Epilogue
Micah
A Year Later
M ornings are my favorite.
Fresh, crisp air, renewed energy, and the fact I can now sleep at night makes daytime much more sufferable. For the first time in my life, I’m at peace, and I’m lucky enough to wake up to the girl who was my literal dream for three months while I was in isolation. This girl who chooses to be with me every day despite every reason she shouldn’t.
At the earliest hint of dawn, I wake up, brush a kiss over her ivory cheek, and slip out of bed. I head to my woodshop out back, suppressing the terror that I will blink and she’ll be gone. I spent three months alone fighting my demons, and for at least a month of that time, I acted like she was with me. I spoke to her, and she answered. I cradled her and held her. In my mind, everything was as it should be.
It was heaven.
She was so real. It felt like I had slipped into an alternate reality where I had my happy ending with her and she never escaped my attempt at binding her.
Then, one day, after a long sleep, I woke up, reaching my hand out for her, and she wasn’t there. Instead, I found my hand rested on the blood stain that still marred the spot where she tore through the skin on her hand. Reality smacked me in the face like an icy punch. That’s when I knew I had to go home. I fought like hell after that to get my mind right. My existence took on a primitive form, spending weeks like a savage, ruthlessly hunting and obliterating everything within sight. I rage-hunted all the darkness out of me until it was… gone.
Now, every day, I fight to maintain control so I can help London find her light again.
The truth is that I wake up every day petrified that I’ll turn back into that, and the morning solitude is what brings me back from the brink.
After a couple of hours in the wood shack and completing my morning run, I shower, dry myself off with a towel, and slip back into bed, where my sleeping beauty is still passed out.
My wife is not a morning person, despite the fresh rays of sunlight shining over her eyes, which are escaping through the tangled layer of trees and the enormous window in our bedroom. A familiarity that triggers torturous memories and blissful reminders of the place that started it all.
She’s squinting her eyes, and she’s curled up beside me, her arms and legs tucked into her body like a turtle, grasping her precious wolf blanket. She sleeps this way every night—careful, afraid, and exactly how I once left her.
She sleeps like that because memories still plague her. Nightmares of me…
I watch her silently while she sleeps. It’s creepy as fuck, but I love the way she twitches her nose and grimaces in the cutest way. She also wore the sexiest fucking lace I had ever seen to bed last night, which is usually a signal she wants me close by when she wakes. Her skin is smooth and delicate, and the old me would have thought she was begging to be fucked with her ass in the air.
That was the old me, and London deserves better than the old me. So I lie and wait patiently for permission to ravish her .
I try not to wake her because she only sleeps in the morning; she usually stays up all night writing. This way, I can watch over her and wake her if the demons start to overwhelm her. The physical bruises on her body are long healed—mostly—and every day, I work tirelessly to heal her emotional scars.
While she won’t admit it, she does the same for me at night when the story of what happened to us pours out of her. She handwrites in her journals. Pages of words she won’t let me read, the story—our story—from her perspective.
After a few minutes, my hand falls to her cheek to gently wake her. Her eyes fly open in a startle, her initial panic giving way to immense relief when she catches sight of me.
I cup her chin as she scans my face. “I’m real, baby. This isn’t a dream. You’re at home.” Sometimes, I have to remind her where we are. Reality still hasn’t set in for her—that we’re together. Even a year after our small wedding, I haven’t left her side once. Even with my hockey schedule, she’s always with me, facing plane ride after plane ride so she can be with me.
Her cherry lips part, and she closes her eyes with a smile that radiates out of her body.
She keeps her cheek planted on the silk pillow. “Micah, what time is it?”
I press my lips to hers, the heat from the sunlight warming her face. “Eleven,” I murmur against her.
She stirs a bit more as I move my mouth to her earlobe and, ever so slightly, wipe the bit of drool dripping from the corner of her lips.
