by S. E. Rose
He arranges transport for everyone. Jesse and Vanessa decide to stay at a friend’s home nearby for a few days and then at the New York apartment. Jesse explains that the house is going to be worked on and won’t be livable for another six weeks. He sighs when he mentions having to replace the yacht. Vanessa slaps his arm. “Seriously?! You were just saying you wanted to upgrade,” she squeals.
He shrugs. We all laugh.
“Mommy, does this mean we can go home?” Leidy asks, pulling on her mother’s sleeve.
“Yes, baby, we can go home,” she says with a smile.
I’m saddened for a moment because I’m going to miss everyone. I don’t see Lily, Lance, and the kids that often and my mom and Jack are always busy. And forget about Jesse and Vanessa, their lives are insane.
“Promise we’ll all get together soon,” I say as everyone starts to disperse. They all stop and look at me.
There are resounding “of courses” and “sure” from everyone. I want to believe them, but I also know that we will get back to our normal lives now and that means not seeing each other as much.
“Let’s head home,” I say to Melissa. We are driven in a car with Cody and Zoe. Zoe, of course, sleeps most of the way. I’m excited for her. I know she’ll make a great mom.
The car lets us out first. I climb the stairs to our apartment. Colin is sitting at the bar when I walk in with Melissa.
“Hey,” he says. He knew we were coming because I finally texted him as we were heading up toward Philly.
“Hey,” I say, and I embrace him in a bro hug.
“Everything alright?” he asks.
“Never better,” I say and pat his back.
Melissa and I walk into the bedroom. We have no luggage. She left most of her stuff here. We’ll both need to go get new licenses since ours were destroyed in the explosion, and we probably need to pick up a few things, but right now, I just want to hold her in my bed and forget about the insanity of the last few weeks.
“Let’s worry about everything else tomorrow,” I say to her.
“I agree, one hundred percent,” she says with a smile.
I slowly remove her clothes, and she helps me out of mine. I lay her back on the bed and kiss every square inch of her body and several more than once. She shivers under my touch and by the time I’m kissing her between the legs, she’s squirming.
“Please,” she begs.
I move back up her body, stopping to spend some much-needed time with her perfect breasts before I slide into her. I move slowly, in and out until neither of us can bear it a moment longer, and we go crashing over into oblivion. After, I pull her up against me and hold her tightly.
“You’re not allowed to go anywhere,” I say to her.
“Good, because I’m not going anywhere,” she whispers back.
“Good,” I murmur. “Because now that I’ve found my home, I’m not leaving it, ever.”
“Your home?” she asks.
I pull back and look at her. “You are my home, beautiful, and wherever you go, I will follow you.”
She smiles and snuggles against me. “I love you, Nick,” she whispers.
“I love you too, Melissa,” I say as we fall asleep.
Epilogue
Nick’s Playlist: “You Belong to Me” by The Boxer Rebellion
Six months later…
Melissa beams at me as we survey the office.
“So?” I ask her. She looks around, taking it all in and her smile widens.
“I love it!” she says, clapping her hands together.
“So, then it’s a yes?” I ask her.
“No,” she says, and I frown as she pauses. “It’s a HELL yes!” she exclaims as she jumps into my arms and kisses me. I breathe a sigh of relief. I seriously didn’t want to have to forgo the security deposit on this place.
“Well then, I believe we have found the new offices for Burke and Stevenson Associates,” I tell her.
“What happened to Stevenson and Burke Associates?” she asks me with a raised eyebrow.
“It’s negotiable.” I smirk.
“What are you willing to sacrifice to get your name first?” she asks.
“Oh, I’m not going to sacrifice anything, beautiful. But I will negotiate.” I grin and give her a wink. She rolls her eyes.
“You are absolutely impossible, Nicholas Stevenson, do you know that?” she groans, giving me a playful swat to my arm.
I grab her arm and pull her against me. “Impossible, huh?”
She nods. “Impossible…” She trails off as she licks her lips and stares at my mouth.
