Epilogue
The bus is somewhere in New Mexico.
I know because I checked the tracker on my phone forty minutes ago when I got up to pee for the third time tonight.
We haven’t slept in our new house for months.
I’m on my side facing the window with my belly resting on the pillow I’ve arranged for it, knees drawn up, My back’s against Lake’s chest and he’s currently fucking me from behind.
Slow.
Slow because it’s two in the morning and our nanny, Marta, is in the bunk across from Levi twenty feet up the aisle. The walls are sound-dampened, but they aren’t vault-sealed and Lake already put his hand over my mouth and whispered baby, shh, when I moaned after he made me come the first time.
Also slow because I’m thirty-eight weeks pregnant and my husband desires me more than ever. Who am I to say no when he loves to redirect his after-show high into worshipping my body one square inch at a time?
His right hand cups my belly. His left hand cups my breast. His mouth is at the back of my neck.
He moves inside me. Pulls back until he’s almost out then pushes back in inch by inch along the spot he knows I need. My pussy grips him. He groans against the back of my neck, low, into my hair.
“Lake,” I breathe.
“Yeah.”
“You feel incredible.” I arch against him. “Do it again.”
Oh, he does it again. And again.
At thirty-eight weeks my body’s a different country than a year ago and he’s taken pride in learning every nuance. He knows everything because he’s made me come every night for last five months on this bus, in dressing rooms, and in hotel suites.
Lake’s hand slides from my belly up my ribs to cup my full breast in his palm. His thumb worries over my nipple. I know what he’s up to.
The pressure has been building. Ten days ago, during a show, there was a slow, warm ache in the fullness of my breast, then a release. I looked down to find wet, dark stains on my shirt.
It’s driven Lake out of his mind. Tonight my breast is already wet against his palm before he can lightly squeeze. I gasp when it releases. He grunts and his cock jerks inside me.
“Fuck, baby,” he groans into my hair. “Look at you.”
He lifts up onto his elbow and looks over my shoulder at his hand on my leaking breast. His fingers close around my nipple and roll it. It’s huge and dark, almost twice its usual size. The tip is beaded with my milk. He catches it with his thumb, brings it to his mouth, and licks it off.
His eyes close for one second.
My pussy clenches around him.
“Fuck,” he breathes. “Yeah.”
Lake kisses the tip of my shoulder. I back a little to give him access and tilt my breast up toward him. He lowers his mouth and closes his lips around my swollen, dripping nipple. He runs his tongue over the tip. Sucks lightly. Swallows as he makes a rough sound around my nipple.
He cannot get enough. Neither can I.
Who knew this was a thing?
His eyes come up to mine over my shoulder. Wrecked. “You taste so sweet.”
His hand slides down from my breast to the round, tight fullness of my belly and splays there wide, fingers spread across our daughter, and he holds her from the outside while his mouth returns to my nipple.
I close my eyes when the fingers on his other hand find my clit.
She. We found out in a room at Swedish Hospital and he cried because he wasn’t able to be there for Levi. We agreed on Lova, Lova Lyon. Lova for my Swedish grandmother, the word for love in her language.
His tongue works my nipple slow as he thrusts up into me from behind. My top leg falls open across his thigh, letting him go deeper from the angle. I’m opened around him and my whole body is a tuning fork. My clit is swollen, pussy engorged. My orgasm builds and he can feel it.
I reach down between my legs to join him in circling my clit. He tends to be more gentle now, but I need more.
“Don’t come yet,” he whispers against my nipple.
“Lake,” I whine.
“Not yet, baby.”
“I can’t hold it.”
“You can.”
He knows I can’t. The nerve endings around my pussy feel a million times more heightened during pregnancy.
“Please,” I whimper. “Lake. Let me come.”
“Okay, baby. Whenever you want.” He’s lets me take control of my clit and slides his palm back to the round of my belly.
I come with my mouth wide open in a silent scream because I have to stay quiet and the silence makes it more intense. My whole body clamps down on his cock and my pussy pulses around him in long, slow deep waves, thighs shaking against his.
A hot rush at my core catches me off guard and I don’t know if I’ve squirted or if my water’s broken and I don’t care because I’m coming and coming and my husband’s inside me and holding my belly and his mouth is on my breast. Lake pulls me back against him and he empties into me in one long, soundless burst and holds me tight against him through it, mouth still warm on my breast.
We stay panting and gasping for air. He’s still inside me. I never want him to pull out after we fuck, and he knows this, so he stays.
“You okay?” Lake whispers against my neck.
“Mm.”
“Baby.” He tilts my head up so he can see my eyes. “Was it too much?”
“Nothing’s too much.”
He reaches between us. “I felt something.”
“Me too.”
“Your water?” He pats the mattress.
“No. I think I squirted. I don’t feel any contractions,” I try to assure him.
“Okay.” He kisses the back of my neck again, hand stroking the bottom of my belly.
Our daughter turns beneath his palm the way she always does when he touches me. Yesterday afternoon, in a coffee shop outside Tucson, she rolled so hard beneath his hand I laughed out loud and startled the barista.
My eyes grow heavy. Lake kisses the back of my head. “You ready?”
“You know I need the rundown so I can sleep through the night.”
“Yeah.” He smiles into my hair. “Austin tonight. Dallas Saturday. Bus rolls after the show. Home Tuesday.”
“Home.”
“Right in time for Lova. Then three months with nowhere to be except wherever you and the kids are.”
“Then Europe.” I gaze up at him, letting myself picture it. “All four of us.”
A year ago, bringing a baby onto a tour bus sounded impossible. Lake insisted his career would fit inside our family, not the other way around. He called Linus, told him we were having a baby, and said these are my terms.
Linus didn’t hesitate. “Aye, brother. Let’s build it.”
He came through big time. The routing changed.
Marta turned the back lounge into Levi’s classroom.
Hospitals were mapped across every leg of the tour.
A midwife stood ready in every city. Every decision, from soundcheck to departure times, left room for our family because Linus had already spent years building the same kind of life with his own family.
The bus rocks gently through the New Mexico night. Tomorrow night eighteen thousand people will scream for my husband. By midnight he’ll be barefoot in the galley, stealing a bite of my dessert, checking on Levi, fucking me and falling asleep with one hand resting over our daughter.
The world gets the musician. We get the man.
I think about Neeley who left her name on a slip of paper, convinced she’d fucked up her life.
Somehow, I don’t wish I could warn her.
Because I’d only steal the wonder. She found her way, exactly as she needed to.
I close my eyes and listen to the tires carrying us toward another city.
No matter where the road takes us, we already know the way home.
Thank you for reading Fractured Destiny.