44. EPILOGUE - SIENNA
EPILOGUE - SIENNA
"Keep your hands there and don't move them."
William’s voice is low and close against my ear. I curl my fingers around the top rail of the headboard and hold.
For a moment he just stays behind me, his breath warm on my shoulder, his hands at my hips. The morning light through the beach house windows is already bright. I can feel the weight of him, and I don't move.
This is the version of William I couldn't have imagined. The one who says stay like it's the simplest word in the world. The one who woke me with his mouth on my throat and didn't stop until I'd forgotten whatever I'd been thinking when I opened my eyes.
When I woke this morning it was just the two of us.
That's unusual. For the past three months, William is almost always the first one out of bed.
He has business to run, deals to close and a particular relationship with five a.m. that the rest of us have agreed not to question.
But this morning he was still there when I woke up, and the second he felt me wake he started kissing me.
Slow. Methodical. The way he does everything.
He likes to torture me like that.
He kissed his way down my body, taking his time, and I had a thought about the Greenhaven expansion, the site visit I'd scheduled for this morning, the construction timeline and then he found my center and all of that disappeared completely.
He made a low sound.
"So wet, baby." A pause. "I'm going to feast."
He did.
He alternated between pushing his tongue inside me and dragging it slowly, deliberately, from the back all the way up to my clit. I gripped the sheets and surrendered. I was almost there, right at the edge, and then his hand reached up and pinched my nipple and I detonated.
I was still shaking when he flipped me.
And now I’m on all fours. Hands on the headboard like he commanded.
He positions himself behind me, enters me in one deep thrust and groans, the sound of it low and rough, unrestrained.
"Every time." He pulls back and pushes in again, deeper. "So good." Another thrust, harder. "Every fucking time."
His lips find my back tattoo. One kiss, brief and specific. Then his hands move to my hips and he stops being careful.
I hold the headboard.
I don't know if Carter and Adrian are still in the house. If they are, there's no way they don't hear us. The walls in this beach house have never once pretended to be soundproof, and William is not quiet when he's like this, and neither am I.
Maybe they'll hear and come find us. I smile at the thought.
William slaps my ass.
The heat of it blooms outward and I feel myself getting close again, faster than I expected. His hands leave my hips, circle around to the front of my throat, and he says, "You can let go of the headboard now."
I let go.
He shifts, pulling me back and slightly up, his hands still at my throat, and the only thing holding me is him. I can't quite reach the mattress for support. The only thing holding me is him from behind, his hands on my neck and the fact that he won't let me fall.
I know he won't let me fall.
He uses my body and I like it. He moves and I come apart shouting his name.
William follows seconds later, his face pressed to the back of my neck, his whole body shuddering into stillness.
We collapse together.
I lie with my head on his chest and feel his heart hammering. His arm is heavy and warm across my ribs. The ocean sound comes through the window. His heartbeat starts to slow.
Then from somewhere else in the house, "Come here, you little rascal."
And then a meow.
I know that meow.
Sol.
One of Juniper's kittens. Her most mischievous one.
Yeah, she finally has a name.
Sol jumps on the bed, on my back. His small feet are cold.
William reaches over and lifts him, easy and gentle, holding him up, "Hey, that's my girl."
Sol blinks at him.
Then Adrian appears in the doorway.
He's dressed. Hair not entirely settled. There's something slightly off about his expression.
William sees it too. He starts talking before I can.
"You were supposed to be looking after the cats and getting all—"
He stops himself.
The two of them look at each other. Something passes between them that I'm not part of. A kind of silent conversation.
Adrian says, "Well. You weren't supposed to take so long."
I push myself upright and look between them. "You were only trying to distract me?"
Neither of them says anything immediately.
"Why?"
William pulls me toward him by the waist and kisses me. Then he pinches my nipple making me moan.
"What can I say," he says. "You are very distracting."
From the doorway Adrian claps his hands twice. "There is no time for that."
