Epilogue
EIGHT MONTHS LATER
ROWAN
“I’m not saying no, but we could stand to brush our teeth first,” my wife murmurs when my lips find her bare shoulder. She hums contentedly as I continue pressing kisses to her skin.
“You didn’t seem to mind my morning breath for the first round,” I say, snaking a hand around her waist and dragging her closer so I can mold my body around hers.
“That was before I knew you had such a dirty mouth,” she says in a sultry tone and arches her back in front of me.
I choke out a half-whimper, half-laugh. She claims I’m dangerous, but I’m no match for her.
“You’re never gonna get me out of bed like this,” I mumble and press myself against her again, and I see the way she clamps her teeth down over her lip, stifling a moan. She’s self-conscious, I realize. It’s her own dental hygiene she’s worrying about.
“And I couldn’t care less about morning breath, anyway, not when I have all this to distract me,” I continue, my hands sliding down and around her thighs.
She acknowledges my reassurance with a sigh, her head lolling back onto my shoulder as she shifts her position in front of me. It’s an unspoken declaration that she’s no longer concerned with such worldly tasks, not when we have this small taste of heaven at our fingertips.
It hasn’t even been two weeks since our wedding, but my memories of life before this are already shrouded by a fog.
Seriously, what did I do with my time? What was I thinking about when it wasn’t Claire?
I don’t know how I managed so long without her, without this, being able to give myself away, freely and completely, and receive the same gift in return, then lie beside her, content in the knowledge that I get to keep her forever.
I thought I’d figured out everything there was to know about Claire in the months leading up to our marriage, but I honestly think I could study her forever and never get enough. At the same time, I finally understand what it means to find my other half, to know someone better than I know myself.
Today I discovered that my wife has a favorite position. Well, not that kind of position, although I’ve definitely noticed which of those seem more advantageous for her. But she also has a default cuddle position.
Okay, so it’s her naked cuddle position, but it’s still adorable.
She turns to her side and scoots closer, then I automatically gather her hair and fan it out behind her as she nestles in beneath my arm.
Her head rests on my shoulder, and her palm covers my chest, right above my racing heart.
And I reach around to trace a finger over her tattoos without hesitation.
It reminds me of the night we met each time.
“Can I ask you something weird?” she ventures after a few seconds.
“Always,” I reply.
“Do you ever wonder what it was like for me before … with anyone else?” she asks, her voice small.
I keep my breathing even and continue stroking her arm as usual, though I’m sure my heart betrays me. “Not while we’re in the middle of it,” I say, and she snorts. “But my thoughts have drifted over it a couple of times, even if I know it’s dumb.”
“I’m sorry you have to live with that,” she whispers, curling the cord of my scapular around her finger.
“Don’t be,” I tell her.
She exhales before she goes on. “Do you want to hear the truth?”
“Always,” I say again, and I try not to brace myself.
She tilts her face up to look at me. “It was never like this, not even close.”
My chest expands with my relief, and I can’t help but smile. “Not even once?”
She grins and shakes her head. “Not a single time.”
“Thank you for telling me that, even though you didn’t have to,” I say, and she nods. “Is it my turn now?”
“Go for it,” she says with a more serious expression.
“Are you afraid that I’ll be upset or disappointed if you turn me down?”
Her eyelashes flutter in a way that gives me my answer before she articulates it aloud. “A little.”
I frown. “I’d never get angry with you if you weren’t in the mood, you know, for whatever reason.”
“I know. But I understand what it feels like to be rejected, and I’d never want to make you feel that way, either. Especially after you waited so long.”
“And how many times have you pushed through it so far?” I ask carefully.
She purses her lips as she thinks. “I guess that depends on what you mean by ‘not in the mood.’ ”
“Oh.” I can’t help the way my frown deepens.
“There have been at least two times when you tried to initiate something while I was busy or my mind was elsewhere, but that just means I wasn’t thinking of starting it first. There have been exactly zero times in which I was not a very willing participant by the time you planted the idea in my head,” she says with a grin, and a smile immediately takes over my face.
“How many times have you gone along with it for my sake?”
I pretend to consider it. “Let’s see, there was that one time …” I glance down at her as I trail off, unable to keep my lips from twitching. She huffs and pinches me in the side.
