Epilogue
The kitchen was loud. Tilly had her sippy cup in one hand and a fistful of pasta in the other, and she was telling me a story about a ladybug that didn’t make any sense.
She was three. None of her stories made sense. She told them with her whole body anyway, waving the pasta for emphasis, sauce flicking onto the counter I’d stopped wiping down two years ago.
“And then the ladybug said no,” Tilly announced. “And then she flied away.”
“Flew,” I said.
“That’s what I said.” She shoved the pasta into her mouth and kept talking through it.
She had inherited my hair color. The copper was unmistakable.
It came in wispy and wild, and I’d given up on bows by month four.
She had Sayer’s stubbornness, which meant bedtime was a negotiation and breakfast was a standoff and every single day was the loudest, messiest, most chaotic thing I’d ever loved.
Sayer walked in from the back porch, barefoot, T-shirt damp from the heat.
We’d been in this house for four years. He’d built it for us on the edge of Pleasure Valley, on three acres of land that had been empty when he bought it.
Modern, clean, steel and glass and wide windows.
But it was far from the bachelor’s showpiece he’d owned when he met me.
Tilly’s rain boots were by the door. A stacking tower was half-collapsed in the living room.
There were crayon marks on the baseboard near the kitchen island that I’d stopped trying to scrub because she just added new ones.
The house was full. Beautifully, impossibly full.
My laptop was open on the kitchen island, two tabs still active from the client call I’d taken before dinner.
Drake Advisory. My firm, my name, my client list. I’d left Pleasure Valley Capital two years after the Forge IPO closed and never looked back.
Lawrence had called it a waste. I’d called it the plan.
Twelve clients, a home office with a door that closed, and a reputation I’d built without borrowing anyone else’s letterhead.
“Daddy.” Tilly held up the pasta. “Ladybug.”
“I see that,” Sayer said. He picked a piece of penne off her cheek and ate it. She shrieked with delight.
He looked at me over her head. Dark eyes, full beard, tattoos visible past his collar and down both arms. Five years, and my stomach still flipped when he looked at me like that. Not the boardroom stillness. Not the CEO composure. The other look. The one that was just for me.
“Bath time’s going to be fun tonight,” he said.
“When is it ever not?”
“I’ll handle the water. You handle the negotiation.”
“Deal.”
Bath time took thirty minutes because Tilly wanted every rubber duck in the tub and then wanted to name each one. Sayer took over for the negotiation phase, which involved two books, a glass of water, a second glass of water, and a firm discussion about why the ladybug couldn’t sleep in her bed.
I listened from the hallway, leaning against the wall with a mug of tea in my hand.
His voice was low and patient through the door.
The same voice that ran Forge, that commanded boardrooms, that had once asked a first-year analyst to walk him through a valuation correction in front of his entire team.
Except now it was explaining to a three-year-old why ladybugs preferred gardens to pillows.
The door opened. He pulled it almost closed, leaving the crack she required.
“She wants you to say goodnight.”
I went in. Tilly was half asleep, her copper hair splayed across the pillow, one hand clutching a stuffed rabbit she’d named Soup for reasons she’d never explained.
“Night, baby,” I whispered.
“Night, Mama.” Her eyes were already closing. “The ladybug came back.”
“Good.”
I kissed her forehead and walked out. Sayer was waiting in the hallway. He took the mug of tea from my hand and set it on the hall table. His fingers found my waist.
“She’s out,” I said.
“I know.”
“We’re trying for another one tonight.”
“I know that too.”
I looked up at him. Five years. Five years since I’d stood in a conference room at Pleasure Valley Capital and told him his numbers were wrong.
Five years since a couch in his office and a shower I hadn’t expected and a car ride home where I’d almost convinced myself that needing someone was the same as losing something.
I’d been so wrong. About all of it.
“Shower?” I asked.
His eyes darkened. He knew what I meant. Not a quick rinse. The callback. The thing that had broken me open the first time, his hands in my hair and steam on the glass and the terrifying gentleness that had sent me running to my empty apartment at Pixel Lofts.
“Shower,” he repeated.
He took my hand and led me down the hall to our bathroom.
Marble, glass, wide enough for two. He’d built it that way on purpose.
I hadn’t understood why until the first night we’d spent in this house, when he’d pulled me under the water and washed my hair the same way he had at Forge and I’d cried because it still undid me. Every time.
He turned on the water. Steam filled the glass.
I stepped under the spray first, the hot water cascading over my shoulders and loosening the knots from the day.
Sayer followed, closing the glass door behind him.
The steam rose thick around us, turning the world hazy and intimate.
He grabbed the soap, lathering it between his big hands until it foamed.
“Come here,” he murmured, voice already rough.
I turned into him, and we started slow—his hands gliding over my skin, spreading slick soap across my breasts, down my stomach, over the curve of my ass.
I took the bar from him and returned the favor, running my palms over the hard planes of his chest, tracing every tattoo I knew by heart, sliding lower to stroke his cock as it hardened under my touch.
