by Kendall Duke
“Mmm.” She hadn’t pulled the blanket up. It was a little distracting.
“You didn’t agree,” she said, and I realized this was hard for her—she actually thought there was a chance I might not want to be here, with her. I slid my hand down her shoulder and traced her ribs down to her hip under the covers. “You didn’t say yes.”
“Yeah,” I told her, coming closer. “I did.”
And then I kissed her so I could say yes all over again, and hear her say it for me.
~~~
Epilogue
Trinity
The trial tired me out.
Not Eric’s—that never even made it to court, and took about five minutes of bickering in front of McCabe, once the older woman from the bus stop came forward. We invited her to the wedding, which surprised her at the time, but she was a lovely person and now we all had dinner about once a month. Eric was still trying to convince her to let him buy her a car so she wouldn’t be stuck at the bus stop the next time a pair of hooligans decided to clear the air. Mrs. Mavis Englewood, I thanked god for her and asked for blessings for her every night when I went to bed… Well, to sleep. Sometimes when I went to bed prayer was not on my mind, I’ll admit—maybe even a lot of times. But when I did pray, I prayed for that pair of officers, too; the newbie ended up on the desk again, since he was the one that messed up Edward Toomis’s handcuffs somehow. I still couldn’t bring myself to refer to him as Rico. I hoped some new humility tempered the young officer’s attitude a bit. The older police officer retired in good standing. I think he was just sick of the whole thing—he knew what was up right from the beginning, and we only gave him a good reason to go home. Maybe Chief McCabe talked to him about it after I had my little show-down with them at the station.
No, thank goodness, all of that was long over. Eric murmured something about renewing his vows in his sleep the other night, but we’d only been married a year. We didn’t have many people with us at the Courthouse—it was a spur of the moment thing, very romantic, very fast—and I think that made him sad. It wasn’t a word he would use. But he’d lost a lot of people, and my dad passed away four years ago. That only left my mom, and our friends… It was wonderful, and I really only cared about the honeymoon anyway, but I knew it bothered him a little bit—though, again, notably, those were not the words he would use.
I looked at the clock and waited for the door to snap open, for his light footsteps in the hall. It was finally over; Gary would be going to jail for a long time, and that was a good thing, but man was I tired. I was tired all the time now, to be fair, but this was something else all together. I hadn’t wanted to be a witness, but considering it was my phone call that sent the police to his house, I had to do my duty. I was glad I didn’t have to work this week, on top of everything else, and would be off of graveyard shifts for the foreseeable future.
The door finally opened. “Baby?” Eric’s voice was soft and hard at the same time, a dichotomy that suited him well. He strode into the room and when he saw me on the couch he immediately crouched down in front of me and caressed my face, kissing me hard. “You alright?”
He hadn’t wanted to work today. He’d wanted to be with me, but he was still just getting his business off the ground. It was doing really well—custom paint jobs for upscale vehicles, race cars, all that jazz—and people were making orders and driving to his shop from all over the country. When he had a bigger team he could delegate more, but Eric was a perfectionist, and he wanted the best. A lot was riding on it right now. I knew it would settle down eventually, but I was worried he felt guilty that he wasn’t here with me more.
I didn’t want him feeling guilty. Not ever again.
“I’m fine, promise,” I told him, and those keen eyes searched over me, cataloguing any and every change. He nodded once as if his examination were satisfactory, then went into the hall and brought back a strawberry smoothie. “Baby! You shouldn’t have!” He smiled at me and plopped on the couch, pretending to drink it himself for a second while I grappled with him, then handed it over. I loved the peek of that dimple in his cheek. It was the sexiest damn thing.
And he loved taking care of me. Satisfaction practically beamed out of that exquisite face. “Stop looking so smug,” I said, rolling my eyes, but then I slurped another delicious, cool drop of coconut-strawberry-chocolate and banana and I didn’t mind anything he did at all.
“Stop looking so pregnant,” he said in that smooth voice, “and I’ll stop thinking about how to spoil you.” I threw a pillow at him. “You’re right,” he said, smirking at me as I sighed over another sip of smoothie, then threw a second pillow that sailed over his head, “I’ll spoil you anyway. You’re so grateful. It’s addictive to have someone so—” That one hit him in the face, and we both burst out laughing. When we settled down, his expression was a little more serious. “Alright, stop prolonging it, Trinity. Tell me.”
So I did. I gave him a play-by-play of my day, the trial, my testimony. Gary’s sentence. “It’ll be a really long time before he’s out,” I said, shaking my head. “That guy was…”
“Fucking lucky,” Eric’s voice said with studied nonchalance, “that I’m out of the game. He got off easy.” Gary was definitely not a good guy. Eric was right about that.
But Eric hadn’t just retired from professional criminal activity. He’d given up the illusion that he was a bad guy too.
Bad guys didn’t carry their pregnant wives to bed when their feet were so swollen they could barely walk after a long shift. Bad guys didn’t work eighteen hour days and stay up for three more just to talk and make love. Bad guys didn’t look at women the way Eric was looking at me right now. “Baby?” His eyes were on fire, the amber alight with sweetness, smoke and sin.