I back her up against the one main piece of furniture in the room, a very large mahogany desk. I lift her up so she’s sitting on it, her feet dangling over the edge. I step in between her legs, spreading them apart, while I keep kissing her. Her lips are swollen and hot from the friction, and I suck her bottom lip into my mouth. She gives a small moan. I grin as I pull back.
“Time to break in the new furniture,” I whisper and with one hand on her chest, I slowly push her down until she’s leaning back on her elbows and staring up at me, looking sexy as hell. I swallow, and she smirks.
“See something you like?” she asks.
“Careful, or you’ll regret being so sassy,” I say. What I’ve found out about Melissa over the past few months, is she’s just as kinky as I am. A “closet” kink, is what I call her. It’s made for some interesting situations. I mentally tally them as I pull her underwear down and toss it on the black leather chair behind her head.
Melissa with no panties on at dinner with my family while I finger fuck her under the linen tablecloth. Melissa steering the yacht, while I fuck her from behind in broad daylight. Melissa’s ass, up in the air and pink from my smacks, grinding against my cock as I take her from behind while she’s pressed up against a sink at a fancy hotel. Melissa on her knees taking my dick all the way down her throat while I work on our proposal at my stand-up desk. Melissa tied to my passenger seat in my new car, while I rub a new vibrator over her swollen sex, making her beg in frustration until I slide it all the way in as she christened my Land Rover.
There are so many ways we’ve fucked and made love, and I can’t wait to add this to our repertoire.
I pull up her skirt and stare at her bare pussy. She looks delectable.
“Hands above your head, beautiful,” I say to her as I lower myself and run a finger down her sex. She shivers but complies.
I take my time, blowing air against her swollen clit. She groans and whimpers, and I smirk. I love that I can make her so frustrated so fast. I lightly run my finger over her folds, and she blows out a frustrated moan.
“Please,” she begs, and I know she knows that begging will get her everything.
I slowly slide my fingers into her, feeling her wet, velvety heat, and I flick her clit with my tongue. She tenses, and I know she’s close already. I slow down, making it build for her, knowing that when she gets there, she’ll go off like a rocket. I curl my fingers deeper, finding that spot inside her as I run my fingertip over it faster and faster while I suck on her clit. Her hips are moving against my face, and I can feel her juices all over my three-day-old stubble. She feels so good. I quietly undo my pants and just when I know she’s on the edge, I stand and slam into her, while keeping my finger pressed to her clit, and she cries out my name and a few “oh, Gods” before she relaxes into the wood.
Her eyes are closed still as I move inside her, feeling just how wet and how hot she is now. But I want to feel her coming around my cock as I explode in her. Normally, I like to take my time. Normally, I want her crying out over and over until she’s panting that she can’t come again. Today, though, I just want to mark her in our new office. I want it fast and dirty. I pull out and flip her languid body over and she puts her legs under her, presenting me with her ass. I am torn between which hole to fill for a moment, but I decide it’s about her today. I plunge a finger inside her first, coating it with her orgasms, a
nd then plunge it into her tight ass as I sink back inside her. The double intrusion startles her, and she tenses for a moment before she gives me one of her adorable little whimpers that tells me she’s about to epically come. I love making her come. It’s become a goal of mine to top her orgasms, to make her squirt, to have her running down my cock and balls. And she’s doing that right now.
“I’m close, baby, so close,” I grunt, trying to hold on until I feel her muscles start to contract. I time my finger and dick to alternate, in and out of her holes, and then I reach around with my other hand and begin rubbing her clit in small circles and all the stimulation pushes her over the edge and I feel her creaming around my cock as I let myself go, howling her name into the nearly empty space.
We both stay still for a moment, catching our breaths. She feels so good still, and I don’t want to pull out of her, but we have places to be later.
“I declare this office officially opened,” I say to her, giving her ass a playful swat as I walk over and put her name plate on the desk next to her. I pop a bottle of champagne as I toss her panties to her and she grins and stands giving me a peck on the cheek before putting her underwear back on and taking the champagne flute from my hand.
