Page 66 of Secrets and Shadows
“Y-yours,” Riley agrees, her heels digging into my ass. With her arms and legs wrapped tight around me, she’s taking everything I’m giving and begging for more.
“Gonna keep you. Love you. Marry you.” I reach between us, spreading a palm over her bare, twitching stomach. “Gonna put my babies in here.”
Riley whimpers then lunges up, licking a stripe up my throat.
I squeeze my eyes shut, pulse pounding.
And maybe we were always heading here. Maybe I could have saved us both some heartache by giving in sooner. But one thing I know for sure—Riley will never question how badly I want her again. She’ll never wonder if I might leave her all alone.
“Mine,” I breathe one final time, pushing as deep as I can go. Heat coils at the base of my spine, and electricity sizzles in my blood.
When I spill inside her, I empty my heart and soul into this woman. She holds me tight and shivers with pleasure; her thighs keep me trapped close. And it takes the last shreds of my concentration, my teeth gritted and my thumb swirling over her clit, but I chase her off the edge alongside me. Make her buck and moan, her channel fluttering, sucking my seed deeper. Sealing us tight.
“Yours,” Riley agrees quietly once we can both breathe again.
I let out a long sigh.
Salvation at last.
* * *
Five years later
“Pass me that pencil, sweetheart.”
I stand, waiting, as my daughter toddles across the deck to where I left my pencil on a stool, then brings it back, her sticky face beaming with pride. She loves helping her dad fix up the new, larger cabin we bought, so I leave jobs for her that she canhandle safely. Fetching pencils and scraps of paper. Holding one end of the tape measure. Picking out paint colors. Stuff like that.
The patter of water droplets on the decking signals my wife’s arrival. I glance over my shoulder, grinning at a soaking-wet Riley as she wraps a towel around her gorgeous body, tucking that yellow bikini away. She looks so similar to when I first saw her, but with a few extra curves. Some silvery stretch marks from carrying our daughter.
She’s perfect. I wouldn’t change a damn thing.
“Good swim?”
“Uh-huh.” Riley’s eyes trail down me, lingering on my ass, and when she looks up at me again, she winks. “Cold but good.”
“I could warm you up.” Just as soon as our daughter is down for the night, tucked up safe and sound in the bed I made her, I’ll do it. I’ll warm Riley all the way through.
“Such a provider,” my wife murmurs, strolling past to scoop up our child. She jiggles her on her hip, rubbing her wet face against her pudgy arm until our daughter squeals, and as I watch them both together, a familiar ache expands in my chest.
Luis would have liked to see this. He’d have been such a good uncle. Manic, definitely, a terrible influence, but so good. And he’d have smiled, too, when he saw his niece’s chocolate and honeycomb eyes.
He would have been my brother-in-law.
That part gets me less. Luis was already my brother in all the most important ways.
“You’ve got your thoughtful face on.”
Riley’s soft voice brings me back to earth, and I spread a palm over my chest. Feign outrage. “Are you saying my other faces are thoughtless?”
Our daughter giggles.
Fuck, I’m so blessed right now. I need to turn away for a second and gather myself as I stare out at the lake. It’s sobeautiful with that still, clear water sparkling in the sunshine, with the mountain peaks and pine trees all around.
Now and then, I still feel out of place. Like I’m a dark stain on the landscape; unworthy of being here, of being withher.
Then Riley brings me back to myself. Coaxes me home with her light and her love.
And I think maybe Luis would be glad after all that we found each other, that two lost souls found comfort and became one. It sounds nuts, but that’s exactly how it feels.
