Epilogue #2
If he had any feelings about my insult, he kept them to himself as he stripped us of our sleep pants before bending down and taking me in his mouth.
I moaned softly, wrapping my fingers in his hair and pushing up into his mouth.
We had learned that he was never going to rid himself of his gag reflex, but that didn’t matter to me.
Just being able to look down and see him between my legs, his fingers digging into my thighs as he held tight while I fucked up into his mouth was always enough.
He was clumsy from being groggy, but he still had me begging him not to stop, but also to stop so he could fuck me.
The peace and quiet of the morning was shattered the minute he gave me what I really wanted, pushing up into my guts while I hung onto him.
Every time he was deep inside me, all the running, sometimes frantic scattering of my brain would come to a screeching halt, and I was left to focus on the feel of the man I loved.
It was nothing romantic or even hypersexual, just him pushing into me as we made the bed creak under our combined weight.
Yet he still managed to make me see stars when he slid deep into me, his rhythm building until he was slapping his hips hard against my ass.
When he came, it was deep inside me as he buried his face in my neck, calling out my name and what I thought might have been a few saints for good measure.
My turn followed shortly after when he caught his breath, reaching between our bodies to grip me and begin stroking as he lazily kissed me until I was the one calling out.
“Good morning to you too,” I muttered as he unceremoniously slid out of me and dropped onto the bed beside me, pulling me close again. “You’re going back to sleep, aren’t you?”
“No,” he muttered by my shoulder.
I frowned, realizing he had said very little, and now that I thought about it, there was something almost hurried about our sex. The lightbulb went off, and I stroked the side of his face. “Fire, gun, or knife this time?”
“Doesn’t matter,” he said softly, and I felt him relax from the tension I hadn’t even noticed. “It wasn’t real. This is.”
“It is,” I agreed, letting him take a deep breath, as if trying to make sure every one of his senses was confirming this was, in fact, real.
The dreams. We both had them, and we both had our own ways of dealing with them.
Dom needed to be reminded that none of them were real and that what we actually had was the reality he needed to sink his fingers into and pull close.
Hence, the sex, as hurried and direct as it had been, was his way of confirming that, however I had died in his dreams hadn’t been real.
He hadn’t watched me burn, or bleed out from a knife in my gut, or an explosion that splattered me across the horizon.
What he was watching was me crying out his name and holding tight as he rinsed the horrid images from his mind.
I had dreams too. Sometimes it was watching Dom die in front of me, sometimes it was dying and seeing Dom mourn me, sometimes it was being hunted by my dead mother, by a furious Augustine, or a horrible version of Reg or Luis coming back for vengeance.
Sometimes it was him and his whole family.
When those happened, I would retreat and go for a couple of hours’ walk.
Out there, I could let myself relive the dreams, but I could pick them apart, seeing the flaws in the stories my horrified brain had told me, and I could remember what had actually happened.
Then I would come back to the house and talk to Dom, either in person or by calling him while he was out being the professional trainer he had become, and I would be.
..normal. It was only after we’d talked that I would tell him about what happened in the dream and let him comfort me.
We were hurt, cracked, and fractured, but we weren’t broken, not anymore. We knew how to put the pieces back together.
“I’m okay,” he said.
I smiled. “I know.”
“Are you?”
“I am. Today is a good day for me.”
“Good. I think my day can get better, though.”
“You want to go again, don’t you?”
He was grinning when he raised his head. “Yeah, but this time I want to do it in the shower, and I’m going to take my time until you’re begging for me to finish you off.”
“Caveman.”
“You love it.”
I did.
“Stop fussing with it,” I said as we pulled up to the venue, and I reached over, smacking his hand from his tie. “You’re making it worse, not fixing it.”
“I don’t want it on in the first place,” he muttered, his nose wrinkling. “Fucking monkey suit.”
“Is that even a phrase anymore?”
“I’m clearly saying it, so it must be.”
“Childish,” I said with a sigh, but smiled to show I wasn’t seriously annoyed. “Now come on, I’d like to get the shenanigans out of the way before we find a seat.”
“You haven’t learned if you think the shenanigans are going to stop just because we find our seats,” Dom said, pushing open the car door and leaning out, pausing, then reaching out.