The soap made everything slippery, sensual. We kept touching even as the water rinsed us clean, hands never leaving each other—his thumbs circling my nipples, my fingers teasing the length of him until he was thick and pulsing.
“Fuck, Tatum,” he groaned low when I squeezed him just right.
I smiled against his wet chest. “You like my hands on you, baby? All soapy and wet?”
He turned me around suddenly, pressing my back to his front.
One large hand cupped my breast, rolling the nipple between his fingers.
The other slid down between my legs, two thick fingers parting me before finding my clit.
He rubbed slow, firm circles, the water streaming over us like a second set of hands.
I gasped, hips jerking. “Yes…just like that, Sayer. Touch me. You know exactly how I like it.”
He groaned deep in his chest, the sound vibrating against my back, and picked up the pace.
His fingers worked me perfectly—slippery, relentless—building that tight, coiling heat low in my belly.
My legs started to shake. The wet sounds of his hand moving between my thighs mixed with the steady rush of water and my own ragged moans.
“Come on, baby,” he growled against my ear. “Let me feel you.”
I cried out as the orgasm hit, sharp and shuddering, my walls clenching around nothing while his fingers kept rubbing through every pulse. Pleasure flooded me hot and bright, knees buckling until his arm banded around my waist to hold me up.
Before I could catch my breath, I turned and dropped to my knees on the wet tile. The water beat down on my back as I took him into my mouth, lips stretching around his thick cock. I licked the underside, stroked the base with one soapy hand, and sucked him deep, hollowing my cheeks.
“Jesus, Tatum?—”
He groaned loudly, one hand fisting gently in my wet hair. His hips twitched, but he let me set the rhythm.
I pulled back just enough to look up at him, water dripping down my face. “You taste so good. I love having you in my mouth. Want to suck you until you lose it.”
Another deep, broken groan tore from him. I loved the way it made his abs tighten, the way his thighs flexed. I worked him harder—licking, stroking, taking him as deep as I could—until his hand tightened in my hair.
“Stop,” he rasped. “Not yet.”
I stood, and he spun me toward the far wall.
I braced my hands on the cool tile, arching my back for him.
He gripped my hips, lined up, and slid into me in one smooth thrust. We both moaned at the feeling—him filling me so perfectly, stretching me open.
The wet slap of his hips meeting my ass echoed in the shower, loud and obscene over the water.
“Fuck me, Sayer,” I panted, pushing back against him. “Harder. I want to feel all of you.”
He groaned again, deep and guttural, and drove into me with more force. Each thrust sent sparks through my body, the angle hitting that perfect spot inside. I dropped one hand from the tile to my clit, rubbing tight circles while he fucked me.
“Oh God—right there,” I gasped. “You’re so deep. Don’t stop, baby. Fill me up.”
His rhythm faltered for a second at my words, another raw moan ripping free as he slammed into me harder. The sounds were filthy and perfect—the slick slide of him inside me, the wet smack of skin on skin, our shared moans and gasps bouncing off the marble.
I came first, clenching hard around him, a sharp cry tearing from my throat as pleasure crashed through me again. My fingers kept moving on my clit, drawing it out until I was shaking.
Sayer followed with a guttural groan, burying himself deep as he pulsed inside me, hips jerking with every spurt. His arms wrapped around me tight, holding me against him as we both rode the aftershocks under the cooling water.
We stayed like that for a long moment, breathing hard, bodies slick and spent.
We stood under the water after, his arms around me, my back against his chest. The same position as the first time. His fingers moved through my hair, slow, rinsing out the shampoo. I closed my eyes.
“I never told you,” I said.
“Told me what.”
“That night at Forge. The shower. That’s when I knew.”
His hands stilled in my hair.
“Not the couch,” I said. “Not the food or the conversation or any of it. You washed my hair and I couldn’t breathe. Nobody had ever just…taken care of something. Without me asking. Without me earning it.”
His arms tightened around me. His mouth pressed against my temple. The same spot as the first time.
“I know,” he said.
“You knew then?”
“I knew when you made the joke about my shampoo.” His voice was low against my ear. “You deflect when something hits too close. I was paying attention.”
I turned in his arms. Water running down both of us, steam on the glass. His face was open, the way it only ever was with me and Tilly. No crossed arms, no controlled stillness. Just him.
“I want another one,” I said. “Another Tilly. Another set of rain boots by the door. More crayon on the baseboards.”
He pulled me closer. “Then let’s do it.”
“I want this house to be so loud I can’t hear myself think.”
He smiled. Full, unrestricted. The one he still didn’t give to anyone else.
“Then let’s make it loud,” he said.
I put my hand on his chest. His heart was pounding. Same as the first time.
Five years ago, I stood in a silent kitchen and realized I’d built my father’s empty house with better furniture. Now the baseboards had crayon on them, the kitchen counter had pasta sauce, and there was a three-year-old down the hall who named her rabbit Soup and believed ladybugs could talk.
The house was full. My hands were full. My life was full.
I wasn’t waiting for anyone anymore.