32. Stephanie #3
He shifted his hips and drove deeper, grinding against me with the certainty of a man who’d spent years relearning me, hitting the angle that undid me, and I bit down on his shoulder to keep from crying out as I clenched and broke around him.
He followed seconds later, hips stuttering, groaning my name into the crook of my throat where the sound had nowhere to go.
We stayed like that for a long moment, breathing hard, foreheads pressed together, both of us grinning in the soft light.
“That was highly inappropriate,” I said.
“That was highly necessary.”
“We’re terrible people.”
“We’re in love.” He kissed my nose. “That excuses a lot.”
We cleaned up as best we could. I fixed my dress, smoothing the silk back down over my thighs. He fixed his hair, mostly making it worse. We checked our reflections in the mirror and burst out laughing at how thoroughly debauched we both looked, flushed and rumpled.
“You’ve got lipstick on your collar,” I said.
“You’ve got sex hair.”
“We’re a disaster.”
“We’re newlyweds.” He wrapped his arms around me from behind, chin hooking over my shoulder. “Again.”
I leaned back against his chest and looked at our reflection, his arms circling my waist, his hands linked over my stomach. We fit together the way we always had, the way we always would, two people who’d broken apart and put it back stronger.
“Wife,” he whispered.
“Husband.”
He smiled into my hair. “I’ll never get tired of hearing that.”
“Good. Because you’re stuck with me now.”
“Forever?”
“Longer, if I can manage it.”
We walked back out to the reception hand in hand.
A few knowing looks followed us, but no one said anything.
Harry waggled her eyebrows so hard I thought she might strain a muscle.
Hugo made a gagging motion at his sister’s expense.
Tris was too busy trying to keep Bree from eating another flower to notice the state of her son.
The music had shifted, slow and romantic. Kevin pulled me onto the dance floor, holding me close, swaying gently beneath the fairy lights, and I rested my cheek against his shirt where I could feel his heartbeat.
“I used to dream about this,” he said quietly. “During those three years. I’d imagine our wedding. Getting it right this time.”
“And is it? Right?”
He pulled back to look at my face. His eyes were bright with tears again, but he was smiling, and there was no shadow in it.
“It’s perfect. You’re perfect. Our life is perfect.”
“Even the parts where Bree colors on the walls and you leave your socks on the floor and we argue about who left the milk out?”
“Especially those parts.” He pressed his forehead to mine. “Because I’m here for all of it. The big moments and the small ones. The good days and the hard ones. I’m not going anywhere.”
“I know,” I whispered.
And I did know. After everything, after the pain and the loss and the years apart, after watching him grow into the man he’d always had it in him to be. I knew.
“The man who once answered everyone but me,” I said softly, “now answers only me.”
His breath caught. “Always, gorgeous. Always and forever.”
We danced until the song ended. Then another song started and we kept dancing, wrapped up in each other while our family celebrated around us.
Bree ran over at some point and demanded to be picked up. Kevin lifted her between us and she put her arms around both our necks, creating a family sandwich on the dance floor, and I closed my eyes and held on.
“I love you, Mommy,” she said.
“I love you too, baby.”
“I love you, Daddy.”
“I love you more than anything, gorgeous.”
“I love cake.”
We both laughed.
“Cake is pretty great,” Kevin agreed.
“Can I have more?”
“Let’s ask Grandma Tris.”
He handed her off to his mother, who was more than happy to spoil her granddaughter further. Bree ran off toward the dessert table, Tris chasing after her, both of them shrieking with delight.
Kevin turned back to me.
“So,” he said. “This is our life now.”
“Ours. Frosting and all.”
“Wedding receptions and toddler chaos and stealing quickies in bathrooms.”
“Sounds about right.”
“And love.” He cupped my face in his hands, thumbs brushing my cheekbones. “So much love it almost hurts.”
I kissed him.
I kissed him because I could. Because he was mine and I was his, and no one could take that from us anymore.
The void I’d carried for so long, the emptiness that had lived in my chest during those three years apart, was full now.
Overflowing. Filled with Kevin and Bree and the family we’d built out of the wreckage, filled with second chances and the kind of love that survives everything and comes back asking for more.
“Thank you,” I whispered against his lips.
“For what?”
“For not giving up. For chasing me. For showing up at my door with flowers and refusing to let me go.”
“I told you.” He smiled that crooked smile I’d loved since I was twenty years old. “Not letting you go is my specialty.”
The moon had risen over the garden, laying a silver stripe across the harbor. Our guests were laughing and dancing and celebrating us. Our daughter was covered in frosting and being thoroughly spoiled by her grandmothers.
And I was standing in my husband’s arms, right where I belonged, after all of it, finally.
Home.
THE END