She nudges my hand away, still in a seemingly half-blissful daze. “Micah, don’t get any ideas. We have to go soon.” I pull off her and frown as a low tug hits my stomach.
The meeting with the mayor and his wife over lunch at the country club is in an hour.
Bleh.
I fucking hate the political shit in this town. London, however, is amazing at it. She’s embraced her new position as the lady of New Ocean, even though the attention makes her uncomfortable. But she really, really enjoys giving away our money. She says it makes her feel good giving to local causes and that our money is tainted and would only burn our souls to hell if we held on to it all.
My mother wouldn’t approve. She always played the game of philanthropy without actually being philanthropic. That’s why I let London put the amount my parents stole from Ezra’s family back to them—every fucking penny—and we put some in a trust fund for when Ezra gets out of prison, too.
I flip over and wrap my arm around her body, my fingers finding the sexy curves of her hips. “We still have an hour until lunch…”
I wait, as I always do, for her to tell me what she wants or needs from me in this moment. Because it’s never the same from one day to the next.
She curls into me and settles her hips in me, heating my entire core. She arches her neck and smiles as I grab her chin and meet her lips for a soft kiss. I could easily spend an hour just making out with her if that’s what she wants.
My dick, on the other hand, has other ideas.
She moans, and her entire body throbs under me, my erection pressing against her back.
“Micah,” she warns. “I need to make sure I have enough time to get ready.”
“We can be a few minutes late,” I say, breezing my fingertips over the top of her ass cheeks. It’s my favorite fucking part of her body whenever she gives me access to it.
Which is… sometimes. Usually, when I make her spaghetti.
Sometimes, it’s the bruises she begs for, and I’m more than happy to oblige. And some days, she won’t even let me close enough to touch her.
It always depends on how angry she is when she wakes up.
I snap the elastic band of her panties, and she reaches her hand down and wraps her fingers around my now painful erection. My thighs twitch, and my groin burns, my voice coming out as a low rumble. “London, don’t tease me today. ”
She giggles, and I’ll be damned if it’s not the sweetest sound I’ve ever heard. She’s had a few rough days, keeping her distance from me. Some new memories triggered her, and she needed time to cope with it.
She sits up and straddles me with a leg on either side of me, settling her hips over mine. Her bangs fall in front of her face, and the way the light shines down on her makes her look like an angel. She runs her hands through my hair, pressing herself down on me and moaning as she kisses me.
I cock my brow and arch my groin to meet hers. This is new… Usually, she likes me to take charge. “You better stop that, sweetheart, unless you’re ready for me.”
She’s squeezing her thighs. “It’s the mayor, Micah,” she pants, “and I’ve been excited about this project, so quit trying to get out of it.”
I can barely contain myself as she reaches down and pulls my cock out before sliding herself onto me.
Goddammit. This feeling never gets old. If I could spend an eternity inside her, I would.
I move my hands from her hips to her ass, and she grinds into me, slow and steady, taking her time, giving me a warning look. She holds all the power.
If she keeps clenching like that, I’m going to go wild.
“He’s the one who wants our money to build the new rink,” I remind her. “He can wait an extra twenty fucking minutes while I fuck my wife.”
She tilts her head and frowns as I start to slide in and out of her, gripping her harder.
Harder.
She starts to ride me lazily. “Micah, it’s for Maison. I know this is still hard for you, but with your travel schedule for hockey, it’s the only time we can do it.”
The Maison Matei Arena.
He’d love having that arena named after him. It’s not hard for me to donate money to honor him. I’m so fucking proud of him, and I know he’d be proud of me, too.
I clutch her neck, drawing her closer and interrupting her train of thought. I quickly press my lips against hers, stealing another kiss, before pulling away and leaving her breathless .
She rolls off me and flips to her stomach on the other side of the bed, arching her back, but not before giving me a sweet, inviting smile.
Fuck yeah.
I waste no time as I position myself on top of her tight little body. I lean down and whisper in her ear, “Maison’s going to have to wait for us, too.”