Sol flinches at the clap and bolts. Off the bed, across the floor, out the door past Adrian's legs. Adrian’s expression translates that he just complicated his own situation considerably.
He points at William. "Put some clothes on and hurry up."
Then he's gone, his footsteps quick down the hallway, and I can hear him somewhere in the house saying Sol's name in the tone he usually reserves for opposing counsel.
William gets up and steps into his sweatpants and doesn't bother with anything else. I pull on my robe. He takes my hand and says, "Come on. We have a surprise for you."
I follow him into the hallway. Both my hands go to my mouth trying to reign in a surprise gasp, when I reach the living room.
Flowers.
Everywhere.
Every surface, the floor, the windowsills, the low coffee table.
Different types, different colors, more of them than this room should reasonably hold. The morning light comes through the floor-to-ceiling windows and everything in here is blooming.
Standing in the middle of it are Carter and Adrian. William joins them.
Each of them is holding a kitten.
Carter has Cedar, the calm one, who is sitting perfectly still in his hands as though this is a formal occasion and she understands that.
William has Ash, the most adventurous one, draped over one forearm like a very small and self-satisfied scarf.
Sol is in Adrian's hand,, which means he lost the chase and is now sulking about it.
Juniper is on top of the sofa, watching everything with the measured judgment she applies to all household events.
They are smiling at me and I have no clue why they are standing in the middle of the living room surrounded by flowers and kittens.
Carter pets Cedar's head once. He looks at me the way he always does when something matters to him. Steady. All the way through.
"I spent a long time thinking love was not in the cards for me," he says. "I didn't trust it. But you changed my mind." he makes sure the words are right before he gives them. "I love you, Sienna. And if you want me, I will spend the rest of my life loving you."
The tears are immediate.
I'm trying to pull in a breath steady enough to answer him when William speaks.
"You once told me about Komorebi." His voice is careful. "How we can appreciate the beauty of time passing." He holds my eyes with his. "I want to spend my life watching the shadows change with you."
I am going to burst with happiness. I followed my heart here, every terrifying step of it.
And then, it’s Adrian’s turn.
"I want a future with you," he says, and his voice is the most unguarded I have ever heard it. No polish, no deflection, no half-smile. Just him. "Say you'll marry me before I completely lose my mind."
The laugh and the sob arrive at the same time.
I cross the room to them. I'm crying in a way that I know is not flattering and I cannot stop. I reach for Adrian first and I'm about to kiss him when all three of them drop to one knee at the same moment, each of them holding a kitten out to me.
I take all three, one awkward armful of small warm animals, and that's when I see it.
Each kitten has a ribbon at the neck.
And on each ribbon, an engagement ring.
Carter looks up at me from the floor. There is a fraction of something uncertain in his eyes. "The rings are not big," he says, "because we were hoping you would wear the three of them at the same time."
I get down on my knees.
I kiss Carter first and say, "I do. I will marry you." His exhale is slow and I feel it against my cheek and his hand comes up to hold the back of my head for just a moment.
I turn and I kiss William and say, "I will spend my life with you." His hands are on my face, his forehead drops to mine and neither of us moves for a second.
I kiss Adrian last and say, "I will lose my mind with you."
He laughs against my mouth.
Adrian sits back on his heels and looks at the other two with the particular satisfaction of a man whose argument has been proven.
"I told you," he says. "Flowers and kittens. She couldn't say no."
And then Sol makes his move.
He pushes, and launches himself across the room. The engagement ring on his ribbon catches the light once before he rounds the corner into the hallway and disappears.
Adrian is already up.
He doesn't even finish swearing. He's just gone, out of the room, already negotiating with a kitten somewhere in the depths of the beach house, and I can hear his voice getting farther away and then coming back and then farther again.
I sit there in the flowers with Cedar and Ash in my lap, William's hand warm at the back of my neck and Carter's thumb moving slow across my knuckles, and I look at the doorway where Adrian vanished.
I can see my future from here.
Intense. Chaotic. Passionate.
I'm looking forward to it.