by Scott, J. S.
He stroked a gentle hand over my hair. “Don’t ever meet with that bastard again unless I’m there. Jesus! I would have killed that asshole by now if I didn’t know that I’d end up in jail and separated from you for the rest of my life.”
I leaned up to look at his face. The intensity in his eyes skewered me. I brushed a soothing hand over his whiskered jaw. “He’s not worth it. He’s nothing to me anymore except a bully. Nothing he said or did before means anything to me. I have my shit together again, Zeke. I know who I am, and I’m exactly where I belong now.”
He took my hand from his face, threaded our fingers together, and rested them on his chest. “You’re my heart, Lia,” he said huskily. “You always have been and always will be. I am crazy in love with you, but you’re also part of me. Like—”
“Soul mates,” I finished. “Before you interrupted me, I was going to say that I knew Esther was right. We fit, Zeke. We always have, and you’re part of me, too. You aren’t the only one who missed opportunities. I was searching for something that was right there all the time. I guess I was just too afraid to recognize it for what it was because I was too worried about rejection after what happened on my twenty-first birthday. But maybe all of that was meant to happen, too. It was a lot more difficult this way, but there will never be a day that I take what we have together for granted. I know just how damn good it is because I know what it’s like to not have you.”
“I need you to know that no matter how things might appear, or how obvious they may seem, there is never going to be a day when I so much as look at another woman with any desire to fuck her,” he said gruffly.
I squeezed his hand. “I know. I’m sorry. That wasn’t about you. It was about my lingering insecurities. I guess sometimes all of this seems too good to be true. It’s hard to believe you’re really mine, and that it’s possible to be this damn happy.”
I squeaked as he rolled until he was above me, my body trapped beneath his, and his beautiful blue eyes looking soulfully into mine as he said, “Get used to it, because my plan is to make you just as damn happy as possible for the rest of our lives. I want it all, Lia. I want to take you everywhere in the world that you want to visit on vacation. I want to be there for the good times, and hope that I can somehow make the bad ones a little better. And when and if you’re ever ready, I want to be your partner when your body is swelling with our babies, and be right beside you when our kids come into the world. I promise I’ll always try to be the best husband and father I can possibly be.”
My heart skipped a beat or two as I thought about having Zeke’s children. Our children. “I haven’t even really thought about children yet, but I want us to have kids someday. You’d be an amazing dad.”
He shot me a rueful smile. “No hurry. I’d rather have you all to myself for a while, and we have plenty of time for that in the future. But yeah, I’ve thought about having a daughter with your killer smile, and curly blonde hair. No doubt she’d wrap me around her little finger just like you do, but I could live with that. I’d definitely keep you two stocked with jelly beans so you could carry on that tradition.”
“I’d love to have a little boy who looks just like you, too,” I said with a sigh.
“Sweetheart, I’m perfectly happy where we are right now. Together. Anything that comes years from now would just be a nice bonus.”
I opened my mouth to answer, but the words were stifled as his mouth covered mine.
Wrapping my arms around his neck, I got lost in Zeke’s passionate embrace, any thoughts of the future flying out of my head.
I wanted to climb inside him, and never come back out again. He surrounded me in a love so complete that I couldn’t get close enough.
“Zeke,” I panted as he released my lips. “Fuck me. Now. Right now.”
He pulled the sleep tank over my head, and seconds later, we were both naked.
“You know, this whole bossy thing you’ve got going on makes my dick so damn hard that I can’t think,” he rasped as we were finally skin-to-skin.
I wrapped my legs around his waist. “I’d be more than happy to give you a boner any time you want,” I whispered against his neck. “I feel like I can never get you close enough to me.”
“Do you know why it turns me on?” he questioned.
My body was taut with need, but I asked, “Why?”
“Because I know that nothing is ever going to break your beautiful free spirit. I know that you’re feeling confident again. And I know that you fucking want…me.”
He moved back and surged inside me with a force that made me suck in a breath as he lodged himself deep.
“Yes,” I said breathlessly. “I do love you, Zeke. So much that it makes me crazy.”
“I love you, too, baby, even if you do make me lose my damn mind.”
I melted into him then, luxuriating in every frantic thrust of his cock.
Now wasn’t the time for anything except the frenzy of joining us together. I could feel Zeke seeping into my body, heart, and soul. “More,” I pleaded, my legs tightening around his waist.
He gave me more. Zeke gave me everything, and I felt myself hurtling toward climax as he grasped my ass, his cock pummeling into me with satisfying urgency.
“God, I feel like I’ve waited forever for you,” I panted. “For us. For this.”
Zeke was mine, and I felt it with every single movement he made, every fragmented breath coming from his lips, every rapid beat of his heart.
He claimed me as his with almost an animalistic ferocity that I reveled in.
And I took what I’d wanted for so damn long, my body finally imploding as I shuddered through my release.
“You were always meant to be mine, Lia,” Zeke growled as he started to come. “Always. Fucking. Mine.”
I clung to him, my breathing ragged as his words sank into my soul.
