Epilogue #5
On top of that, just as important when raising a young woman who might eventually date men, she was surrounded by just as many good men.
She had me and Sawyer, Brock, Paine, Enzo, Barrett, Shooter, Breaker…
again, the list went on and on. Each and every one of them showed her how good men treated women, what behaviors should and should not be tolerated.
It also gave her insulation. She was safe from any eye watching her, any hand touching her, until she was old enough to make those choices for herself, never being rushed into the experience like so many girls did way too soon.
It was the right time for her.
I knew that.
I knew that because I understood her school work, her girl squad, her life was her main focus, that she wasn’t boy crazy or starved for attention.
She was making the decision because it felt right, because the guy was deemed worthy not only by her, but also by all her strong, no-nonsense female friends.
And I got seventeen years of not having to worry about it. It was more than many dads got.
“I know you did, baby girl,” I agreed, nodding. “And I needed every last second of that notice.”
“You know,” Kenzi said, looking at Ariah, lips pursed. “Maybe you were right. Maybe the white…”
“Don’t go pushing your bad habits on her,” I chuckled, reaching up to snag her arm, and drag her down onto my lap. “She already spent an hour getting dressed. She looks beautiful. Leave her alone.” Then, like to prove my point, the doorbell down below chimed.
“Please, please don’t come down and do the intimidation thing. I already had to convince him that you weren’t going to find him and shoot him for calling past curfew that one night.”
“Don’t worry,” Kenz said, giving her a wink, “I’ll hold him down. Make a run for it!”
I chuckled as Ariah turned, grabbed her purse, and went for the door.
“Ariah,” I called as she stepped into the doorway.
“Yeah?”
“Be safe and be home by eleven.”
She gave me a grateful smile, glad I didn’t go all “dad” on her.
“I love you.”
With that, my oldest daughter went out on her first date with a boy I didn’t know, but found unworthy on principle.
“Don’t worry, Daddy,” Bria said, walking out of her room in some roomy-ass sweater that went almost down to her knees, open in front to reveal just as roomy a tee and yoga pants; she was very much like her aunt.
In fact, that sweater might have even been bought by Reese.
The book in her hand was definitely from her as well since Kenzi and I couldn’t get her to the bookstore often enough to assuage her fiction addiction.
“I’m not going to date until I’m thirty,” she declared, throwing herself down flat on the couch, legs over the end, holding the book up in the air to read.
“From your lips to God’s ears, baby,” I said, but I knew it was not going to happen that way.
Kenzi - the next morning
“Alright, I know I said I didn’t want to know,” he said, coming in the store, and locking the door. “But I can’t fucking focus on work. So, how did it go?”
I felt my lips curve up as he walked over to me, all scared daddy bear. It was sweet. Having had protective older brothers, I understood his reaction to Ariah aging up. Also, knowing about his sister and what happened to her made me a lot more sympathetic to his complete overreaction.
Really, it was a miracle Ariah didn’t show any real interest in boys before.
Though, a lot of that was likely due to the gruelingly full schedule the men in her life had her involved in, likely to prolong the inevitable.
Paine had her three weeknights every week, helping her with her art, finding that she had the gene that he and I both did.
Sawyer and Brock insisted she go to Jstorm’s self-defense gym in town on the weekends, making sure she would take down any opponent who crossed her path.
Barrett helped her with her art website.
Shooter took her to the gun range with him and his girls.
Then, on top of them and their thinly veiled overprotectiveness, Riya and Elsie were forever insisting she, Bria, and I go with them for spa days and such.
She simply had no time to catch serious feelings for a boy.
But she was seventeen. It was time.
So we had all held our breaths, steadied our hearts, and hoped all went well.
I reached out, touching his hand. “Tig, this boy has lived in this town his entire life. He knows who you, Sawyer, Brock, Paine, Breaker, and Shooter are. She said he was so nervous that he called her ‘blue-tiful’ when she walked out, glancing behind her like you all would come charging out like an angry mob.”
“Good,” he said, his tone a little firm, making me laugh.
“She said he was respectful, opened her doors, held her doors, and even insisted on paying, though she put up a fight to do so as well.”
“So, what you’re saying is… I can’t kill him.”
Again, a laugh bubbled up and slipped from between my lips. “She was completely and utterly underwhelmed by the whole thing.”
“What?” he said, jerking back.
“Tig, come on now,” I said, smiling. “She’s a mini-me. She’s not falling for some little seventeen-year-old who can’t even enunciate properly out of fear. She needed to do this. It was time. But our girl isn’t getting serious with anyone anytime soon.”
“Thank fuck.”
“She’s got a good head on her shoulders. She’s going to be an entrepreneur by twenty-one; I bet my life on it. She won’t have time for men while she’s building her empire. By the time she’s ready, you’ll already have had to go through this with Bria and will be an old hand at it.”
“You know, you were comforting there for about half a minute.”
“Oh,” I said, my smile going a little wicked. “I can think of better ways to… comfort you,” I added as I moved out from behind the desk, running a finger down his stomach.
The amused look fell from his face, leaving me with nothing but heat. “Is that right?”
“Mhmm,” I agreed, fingertips slipping just inside the waistband of his jeans, holding still. “You know, it’s been seventeen years. And we have done it just about everywhere. Except the one place I have had a fantasy about since forever.”
“Oh yeah?” he asked, hands sliding down my back to cup my ass, giving me a hard squeeze. “Right here?” he asked, slamming me back up against my desk.
“For starters,” I said, pressing my breasts into his chest as I angled slightly back to look up at him. “Then the couch, the dressing rooms, the office, the break room table.”
