Epilogue
WOLFE
The cabin was quiet when I got home.
I eased the door shut behind me, careful not to let the cold air rush in. The woodstove was still glowing, casting the living room in that soft orange light I’d come to associate with home. With Meghan.
Midnight lifted her head from her spot on the rug, her muzzle gray now, her movements slower than they used to be. But her tail still thumped against the floor when she saw me, and I crouched down to scratch behind her ears.
“Good girl,” I murmured. “Everyone asleep?”
She licked my hand once, then settled her head back down with a contented sigh.
I pulled off my boots and left them by the door, then padded down the hallway in my socks. The first door on the left was cracked open, and I pushed it wider, letting the hall light spill across the twin beds inside.
Noah was sprawled on his back, one arm flung over his head, the blankets kicked halfway off. He was four now, all energy and questions and that same dark hair I saw in the mirror every morning. I tugged the blanket back up over his chest, and he didn’t stir.
In the other bed, two-year-old Mary was curled on her side, clutching the stuffed dog Meghan’s friend Teddie had given her at her baby shower.
She had her mother’s brown eyes and her mother’s easy warmth.
I brushed a kiss across her forehead and slipped back out, pulling the door almost closed behind me.
Four years. Sometimes it still didn’t feel real. The expanded cabin, the two kids, the life I’d never let myself imagine having. All because a snowstorm knocked out the power in an old woman’s house, and I’d been too far gone on a girl I’d never spoken to.
I continued down the hall toward our bedroom, rolling the tension out of my shoulders. Late shifts always left me wired, but the sight of my kids safe in their beds had already started to unknot something in my chest.
I pushed open the bedroom door and stopped dead.
Meghan was on the bed, propped up on her elbows, completely naked. Candlelight flickered across her skin, catching the curves I knew by heart now—the swell of her breasts, the dip of her waist, and the soft fullness of her hips. She’d let her hair down, and it spilled across the pillows behind her.
She smiled at me, slow and knowing. “Took you long enough.”
Her words hit me like a spark to dry tinder. All the exhaustion from the late shift burned away in an instant, replaced by a rush of heat that pooled low in my gut.
I stood in the doorway, drinking her in—the way the candle flames danced over her bare skin, turning it golden and warm, the faint stretch marks on her hips that I’d traced a thousand times, the fuller curve of her breasts since the kids.
She was more beautiful now than the day I’d first had her, because every inch of her was mine, earned through years and storms and quiet mornings like this.
I shut the door behind me with a soft click, my eyes never leaving hers. “You planned this,” I said, my voice coming out rougher than I intended.
Her smile turned wicked. “The kids went down early. Midnight’s on guard. And I’ve been thinking about you all day.” She shifted slightly, letting her knees fall open just enough to give me a glimpse of the slick heat waiting between her thighs. “Come here.”
I didn’t need telling twice. I crossed the room in three strides, shrugging off my shirt as I went and letting it drop to the floor.
By the time I reached the bed, my belt was undone, pants shoved down and kicked aside.
I crawled over her, caging her body with mine, and claimed her mouth in a kiss that was anything but gentle.
She tasted like the red wine she’d probably sipped while waiting, sweet and bold, and she kissed me back like she was starving.
Her hands were everywhere—raking down my back, gripping my ass to pull me closer, nails digging in just hard enough to make me growl against her lips.
I broke the kiss to trail my mouth down her neck, sucking at the spot below her ear that always made her gasp.
She arched beneath me, breasts pressing against my chest, nipples hard and begging.
“God, I’ve missed this,” I muttered against her skin.
I slid lower to take one nipple into my mouth. I sucked hard, flicking my tongue over the peak while my hand kneaded the other breast, thumb circling until she whimpered my name. Her fingers tangled in my hair, holding me there as her hips rolled up, seeking friction against my thigh.
I gave her what she wanted, pressing my leg between hers so she could grind against me. She was already soaked—I could feel it on my skin—and the way she moved, desperate and unashamed, drove me insane. Four years, two kids, and she still fucked like she couldn’t get enough of me.
“Please,” she breathed, tugging at my shoulders. “I need you inside me. Now.”
I didn’t make her wait. I shifted up, positioning myself at her entrance, and pushed in slow, savoring every inch as her tight heat enveloped me.
