8. Epilogue – Rosalyn
EPILOGUE – ROSALYN
The bedroom is just starting to brighten when I wake, Barrett’s chest solid against my back and his arm protectively wrapped around my waist.
“What time is it?” His voice is rough with sleep, lips moving against the back of my neck.
I yawn as I peer at the alarm clock. “Just after six. Kids won’t be up for another half hour.”
His arm tightens. “Good.”
His hand slides unhurriedly from my waist to my hip, and heat moves through me the way it always does with him.
Ten years and it hasn’t dulled by a single degree.
He rolls me onto my back and I submit willingly.
His mouth finds my throat while his hand drags the hem of my shirt up.
I reach for him, fingers wrapping around his thick cock, and he makes a low sound against my skin that wakes me up the rest of the way.
He gets his mouth on my tits, and I arch into the raw heat of it. His hand slides between my thighs and he groans at what he finds there.
“Already so wet for me,” he rasps.
“Ten years and you’re still surprised?”
He doesn’t answer that. He pushes two fingers into my pussy and I bite down on my lip to keep quiet, one hand gripping his shoulder while he works me, slow and thorough, until I’m rocking against his hand and breathing hard into the quiet morning.
When I’m close enough that my thighs are shaking he pulls his fingers free, and I make a sound of protest that he swallows with his mouth on mine.
He settles between my thighs and pushes inside me, burying himself fully.
I moan from the exquisite pleasure of my husband being so deep inside me and his massive body fitting perfectly against my curves.
There are lot of different versions of paradise in the world, and mine is Barrett.
It’s been him since the first day we met, and it’ll be him for the rest of my life.
He fucks me slow and deep, every thrust pulling another broken sound from me until I can hardly breathe.
I come on his cock with my face pressed against his jaw, his name half-swallowed, fingers digging into his back.
He follows right behind me, hips snapping forward as he buries himself deep and groans into my hair, and I feel him come inside me with a full-body shudder that I’ll never get tired of.
We stay tangled together while our breathing levels out and the house remains, miraculously, still quiet.
He lifts his head and looks at me. His hair is a disaster. There’s a pillow crease along his jaw. He’s the best thing I’ve ever seen.
“I love you,” I tell him.
“I love you, too.” He kisses me slowly, then glances toward the door. “Clock’s running.”
I laugh. “Romantic.”
We’re barely dressed when the door bangs open and Daisy appears in the frame, six years old and vibrating with the energy of a child who has been impatiently waiting to exist loudly. Her hair is a spectacular disaster around her face and she’s wearing only one sock.
“Eli said I can’t have the window seat at breakfast because he called it last night,” she complains.
“That counts,” Barrett says, reaching past me for his flannel shirt.
Daisy’s face falls with devastation. “Dad.”
“Rules are rules.”
Daisy pivots to me. “Mom!”
“Go find your other sock,” I tell her, “and we’ll discuss the window seat at breakfast like civilized people.”
She considers this, decides it’s a partial victory, and thunders back down the hall. Barrett watches her go and then looks at me.
“The window seat does rotate,” I say.
“I know that.”
“You just told her Eli’s call stood.”
“I wanted to see what you’d do.”
I exhale an exaggerated sigh. He grins, picks up an empty coffee mug from the nightstand, and heads for the door.
I follow him into the kitchen, where Eli is at the table looking insufferable about the window seat. He’s serious-faced, the image of his father in miniature except for my mouth, which he uses to argue with considerably more frequency than Barrett ever has.
“I called it,” he says, without looking up from the book open on his placemat.
“You sure you want to stick with that, kiddo?” I ask, moving to the stove.
“Mm-hmm,” he says, distracted.
Barrett opens the refrigerator and begins pulling out eggs with the efficiency of a man who has made breakfast for five people enough times that it no longer requires thought. I reach past him for the butter, and his hand brushes my back, just because.
Our youngest, Kaia, appears from the hallway dragging her blanket, three years old and completely unbothered by any window seat politics unfolding around her.
She makes a beeline for Barrett and raises both arms without a word.
He lifts her one-handed, settling her against his side while he cracks eggs into the pan with the other, and Kaia tucks her head under his jaw and promptly closes her eyes again.
“Daddy’s little girl,” I say, smiling and shaking my head.
Daisy reappears with two mismatched socks on. She climbs into her chair, pointedly not at the window, then leans across the table toward Eli. “You can have it today.”
Eli looks up, suspicious. “Why?”
“Because I’m a nice person.”
“You just want something.”
Daisy sticks her tongue out at him. Eli answers with one of his own. She sticks hers out even farther, and so does he. They hold the contest for exactly three seconds before they both dissolve into uncontrollable giggles.
They’re still giggling when Barrett sets a platter of eggs in the middle of the table, followed by bacon, toast, and fresh berries. He finally takes his own seat, helping Kaia into hers, and breakfast turns into a lively debate about how to spend the day.
“I want to go to the creek,” Daisy says.
“We said we’d finish the tree fort,” Eli counters.
“I wanna help Daddy,” Kaia declares.
Barrett chuckles. “We’ve got all day.”
I laugh to myself as the discussion continues, everyone talking over each other while Barrett keeps plates full and manages to carry three different conversations at once.
When he catches my eye across the table, I can’t help but think back to the day, nearly eleven years ago now, when he told me to come home with him.
That day, I almost convinced myself that what Barrett and I had was happening too fast. That choosing him was too reckless. Too impossible.
It wasn't.