Epilogue
Emily
One year later.
I lean back on the sofa, wincing a bit at the awkwardness. My belly is big now although I’m only in my second trimester, and the lumpy cushion only seems to make it worse.
“I thought your interior designer was the best,” I grump to my handsome boyfriend. “Didn’t you pay her a ton of money to do up the cabin? How come this sofa is so uncomfortable? Oooh, this pregnancy is going to kill me.”
Christian merely laughs before striding over to press a tender kiss to my forehead.
“Mommy is complaining,” he says to Blaze, the toddler blubbering in his arms. “Do you want to get her a juice to make her feel better?”
Blaze nods his dark head, blue eyes beaming.
“Ju-ju!” he babbles. “Ju-ju!”
Then, he takes off from my boyfriend’s arms, running into the kitchen where he seizes his sippy cup before pretend filling it with orange juice. “Mama, ju-ju,” he burbles before running back and offering it to me. “Mama bettah.”
I take the plastic cup, tears pricking my eyes as I push back his soft baby hair from his forehead.
“Thank you, Blazey,” I murmur before leaning down to kiss his forehead. “Mommy appreciates it very much.”
The toddler immediately tries to climb into my arms, but Christian sweeps him up and away as our son lets out a cry of protest.
“You’re okay,” my boyfriend hushes the distraught child. “Mommy is pregnant right now with another baby, and her belly is big. She can’t bend over like she used to, and pick you up. Is that okay, Blaze? Here, I’ll do airplane with you.”
Then, my huge man holds the baby aloft, spreading out his chubby arms so that they look like the wings of a plane.
“Wheee!” Blaze screams with delight. “Wheeeeee! Dadadada!”
I smile as tears prick my eyes because never have I known such happiness. After Christian and I resolved our differences, we settled into a relationship immediately. I moved into the master suite in his penthouse, and it was as if we were back in the cabin again. I was catering to his filthy demands morning, noon, and night, and sure enough, I was knocked up immediately. I still remember telling him about the new pregnancy.
“Are you ready?” I breathed, one night after we’d finished an exhaustive round of love-making. My thighs were damp with his seed, and my pussy filled with his come, and yet Christian couldn’t take his eyes off my curvy form. One finger lazily traced a pert nipple, as another reached down to tap against the wetness between my legs.
“Ready for what?” he murmured absentmindedly, exploring the tackiness coating my pussy. “You mean round two? I love when your clit is shiny like this.”
I giggled as hot tingles shot through my cunt.
“It’s more like we’re on round four right now. I haven’t slept a wink!”
“I know,” the alpha male groaned before rolling over me and pinning my curves to the mattress with his massive frame. “But I need you, baby. I always need you.”
My heart melts as we kiss.
“And I need you too, Christian. But are you ready to become a daddy again? Because we haven’t been using protection and I’m knocked up. Blaze is going to have a baby sister or brother in around ... oh, eight months.”
Christian’s big form goes stock still, hardly breathing
“Are you serious?” he growls, those blue eyes ablaze. “Don’t pull my leg, Emily.”
I smile tearfully, stroking the stubble on that dark jaw.
“I’m totally serious, Christian. You’re going to be a daddy again!”
Joy broke across his handsome features, and to my surprise, he began to cry.
“Thank you, sweetheart,” he mumbled, before burying his head in the crook between my shoulder and neck. “You’ve given me so much, Emily. My son, and now another child on the way. I’m grateful to have you. But shit, there’s so much to do. We need to get another crib, another—”
“Christian, calm down,” I say with a laugh. “It’s fine! We can use Blaze’s crib for the new baby because he’ll be out of it in a month or two.”
But my boyfriend shook his head.
“But what if it’s a girl? We’ll need to get the nursery re-decorated, and...”
I smile, thinking back to that time because Christian did more than just build out the nursery. He also rebuilt the cabin in Fairview, and now it’s bigger and better than before. It’s outfitted for a family, with four bedrooms, four baths, and an enormous living room with a roaring fire. The kitchen is chef’s quality, and of course, he’s had our home fire-proofed to within an inch of its life. The ceiling tiles are ceramic, all brush within thirty feet has been cleared away, and Christian even paid an arm and a leg to have private fire hydrants installed in a perimeter around the property. With these luxuries, the cabin can hardly be called “rustic” anymore, but I love how my boyfriend wants to take care of us.
