20. Dylan #2
We barely make it through the front door before I have her pressed against the wall, my mouth on hers, my hands everywhere at once.
The restraint I’ve been maintaining all evening.
Being supportive. Appropriate. Being the devoted husband instead of the desperate man who can’t get enough of his wife. The facade finally snaps.
“Dylan…” She gasps as I kiss down her throat. “We just got home…”
“I know.” I find the zipper of her gown and drag it down slowly. “I’ve been thinking about getting you out of this dress for hours.”
“It’s designer.”
“I’ll buy you a new one.” The dress pools at her feet, and she’s standing before me in nothing but silk underwear and heels. “God, Selene. You’re so beautiful it hurts.”
“You’re being dramatic.”
“I’m being honest.” I drop to my knees in front of her, pressing a kiss to her stomach. “Especially now. Knowing what’s growing in here. Knowing you’re carrying our child.”
Her breath catches as I nuzzle against her belly, my hands gripping her hips.
“Take me to bed, Dylan.”
I’m already moving.
I scoop her up. Carefully now, newly aware of how precious she is, carrying her to our bedroom. The sheets are cool against her heated skin as I lay her down, and I take a moment just to look at her.
My wife. The mother of my child. The most important person in my world.
“What are you thinking about?” She reaches for me, pulling me down beside her.
“Everything.” I trace the curve of her jaw. “How much I love you. How lucky I am. How terrified I am that I’ll somehow mess this up.”
“You won’t.”
“How do you know?”
“Because you’re already worried about it.
” She smiles softly. “The old Dylan wouldn’t have worried.
He would have assumed everything would work out because it always did.
But you’re different now. You think about consequences.
You consider other people’s feelings. You’re going to be an amazing father because you care enough to be afraid of being a bad one. ”
The observation hits me somewhere vulnerable.
“I want to be good at this.” My voice comes out rough. “I want to give our kid everything I didn’t have.”
“You will.” She pulls me down for a kiss. “But right now, I want you to stop thinking about the future and focus on the present.”
“The present?”
“The present.” Her hands slide up my chest, working at the buttons of my shirt. “Which involves me, in this bed, wanting my husband very badly.”
***
Selene
He undresses me slowly, reverently, treating me as sacred.
Every touch is deliberate, every kiss a worship. When he finally has me bare beneath him, he pauses again, his eyes roaming over me with an intensity that makes me shiver.
“Do I need to be careful?” His voice is thick with want but edged with concern. “I don’t want to hurt…”
“The doctor said everything is fine.” I pull him down to me. “Normal activities are perfectly safe.”
“Normal activities.” His smile is wicked. “I don’t know if what I have planned qualifies as normal.”
“Show me.”
He kisses his way down my body, taking his time, mapping territory he knows by heart but treating every inch as a new discovery. When he reaches my stomach, he lingers, pressing kiss after kiss to the flat plane where our child is growing.
“I’m going to take such good care of both of you.” He murmurs the words against my skin. “I’m going to spend every day making sure you know how loved you are.”
“Dylan…” His name comes out as a plea.
“I know, baby.” He moves lower, settling between my thighs. “I’ve got you.”
His mouth finds my center, and I arch off the bed with a cry that I don’t bother to suppress. We’re home, in our bedroom, and I can be as loud as I want.
He takes full advantage of that freedom.
By the time he finally rises over me, I’m trembling and incoherent, my body still pulsing from the orgasm he wrung from me with devastating precision.
“Ready?” He positions himself at my entrance, his muscles rigid with restraint.
“Please.”
He slides inside me in one long, slow stroke, and we both groan at the sensation. It feels different tonight. A new layer of intimacy exists now. Knowing what we’ve created together. Every movement feels weighted with meaning.
“I love you.” He starts to move, setting a rhythm that’s deliberate. “I love you so much, Selene. More than I ever knew it was possible to love someone.”
“I love you too.” I wrap my legs around his hips, pulling him deeper. “Show me. Show me how much.”
He does.
He makes love to me as if it’s a sacred act. Every thrust is a promise. Every kiss, a vow. He brings me to the edge again and again, holding me there until I’m begging, until I’m beyond words, until all I can do is feel.
When we finally fall over the edge together, it’s with his name on my lips and his whispered devotion in my ear.
Afterward, we lie tangled together in sheets that are definitely going to need washing.
Dylan’s hand protectively rests on my stomach, and I cover it with my own.
“We should probably tell people.” I trace patterns on his forearm. “Our families. The press will find out eventually.”
“Let them wait.” He pulls me closer. “For tonight, I just want it to be ours. Our secret. Our miracle.”
“Our baby.”
“Our baby.” He presses a kiss to my temple. “Our future. Our everything.”
I close my eyes, letting contentment wash over me.
A year ago, I fled this house in the middle of the night, convinced my marriage was over. A year ago, I thought I’d never trust Dylan again, never love him again, never build anything with him again.
Now I’m lying in our bed, wearing his rings, carrying his child, and looking forward to all the years we have ahead.
Life has a funny way of surprising you.
“Hey, Dylan?”
“Mm?”
“Thank you.”
He shifts to look at me, confused. “For what?”
“For not giving up.” I reach up to touch his face. “For fighting for us when I’d stopped fighting. For becoming the man I always knew you could be.”
His eyes shimmer in the dim light. “You’re the one who gave me the chance. You’re the one who let me back in.”
“We gave each other chances.” I smile softly. “And look where it got us.”
“Look where it got us.” He echoes my words, his voice full of wonder. “A marriage that survived the worst. A career that you rebuilt on your own terms. And now…”
“And now a baby.”
He grins, the expression so full of joy it makes my heart ache. “We’re going to be the most embarrassingly in-love parents in history. Our kid is going to be mortified by how much we adore each other.”
“They’ll survive.”
“They’ll have to.” He pulls me closer, tucking me against his chest. “Because I have no intention of ever stopping.”
I smile into his shoulder, feeling the steady beat of his heart against my cheek.
“Neither do I.”
We fall asleep like that, wrapped around each other, dreaming of the future we almost lost and the one we’re building together.
A future that includes late-night feedings and first steps and school plays.
One that includes Dylan crying at every milestone and me pretending to be embarrassed while secretly loving it.
A future that includes arguments and makeups and the ordinary magic of a life shared with someone who knows you completely.
A future that includes love. Imperfect but absolutely worth fighting for.
I can’t wait to see what comes next.
THE END