Chapter 21 #2
"You hear that?" I worked my fingers slow. Deep. Felt her clench around me and did it again. The belt buckle clinked as I pulled it free. "You hear me getting my cock out for you?"
She whimpered.
"Been hard since we got alone again." I pulled the belt free of the loops and dropped it.
Moved to the button of my trousers, unhurried, my fingers still working inside her.
"Walkin’ around all night with you. Dancing with my pregnant wife.
Feeling you against me." I got the button open.
The zipper. "You have any idea what that does to a man? "
"Please—" Her hips rolled toward my hand. "Please, I need—"
"I know what you need." I curled my fingers and she cried out. "You need to come for me one more time first."
"I can't—"
"You can." I pressed my thumb to her clit and she grabbed the quilt.
"You've been doing it for months, darlin'.
One more." I worked her—fingers deep, thumb in tight circles—and watched her face.
The way her mouth fell open. The way her back arched.
The way her hands twisted in the quilt like she needed something to hold. "Come on. Let me feel it."
She broke apart.
Harder this time—clenching around my fingers so tight I groaned, her whole body shuddering, my name coming out of her in pieces. I worked her through it, every wave, my thumb on her clit until she was pulling at my wrist with both hands.
"Stop—too much—Gage—"
I pulled my hand free. Brought my fingers to my mouth and watched her watch me do it.
Her chest was heaving. Her eyes were wrecked.
"You're going to kill me," she said.
"Not tonight." I shoved my trousers down and stepped out of them. Stood at the foot of the bed and looked at her—bare and trembling, belly round, legs still open, my ring on her finger. "Tonight I'm going to take very good care of you."
She looked at my cock. Looked at my face.
"Then get up here," she said, "and do it."
I took her by the hips and dragged her to the edge of the bed.
She gasped—half laugh, half something else—and grabbed my forearms to steady herself. I looked at her laid out in front of me, belly round between us, and I shrugged out of my shirt.
Fuck…fuck, she was perfect.
I put one knee on the mattress, angled in, and lined myself up against her.
"Okay?" I said.
"If you don't—" She rolled her hips toward me. "Gage."
I pushed inside.
Slow. All the way. Felt her stretch around me and held there, my hands gripping her hips, watching her face go slack. She was so wet, so warm, still clenching from the last two and gripping me like she had no intention of letting go.
"God—" Her head dropped back.
"Look at me," I said.
She looked.
I pulled back and drove forward and watched her mouth fall open. Her pretty, round breasts bounced at the thrust, nipples peaked from me playing with them. "Feel that?"
"Yes—"
"Feel how deep I am?" I spread one hand across the side of her belly—the full round curve of it, warm under my palm—and something moved through me that wasn't just want. Something older and more permanent. "My wife." I rolled my hips and she grabbed my forearm. "Say it."
"Your—" She lost it when I did it again. "Your wife—"
"That's right." I found a rhythm. Deep, measured strokes, the angle doing exactly what I needed it to do—hitting her right, watching her take it. My hand stayed on her belly. "My wife." I drove forward and she cried out. "Mine."
"Yours—" Breathless. Broken. "Gage, please—"
"Please what." I stilled.
She made a devastated sound. "Move. Please, I need—"
"I know what you need." I leaned forward, one knee still on the bed, one hand braced beside her head, close enough to see every flicker across her face.
"I've always known what you need." I started moving again—harder this time, the headboard shifting—and she wrapped her legs around me and pulled me in. "You need me. Need my cock, don’t you?"
"Don't stop—"
"Not stopping." I drove into her, steady and relentless, my hand sliding from her belly to her clit.
She sobbed. "Not stopping, Millie. Gonna give you everything.
Rest of our lives…give you whatever you want—" I worked her in tight circles, felt her clench hard around me, felt the tremor starting in her thighs.
"Come on. Come on my cock. Want to feel you. "
She shattered.
Clenched around me in waves, her whole body arching up off the mattress, and I kept moving—through all of it—chasing it, chasing her, my hand still on her clit until she was pulling at my wrist. I followed her right over the edge, spilling inside my wife, the love of my life…
The love of my life.
Met in the funniest circumstances—pregnant now with my baby, mine to have and to hold.
I collapsed beside her, breathing hard. She turned her head to look at me, eyes shining, lips red and lush.
“I love you,” I said. “You know that? I love you, Millie Calloway.”
She looked at me for a long moment. Eyes bright, hair spread across the pillow, her belly round and her cheeks flushed and my ring on her finger.
"Millie Holt," she said.
I looked at her.
"That's my name now." A small smile. "Millie Holt."
Something settled in me that I hadn't known was still waiting to settle.
I pulled her carefully against my side—working around the belly, the way we'd learned to, her back to my chest, my hand spreading flat across her stomach the way it always ended up.
She covered my hand with hers. Outside the window the live oaks were still strung with lights, the last of the reception winding down somewhere below us, and I could hear voices distantly—my dad, probably, still talking about limestone to whoever was left.
"Your dad is definitely still out there," Millie said.
"Probably."
"He's going to be out there until someone physically removes him."
"That's accurate."
She laughed, soft and tired. I pressed my mouth to the back of her neck.
We lay like that for a while. The voices faded. The lights outside went out one by one until it was just the dark and the creek somewhere below and the sound of her breathing going slow and easy against my arm.
"Hey," she said, almost asleep.
"Mm."
"I love you too." A pause. "In case that wasn't clear."
"It was clear," I said. "It's been clear for a while."
She made a small sound. "Then why'd it take you so long to say it."
"I'm a practical man," I said. "I wanted to be sure."
"And now you're sure."
I spread my hand wider across her stomach. Felt the familiar warmth of her, the weight of her, the life we'd made together pressing back against my palm.
"Yeah," I said. "I'm sure."
She fell asleep first, the way she always did. I lay awake a little longer, the way I always did—not anxious, just present. Taking stock the way I took stock of the ranch every morning in the dark, checking that everything was where it was supposed to be.
Millie, asleep against my side.
My daughter, quiet now, waiting.
The ranch beyond the window, three generations of limestone and cedar and stubbornness, still standing.
Mine to protect. Mine to pass on. Mine in all the ways that mattered, which turned out to be different ways than I'd thought when I'd walked into a fertility clinic six months ago with a problem and a deadline and no idea what I was actually looking for.
I thought about a waiting room. A sunflower print. A woman in a marigold mask doing math that didn't add up, folding and unfolding a spreadsheet like she could make the numbers work if she just kept at it long enough.
She'd made them work.
I closed my eyes.
Outside, the creek ran in the dark, the way it always had, the way it always would.
I slept.