We clink glasses and sip the cooled liquid left here by the real estate agent. It’s cheap, but it’s the sentiment that counts, right?
“This is so exciting,” Mel says as she looks around. “We’ll need to hire a secretary, and I have interviews for two biologists and an intern next week. I just can’t believe this is really happening.” She gives me the biggest smile and my heart clenches in my chest.
I walk over to her and pull her against me. “I love you, Melissa Burke,” I whisper as I kiss her.
“I love you too, Nicholas Stevenson,” she says with a smile.
“Alright, drink up and let’s head over to Jesse’s for this shindig,” I say. We finish our drinks and drive in silence to Jesse’s house.
Everyone gathers around the dining room table when we arrive.
“I just wanted to thank you for coming to christen our newly renovated home,” Jesse says, raising a glass with one hand and pulling Vanessa against him with another. I half smirk remembering Melissa’s and my christening of the office earlier in the day. Melissa must be reading my mind because she elbows me and rolls her eyes. It took them over five months to fix their home, but it’s done and better than ever. Jesse even made Bryce add additional security measures that he learned about when we were out at Bryce’s farmhouse. A new, larger, and much nicer yacht sits on the brand-new dock out back. Everyone is here, and it feels great to be with my whole family. I look around at each of them.
Zoe holds her daughter, Vivian Olivia, in her arms. As I predicted, she’s a great mom. She just started back with a single shift this week as a nurse, although Cody wants her to stay home with Viv all the time. Zoe, of course, put her foot down. Cody might think he wears the pants in that family, but Zoe has that man wrapped around her finger as does his little girl. Cody stands next to them, his one arm around Zoe and his other absentmindedly rubbing Viv’s back.
When I told Cody that I wanted to start my own company doing engineering work on ocean windfarms to try to combat sonar and sound issues with dolphins and whales, he thought I was crazy. However, after I pitched it to him, he got his umbrella company to fund my company, and we are now a subsidiary of Hollins and Grumble, Inc. My first order of business was to ask Melissa to be my partner, which she accepted. She handles the science end of things and research, and I handle the engineering aspects. Together we are a force to be reckoned with, and we both love what we do. Plus, we are doing a ton of research in the Azores. I am in the process of getting our work visas settled, so we can buy a property we found not far from the marina area in Horta. We’ll only be there for some of the year, but we can also use it as a vacation property. Meanwhile, we decided to make Philly our hub. We both like it here, and we’re near our friends and not far from family. Colin finally got serious with Cami, and they moved in together. Cami refused to budge from her apartment right by the hospital, so they are living there for now.
Mel and I have looked at some row houses, but we are also thinking about buying an old property outside of the city and fixing it up. As Mel says, we have time. After the madness with Ben died down, I finally let Mel in on my little secret, I’m a millionaire. Yeah, I don’t really mention that a lot. My dad had a three-million-dollar life insurance policy. When he died, Mom took one million and gave us each a million. Of course, we only got incremental access to it when we were twenty-five years old. Lily used hers to upgrade her photography business and set the rest aside for her kids’ college funds. I decided to start my own company, but after getting funded, I am stashing it away to buy a house, marry Melissa, and someday have our own kids.
Melissa doesn’t know that I spoke with her dad last week and got his permission to ask her to marry me. I’ve met her parents and brother a few times now. Jack still is trying to find out more about Molly’s disappearance, but so far there hasn’t been any conclusive evidence of her death. I know Melissa will keep looking until she finds out the truth, which may take her a lifetime.
Tomorrow, I’m going to ask her to marry me when the whole family goes out fishing on the new yacht. There’s no more perfect a place than the water to ask her. The ring is literally burning a fucking hole in my pocket.