“I am always in the mood for you. The only thing that can knock me out of it is when you aren’t feeling it for whatever reason. If you’re into it, I’m into it. Every time.”
“What if I made you mad first?” she poses.
“Then I’d lose an argument real fast.”
“What if I got sick?”
“I’d offer you a dose of my own special brand of penicillin.”
She giggles and raises her arm to sniff her armpit. “What if I hadn’t showered in a day or two?”
“Didn’t I just tell you twenty minutes ago that you could never turn me off?” I remind her. “I don’t care if you have morning breath, hairy legs, and musty armpits. If anything, I’m a sucker for your natural pheromone smell, especially in combination with the barn hay.”
She rolls her eyes and stifles a smile. “Okay, what if I had tummy troubles?”
“We both know you could literally let one rip, and I’d still be into it.”
“That was a bad example, especially since you’re the one who tooted on our first date,” she admits.
“Look, I’d like to think of myself as a pretty hygienic guy, but I’m still a guy. Not to mention, I’m a doctor. You have no idea what it would take to gross me out.”
She scoffs. “You say that now, but you haven’t had to stare down the barrel of period sex yet.”
We both fall silent at that, I imagine because we’re thinking the same thing but afraid to say it out loud.
Hopefully we won’t have to cross that bridge for a while.
I stare down at her as I graze my finger over her arm again. “I’m not afraid of a little menstrual blood, you know,” I remind her after a minute, hoping she hears the double meaning behind it.
“That makes one of us,” she says softly, and I reach down to tilt her chin up for a kiss, morning breath be damned.
“Is it selfish of me to say that I almost wouldn’t mind a little more time to ourselves?” I confess when I pull away.
It’s not something I’d have divulged outside of this context, but it’s the truth.
Sure, I’d been looking forward to all this physical intimacy, but it turns out that I enjoy it even more than I expected.
And although a baby would be the cherry on top of an already amazing whirlwind romance, the thought has occurred to me that I could very easily make the best of things if we didn’t get pregnant immediately.
She lifts one shoulder in a shrug, and I add, “Technically, we’re still within our honeymoon window. And we have some lost time to make up for, right?”
“You’re such a MacBook,” she mutters, though she’s smirking.
“Well, you know what they say, once you go Apple …” I tease as I pull her on top of me. One of her signature laughs escapes, and I stare up at her in complete awe of the fact that I managed to make this woman my wife. I run my hands over her sides, checking again to make sure she’s real.
“There’s nothing I could have done to deserve you, you know.”
Her smile softens. “I thought it’s what you didn’t do that earned all this for us.”
I shake my head. “Can I say something weird?”
“Always,” she declares.
“When I look at you like this, I can’t imagine everything we’re supposed to believe about God isn’t true.”
She glances down at herself, then narrows her eyes at me. “And I thought you were an ass man.”
I chuckle. “I’m talking about the way I botched things up so badly for us in the beginning, yet you’re still here with me right now, even though you shouldn’t be.
Not only did He send me the perfect wife, my soulmate, undeserving as I am, but He sent her to me at the right time, in the right place, so she’d make me a better man.
Even though I’m a sinner, I’ve been blessed beyond my wildest dreams, and all I had to do was let God lead me.
Well, He may have had to drag me at some points, but He still brought me here, to you. ”
She leans down and kisses me after that. “Yeah,” she says, sniffling when she pulls away. “Ditto. I mean, amen, or whatever.”
I laugh and wipe an errant tear from her cheek, and she leans forward to rest her head on my collarbone. But she pops up a second later to remind me that we’re supposed to be getting ready for Mass by now.
“It’s either get up now or skip the coffee,” she says, pushing off my chest as she moves to swing her leg over me.
“Who needs coffee?” I grunt, grabbing her and holding her in place.
She smirks at me. “Coffee first, then shower.”
My brow lifts when I realize it’s an invitation, and I finally let her go.
I slip on my boxers and my glasses, and Oscar and Frankie are waiting to greet me when I shuffle into the kitchen.
After starting the coffeemaker, I let them outside and reward their successful business venture with some of the bacon we keep on the counter for them.
Then I return to our bedroom with two mugs of fresh coffee.
“We may have to chug these. I’m afraid it’s later than I realized …” But I trail off when I walk into the bathroom and see my wife crying from her place on the toilet.
“Claire?” I breathe, my heart stopping.