Epilogue #3
I push one finger into her, then a second when she opens easily around me. Her breathing changes when I curl them, and I adjust until she gives me the low, broken sound I’ve been listening for.
“There,” she whispers.
“I know.”
“Cocky asshole.”
“That’s not very nice.”
“Keep touching me and I’ll consider an apology.”
I rub her clit with my thumb while my fingers move inside her, slow enough to feel every response. Willow reaches for me, tugging at my shirt until I sit up and strip it off. Her hands move over my chest, then lower to my belt.
The monitor crackles.
Both of us freeze.
Willow’s fingers stop on the buckle. My hand remains between her thighs while we stare at the green light.
A soft sigh comes through the speaker, followed by silence.
We wait another few seconds.
Willow presses her lips together, trying not to laugh.
I lose first.
Her shoulders start shaking, and she buries her face against my neck while I bite down on my own laugh. “We are terrible parents.”
“She’s asleep.”
“She knows.”
“She’s one.”
“She judges me.”
“She gets that from you.”
Willow pulls me down and kisses me, smiling against my mouth until the humor softens into want again. Her hands finish opening my belt, and mine slide her underwear down her legs.
I kiss her while she wraps her fingers around my cock. There’s no desperation in the way she touches me tonight. She strokes me slowly, enjoying every reaction she pulls from me, and I let her.
“Tell me,” she says.
The old command sounds different coming from her.
I kiss her once before answering. “I want to be inside you.”
“Ask properly.”
Her imitation is terrible, and the smile in her voice nearly ruins me.
“Please let me fuck my bossy wife.”
“Good boy.”
I stare at her.
Willow laughs. “You hate that.”
“I’m deciding.”
“Decide while you get naked.”
I remove the rest of my clothes, then settle between her thighs. Her knees open around me, easy and trusting, while I guide myself against her.
The first push inside is slow.
Her body tightens around me, warm and familiar, and I stop when our hips meet. Willow cups my face and kisses me before I can ask.
“I’m good,” she whispers. “Move.”
I draw back and enter her again.
Tonight doesn’t need the rough pace of reunion or the frantic proof that we can still find each other.
I fuck her slowly, keeping my mouth on hers while she moves beneath me.
Each thrust is deep, but there’s no hurry behind it.
My hand slides under her hip, changing the angle until her breath catches.
“That,” she says.
I repeat it.
Her nails drag lightly over my shoulders. “Again.”
The command goes straight through me.
I keep the same rhythm while my fingers find her clit. Willow breaks the kiss with a quiet moan, then pulls me back before I can move far.
“Don’t stop kissing me.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
Her mouth stays open beneath mine while I touch her. I feel her pleasure building in the way her thighs tighten and the way her body begins meeting every stroke.
“Corey.”
“Tell me what you need.”
“Keep going.”
“What else?”
She bites my lower lip. “I need you to stop fishing for compliments.”
“I wasn’t.”
“You were.”
I kiss her harder, laughing when she smiles. “Come for me, Willow.”
Her expression changes.
The next few breaths leave her in soft gasps. I keep the pressure consistent, watching her face while her body tightens around my cock.
“That’s it,” I murmur. “Let me feel you.”
She comes with my name against my mouth, her legs drawing me closer while each pulse moves through her. I hold the rhythm until she starts trembling, then follow her with my face against her neck and her arms locked around me.
We stay close while our breathing eases.
After I pull out, Willow turns onto her side and tugs me down beside her. I draw the sheet over us and open my arm. She settles immediately, laying her head over my heart while one leg hooks across mine.
Her fingertips move lazily over my ribs. The monitor remains quiet, the frosting is gone from her hair, and her eyes begin to close even though she’s still awake.
Afterward, as she’s drifting off to sleep with her head on my chest, she murmurs something I don’t quite catch.
“What?” I ask softly.
“I said, you’re not waiting for the other shoe to drop anymore.”
“What makes you say that?”
“The forehead crinkle.” She traces her finger across the spot between my eyebrows. “It’s gone.”
I think about that. About the party, the chaos, the wrong cake and the right people. About my daughter’s laugh and my wife’s smile and the family we’ve built from the ruins of everything I almost destroyed.
She’s right. The feeling that haunted me for thirty years, the certainty that disaster was always one step behind, that happiness was just the calm before the storm, it’s quiet tonight. Not gone forever, maybe. But quiet.
“Yeah,” I say. “I think maybe it is.”
The kid who used to sleep in a cold car is warm now.
He’s home.
THE END