“And you’re mine,” I purred, my short nails digging into the skin of his back.
“Fuck!” Zeke exploded as he rolled me over on top of him, the two of us still connected. “You’ll drive me completely mad by the time I’m forty, woman.”
“Are you complaining?” I asked, still trying to catch my breath.
“Hell, no,” he denied. “It’s going to be a hell of a ride to insanity.”
I smiled. It was incredible that loving Zeke could make me feel slightly vulnerable, yet so powerful at the same time.
He made me feel just as senseless as he did, but I certainly wasn’t going to whine about those heady, exhilarating emotions, either.
My heart soaring, I whispered, “I should have known you were trouble from the moment you put Bobby Turner on the ground for trying to feel my boobs in ninth grade.”
“I never knew his name, but I hated that little bastard,” he said sternly. “You were only fourteen.”
“And you were my hero,” I shared with a smile.
“I always want to be your hero, Lia,” he said earnestly.
“You never stopped being one to me,” I answered honestly. “I love you, Zeke, with all of my heart and in so many ways it’s almost terrifying.”
“I love you the same way,” he answered immediately. “But no fear, baby. We’ve always gotten through everything together, and we always will.”
I hugged him tightly. “I know.” I paused before I added, “What just happened wasn’t exactly what I meant when I said I was going to make sure you took it easy this weekend.”
I smiled as he started to laugh, a sound that boomed through the house so loudly that my heart started to gallop wildly.
It been a long time since I’d heard Zeke laugh like he was the happiest guy in the world.
Maybe I’d never heard that.
I squirmed until I was half sitting on top of him.
“I’m going to make you so happy, Zeke Conner,” I promised. “We’ll e
ventually forget all the hard stuff.”
“I’m already happy,” he rumbled. “And I’ll have one more hard thing for you to deal with in another minute or so if you don’t stop moving.”
I put my head back on his chest. “You’re resting,” I chided.
“I’m working on my stamina,” he argued.
I rolled my eyes. “And that’s important right now…why?”
Honestly, I knew he was more than capable of going another round, but it certainly wasn’t necessary.
He threaded a hand through my hair, and lowered his mouth to my ear. “Because there’s nothing I love more than seeing my gorgeous wife looking at me like she can’t wait to fuck me. I appreciate you staying with me in sickness, but your man is back in business, beautiful. There isn’t a damn thing that’s going to make him feel better than pleasing you.”
Holy shit! I lifted my head, and got lost in the hungry, voracious look in his beautiful blue eyes.
How in the world was any woman supposed to turn down that kind of offer?
When it was coming from this man, I knew it was an unholy temptation I definitely couldn’t refuse.
I’d make Zeke rest…later.
“Bring it on, stud,” I dared teasingly.
He shot me the sinfully wicked grin I completely adored, and he did.
Lia
Almost Five Years Later…
I stood at the entrance to the living room, wondering how in the world I was going to break the news to Zeke.
Not that I thought for a single second that he wouldn’t be happy, but this would rearrange a few of our life plans significantly.
Maybe I just hadn’t completely absorbed the situation myself, so I wasn’t sure what to think.
It wasn’t like we wouldn’t be able to go on the anniversary vacation to Playa del Carmen that was scheduled for next week, but that might be the end of our globetrotting days for a while.
Zeke and I had made sure we’d taken the time to travel, and hit all of the destinations we wanted to explore together over the last five years.
Our journey back to Playa for our fifth anniversary was purely sentimental, but we were both looking forward to revisiting our honeymoon destination.
I let out a soft sigh as I watched Zeke work on his laptop with a laser-focus that I’d come to know so well over the years. However, it was Saturday, and I knew he’d be done working the second he noticed my presence. The weekends were our time, and he’d never once let me forget that I always came first.
I’d been the one who had stepped out of the room an hour ago, so he’d obviously kept himself busy by working on one of his pro bono cases.
As promised, he’d hired new attorneys when necessary, and had devoted himself to working more and more with a nonprofit organization to help people who were wrongfully convicted. His firm had grown, and was flourishing, but Zeke did more management these days. He preferred to consult with his employees on all cases at his company, but personally defend the ones where he felt he could really make a difference, which made me love the impossible man even more, if that was even possible.
He still loved managing his own investment portfolio, and I knew he saw it as more of a challenge than a way to get even more ridiculously wealthy than he already was right now.
Zeke had more than tripled his financial assets since we’d been married. Wait. Correction. He’d more than tripled our financial assets. He got slightly pissy if I ever referred to any of those assets as his and not ours.
Of course, I’d had my own share of success over the years, too, so I could honestly say that I’d had some part in our financial success, albeit a smaller role than Zeke’s.
Indulgent Brews now had a store in almost every major city in Washington, plus three different locations in Seattle. I was currently looking at expanding outside of the state. Maybe I wasn’t as big as a few of the other giant coffee companies that had roots in Seattle, but I would be. I was just getting started.
