Epilogue
Conrad
Four months later…
Tav gripped Holden’s legs as he perched on his uncle’s shoulders, and the boy frantically pointed at the massive dinosaur skeleton that stretched two stories above us. The two made a simultaneous roar sound that dissolved into giggles and laughter, their identical dimples popping.
Amara, her arm threaded through mine, smiled and discretely brushed a happy tear from her face. I rolled my eyes at her, and she smacked my chest with a huff. But I hid the swallow around my own clogged throat.
Tav and Holden were two peas in a pod, both hyperactive personalities when they felt safe and comfortable, both competitive little gym freaks, and both disgusting eaters. Genetics were wild.
We had planned this trip months ago for Holden’s birthday and had taken a flight—Holden and Amara’s first—to New York City to visit as many museums and attractions as we could in a week. Tomorrow, we’d be heading to the Bronx Zoo, and Holden was very excited for the monkeys.
Holden, sitting on Tav’s shoulders, could be seen well above the crowd, and so Amara and I followed lazily behind.
We’d grown close in the last few months, as she now held a position at my company, one that paid her well enough to afford the apartment in the same building as my own.
Tav liked her close, and now that she’d begun dating, she found she liked easy access to a babysitter.
“We might be here until closing,” she murmured.
“There’s a whole cafeteria here,” I said. “It’ll be fine.”
“Maybe you and I can escape and get a latte.”
I could have used the caffeine but nixed the idea. “And leave those two to wander the museum alone?” I shuddered. “Bad idea.”
“You’re right. They’ll break something.”
“Exactly. I’m rich, but I’m not museum-artifact rich.”
Her laughter carried over the crowd, and Tav turned at the sound, smiling at her before his gaze shifted to me. His eyes softened, and his lips quirked higher, before Holden once again drew his attention with an excited shriek over a fossil.
I couldn’t believe in a few short months that I’d grown affectionate over a rambunctious four-year-old, but every time he called me Uncle Rad, my heart skipped a beat.
And Amara was a sister I never had, a smart and kind woman who had worked hard on her new relationship with her brother.
I was grateful every single day that she loved him as much as she did.
I had helped heal a lot of pieces in Tav, but I wouldn’t have been able to do anything if Amara hadn’t forgiven him.
“How’s the new man?” I asked. Tav had proven to be incapable of carrying on a civil conversation with Amara about her dating life. So I often got the scoop and then relayed it to him while he listened with his jaw clenched.
“Eh,” she shrugged. “Didn’t work out. He couldn’t hold a conversation. But the good news is that his sister and I hit it off. She asked me out on a girls’ night.”
Tav would be thrilled. “That’s good. You need more friends.”
She fluttered her lips. “I’m not a teenage girl, Conrad.”
“Friends are important.” After the incident with Devlin, my relationship with Ben had shifted.
I found myself expressing my appreciation for him more.
At first, he’d seemed uncomfortable and skeptical, but now he grew bold at my affection and fished for compliments all the time. “Hopefully it all works out.”
She stopped at a screen that was playing a video about homo sapiens. “Yeah, I hope so.”
A shoulder knocked mine, and I turned to see Tav with Holden at his side, their hands clasped. “Hey, found you.” His fingers grazed the small of my back.
Two women next to us kept stealing glances at him.
Tav didn’t notice, but people looked at him.
Admired him. Because love looked good on Tav.
He ate like a horse and had the bulk to prove it.
His eyes were bright, his hair styled well thanks to me and wore clothes that fit him like second skin.
Today, he had on a pair of Levi’s that nearly made me swallow my tongue the first time he put them on along with a tight heather gray T-shirt.
Tav was gorgeous. And he only had eyes for me. I felt like the king of the world.
“Having fun?” I asked.
Holden answered for me, hopping in the air. “So much fun, Uncle Rad!”
I picked him up and propped him on my hip as I carried him down a hallway. Tav and Amara followed. “You know what’s here that you might like as much as dinosaurs?”
His green eyes went big. “What?”
I leaned in to touch our noses and whispered, “Mummies.”
He threw his hands in the air with a cheer and nearly toppled out of my arms. I laughed as I held him tighter.
The mummies, as I predicted, were a hit. Amara pointed out all the sarcophagi, and I found Tav in front of one, his nose pressed to the glass. I brushed the back of my hand along his. “Having fun? Or do you miss your kids?”
Tav worked at Holden’s jiu jitsu gym as an instructor which ended up being the perfect job for him.
He enjoyed the younger kids the most—Holden’s age—because he said the lessons were about learning, self-improvement, confidence, and having fun rather than winning.
I marveled that Devlin hadn’t even been able to take fighting away from him, that Tav had taken that back for himself one day at a time as he taught youth how to grapple.
He snorted. “I mean of course, I miss them. Henley had just learned a proper roll.” Ah, Henley.
That little girl was one of his favorites.
“But…” He turned back to the glass case.
His eyes were as wide as his nephew’s. “This is amazing. Knowing how old all this is…” he shook his head.
“Incredible.” He turned around linked our fingers.
“Thank you for this trip, Con.” He tugged me closer.
“I never imagined I’d be able to do something like this with Mar and Holden. ”
“Hey, I did it for me too. I like museums. And I like spending time with your family.”
He rolled his eyes. “We talked about this. You’re family too.”
We did talk about this, and I did feel that way too. “I know.”
“Sometimes I think Amara likes you more than me.”
I shoved him away. “That’s not true.”
He grinned and came right back to regain my hand. “Whatever.” He leaned down and brushed a kiss on my lips. “Come on, I want to go look at the tomb reconstruction.”
I followed him, our hands still linked, as we joined Amara and Holden.
