Epilogue
WILLOW
The house is quiet when I push open the door, heels in hand, the night air still clinging to my skin.
It’s late but not as late as I meant it to be.
Cheyenne and Dylan insisted on one more drink, one more story, one more round of laughter.
Somewhere between my birthday cake and the drive home, I started missing this house—the boys and the girls, six people that I call mine.
Eventually, I turned to Cheyenne with moony eyes and Dylan sighed. “I’ll take you home.”
Giggling, Cheyenne has an arm under mine, holding me in place while I wobble on the porch. Finally, I push the door open and brace for noise, a baby crying, a bottle clattering, Sean’s voice singing some mangled lullaby. But what greets me instead is candlelight.
Actual candles. Flickering on the coffee table, glowing against the window glass. The air smells faintly of lavender and lemon and something sweet but soapy.
“You’re home early, birthday girl,” Sean calls from the rug. He’s sprawled on his back, shirt half-unbuttoned, looking up at me with that grin that could talk its way out of a fire.
A wild laugh bubbles out of me when Cheyenne appears at my shoulder, her mouth wide open. “Good God,” is all she manages before stumbling backward. “Well, I’ll leave you to it.”
The door slams shut, and I move my hair in front of one shoulder, saying, “You’ve traumatized her. She’ll never get over this.”
Behind the couch, Rowan crosses his arms with soft eyes. “You were supposed to enjoy yourself, pet, so you were.”
Declan steps out from the hall with a tray in his hands. The tray has a mug, a small candle, and a rose in a glass. He leans over and pecks me, handing me the mug. “Looks like she did,” he tells Rowan, muttering to me, “Here, now. Hydrate, will ye?”
Rowan walks over to me from behind the couch with a box. I open it to find a plush robe. He says, “Go on, now, pet, change. Get comfortable.”
I blink at all three of them, unsure whether to laugh or cry. “What is this?”
“’Tis your birthday,” Rowan answers.
“Spa night,” Sean says reflexively.
“You need to relax,” Declan murmurs against my ear as I sip from the mug, tasting a tea that’s sweet and vanilla with hints of nut.
I spot a tray of nail polish lined up like offerings—pale pink, soft gray, something shimmery that could pass for champagne. “Y’all didn’t have to—”
“Shh,” Sean interrupts, pressing a finger to his lips. “Patient non-compliant.”
Rowan gestures toward the hall. “Bath’s ready. Towels are warm.”
“Go on,” Declan murmurs. “Let us handle things for once.”
I manage a smile. “You three planned this?”
“Down to knowing you’d be home early,” Sean says, standing from the rug and walking over to me to help steer me toward the bathroom.
I let them walk me down the hallway, but I look up at him and say, “No, you didn’t. Cheyenne texted you.”
He chuckles and opens the bathroom door. “Whatever you want to believe, princess.”
Steam curls out of the bathroom doorway. The tub is full, foam shimmering on the surface. Candles flicker along the counter. A record player hums from the living room, something slow and low that wraps through the walls.
Three pairs of hands help me undress. Below me, Declan holds my feet and unbuckles the straps of my heels, lifting my legs to carefully pull me out of them. Rowan unzips my dress and then works at the fastenings of my bra as Sean pulls my dress down, letting me step out of it.
By the time I sink into the water, my body hums in relief.
The heat catches up to the ache in my back, the places that have been carrying too much.
I close my eyes and let the sound of their voices drift from the other room.
Sean’s laugh rolls through the hall, followed by Declan’s dry retort and Rowan’s low rumble of command.
It’s the most soothing sound in the world.
When I finally emerge, I find my robe has been warmed on the towel rack. They must hear me clattering as I get out because they’re at the door, helping me slide my arms into the sleeves, their fingers brushing my skin.
“Seat’s ready, Miss Abel,” Declan declares, guiding me back to the bedroom.
“The patient appreciates your professionalism,” I tease.
He doesn’t take the bait. He just guides me to the chair in the bedroom where Sean is already uncapping nail polish bottles and Rowan is arranging lotion and oil like surgical instruments.
“Sit down,” Declan says. “You’ve done enough.”
So I do. Sean takes one of my hands, tongue poking out in concentration as he paints a coat of shimmer over each nail.
Rowan kneels at my feet, dripping the oil from the candle onto my calves and rubbing it in, thumbs tracing circles until the muscles unclench.
