Epilogue
Shelly
One year later.
A sunbeam spilled in through the window, landing on the stack of romance novels on my nightstand that Amos pretended to judge.
But I knew he secretly skimmed the pages when he thought I wasn’t looking. The only reason I knew was because sometimes my bookmarks were rearranged, and there was a day not too long ago where I caught him in the act.
He was still trying to figure out what made women tick. Although lately, he was mostly just interested in what made me tick.
And maybe his mom… and his sister… and those three nieces of his.
And our friends, too.
He was a secret softie. I’d known it all along.
But he was still a showman when we went out.
Amos kept things lively here on Red Oak Mountain. And I loved that about him.
Despite that, he didn’t seem compelled to relive his freedom days. He hadn’t been kidding when he said he could be happy with one pussy for life. I just happened to own the one that he loved best.
I lay still for a moment, one hand resting on the growing curve of my belly.
We were three months pregnant.
There was a ring on my finger that had gotten snug in the last week, and I had a husband who kissed my stomach every single morning before he kissed my lips.
He was going to be the best dad ever.
I may have been crazy about him for years. But it turned out Amos was crazy about me the whole time, too.
So when we finally got together, we dove straight into the deep end.
We married a week after he walked into Bookish.
Neither of us saw a reason to wait, and our friends Becky and Leland had a last-minute cancellation at their wedding hall.
So we gathered all our friends and family, pretty much the whole town, and had a spur-of-the-moment wedding. I wore my new white skirt and the floral top Amos was so crazy about.
And he wore his lucky horseshoe shirt. The one I’d given him for Christmas last year.
Mina had been my maid of honor, and his three nieces had been our flower girls.
I’d pulled together a big group of bridesmaids at the last minute. Hope, Kelly, Jenna, and Marissa had all stood there next to me, rooting for us.
Amos had just as many groomsmen on his side of the aisle.
And… since this was Amos we were talking about, he and all his groomsmen had broken into a song and dance when it came time for him to read his vows. It had been a hell of a good time.
I smiled at the memory.
The bed beside me was already cool, which meant Amos had been up for a while.
I pulled on his flannel shirt, then padded out to the kitchen to start the coffee while I made a mental note to call Mina back after breakfast.
She’d left a voicemail yesterday that I hadn’t gotten to yet, and knowing Mina, she was calling to fill me in on the scoop about her new job.
She’d been hired at the logging camp where Amos used to work.
They’d doubled their lumberjacks recently and needed her to handle the domestic duties.
She was the only woman out there, surrounded by a dozen hot, burly loggers.
Poor Mina.
Everyone was certain she’d be married within the year. We just didn’t know which one would snag her heart.
They were all fighting over her cute butt. Since Mina had sworn off men a while back, she wasn’t making it easy for them.
After the coffee brewed, I wandered to the back door to find my husband.
As I glanced out my eye snagged on the garden.
Amos had planted it in early spring with tremendous enthusiasm and absolutely no horticultural instinct whatsoever.
The tomato cages leaned sideways, and the herbs had mostly given up. One determined zucchini plant was making a valiant effort in the corner, but the rest of the plot looked like something you’d use to illustrate a cautionary tale about optimism.
He’d been so proud of himself when he put it in that he’d even bought a little garden tool set.
And I had loved him so fiercely in that moment that I hadn’t said a single word about the fact that he’d planted the basil in full shade.
My eyes found him, and I forgot all about the garden.
Amos stood at the chopping block about twenty feet from the back porch, sexy and shirtless, splitting firewood with the kind of casual, easy rhythm that made it look effortless.
His shoulders rolled with each swing, the muscles of his back on full display, and his dark hair was loose and a little wild from sleep.
He was the most unreasonably beautiful man I’d ever seen in my life.
A whole year of marriage, and the sight of him without a shirt could still make my pussy do somersaults like I had no self-control at all.
I took a sip of my coffee and decided replanting the basil in the garden could wait.
Gardening had never competed successfully with that man’s bare torso, and today was not going to be the exception.
He must have felt me watching because he stopped mid-swing and turned, and when he saw me standing at the doorway in nothing but his flannel shirt, a slow and wicked grin broke across his face.
“Morning, love,” I called out to him.
He set the axe down. Then he squared his shoulders and began to sing.
His voice carried clearly across the yard.
“There was a mountain man living alone on a hill, had a heart full of wanting and time to kill. He saw a curly-haired woman with a smile like the sun, said Lord have mercy, check out the ass on that one.”
He kicked off one boot.
“So he chased her through town and he chased her through spring, bought her coffee and bookshelves and a diamond ring. She ran and she laughed and she said ‘catch me if you can,’ and he caught her, he kept her, he’s the luckiest man.”
