and she got behind the wheel, and I kept my mouth shut as she pulled out of the garage and headed north along the beach.
But ten minutes later, I brought up the truck. “How come we’re not in the SUV?” I’d bought her a safe vehicle to drive Mav around in, not to mention legal. The Raptor had a scrubbed VIN and a questionable, at best, registration to a shell company the fucking prick Lewis had owned. We couldn’t report the vehicle as found without risking her getting in trouble and we couldn’t register it at the end of the year when the registration ran out. We needed to dump it.
She drove into the Golden Beach neighborhood near where Christensen had the house we’d stayed at. “I just felt like driving the truck today.”
“You know we can’t keep it,” I warned. She loved the truck. I got it. I had too, but now I didn’t want her driving Mav in it.
“I know.” She glanced at me. “But today, I wanted to drive it.” She bit her bottom lip.
Seeing her nervous gesture, I dropped it for now. A mile later she turned down a street that ran east toward the ocean. At the end of the street she pulled into a driveway with a yard six months past overgrown and parked the truck in front of an even sorrier-looking garage.
Cutting the engine, she pulled the keys out and hastily opened her door. “Come on.”
Looking at the old, run-down house, I’d barely gotten my ass out of the truck before she had the front door open and was walking in. “Brooke.” Christ . “You ever hear of breaking and entering?”
“Come on!” she called as she disappeared inside. “We’re not breaking in.”
Jesus. I followed her inside and found her standing in the middle of an empty, musty as fuck, sorry living room.
Her hands clasped in front of her chest, she looked at me with barely contained excitement. “What do you think?”
Jesus fuck . “It’s… nice.” It was a dump.
“Right?” she agreed, spinning in a circle like a kid in a candy store. “I mean, I know it needs a little work.”
I glanced around. It was a nineteen-sixties bungalow a century past its prime. The walls were paneling, the old terrazzo floors were chipped, and the kitchen was an olive green time warp. It needed more than a little work. “It has a decent layout.” If you liked being on top of each other.
Her eyes went wide with excitement. “And it has four bedrooms.”
It was the size of a fucking postage stamp. How the hell did it have four bedrooms? “Great. We already have four bedrooms.” At the condo, which didn’t smell like cat piss.
“But wait.” She took my hand. “I saved the best for last.” She dragged me to the slider out to a lanai, but when she went to open it, she couldn’t get the door to open more than a foot on the rusted out old frame.
Christ. “Need help?”
She laughed. “It just needs a little elbow grease.” She shoved with her whole damn body and the door flew open and slammed on its opposite frame. “Oops.” She smiled at me sheepishly. “I’m sure that’ll be one of the things you and Neil can fix.”
My eyebrows shot to my head. “Christensen?” What the fuck? “You talk to him?”
“Well, yeah. He does live with Ariel and Conner, you know,” she teased. “I do see him when I go over there.”
My gaze narrowed. That wasn’t what I fucking meant, and she knew it.
Surprise widened her eyes. “Oh my God, you can’t be jealous.”
“Can and will.” How fucking often while I was at work was she hanging with Christensen?
She went on tiptoe and kissed me. “It’s okay, only you see me fully naked.”
“What the actual fuck?” What the hell did that mean? “Explain,” I growled.
She waved her hand dismissively. It was another of her new gestures. They popped up every week. A hand wave here, a shoulder shrug there. Since she wasn’t holding herself ramrod straight with fucking stress anymore, she wasn’t as still.
“Oh, come on, Ivy,” she teased, knowing I hated that nickname. “Me and Mav have play dates all the time with Ariel and Conner. The boys swim, we swim, sometimes Neil joins us.” She shrugged. “It’s no big deal.”
“Jesus fucking Christ.” I rubbed my hand over my face. “I’m buying you all one-pieces. No more fucking bikinis.” Goddamn it.
She smiled. “Are you done?”
“No.” Fuck me. “Does Christensen know about this place?” Had she fucking come here with him alone?
She was nodding before I got the last word out. “Of course. He helped me find it, and I wouldn’t consider a place without him seeing it first.”
My expression must’ve given me away.
She laughed again, completely ignoring the fact we had a perfectly good condo that didn’t need a bulldozer to fix it. “Neil knows a thing or two about construction. I wanted to make sure this was a good investment. Now, are you ready to stop being jealous and see the best part?”
“There’s a best part to this fucking dump? Shit, woman. You forgetting we have a waterfront condo?”
“I’ll take that as a yes.” She took my hand again and we stepped out on to the lanai.
To the left was a huge pool. And I do mean fucking huge. It stretched the length of the house and widened at the opposite end where it met the backyard. I’d never thought about a yard, but the immaculate lawn leading down to the beach in front of me suddenly had me thinking about it. Green grass, palm trees, an outdoor kitchen and a covered lanai. I had to admit it was a fucking spectacular yard.
Brooke nudged me. “You’re not saying anything.”
“Wow.” I could throw a football with Mav out here.
She giggled. “Nice, right?”
It was more than nice. It made up for the whole damn dump of a house. I looked down at her and cut to the chase. “How much?” I wasn’t fucking blind, I knew why she’d brought me here.
Heat hit her face, big time, then her voice went quiet. “I might’ve already bought it. ”
I blinked. Then I blinked again. “You bought a house?” Without me?
She bit her lip. “I’m sorry?”
Jesus Christ . “The sale of the estate went through?” I knew Neil had bought the place from her, but I’d carefully stayed out of it. That money was hers. She’d earned every cent living under that asshole’s bullshit for so long. I could afford to give us a good life. She and Mav wouldn’t want for anything. I figured if she decided to do anything with the money, she’d tell me. I just wasn’t expecting… this.
I didn’t know what the fuck to think, until I looked down and saw her expression for what it was.
Nerves.
She’d brought me here because she wanted me to like the place.
I glanced back at the house.
I hated it. But the yard, the view? Fuck, it was perfect.
She gestured toward the back wall of the house, then words started flying out of her mouth. “We can open this all up. Put sliders the whole length of the living room and in the bedrooms and it’ll open it up, and every room can have views of the pool and ocean. You and Neil can work on it on the weekends, but it’s totally livable right now as it is, we can make do. And Mav will love this pool and this yard, and maybe we can get a dog. And Neil said he could have some of his workers help, and maybe your friends can pitch in too. And oh, Garrett, I think it’ll be so perfect. It’s a home.” She stopped for a breath. “It’s a real home.” She got even quieter. “ We’ll have a home .”
I stepped toward her and pulled her into my arms. “You’re my home.” She always had been, since I first laid eyes on her.
Her eyebrows drew together. “You don’t like it?”
“It’s fucking perfect.” I kissed her once. “Just like you.”