Chapter 32 Epilogue #2
"The porch swing can file a complaint in the morning with Beans the lizard as a witness.
" I palm him through his jeans, already hard, already ridiculous considering he spent the whole afternoon walking fence.
"Kids are down. Monitor's on. You have about forty-five minutes before Beau remembers he has lungs and opinions. Spend them wisely, Williams."
"Yes, ma'am." Gentle, and only ever with me.
The gentleness that used to hide under all that grump and awkwardness shows up faster now, easier, earned.
He plants me on the counter, the butcher block cool under my thighs and still dusted with flour from the morning biscuits, and shoves my dress up with both hands like he's unwrapping a present he already owns and still can't believe is his.
He hooks my panties to one side and slides a finger through my pussy, and the noise that comes out of him when he finds me slick is pure, undignified gratitude.
"Three years of renewed vows and you still get this wet over a blanket and a bad lizard joke. "
"I get this wet over you leaving your phone on the counter," I tell him. "Don't analyze it. Just keep your hands where they are."
"Yes, boss." He works that finger in and out, slow, grinning down at me while my hips start to follow it. "That wasn't a complaint. That was a professional observation."
"Keep observing," I tell him, "and I'll finish without you."
"Liar," he says fondly, and slips in a second, and I hit him in the chest with my fist while my head falls back against the cabinet.
He laughs, rests his forehead against mine, those green eyes crinkling, and gets his fly open one-handed with a cowboy efficiency that has improved a lot since the belt-buckle disaster of our engagement night.
I close my fist around his cock, smear the bead at the tip with my thumb just to hear him hiss, and drag him to me, because we're long past pretending we need the scenic route every time.
Though tonight I want the scenic route and the fast lane both, the whole tasting menu of having each other with no small audience.
He pushes into me like he's got nowhere else on earth he'd rather be.
We've done quiet slow and angry-extractor fast. Tonight is the good married middle, deep and easy, paced by a husband who knows exactly how I fit and intends to enjoy knowing it like a second slice of pie.
I lock my heels on the backs of his legs and let my eyes close with a sigh that turns into a moan when he bottoms out and stays there, throbbing, letting me get used to the stretch of him.
"Well, hello," I manage, already breathless.
"Hi." He kisses me the way he kissed me in Clem's doorway ten minutes ago and the way he kissed me fourteen years ago beside a truck full of bees he was pretending not to be afraid of. "You feel like every lucky break I stumbled into and then fought like hell to keep."
"Keep talking like that and I'll renew our vows again on this counter," I warn him. "Flour and all."
"Flour and all. I'm holding you to that.
" He starts to move, long strokes that set the cabinet knobs tapping gently against my spine, his hands steady under my thighs, the baby monitor a dark, quiet rectangle on his hip like a chaperone we outrank.
Every thrust is playful and dead serious at once.
I clench down on him to see his mouth drop open, and he pinches my hip in revenge that turns into a caress halfway through the pinch.
We take our time.
He thumbs my clit in lazy circles while he fucks me on my own kitchen counter, and I grab his shirt and pull him closer until there's no space left between us worth measuring.
The ring flashes when I grab his nape, catching the under-cabinet light like a private joke we're both in on.
Outside, crickets stitch the dark. Inside, the house holds its breath for us in the kindest way a house can.
"Bedroom," I decide, halfway up the first crest, pleasure coiling low and warm. "I want horizontal. I want your big stupid tattooed weight on top of me. The counter was a great opening act, but I want the full show."
"Opening act," he repeats, delighted and smug and soft.
He pulls out with a slick pop that has us both wincing and laughing, then carries me down the hall without ever setting me down, the blanket left behind on the floury tile, his jeans sagging around his thighs, and I muffle my laughter in his shoulder so I don't wake the two small miracles who gave us this window.
In our room he kicks the door mostly shut, open just enough for the monitor to carry, shut enough for privacy, and spreads me out on the quilt that has outlasted every fight we've lost and won.
I push his jeans all the way off with my toes, useful as always.
He peels my dress over my head. My bra follows with a practiced flick.
Then he's over me, huge and inked and grinning like a man who still can't believe the lizards can wait, and he sinks back into me with a shared groan that's half holy and half obscene.
"Slow," I remind him, locking my legs around his hips, heels digging into his ass. "We've got the quiet. Use all of it. Don't you dare rush a gift from Beau's sleep schedule."
The first orgasm sneaks up while I'm laughing into his mouth, surprised by how easy it is, how little the pleasure has to fight for when the house is finally quiet and the kids are finally out and the only crisis in the building is how good his cock feels inside me after a day of ordinary marriage.
He groans through my clenching like it's the best news he's had since the harvest weights came in high.
He flips us carefully so I'm on top, still joined, and I plant my hands on his chest over the honeybee tattoo and ride him at my own lazy pace, circles first, then longer strokes, then a slow grind that tips his head back into the pillow.
His hands span my hips. The monitor stays silent.
Somewhere in the house a floorboard settles like an old friend clearing its throat.
I grind down and watch his face do the soft, complicated thing it only does for me, the thing that used to be rare and is now weather I can count on.