Declan moves behind me, his hands firm on my shoulders, the pressure precise at first, then softer as he exhales into it.
“Y’all are ridiculous,” I murmur, somewhere between laughter and a sigh.
“Ridiculously thorough,” Declan corrects.
“Thoroughly ridiculous,” I say back, looking up at him.
“Please, can the patient look ahead?” he asks me, gently correcting me with a hand on my neck.
Rowan chuckles under his breath and asks, “Does it feel good at all, at all?”
“It does,” I admit.
They feed me in intervals—tiny bites of cake, a strawberry here, a sip of tea there. The whole thing feels like a dream I’m afraid to wake up from.
“Next year,” Sean says, “we’re renting a beach house. Kids can come. Maybe.”
“Maybe,” I echo, eyes heavy.
Declan’s voice drops near my ear. “Sleep if you need to, now.”
I almost do, but I don’t want to miss a moment of the pampering. If I sleep, I won’t feel myself being massaged. Sean says, softly, “You don’t have to earn nights like this, you know.”
My throat tightens. “I know.”
“You don’t act like you do,” he says.
I turn my head, and Declan’s gaze meets mine.
His hands are still on my shoulders, but his eyes are warm, not analytical.
“Let us take care of you,” he says simply.
And before I know it, Rowan’s hands are opening my now soft and oiled thighs.
I sigh, knowing what’s coming and already excited.
He wastes no time, his tongue finding that soft spot that makes my hips twitch against his mouth.
My fingers curl into Declan’s wrists where they rest on my shoulders.
He doesn’t move, just holds me steady, letting Rowan set the pace—slow strokes that turn my sigh into a moan.
The world narrows to the rhythm of their breath, the quiet crackle of candlelight, the faint scrape of Sean’s chair as he stands.
When Sean moves in front of me, the shimmer polish on his fingers catches the light. He cups my jaw, thumb brushing my bottom lip, and kisses me. He says, “Close your eyes.”
I do. A blindfold moves over my eyes. Sean’s kiss tastes faintly of frosting and tea, sugar dissolving against the heat of my tongue. Declan’s mouth grazes the back of my neck, and I feel his smile as he murmurs, “Happy birthday, love.”
I don’t know whose hands loosen my robe, but my robe loosens. Hands wrap around my waist and down over my shoulders and cup my breasts and run over my thighs and between my legs. Their touches close around me until I can’t tell where one ends and another begins.
Two mouths find my nipples, and I lean my head back, gasping. A hand holds my jaw and kisses me, muffling my gasp. Rowan’s voice is ragged against my nipple, low and raw. “God, Willow, I love the sounds you make, so I do.”
I laugh, breathless, and it melts into a moan as he says my name again, slower this time—Willow.
Everything after that is sensation. Tongues lap at my nipples while a finger wriggles into my center.
My juices soak my thighs and the chair under me, and someone licks the crease of my thigh, cleaning me up.
I think it’s a different someone than the finger inside me.
The finger starts to move faster until the hand it’s attached to pounds me, the thumb circling my clit.
When I start to cry out, a hand is over my mouth, and Rowan whispers, “We’ve talked about this. Now, the stakes are even higher. Don’t wake our daughters.”
Our daughters. The mouth at my pussy coaxes pleasure out of me in waves. My body arches between them, guided and worshiped, the kind of worship that leaves no space for thought.
When it finally crests, the sound I make isn’t a word but a strangled release, a thank-you, a prayer.
Declan catches me before I slide out of the chair, pulling the blindfold off me and holding me upright as Rowan presses a kiss to my knee and Sean strokes my hair, whispering something that sounds like mine but couldn’t be.
They lift me like I’m weightless, like I don’t carry any post-baby weight, and they drop me onto the bed, climbing in with me.
Candlelight flickers over their faces—Sean grinning faintly, Rowan’s eyes half-closed, Declan’s hand still steady on my shoulder.
“You okay?” Declan asks at last, his voice hushed, stroking my shoulder gently.
I nod, my throat too tight for words. “Perfect.”
Sean chuckles quietly. “That’s the goal, birthday girl.”
Rowan presses a kiss to my other shoulder and says, “Happy birthday, baby momma.”
My last thought before sleep finds me is that maybe Sean’s right. Maybe I don’t have to earn nights like this. Maybe they’re just mine now.
The End