She was perfect—wet and welcoming, clenching around me like she was made for this, for me.
I groaned deep in my chest, burying my face in her neck as I bottomed out.
“Fuck, Meghan,” I rasped, pulling back slow enough to feel every inch of her gripping me, reluctant to let go, then slamming in again, harder, deeper, until my hips met hers with a soft slap of skin on skin.
She answered with a sharp arch of her back, thighs clamping tighter around my waist, heels pressing hard into the small of my back like she was trying to pull me straight through her.
God, the sight of her—candlelight licking over her chest, breasts bouncing with every thrust, nipples dark and tight—nearly undid me right there.
Her head was tipped back, throat exposed, lips parted around these soft, stifled whimpers that went straight to my cock.
I leaned down, mouth against her ear, voice low and rough so it wouldn’t carry down the hall. “You feel that, baby? How fucking wet you are for me? Been thinking about this pussy all day, how it squeezes me like it never wants me to leave.”
Her only answer was a desperate roll of her hips and a breathy little “mmph” against my shoulder as she turned her face into my skin, teeth grazing before she bit down gently to muffle herself. The sting of it shot heat down my spine.
I drove into her again, faster now, relentless, the bedframe giving that familiar creak-creak-creak we both knew too well.
Each thrust dragged the head of my cock over that spot inside her that made her whole body tremble.
I could feel it—her walls fluttering, tightening in tiny pulses that told me she was close.
“Look at you,” I whispered, lips brushing the shell of her ear. “Trying so hard to be quiet while I fuck you senseless. But I feel it, sweetheart. I feel you coming on my cock.”
She shuddered hard, nails raking down my back, legs locking even tighter.
A soft, keening whine escaped her, barely audible, vibrating against my neck as her hips jerked up to meet mine.
Her inner muscles clenched rhythmically, milking me, and I slid my hand down between us, thumb finding her swollen clit, slick and throbbing.
“That’s it,” I growled quietly, circling firm and fast. “Come on my cock, Meghan. Let me feel you soak me. Be my good girl and come quiet.”
Her eyes squeezed shut, brows drawn together in beautiful agony.
A tremor ran through her whole body. She bowed off the bed, mouth open in a silent cry, pussy clamping down so hard I had to grit my teeth to keep from groaning out loud.
I kept thrusting through it, drawing out every last pulse, thumb never stopping until she sagged back against the pillows, breathless and boneless beneath me.
She came first, always did when I touched her like that—her body tightening around me in waves, pulling me over the edge with her. My orgasm hit me hard, and I spilled deep inside her with a guttural sound I barely recognized as mine, hips jerking as pleasure ripped through me.
We stayed locked together afterward, sweat-slick and breathless, my weight braced on my elbows so I wouldn’t crush her. I kissed her slow then, soft and lingering, tasting the salt on her lips.
When I finally rolled to the side, she curled into me immediately, her head finding that spot on my chest like it had been made for her. Maybe it had. I wrapped my arm around her, pulling her close, and let out a breath I felt like I’d been holding for years.
“I love you,” she murmured against my skin.
Three words. Simple. But every time she said them, something in my chest cracked open a little wider.
“Love you too,” I said, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.
The candles flickered low, casting long shadows across the walls of the bedroom we’d added when Meghan was pregnant with Noah. Through the window, I could see snow falling again—soft and quiet, nothing like the storm that had brought us together.
I thought about that night sometimes. The call coming in with her name. The way my heart had nearly stopped. The hours we’d spent in front of that fireplace, me trying to string two words together while she slowly, patiently, drew me out of the silence I’d been hiding in my whole life.
She’d seen past it. Past all of it. And she’d stayed.
Down the hall, one of the kids coughed in their sleep. Midnight’s collar jingled as she shifted on the rug. The woodstove ticked and settled. All the small sounds of a life I’d never thought I’d have.
Meghan’s breathing had gone slow and even against my chest. I pulled the blanket up over her shoulders and stared at the ceiling, a smile tugging at my mouth. Four years ago, I’d been a man who watched from a distance, too afraid to speak, too broken to believe I deserved anything good.
Now I had everything.
I closed my eyes and let sleep take me, my wife in my arms and my family safe under our roof.
Home. Finally, truly, home.
Meghan’s roommate Teddie entertains stranded customers at the honky-tonk…