Chapter 40 - Epilogue
Callie
Ezra was sleeping deeply when his morning wood started poking insistently at my hip and woke me this foggy November morning. Not that I’m complaining. He sleeps best with his arms wrapped around me, he says, his subconscious desire to never let me go again. He needn’t worry. He said I’m his world and he’s mine.
And, he’s fully awake now.
“Is this my birthday surprise?” he hums, his voice gravelly but full of tenderness.
“If it was, would you be satisfied?” I ask, drawing a deeper breath before I take him back into my mouth.
He tuts as if I’ve asked the silliest question. “I’m far more than simply satisfied any morning I wake up beside you, hummingbird. But this is icing on the birthday cake, the best cake I could ever imagine having.”
His hand drifts down into my hair and his hips thrust forward just a touch. He wants me to keep going. I’m more than happy to. True, it is his birthday but I don’t need a special occasion for this. I love watching him come undone for me. Almost as much as he loves reciprocating.
Swirling my tongue around his tip, I rise to my knees for better leverage and start working my lips up and down his shaft. “Look at me, Callie,” he rasps. When he says my name and looks at me that way, he makes me feel like I’m the only woman in the world. I know without a doubt he’s the only man for me.
My eyes flick up and I suck him harder. His entire body tenses as he fights the release that wants to crash over him.
But, he’s a stubborn man. With a groan, he quickly sits up, pulling me off him.
“Hey! Oh… hey,” I purr playfully when he grabs me by the waist and centers me over his groin. A sleepy grin, a feather-light kiss and then he drags me downward, impaling me with his cock.
My core tightens as we begin to move. He’s so strong, moving me up and down the same way I was just using my mouth on him. My arms wrap around his shoulders, fingernails digging into his toned flesh. His tan from our trip to Mexico is just beginning to fade. It was one hell of a fun week for a late honeymoon.
Pushing at his chest, I force him to lay back. “It’s your birthday, baby, and I want to do the work.”
“You want to ride this dick, you mean,” he says, chuckling.
“Damn right, I do.”
Daylight is barely creeping around the closed curtains but I’m soon working up a sweat as if I’ve been running under the noonday sun. I catch a flash of green fire from the emeralds on my ring finger but even they can’t compare to the way Ezra’s eyes sparkle in the half-light. Languidly, he moves his hips in time with mine, watching me, drinking in the way my hips rock and my breasts bounce above him.
Tendrils of ecstasy lick up and down my spine when he cups one of my breasts, his thumb brushing across the nipple. A twinge of discomfort passes through me before pleasure returns in full force. They’ve been tender the past few days. It’s his birthday and he’s going to be getting a surprise. My body is already very busy preparing to grow and nourish new life, as busy as a hummingbird flitting from flower to flower.
Shuddering from my orgasm, the tightness in my center is almost unbearable when I collapse against his chest. “Sorry. That came quicker than I expected. Let me-”
“I can wait,” he whispers, stroking my cheek.
I start to sit up and move again so my birthday man can come, too, but…
“Oh God,” I whimper three minutes later as I’m leaned over the toilet having emptied my already empty stomach. I thought maybe I’d avoid this dubious pleasure this time. Guess not. “Don’t look at me when I’m-”
His firm finger presses against my lips. “You’re beautiful even when you’re puking, darling.”
“Don’t turn into a liar on me, Ezra Sokolov.”
“Not a liar. Just a man in love. All done?”
“Yeah. I think so.”
Shaking his head, he flushes the toilet and carefully pulls me to my feet. He stares at me intently, reading me so easily. “I think I know what my birthday surprise is.”
I’d scowl at him for figuring me out but it’s just another sign that he pays attention to every little cue. “I took a test yesterday. It was positive. I made an appointment for next week.”
His smile would rival the dawn if dawn dared to make an appearance through the fog. “This is, without a doubt, the best birthday surprise I could ever ask for, Callie.” He holds me close and I melt in his embrace so full of love.
I’m still slightly queasy as he helps me into the shower and starts the water. I’ll never understand how he can take that first cold blast against his back before it warms but says he’s used to ice baths from his playing days. He cradles me in his arms, keeping me warm and absorbing the freezing water, until it’s reached a decent temperature and he turns us.