I was going to be there until forever cleaning. While true, at least ten years before, I had finally splurged and hired a cleaning crew, there was no way I was going to let them clean up sex sweat.
His hands yanked upward, pulling me off my feet by my ass and pushing me flat against my desk, wasting absolutely no time, shoving my skirt upward.
He tried to yank my panties to the side, but was too wrapped up and ended up ripping them off me, making a satisfied growling noise a second before his tongue slid up my cleft.
Then there was no more thinking about cleaning, about anything at all, while he devoured me, ripping an orgasm out of me way too quickly before sealing his lips over mine as he lifted me and carried me across my beloved slate floors, opening my dressing room door with a key he had somehow managed to swipe without me seeing, then closing us inside.
There was one fun perk about the dressing room.
Floor-length mirrors.
Judging by the heated smile his reflection showed from behind my shoulder, his mind was going the same way as he leaned back against the door, pulling me between his spread legs and sliding his hand up my thigh.
I watched both him and myself as his fingers found my slick cleft and shoved inside me, making me cry out as my head slammed back into him.
And then I watched his fingers fuck me, watched his eyes get greedy, waiting for his cock to be there instead.
But only after another hard, pulsating G-spot orgasm did his fingers finally leave me.
His hands went to my waistband, yanking my skirt down and letting me step out of it before his hands went to my shirt, discarding that and then my bra, leaving me completely bare while he was fully dressed.
“Fucking perfect,” he growled, eyes moving over me greedily.
And while the years had aged me somewhat, softened me a bit in spots that had once been firmer, and created scars put there by lives we had created in love, I still saw nothing to feel uneasy about.
Maybe that had a lot to do with the fact that Tig never did either.
He loved every curve, every stretch mark, every so-called imperfection.
He worshiped them until I was able to see them through his eyes as well.
I watched his hands slide up my belly to cup my breasts, his thumbs rolling my nipples into hardened peaks.
He only released me long enough to free his cock, hard and straining, forcing my legs to open as he pulled me even harder against him.
I watched as he grabbed his thickness, stroking it up and down my cleft, sharing my desire, then sliding back down and pressing impossibly slowly inside me.
Both of our gazes were on the mirror, watching our bodies become one, finding that not a bit of the desire had ebbed through all the years, and knowing nothing in the world felt more right than having him inside me.
The slow sweetness didn’t last, as it often didn’t.
Pretty soon, it was hard, fast, and rough.
One of his hands slid between my thighs as he suddenly straightened, bending me forward.
The other hand reached for my hair, gathering it up and yanking hard.
“Head up,” he demanded. “I want you to watch me fuck you.” As if I wanted anything less.
My moans became loud, loud enough that I was pretty sure the neighboring stores on both sides knew exactly what I was up to.
But I didn’t give one single fuck as he yanked my hair harder, the pain and pleasure pushing me right to the brink.
“That’s it, come for me,” he demanded as his cock slammed into me harder and harder.
And, well, when my man wanted me to come, who was I to deny him?
The orgasm crashed through me hard, making me cry out his name as he kept pumping, dragging it out, milking it for all that it was worth, before he found his own orgasm with my name on his lips.
We didn’t move, not for a long time. Both his arms went around me as he leaned into the door again, one low on my hips, one over my breasts. His head tilted into my neck where he planted a sweet kiss.
“Love you, Kenz,” he said, and damn if it didn’t still make my belly flip-flop to hear it.
“Love you too, Tig,” I said, feeling it down to my very marrow. “Now let me get dressed and cleaned up. I have a lot of work to do, and I can’t stay late. Reese and her family are coming over for dinner.”
“And if I know anything about this family,” he said, making me smile.
Not your family, this family. Because he knew that the day I chose him, everyone welcomed him with open arms, “it’s that once word gets around that Reese is coming, then suddenly Gina will be there, and then Paine and Elsie and their kids.
Then, damn if Shoot, Break, and their girls and kids too won’t be making an appearance.
Then if word gets even more around, Sawyer and Brock and Barrett will be gracing the table too. ”
He totally made me a dining table. He had cleared out the living space downstairs that was mostly useless since we all hung upstairs, then got to work building us our family table since we couldn’t find one to buy that would fit the huge amount of company we often had.
“Yeah, but then you guys can sit back with beers and roll your eyes as I yell at Alex.”
“For fucking up the lettuce.”
“How does she always manage to fuck up lettuce? Seriously, she should be studied. Something in her touch just ruins food, I swear.” We were halfway back into the store when I stopped, “Oh, and if Barrett is coming, I bet they’ll be bringing Collings too…
I really need to hit the food store again for more food. ”
Tig came up behind me, wrapping me up again, squeezing perhaps a bit too tight. “Gotta say, I love that I got me a woman who doesn’t think about scaling it down, but just goes and gets more supplies. How long has it been since I told you just how fucking amazing you are?”
“Oh, it has to have been at least an hour,” I mused, thinking back to that conversation of ours, so many years ago, on our first official date at Famiglia.
“Too fucking long,” he said, mirroring his words then.
“Guess you better set an alarm on your phone, so you don’t let that happen again,” I mused.
“Damn straight,” he agreed, turning me, and kissing me until I swayed on my feet.
And as he said goodbye and walked away, I thought, and not for the first time, how crazy life was, how fated some situations were.
Had Cassie not been selfish and backhanded, I never would have called Tig.
If I had never called Tig, we never would have fallen in love, made babies, created a giant, loving, amazing family.
I never would have known just how deep loyalty could run had she not been so disloyal to me.
It was why there was no real resentment anymore.
Because sometimes, everything, even the twisted, awful things, happens for a reason.
And since that reason, for me, was Tig, I was glad for every single thing I had had to go through to get him.
XX