I laughed when he purposefully used his left hand to grab my left hand, making our rings clink together when he pulled me close to kiss him.
It had taken less than a month for him to insist on moving in with me, another two to propose, and another three for the wedding held at his family’s hotel.
Our family’s hotel.
“Sappy,” I chided, knowing I was grinning anyway as I stepped out of the car and followed him down the sidewalk toward the large building.
“As if you’re not as big a softie,” he said while rolling his eyes.
“I don’t think so,” I snorted.
“Uncle Levi!” A high-pitched shriek rang out, and I spun around.
“Right, because you didn’t just prepare to melt at that,” Dom muttered.
A blond-headed blur streaked toward me, but I was prepared as I bent down, sparing both my knee and Donovan’s head another injury, and scooped him up. “What have I told you about ambushing people?”
“Be quieter,” Donovan said with a giggle, the four-year-old covering his mouth with his hands.
“Something he fails at every time,” Dom snorted.
“Dom!” Donovan called, wriggling to get to him.
“Here,” I said, handing the kid off without hesitation.
“You try so hard to pretend,” Dom said as he took the kid and immediately threw him up so high in the air that even I had to pretend I didn’t see it. Donovan let out a loud yell of pleasure as he was caught and sent flying a second time.
“My God, Dominic, how many times do I have to tell you not to do that where I can see it?” Kaylee asked as she approached, her dress loose, flowing, beautiful, and not covering the growing bump in her stomach. “I know you won’t drop him, but Jesus.”
Will was close behind, laying a hand on her lower back and smiling. “Let them have their fun. Do what the rest of us do and look the other way.”
I grimaced. “It’s what I do.”
Kaylee sighed, her hand coming to rest on her stomach. “I hope this one has a little more sense.”
“Then you had better hope he or she takes after you, because we know they won’t be if another one takes after me,” Will said good-naturedly, chuckling when she gave him a dry look.
“Get your son before Dom sends him into the atmosphere,” Kaylee said, taking our advice and not looking over her shoulder. She waited until Will had walked off before flashing her hand at me, and my eyes went wide at the sight of the large, sparkling ring on her finger.
“About time,” I muttered, looking it over. “Damned if it isn’t a nice one though.”
“He might not have his family’s money anymore, but he’s still got taste,” she said with a laugh, beaming. “I don’t mind, though. I knew he wasn’t going anywhere. This is just a formality.”
“An expensive one,” I said with a laugh.
It was long past time, since they were only about five months away from their second kid, but that was Will.
He had found the courage to turn his back on The Family and what was left of his actual family because they wanted nothing to do with him.
He had found the strength to live in a world he had been shielded from, and had figured out how to thrive.
Yet it had taken him almost six months to ask the pretty girl at the coffee shop out, and now it had taken him this long to ask her to marry him.
People.
“Look, there’s Milo,” Will said as he came back with his son and Dom in tow, though Donovan was still insisting on being carried by Dom—no doubt hoping that when his parents weren’t looking, Dom would throw him again.
“Give me that,” Moira hissed at Milo, who grinned sheepishly as she took the flask from his hand. “Honestly. Of all times.”
“It’s a celebration,” he complained as he stared forlornly at his flask now being tucked away in her purse.
Moira was wearing a dress that fit up top but flowed from her waist, one of the rare times I remembered she even owned one.
Milo and Eli were in suits as well, and while Eli looked prim and proper, Milo had already gotten his shirt untucked, his tie was crooked, and his hair was already sticking up.
“You can celebrate like this after,” she told him. “God, when are you going to learn to behave? You’re going to be thirty in a couple of years.”
“Man,” Milo complained as Moira stomped off.
“If you’re good and don’t draw attention to us, I’ll share,” Eli said with a smirk, tapping his jacket, and I could hear the thunk of what was probably a second flask.
“Have I told you I love you?” Milo asked with widening eyes.
“Yeah, but you could do it more often.”
“Deal.”
Ward and Arlo appeared, and I was sure Ward’s suit cost more than everyone’s here save for mine. Ward eyed the duo and rolled his eyes. “Amateurs.”
I looked him over and then glanced at the umbrella, perfectly acceptable in our rainy city, especially with the cloud cover, but the handle looked...odd. “You too?”
He followed my gaze and grinned, giving it a wiggle. “Enough for both of us.”