Zeke liked to say I was a force to be reckoned with now, but he never seemed to mention that he’d been the cornerstone beneath that force, and that he’d supported me every step of the way. If I even mentioned that, he’d remind me that I was there for him whenever he made a major decision, so maybe he was right. We did have each other’s backs, but I still thought I benefited a little more from that than he did since I picked his brain pretty often on business stuff.
However, no matter how much Zeke and I excelled with our businesses and our careers, neither one of us had ever lost track of what really mattered: our relationship, our life together, and our love, which grew even stronger every single day.
My breath caught as he suddenly raised his head, and those knockout blue eyes locked with mine.
“Hey beautiful,” he said, his face lighting up the second he saw me. He closed his laptop and set it aside as he asked, “Everything okay?”
God, even after five years of marriage, the way he looked at me like I was the most important woman in the world still got my heart racing.
I shot him a tremulous smile as I sat down next to him on the couch. “I’m good.”
Since I was on birth control and had been since long before we were even married, I’d thought I was just being overly cautious when I’d stepped out to take a pregnancy test. I hadn’t wanted to tell Zeke because I knew there was very little chance that I was pregnant.
I’d just wanted to see the results to verify what I’d already thought was true:
I wasn’t pregnant…I was just a few weeks late.
I wasn’t pregnant…I was just a little moody lately.
I wasn’t pregnant, and the morning nausea I’d been experiencing was just… stress.
I wasn’t pregnant…I was just tired because I was working long hours.
Yeah. Well…
Turned out, I was wrong.
I was pregnant, and there was no rationalization in the world that was going to make that test come out any differently.
“I have to tell you something, Zeke, and I’m not sure exactly how to say it,” I said hesitantly.
“Okay, this isn’t like you, Lia. You know you can tell me anything. You’re scaring me.” He lifted a brow. “What? Are you okay, sweetheart?”
“I’m pregnant,” I said in a rush before I could stop myself. “I know we didn’t plan it this way, and we were going to wait a year until I got a store open in Portland. This screws up our whole schedule, and I’m not really sure how it even happened. I’ve never missed my pill. Okay, I’ll admit that there was a day or two when I was a little stressed, and I didn’t take it in the morning, but I took it that night. How can a stupid egg escape just from switching the time of day, for God’s sake? Or maybe I’m just that tiny percentage of women who just got pregnant anyway, even though I’m on the Pill—”
“Don’t,” he said as he pulled me into his lap. “I was there when you got pregnant, too, and it wasn’t your fault. I’m incredibly happy, sweetheart. I guess I’m just…stunned.”
I wrapped my arms around him. “Me, too. I thought I was just late, and maybe a little queasy from stress. I’ve been really tired lately, so I just wanted to make certain I wasn’t pregnant, but I am. God, I just didn’t expect this to happen right now.”
“How far along?” he asked. “Is it normal for you to be tired and nauseous? Is everything okay? Are you and the baby okay?”
“God, I love you,” I said with a groan.
I should have known that Zeke’s first concern would be for me, and our unborn baby’s health.
Our schedule seemed to be the last thing on his mind at the moment.
He rocked me like I was a child, and the comforting motion felt so damn good. “Both of us are fine, I think,” I informed him. “I’m probably around six weeks pregnant. I actually had to look it up on my calendar to figure it out.”
“We need to find out who the best OB doctor is in this city, and get you in on Monday,” he said, sounding firm, but slightly anxious. “We have to make sure everything is okay. Don’t you need to be on special vitamins? What in the hell should you be eating when you’re pregnant? Is there something I can make you that would help the damn nausea? And naps. I think you definitely need naps. Christ! Why didn’t I look these things up before I needed the damn information? It’s not like I didn’t know you’d get pregnant someday.”
I smiled. I certainly didn’t need to be nervous or anxious. Zeke was feeling enough of that for both of us.
“I think we should hurry up and buy a house so we have a backyard, and we need to get a room ready. Are we going to find out if it’s a boy or a girl? Not that I really care, but it would be nice to know in advance, well, unless you want to be surprised. I’m okay with that idea, too. You’ll be the one who has to carry this baby for months and then push it out, so it’s only fair that you make that decision. I’ll just…roll with it,” he finished, releasing a large, audible breath.
I smiled even broader when I lifted my head and saw his harried expression. “I’m not delivering tomorrow, Zeke. We have around seven and a half months, and this baby isn’t going to care if we live in a penthouse or a house. We won’t really need that yard for several years. We’ll figure everything out as we go along.” I was starting to warm up to the whole idea of having Zeke’s child now that I wasn’t in shock anymore.
After all, it wasn’t like I hadn’t wanted to have a baby. It was just happening a little off-schedule, and schedules could easily be changed. Zeke and I were ready for this, even if my husband did appear to be in a momentary panic.
“Are you happy, Lia?” he questioned in an uncharacteristically vulnerable voice. “That’s really all that matters.”
I nodded. “Very. Maybe it isn’t exactly the way we planned it, but it’s still a miracle to me. It’s our baby, Zeke. I could never not be happy about that. I guess we know that I won’t have a problem conceiving, either. If it can happen while I’m on birth control, we can do it again without it.”