I look over at Lily, who finally looks relaxed. She just got back from a trip to Costa Rica with Lance. Melissa and I babysat the kids. It was an eye-opening experience for us both. We learned that three-year-olds can still be disgusting, like when Frankie had an accident and smeared it all over his bed. Or when Rosa threw up on Leidy and Leidy reciprocated. Yeah, that was a fun night. I can hear the kids playing in the other room. They ask hourly when Viv can play with them. It’s entertaining, to say the least. Lance has his arms wrapped around Lily, and she leans back against his chest. Lance and Jesse are working on new security software they dreamed up during all the madness over at Bryce’s place. They just landed a big government contract, which means Lance will be down toward D.C. more. Lily is stoked because she wants to do some Chesapeake Bay photography. Jesse has already redone the one outbuilding to accommodate all five of them anytime they want to stay down there.
My mom looks, well, like my mom. I’m just so happy for her. She’s content in her work and selling a shit ton of books and just had a second book made into a movie. Jack still won’t tell us exactly what he does for a living, but he remains ferociously protective of Mom and even increased security at their home after Mom’s first book was made into a film. He wants to move to a more secure home, but Mom is fighting him tooth and nail. I have a feeling, they’ll be staying put for a while if Mom has anything to say about that.
Even Rob and Chelsea are here, with Aunt Kristen. They finally went public that they are dating after Cami and Colin announced they were moving in together. Better late than never, I suppose. Of course, Zoe thinks it’s the most hilarious thing in the world that her brother is dating her husband’s little sister, but Cody is still getting over his super protectiveness regarding Chelsea. It’s been entertaining to watch at happy hour that’s for sure. I look past them at my grandmother who made it up here as well. Eleanor, is Eleanor. She’s been traveling with friends and even decided to go audit some viticulture classes at the local university. God, I hope I’m that cool when I’m retired.
The big surprise was that Mal, Oliver, and Rose came over for a visit. They’re staying here since there are more rooms and Rose can ride Vanessa’s horses. I can’t believe Rose is heading off to college next year. She chose Georgetown because of its great programs. Plus, she’ll be near Jack, whom she adores. We were honestly surprised she decided to cross the pond, but after spending one summer over here visiting and nannying for Lily and Lance, she was sold.
Even Bryce is here. I mean, Walsh did talk him into coming, but he’s here. Jesse’s other good friend Brian is here too.
Rick and Cain from Uncle J’s office are here along with Vanessa’s whole family and her new PA, Clara. Gianni and Lillian have returned, but Vanessa has kept Joanie on part time.
And then there’s Jesse and Vanessa. Vanessa finished her last tour eight weeks ago. She plans to spend the next two years working on a new album. Jesse put a state-of-the-art recording studio in their basement. He still splits his time between New York and here, but his home office got quite the upgrade, so I’m guessing he’ll spend more time here in the future.
I look back at Jesse who is looking affectionately at Vanessa. I raise an eyebrow and shake my head, no fucking way. Jesse looks at me and grins, and I shake my head again. OK, fucking way then. “In addition to being so excited to have the whole family and some of our good friends here, we are also excited because Vanessa and I are going to be embarking on a new project together,” he says with a giant smile.
Everyone looks confused as they don’t know what Jesse’s work and Vanessa’s could possibly have in common. Vanessa laughs.
“Well, it’s more of a solo project for me for another five and a half months,” she says grinning. “Jesse and I are expecting.” I do the math and can’t believe that Vanessa spent the last several months of her tour pregnant.
The room erupts into excited talk and “congrats” from everyone and some hugging, alright, a lot of hugging. When we all quiet down, Jesse clears his throat.
“We would have told you all a month or so ago, but then we knew we’d be having this get-together and decided to wait. We also just found out we are having a little boy, who we are going to name Sean Patrick after two very important men in my life,” Jesse says, his eyes welling with pride as he wraps his arm more tightly around Vanessa. My mom’s eyes well up and Jesse lets go of Vanessa to hug his sister. They stay embraced like that for a second. I see him whisper something in her ear and she nods before pulling away and giving him a kiss on the cheek.