Page 75 of Lush Curves

Sam kissed Annie again and again, felt the heat between them rise. She opened her mouth to invite his tongue, and he groaned at her sweetness. In one sudden movement, he pushed her down and back, and she fell on the sofa. Right away, he was on her, his hands under her loose shirt to cup her full breasts, her hands on his shoulders to pull him close, closer, as close as possible.

"Daddy? Annie?"

They jumped apart, straightening their clothing, not looking at each other for fear of laughing.

"Hey, sweet pea," Sam managed. "Did we wake you up?"

"No," Cindy said rubbing her eyes and looking around in confusion. "I wanted to see the babies."

"Oh, sweetie, I'm sorry," Annie said. "The babies and Sarah had to go to sleep, so we brought you home."

Annie and Sam exchanged looks, and they knew that they were thinking the same thing: that although Annie had been basically living in the house for two months,thatnight was the beginning of when theyreallystarted to build a home together.

"So when can I see them?" Cindy asked. "Tomorrow?"

"Absolutely," her father told her. "First thing tomorrow."

"OK," she said, mollified, then she stared at Annie. "And the pizza and pictures?"

The adults laughed, and they looked at each other again. They knew that making love to celebrate their engagement was going to have to wait for a little while, until after Annie and Cindy made a pizza together in the kitchen, and Sam dug out some of the photo albums, and they all curled up on the sofa under the blankets, and they ate and looked at pictures, and talked until Cindy was ready to go back to bed.

It was OK, though. They had time, they knew, time to undress each other, time to kiss and stroke and touch, time to make love deep and wild and sweet. They had time to love each other in all the ways that they knew, as many times as they could, and so that night, they were happy to eat homemade pizza and look at pictures and wait. They knew that they had time.

And theydidhave time, as it turned out, lots of it. They hadyearsof it, actually, almost thirty-eighty of them together. In that time, they laughed and ate pizza and looked at family photos. They raised their daughter to be a resilient, compassionate woman who somehow did manage to forgive her mother. They helped raise their two grandchildren, and they saw Sarah and Jax become grandparents themselves. They watched Noah become an international artist, they watched him and Callie marry. They attended the weddings of their friends, the births of those friends' children, the parties to celebrate the milestones of lives well-lived.

And yes, they loved.God, they loved.

They not only believed in the fairy tale, they lived it. They breathed it. Theybecameit.

No, it wasn't happily-ever-after all the time for Sam and his princess, but it was pretty damn close.

And really, in this day and age, in this time of modernity so lacking in people who really, truly believe in fairy tales, that was pretty damn good.