The air between us crackled with anticipation. I raised my eyebrow at him; clearly, things were settled enough to move on to more pleasurable evening rituals.
“Mmm,” he murmured, then got down on his knees in front of me again. I started to protest when he ran his fingers over my knees, but he just pushed the smoothie towards me instead. I let the cool weight of it rest on my swollen breasts, the trickles of chilly condensation running down between them as he kissed my inner thighs. I felt strong hands pull my hips forward, spreading my legs wider as Eric licked my pussy through my panties.
The cold smoothie was forgotten, except for the dribble of delicious iciness on my breasts; Eric pulled me forward again and I moaned as he found my clit, sucking it through the fabric. I surrendered to the orgasm he ripped out of me in minutes, my body hot and needy, swelling with desire. When I came again, he closed my legs and gently pulled my panties down, then opened them once more. He slid my ass off of the couch and directly onto his cock, my forearms supporting my weight on the pillows, the smoothie on the floor and my wet dress sticking to my breasts. Eric found my lips and kissed me deeply as he slowly plunged further in, filling me; I moaned into his mouth, my orgasm rising again, rippling through my skin, sensations so strong I couldn’t fight them off even if I wanted to. Eric fucked me gently, hard and soft and slow and deep and then, the charge surged through me once more as he sucked my nipples through my damp dress, so sensitive they tingled as they hardened in his mouth. He joined me a minute later, buried so deeply inside of me that when we were done he had to lift me back on to the cushions.
“You didn’t finish your smoothie,” he said, picking it up and handing it to me. We sat side by side on the couch, my belly too big for him to put his head in my lap; I had something I needed to tell him, and if I laid down I would pass out. No putting my head in his lap either.
“Eric,” I said, trying to find the words… Should I have stopped him? When he looked at me like that I could never tell him no. We said yes. That’s what we did. “I need to talk to you about something.” Even when it was hard, we said yes. Together.
“Okay,” he said, turning towards me. His eyes sharpened; he never missed a thing, and still read me like I was a damn billboard. “E
verything okay?”
He was worried about the twins. “Oh, yeah—sorry, baby, yes, they’re fine. The doctor wants us to come in next week, and we need to really start packing if we’re going to be in the new place by the time I come home.”
“I will have you in the new place by tomorrow, if that’s what you want.” Eric’s eyes were still glowing from the sex, but under those thick lashes he was watching me. I was still trying to find the right words. I didn’t run from things, any more; I didn’t deflect these days. I had him, and I was safe. I could be myself, say what I had to say. But this was still hard. “Is that what you want?” He studied me, and I reached over and held his hand, running my thumb over his palm.
“Some days, yes,” I told him. “But we’ve really… We’ve gotten rid of almost everything.” By next week, we’d be sleeping in the house we bought together. Eric and his crew finished painting it, repairing anything that needed repairing and with the money from his new business we were basically buying all new furniture. I’d held on to this place long enough—too long. When the babies arrived, it would be in a home that belonged only to Eric and I, to our life, and the incredible love that created them.
I’d burned a lot of stuff. Eric built me a firepit in the backyard, so, that helped.
He was a fire-friendly kind of guy. That was part of what made our relationship so intense—his passion poured out of him, those hypnotic amber eyes heralds of the fire within. And that was also why this was so hard.
“Baby…” I took a deep breath and turned as much as the twins growing inside of me would allow. “I know you’ve been worried that you haven’t been able to be around while I’m turning into a gigantic incubator. I know you’re worried about the business too—”
“Worried isn’t the word I’d use,” he coolly interrupted, but I just rolled my eyes and continued.
“I had a thought,” I told him, and took a deep breath before forcing myself to continue. “About your mom.”
Dead silence. Eric stared at me. “Did you…?”
“Yes,” I said, watching him. His hand tightened on mine, waiting. He hadn’t called her yet, even after the private detective gave him the number; it still felt like a betrayal, I think, even after he found out she didn’t know he was alive. His father took both boys and left when they were born. She hadn’t wanted to stay in the life, so he wouldn’t stay with her; she’d just fallen in love with the wrong man, and went back to the farm when he disappeared. It was a terribly tragic story. The detective hadn’t told her different, not wanting to upset her, and left the decision to us instead.
She’d been out there the whole time, not knowing he existed. Not knowing he needed her.
“Is she… Is she nice?” Eric didn’t cry. It just didn’t happen; he wasn’t raised to express emotions besides anger, because they were a liability. But if he could cry, I knew he might right now. Instead, his eyes burned into me.
“Yes baby, she’s very nice,” I said, holding on tight. “I thought you might like to have lunch with us, next week. And if she’s alright with it, and you’re alright with it… Maybe she can help when the twins arrive.”
“If I’m alright with it.”
“And only if,” I promised. I squeezed that strong, scarred hand, the one that brought me such pleasure and joy, the one I clung to in the night, the one that changed my life.
“I love you,” he whispered, and then there was a tear, just the one, sliding out of the corner of his eye. He wiped it away with the back of his hand, fierce as ever. “Do you know that?”