The second boot went flying sideways into the garden.
“What are you doing!” I laughed, but I already knew.
‘Chase’ was our favorite game together.
He yanked his jeans down, his cock jutting straight out, already hard, as he started stomping up to the back door of the cabin where I stood.
I shrieked and spun away back into the house, slamming the door behind me.
But I could only do a slow run on account of being three months pregnant.
And besides that, maybe I wanted to be caught.
The back door swung open, and six feet of naked, grinning mountain man filled the doorway.
“Morning, Shelly Bear,” he growled.
I pointed at him. “You stay right there.”
He did not stay right there.
He crossed the kitchen in four long strides and caught me from behind, his big arms wrapping around me as his lips dropped to the side of my neck.
The warm, solid weight of him against my back felt like perfection, and I stopped pretending I wanted to get away.
“I caught you.”
“What are you going to do with me now?”
“Make you see stars,” he murmured against my skin, his voice rumbling with satisfaction as he rubbed his cock between my thighs. “And then maybe you’ll tame me. I’m ready for you to domesticate me, Shelly Bear.”
I turned in his arms and looked up at him, slipping my hand against his beard.
“You were never wild,” I said. “You were just waiting for someone to take you in, like a housecat.”
“Purr, purr,” he rumbled.
Then he pulled back with that wicked look returning, and before I could say a word, he gripped my hips and lifted me clean onto the kitchen counter, settling himself between my knees.
“Shelly-Rae Nelson,” he rumbled, his dark eyes holding mine. “Are you ready to ride my bronco before breakfast?”
I laughed and then gasped because his hands were already sliding up the inside of my thighs, parting them gently.
I may have forgotten to put on underwear beneath the flannel, and Amos had just discovered that fact.
He groaned, then slipped his hand to my slit with patient, unhurried attention that made my breath go shallow.
“Amos,” I murmured.
“I’ve got you,” he said quietly, and he meant it in every possible way. “We don’t have to leave for the party for another hour. There’s time.”
He worked my lips open slowly, his thumb circling my swollen, aching center while two fingers pressed inside and curled in a way that made my whole body arch forward into him.
He watched my face the entire time, reading every catch of my breath, and adjusting the pressure until I was trembling and gripping the edge of the counter with both hands.
“That’s it,” he murmured as he kicked into overdrive, his fingers sliding in and out of my wetness with a rhythm that set me on fire. “That’s my girl.”
I came apart on his hand, a broken sound escaping my lungs as I crested. My head dropped to his shoulder while he worked me through every last shuddering wave.
I didn’t know how, but the man always managed to make me come fast the first time. Almost as if it were a game to him, to see how quickly he could throw me over the edge.
He gave me a smoldering look, then positioned himself and pressed inside me.
His cock was throbbing, and he filled me completely, devastating me with his slow, controlled strokes.
Amos’s hands braced the counter, locking me in place, his eyes never leaving my face as he began to fuck me in earnest.
We moved together in the warm kitchen, unhurried at first, his lips finding mine between breaths, one of his hands sliding around to support the small of my back with a tenderness that made my chest ache even as the pleasure built again.
But when I wrapped my legs around him and pulled him deeper, he could hardly handle it.
I felt him groan against my mouth as he started to lose control. His thrusts ramped up until the wild beast of a man was taking me, stealing me, making me melt right there on the countertop.
My breathless gasps turned to cries as he filled the aching void inside me with one hungry thrust after another.
As I peaked, he let go too, our pleasure mingling into one shared moment of heat as he thrust hard, harder, and hardest, before emptying himself into me.
I loved the feeling of Amos coming inside me.
Nothing in this world compared to it.
We stayed tangled together on that kitchen counter for a long, breathless minute, his heartbeat thundering against mine, as the morning sun poured through the back door.
He’d left it open in his haste to catch me.
When we finally broke apart, it was with his name on my lips and his face buried in my curls. Both of us holding on like we’d never let go.
I used to think I was just another Friday night to him.
Just another woman he’d forget by morning.
But that felt like a lifetime ago.
His hand settled over my stomach, rough and steady.
Then Amos brushed his lips across my cheek, making me feel like I was the only thing in his world worth keeping.
“Darlin’,” he said, his voice low and dangerous, “I was never letting you go.”
I knew that now. And some part of me had known it all along. It had just taken us a while to put it into words.
He lifted me off the counter and set me carefully on the worn kitchen floor before murmuring, “Let’s go take a shower before it’s time to leave.”
The party at Zane’s was starting soon. All our friends would be there.
Amos had promised to barbecue some venison for the whole gang, and I had the cutest spring dress lined up to wear.
This was my life now. My perfect life.
Me and my man.
And soon… we’d be three.
Thanks for reading!