Our little family, one that we’d scraped together with bloody fingernails.
But it was ours, and I knew I’d forever protect it with my life.
I shook our hands, and Tav glanced back at me with a questioning look. I love you, I mouthed.
His grin was delicious. “Love you too.”
Tav
The hotel bed was nearly as nice as Con’s at home, and the sheets were like silk. I sank into them as Con sank into me, his forehead touching mine as he groaned against my lips. “Fuck, Tav. How is it still like this every time?”
I shifted, welcoming the fullness of his thick cock in my ass. “Don’t know. But it is.”
He sat back on his haunches and gripped my legs to hook them around his hips.
I wasn’t as flexible as I used to be as I wasn’t as lean, and my muscles ached with the stretch.
I fisted the headboard behind me, glad that Amara and Holden were in another room down the hall so they wouldn’t hear Con take me apart.
It’d been a long few days of museums and crowds and navigating the subway.
We’d barely made it to bed before passing out every night, so we hadn’t fucked in days.
Nearly a week. Tonight, Con had ended dinner early, his body tense, and I’d known I was in for it once our hotel door locked behind us.
I was right. He’d told me to strip and get on my knees, and I’d choked on his cock naked against the door while he still wore all his clothes.
Then he’d dragged me to the bed where he stripped and ordered me onto my back.
His eyes scoured my skin as they coursed down my chest to land on where our bodies connected.
His hips shifted back and punched forward, sending him so deep that my teeth rattled.
That was my warning before he set a punishing pace, not wasting time, but angling his thrusts to nail my prostate every time.
This was not slow or soft. I fucking loved it.
I reached down and fisted my cock with one hand as pre-cum wept from my slit. My body rocked with Con’s thrusts, his fingers digging into my thighs as he spread me wider beneath him. I arched my back as my balls tingled, and my cock hardened to steel. “Fuck yes,” I moaned. “Harder. Just like that.”
“Don’t tell me what to do,” he snapped, and I huffed out a laugh, my lips curling into what felt like a crazy grin.
He let go of my thighs and shoved on my hip, a silent command for me to roll on my stomach, and I did. He didn’t let me get on my knees, just spread my legs obscenely wide before he slid back inside my hole with a grunt.
His teeth scraped my shoulder as he slammed home, and I had just enough room between my body and the sheets to continue stroking my cock in rhythm with his assault on my ass. I opened my mouth on the sheets, drooling on them as he fucked his way into me until I swore I felt him in my throat.
“So perfect,” he mouthed the back of my neck, his lips uncoordinated, his hands grabby on my skin. “Always so fucking good for me.”
“Love being good for you,” I rasped. He seemed to swell inside of me, and his shaft stretched my rim. “Fuck, you feel big.”
“Been hard for days. Needed you.”
“Needed you back.”
He moaned, and his teeth clamped down on my shoulder. “Are you close?”
“Yeah,” I choked out. My balls were drawn tight, ready to blow, and my cock gave up one last kick before it began to pulse. “Fuck, now.”
He let out a strangled groan as I came hard, squeezing him inside of me.
His hips stuttered, and then he was coming too, filling me full until I could feel him leaking out to drip to the sheets below.
The last of my release dribbled from me, and my limbs went loose and weightless.
Con’s body collapsed on top of mine, but he was never heavy enough to suffocate me.
Instead he was just sort of a heated blanket. With a dick. That was still in my ass.
I squeezed around him, and he moaned as he slapped a hand on the outside of my thigh. “Don’t. Give me a minute.”
I squeezed again, laughing quietly, and he slipped from me as he knelt behind me.
I closed my eyes as his hands rubbed at my shoulders and down my back before he cupped each ass cheek.
His fingers squeezed before he spread my cheeks apart to watch the cum slip from my hole.
He made a contented murmur as his fingers slid through the mess there.
He cupped my balls and massaged my thighs before rolling me onto my back.
He pressed a kiss to the tip of my wet cock before sliding off the bed.
I lay there like a starfish staring at the ceiling as he returned to clean me.
I closed my eyes, letting him tend to me, because sometimes I thought he liked this part almost as much as the sex.
Almost. He hummed to himself as he went into the bathroom.
When he returned, he arranged my limbs how he wanted them and fussed with the blankets at my neck. “Comfortable?”
I nodded.
He propped some pillows against the headboard and sat beside me. “I’m going to read for a little. Is that okay?”
I nodded again, too content to do anything else.
He slipped on his slutty little glasses and opened his paperback.
And just like I knew he would, he drew my head closer so my forehead touched his thigh and began sifting his fingers through my hair.
I threw my arm over his legs, so he could rest the paperback on my forearm.
I might have fallen asleep but woke some time later to Con settling down on his side, his head on his pillow facing me.
His hand was flat on the bed between us, and I gripped his wrist to hold it up and placed our palms together.
Measuring them. Like how I wanted to all those months ago.
My fingers could nearly curl over his, and he snorted and tried to yank his hand away.
I wouldn’t let him. I laced our fingers together and let our joined hands rest on the mattress.
He brushed his lips over my thumb. “Tav?”
“Yeah?”
“You’ll marry me, right?”
Heat washed over me, and I grinned at him. “Yeah, Con. I will.”
“This fall.”
“Okay. I like fall.”
“Before Holden gets too old to the ring-bearer.”
“Amara can walk me down the aisle.”
“If I don’t let Ben be a groomsman, he’ll never forgive me.”
“You get Ben. I’ll get Nik.”
His eyes glittered, the blue like sunshine. “Deal.”
I squeezed his hand. He squeezed mine back. And my entire soul settled.
Thank you so much for reading The Fighter!