“Yes. Every day,” I told him, and he nodded and picked me up, carrying me to the old bed, the one that we would leave behind, very soon. Our future was right in front of us, calling our names, the smell of honey and smoke in the air. Maybe that’s what we’d call the twins… Although I think we were pretty settled on Marco and Manuel.
It had a nice ring to it.
The End
Kendall Duke’s Innocent Series
Follow the links and don’t forget to leave a review! I hope you enjoy reading these sweet little books as much as I enjoyed writing them. I’ve included an excerpt from The Virgin and the Hero at the end of this book—check it out and if you like it, follow the link to enjoy the rest of the book on Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited.
The Virgin and the Hero: A First Time Military Romance
From the Flames: A First Time Steamy Romance
The Rookie and the Virgin: A First Time Romance
Heartbeats: A First Time Military Romance
The Virgin and the Convict: An Alpha Bad Boy First Time Romance
Her First Ride: A First Time Cowboy Romance
The Surfer and the Virgin: An Alpha Bady Boy First Time Romance
The Kissing Game: A Rock Star First Time Romance
Other books by Kendall Duke:
The Bodyguard Anthology: An Erotic Russian Alpha Romance Books 1-4
From The Hero and the Virgin…
Jordan
I was starving.
Cold. Way past hungry. And headed for exhaustion.
Marcus at the diner remembered me from way back, and he always gave me an extra cup of coffee, even on days when I couldn’t afford more than my regular meal. The mill had me whipped but I was determined to get in some more over-time if it killed me; I was still $400 short of my brother’s hospital bill, and I’d be damned if one more shift was the difference between him getting the help he needed, and not. I could barely see but I pulled my pick-up into the diner’s parking lot and was grateful they stayed open twenty-four seven. I needed to eat something before I went home and fell into bed to work another 18 hour shift.
The diner opened years before I was born, but Marcus hadn’t bought it from the old owner until I was seventeen, right before I joined the Marines. I remembered when he was just a server himself, still learning how to work the register and terrified of the deep fryer. That was a long time ago now, it felt like, although it’d only been ten years. Ten very, very long years.
I parked the truck and made my way through the door, listening to the little bell ring over my head and scanning the room automatically. I couldn’t help it; the training never left you. There were three guys sitting at the big round table in the corner being louder than the hour necessitated, but they were young, probably around twenty, and obviously a little drunk. There was another old vet at the counter; we’d served in different wars, obviously, me being at least two decades younger, but we understood one another very well and nodded without speaking. Marcus was in the back; I could hear him rattling around the pots and pans. I sat down at the counter and waited.
And waited.
I am a patient man. I have a bad temper, yes, and I’m not known for saying much, particularly anything very clever, but the one virtue anyone would agree I’ve always had, even before the military, is patience. I’ve always been able to wait. And wait. And wait.
But I was fucking tired. And cold, and hungry. Very hungry.
Without speaking, I stood up and looked through the plate rack back to the kitchen. Sure enough, there was Marcus, but he looked a little frazzled, as if he’d bitten off a big bite of something that he couldn’t quite swallow. And while he was standing still, looking frazzled, someone else was rattling around in the kitchen making all that racket.
Great. A new server.
I sighed and sat back down. Marcus got new people to work the graveyard shift all the time, and they never failed to fail. It was a difficult shift that didn’t promise a lot of tips, just a lot of harassment from the riff-raff that came in drunk or were too taciturn to be polite, like the other vet at the counter and me. I didn’t know his name—didn’t even know his regiment—but we’d been sitting at this counter every once in a while after a late shift for at least a year, since I got back from my second tour. He gave me a knowing look and then returned to his coffee. There was a new twinkle in his eye, though, that gave me pause, and when I finally saw the kitchen door swing open I immedi
ately understood why.
I didn’t believe in love at first sight—didn’t believe in anything, any more. But when I saw that girl for the first time I knew something was happening to me—love, a heart attack, or maybe God finally had pity on me for all the things that had gone wrong in my life and sent down an angel just to say hello, I don’t know. But something was happening, something big.
She was only five feet tall, I was sure, and had freckles the color of cinnamon spread out across a dainty nose. Giant brown eyes and copper waves of hair, lips a shade of red I’d seen far too many times in my life but these… These were living, bright and bold. And her shape… She was wearing a uniform that clearly belonged to someone else, as it was a little too big and fell down around her shoulder, revealing a turquoise bra strap that sent my stomach down to my knees. She needed that bra, because her breasts were pushing at the sack of that uniform even though the rest of her was tiny, and her hips were so round I could see them swinging, shifting the whole thing left and right. I tried to stop staring, but I couldn’t. And when she walked right up to me, picked up her pen and looked me straight in the eye, it took almost all of my will to speak words like a normal human and not just sling her over my shoulder and walk out the door.
“Hi!” She had a voice with a laugh tucked inside of it, as if everything amused her. “What can I get you?”
I ripped my eyes away from her face and stared down at the menu for a long minute before I was able to answer her question. I thought she might leave, but she didn’t, and when I looked back up she was calmly waiting, that smile still dancing on her full lips. I felt the scrutiny of her eyes but tried to concentrate on my order. “Cup of coffee, black. Whatever soup’s on special. Two sides of bacon.”