Sighing, I let my eyes flutter closed as he starts to wash me. “When?” he rumbles next to my ear, his voice filled with quiet longing.
“Summer. It’s still early so it’s just between us for now, okay?”
“Okay.” He kisses my shoulder. “Summer… maybe she’ll come on your birthday.”
“She?”
“Maybe,” he says, a sweetness in his expression that is generally reserved for Wyatt. How I ever could have thought this man was cold-hearted is beyond me. The most loving heart lies behind that serious expression.
“My calculations have my due date as July 10th. She would be way overdue hanging around until August 1st.”
“Ah. Well, since you excel at math, I guess we’ll just have to see if she’s as stubborn as her mama and waits until then.”
This time I do scowl at him but, once his fingers start massaging my back, it slips back into a contented smile. The nausea has passed and, since it is his birthday, I slip down to my knees before the hot water runs out to blow my man’s mind.
∞∞∞
Ezra
“You’re having cake for breakfast?!”
Grinning at the sleepy voice, I turn to find Wyatt has joined me. “Yeah.”
“Does Mama know?” he whispers and my shoulders shake with laughter.
“Yes, she does. She said it’s my cake and it’s okay.”
“It’s my birthday, too!” he shouts, running to join me.
My heart twists the way it always does whenever I think of the cake they made me last year. I don’t know if she’ll ever fully understand how much it meant to me, how much every single day I’m blessed to share with her and Wyatt means but I aim to show it to them in every way a person can.
“Happy Birthday, Bump.”
He returns the birthday wishes and informs me he’s six and I’m thirty-two and, while six is practically grown, thirty-two is not that old for a dad.
“Six is a long way from grown. You should enjoy every year and every slice of cake. I’ll be right here watching you blow out your candles,” I tell him, placing my hand over his heart.
I see a flash of sentiment in his eyes before he focuses on the important things again. “Mama made the big cake for me tonight.”
“I know.”
“So, can I have some of yours?”
“Of course, you can.”
“What about your wish?” he asks as I slice three pieces of chocolate cake and place them on paper plates covered with dump trucks. Grumpy Bumpy isn’t read every night now – there’s so many new books for a big kindergartner to read – but it’s still a favorite.
“Yes, we can’t forget that,” Callie says from the doorway. She opens one of the drawers and pulls out brightly colored candles shaped like the number three and two.
Wyatt excitedly offers to place the candles and carry the slices to the table. While he’s busy, I study my wife, making sure she’s okay. My train of thought kind of derailed when she got on her knees for me in the shower but I’m glad to see she’s dressed and no longer looking even the slightest bit green around the gills. I hope morning sickness won’t plague her for long.
She’d gone off birth control before Mexico, both of us agreeing that we wanted more kids. I wouldn’t trade my son for anything but I’m thrilled at the idea of getting to be there for her pregnancy, the birth and all the thousands of things I didn’t get to experience with Wyatt’s earliest years. I just didn’t expect her to get pregnant so soon.
“Was it just the morning sickness that told you?” she quietly asks as Wyatt carefully places the two candles on my slice. “Women can throw up without being pregnant, you know.”
I escort her to the table, pulling her into my lap. “I know. It was just little signs clicking into place since Mexico.”
“Like how I finally recognized you the night we first danced at the masquerade ball?”
“I suppose. I still can’t believe I didn’t recognize you.”
“I didn’t know it was you… until I did.”
“Same for me with this,” I tell her, softly caressing her belly.
“Five hundred and twenty-eight,” Wyatt tells us as he carries my slice over and places it in front of me. We both give him a questioning look. “If you had candles for every year for every birthday, Ezra would blow out five hundred and twenty-eight today.”
I guess Callie and I aren’t the only ones good at math. “How the hell did our six-year-old just work an algebra-level equation?” I ask his mother.
Wyatt shrugs at me, saying I shouldn’t say hell if I want my birthday wish to come true.
But, once the candles are lit and my family is singing to me, my wife on my lap and my boy grinning at me, I know no birthday wish could be sweeter than this moment right here.