At that moment, Christian returns.
“Scootch up, baby,” he growls before taking a seat behind me on the sofa. “Now lean back.”
I lean back with a grateful sigh, letting my pregnant form rest against his hard, muscled one.
“You’re much better than a lumpy cushion. But how long are we going to stay at the cabin?” I ask playfully. “A week? Two weeks?”
Christian pretends to think. “Well, they don’t need me at work, so maybe six months? What do you think?”
“ Six months ?” I squeal. “I’ll be almost at my due date then! Oh my god!”
“It’s fine,” my boyfriend murmurs in my ear, reaching forward to cup my huge tits in his firm hands. “You’ve already linked up with an ob-gyn here for your prenatal visits, so we could give birth here.”
“You mean, I could give birth here, not we.”
“No, I mean ‘we,’” my boyfriend murmurs in my ear, nibbling on the lobe. “You know that anything that hurts you hurts me ten times more, baby girl. It’s definitely a ‘we’ thing.”
I roll my eyes but smile because I know it’s true. Christian would move heaven and earth to make life sweet for us, and he would take the pain of childbirth on himself if he could. So I smile contentedly before straightening a bit to peer at him over one narrow shoulder.
“By the way, have you seen the construction going on around the bend in the lake? It’s a ginormous house! Whose is that, and what’s going on?”
My boyfriend continues to nibble my ear while pinching my nipple, and I swat his hands playfully.
“Christian, answer! Who’s building a huge mountain house just down the way? They’re going to be our new neighbors.”
My boyfriend groans a little but then sits back.
“It’s Braden Rockwell,” he answers. “He and his brother own Duality Technologies, as well as a couple properties in Vegas. I guess he’s going to be our neighbor here, as well as in Vegas.”
I squint.
“But does he have ten kids or something? Because that place is going to be huge!”
Christian gets a contemplative look on his handsome features.
“No, as far as I know, Braden’s single and ready to mingle. Or rather, that fucker doesn’t mingle much. From what I hear, he’s somewhat of a recluse, which is why he’s constructing a mountaintop fortress.”
“But can’t he retreat into the desert or something? Why here, at Lake Tahoe?”
My boyfriend shrugs, already losing interest.
“Beats me. That fucker keeps to himself. I don’t know, maybe he’s sacrificing young virgins at the altar over there. Or maybe he plans on keeping a harem filled with sexy, underage jailbait. No fucking clue.”
I giggle, although I’m alarmed too.
“Are you serious? Underage?”
My boyfriend merely covers my mouth with his unrelenting one, making me moan in the process.
“I’m sure Braden is playing it all very above board,” he rasps. “Or not. But it’s not our business, sweetheart, because you are my business as well as the baby on the way. What do you think we should call him or her?”
“Lake,” I respond promptly with a bright smile. “I already can tell she’s going to be a girl, and I want to call her Lake after Lake Tahoe. The lake saved my life during the fire, you know,” I add in a soft voice. “I’ll always be grateful to it.”
Christian’s blue eyes flicker darkly before he presses a worshipful kiss to my elegant throat.
“Then Lake it is because I can’t lose you again, Emily. I love you, and you are the center of my world. The mother of my children. Never leave me again.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” I whisper in a heartfelt voice, a lump in my throat. With that, our lips join as our future is sealed because I meant what I said. I’ll never leave this man behind. I didn’t want to, our first time together, and now, as a woman in full it’s even more unlikely to happen. After all, I’m older, wiser, with far more resources, as well experience under my belt. I’ve survived catastrophes and come out in one piece, stronger, more resilient, with my determination intact. I’ve made untold mistakes, but also learned from them and tried to course correct at significant cost to myself. Most of all, I learn and grow with Christian by my side every day, and we’re better when we’re together. After all, this is the mountain man who makes my dreams come true ... and our love is all the proof we need.
THE END