Epilogue
TEAGAN
I knew something was up as soon as I pulled into the driveway. The lights were off in the living room, which wasn’t like Krebs at all. Usually, I arrived home to see a warm glow coming from all the front windows.
We’d been married for five years, and my candy shop was open seven days a week. The best five years of my life. That meant seven days a week for five years, I’d come home to find my husband in the living room, usually with our daughter.
Not tonight, though. Not this entire weekend. This weekend, our four-year-old daughter, Raquel, was spending the weekend at our friend’s house so we could celebrate our anniversary and Valentine’s Day, which we never got to celebrate because the store was so busy. This year, we were celebrating in March—the anniversary of the day we’d gotten married five years ago.
But tonight, as I pulled into the driveway after a long day at the shop, it was clear things were off. The lights were out, but Krebs’ truck was right here. What was he up to?
I smiled as I grabbed the tote bag I took to work every day. It held my laptop and my now-empty lunch bag. I slid my phone inside and shut the car door, staring at the house as I made my way up the sidewalk.
It seemed like a lifetime ago that I’d approached this very cabin with the man who would become my husband. And now this place where I lost my virginity was the home where we were raising our daughter and maybe another child soon.
Both our schedules were so busy, it was hard to imagine taking on an infant while running my candy store. I’d still been making candies out of our kitchen when Raquel was born. It hadn’t been easy, but I at least had some flexibility.
“I’m home,” I called out, waiting for the response that might give me a hint of what my husband was up to.
I smelled food, but I couldn’t quite identify what type. Krebs was a great cook. He regularly had dinner on the table when I got home. He also often picked up Raquel from daycare if I couldn’t get away from the store in time.
I frowned. Krebs wasn’t in the kitchen. He wasn’t anywhere to be found, and most of the house was visible from the front door.
I squinted to see in the near-dark—the only light was streaming through the French doors that led out to our deck. The deck where we often sipped coffee in the morning and wine and beer in the evening. We didn’t get the chance to do wine and beer in the evening very often, though, thanks to having a four-year-old around, but I wouldn’t trade my after-work hugs from Raquel for anything.
I noticed flickering coming from the bedroom and tilted my head. “What are you up to?” I called out as I started toward the room.
But as soon as I stepped in the doorway, I saw candles all around and rose petals covering the bed. Romantic instrumental music came through the small speaker stationed on the dresser.
“I had dinner warming in the oven, but I thought you might want an appetizer first,” he said.
“You want to work up an appetite?” I asked.
My husband wasn’t the rose petals and candlelight type of guy. I’d never even mentioned to him that I thought about those two things the night we made love for the first time. Somehow, he’d known. Somehow, he always knew.
“You’re wearing too many clothes,” he said, turning to face me.
“Right back at you.”
To his credit, he was shirtless, while I still wore the khakis and Blue Ridge Bonbons T-shirt I wore to work every day. I was definitely wearing far more clothes than he was.
“You spend so much time making other people’s holidays and anniversaries romantic,” he said. “I wanted to do a little something for you for a change.”
“You do stuff for me all the time. You put all that shelving in. You make dinner. You run me a bubble bath and watch Raquel after I’ve had a rough day.”
“All things that are part of being a good partner,” he said. “This is specifically for you. To pamper you. Now, get those clothes off.”
As he said those words, he was already walking toward me, and my heart sped up with each step he took. He still had the power to do that to me, even after all these years. And I knew, even on our twentieth anniversary, I’d be just as hot for him.
My hands went to his chest, running over his pecs, admiring his strength. His muscles flexed as he grabbed the hem of my T-shirt and pulled it up, forcing me to lift my arms to get the shirt up over my head. I helped by removing my pants, and he did the same with his until we were both wearing only our underwear.
“Now what?” I asked.
He gestured toward the bed, and I went in that direction. I stopped next to it, not sure how the rose petals worked.
“Lie on top,” he said. “That’s part of the pampering experience.”
I’d never lain on rose petals. Was that a thing? But it felt good against my mostly bare skin.
He first removed my panties, then started at my ankles, kissing his way up the inside of my legs. I closed my eyes and relaxed, enjoying the feel of his lips and his hands on my body. It definitely felt like pampering after the day I’d had. I loved my job, but I usually dropped at the end of the day, barely getting through dinner before I had to crash on the couch.
When the tip of his tongue made contact with my clit, my back came off the bed. I reached up and gripped the pillow behind me, clutching fistfuls of the soft cushioning to ground myself. Normally, I had to keep quiet during sex, but this weekend, I was free to make all the noise I wanted, and I did. Crying out, saying his name, telling him exactly what he was doing to me.
Within only seconds, I was racing toward orgasm, my body making that all-too-familiar upward climb. It was a climb that had been almost a daily occurrence since meeting him nearly six years ago.
I’d barely caught my breath when he was crawling up to join me. He held himself above me, looking down at me with nothing but love in his eyes.
“I love you,” I told him. Words that came straight from my heart.
“I love you too,” he said. “More than you’ll ever know.”
By then, I was already tugging at the waistband of his boxer briefs. I wanted him naked. I wanted to have him inside me.
When he finally plunged deep inside me, I breathed a sigh of relief. It was like coming home. I wrapped my legs around him and pulled him in deeper, as deep as he could go, clutching those bulging biceps like I had to hold onto him or risk floating away.
We continued to stare at each other as he thrust into me, brushing my clit with each stroke. He knew the exact angle that would bring me to a second orgasm in mere minutes, and he held out until once again, I cried his name.
I closed my eyes as an even more powerful climax took over my body. Almost as soon as my orgasm started, he was crying out, throwing his head back. I opened my eyes to see him, jaw clenched, eyes closed, as his orgasm overtook him.
Finally, we both fell to the bed, spent, heads on the pillows. We stared at the ceiling, savoring the long silence that stretched between us.
“Roasted chicken and new potatoes,” he said after a couple of minutes passed.
The words turned my smile into a frown. I looked over at him.
“Huh?”
“That’s what I have in the oven,” he said. “Finished it just before you got home.” He looked over at me. “Are you ready for the next course?”
“If you mean food, yes,” I said. “Definitely.”
He laughed. “I’m not ready to go again yet. But there might have to be a third course.”
“And a fifth,” I said.
He frowned. “Fifth?”
“Dessert will be fourth.”
He gave me a slow nod. “I like the way you think. I love everything about you.”
I turned over on my side, propping myself up on my arm. “Same. The best thing I ever did was move here.”
This place had become home for more reasons than the beauty of the mountains and the fact that the love of my life lived here. My shop was located in the same shopping center as the women I’d felt shunned by the day of the competition. I learned later that they didn’t mean to shun me at all. They felt horrible about it. And now we were the best of friends. We regularly visited each other’s stores when things were slow, and we even worked together on big holidays like Valentine’s Day. Cupcakes and truffles went well together in gift baskets, turned out.
Krebs’ stomach growled and we both laughed. I leaned forward and gave him a quick kiss before rolling off the bed and rushing to the closet to grab a robe.
“I think it’s time we eat,” I called out. “Before one of us starves.”
He was standing just outside the closet, pulling on his jeans when I came out. But before we headed to the kitchen, he put his arms around me and pulled me toward him for another long kiss.
When he pulled back, he looked down at me. “Just wanted you to know one more time how much I love you. And I can’t wait to see what the future will bring.”
The future would no doubt bring another kid. I was surer of that than I’d ever been. But for now, I wanted to savor everything we’d built together. Our home, our life, our family…it all meant the world to me.