Chapter Sixteen
Rowan
I felt bad admitting it, but I’d never considered marrying someone before.
I had pictures of us growing old together, sharing our lives together, him always being my daddy, but marriage?
It just wasn’t something I gave any consideration to.
I wasn’t anti-marriage by any means, but I guess I always thought it wasn’t for me.
When I was really little, I asked my aunt what a wedding was because she was getting married and had invited me to be part of hers.
She told me matter-of-factly, “It’s when a boy and a girl really love each other and want to live together forever.
” She hadn’t been trying to be homophobic or exclusionary in any way; she was just trying to simplify the concept enough for my pre-kindergarten self.
But that was not how my brain took it. I compartmentalized marriage as something not for me because, even at a young age, I never saw myself getting a wife.
Fast-forward to the day Summit asked me to marry him.
For the first time in my life, I saw that marriage was for me.
I didn’t have to think about it. I knew instantly that I belonged by his side, connected in that legal way, until death do us part and all that.
The decision was so quick and so easy that I kind of thought everything else that would follow would be as well. I’d been wrong on that.
Moving was horrible. The back-and-forth between each other’s houses was fine when we were just exclusive and dating, but now that we were getting married, we really needed to consolidate homes.
Both of our places had stuff going for them, but ultimately, I had decided to move in with Daddy.
His place was objectively nicer by every barometer, and it was close to both our jobs, which also worked.
For the past two weeks, I had been bringing over one box at a time with every visit, but today was the day we were bringing everything else. Neither of us had a car big enough to get it done efficiently, so Daddy hired some local movers to take care of it.
We weren’t keeping everything of mine. There were a couple of pieces of furniture that had been my grandparents’ that I wanted to keep, but we didn’t need another bed, and my couch was on its last legs already.
I just had not found anything that I liked well enough to replace it.
It felt great getting rid of furniture and items I didn’t like and/or no longer needed.
There was plenty left to make hiring the movers worth it.
They brought everything in and stacked it in the right rooms—except outside one closed and locked door, where they stacked the boxes in the hallway.
It was off limits and private. They probably thought it was one of those red rooms, like in all the books from a handful of years back, and that we had some secret sex dungeon there or something.
But it wasn’t that. It was a guest room that the two of us had spent the past three weekends converting into a nursery for me.
We painted the walls, refinished the floors, used art and custom wallpaper and lights to decorate the walls, and picked out area rugs for the floor—one really nice and cozy, and the other a story-time circle rug that I saw on a social media ad and had to have.
We built a bookshelf and set up toys, as well as a bed that was crib-like but not completely a crib.
It only had three sides, so I supposed technically it was a daybed.
Regardless of what we called it, the room was coming together nicely.
Today, we were moving my remaining little things in after the movers were 100 percent done and we had something to eat.
“I think I’m overwhelmed with today, Daddy,” I said, walking into his open arms. “Would you be mad at us if we went to bed now?”
My greedy self wanted to not only go to bed early but to do it snuggling my daddy.
“Now? Yes, we will be mad at past us but not because there are boxes that still need unpacking. It’s because you’re visibly covered in dust, and you do not want to sleep like that. I’m sure I look the same.”
I thought he was exaggerating until I walked into the bathroom and saw mini dust bunnies on my head and smudges on my face.
“I guess that means we need to take a shower, Daddy.”
“Yeah, I guess it does. Shucks darn.”
He set the water and then helped me get undressed.
I went to do the same for him, but he told me it was my turn to watch and to let him do it.
There was not much better than watching my future husband disrobe.
He was hotter than hot. We climbed under the water where multiple jets hit us from all sides.
“You wash my hair, I’ll wash yours?” I asked. I loved getting my hair washed, but I also enjoyed watching my mate enjoy the same treatment given to him.
We took turns washing each other’s bodies, bringing each other to orgasm, and then washing some more.
When we were nice and clean, we ignored everything that needed to be done and climbed into bed.
I snuggled into his side and fell asleep.
For the first time, I was home. It wasn’t the building; it was being there, snuggled in his arms. He was my home. He was exactly where I belonged.