Beginning of Forever (Heaven Hill #7)

by Laramie Briscoe

  *

  “Do you wanna go on the Ferris wheel?” Tyler asked his two ladies as they walked The Island later on that night.

  “I don’t know.” Meredith grasped his hand in hers. “It seems so high up.”

  He laughed. “It’s a Ferris wheel. It’s supposed to be high up. It’s enclosed though, I bet it’s beautiful at night,” he kept at her. “What do you say, Addie? Wanna go?”

  She was excited because he was excited and squealed happily. “Yes!”

  “Then it’s settled. C’mon, scaredy cat.” He put his arm around Meredith and pulled her to the line.

  “Something tells me I’m not really gonna like this,” she whispered as they got to the person to pay. Before she could tell him not to pay, he’d already done so, they’d posed for a family photo, and they were stepping into the glass-enclosed space.

  “Let’s sit on this side,” Tyler told her, sitting Addie on his lap.

  She breathed a sigh of relief when she sat next to him and he put his arm around her, pulling her into his side. Deciding she should make the best of this, she grabbed her phone out of her pocket and extended her arm so that they could have a family selfie with the nighttime backdrop of Gatlinburg behind them. “Tyler, it’s so high up,” she whispered, as they got to the top and started to come back down.

  “It’s awesome.” He laughed, pulling her in for a kiss over Addie’s head.

  Opening her eyes when he pulled away, she dared to glance down. There she saw fountains that flashed different colors, dancing to a music beat she couldn’t hear up where they were. Swallowing thickly, she closed her eyes again. “It’s nice.” She licked her suddenly dry lips.

  “Liar.” He chuckled. “If you want, we can get off the next time it goes around, but I think Miss Addie likes it, don’t you?” He looked down at the girl, who hadn’t spoken a word or made a peep since they’d gotten into the gondola. Her eyes were wide and her mouth hung open.

  “Wow.” Meredith went over to the other side so that she could get a picture of them. “Something that made her speechless. We’ll have to remember this.”

  Normally she chatted all the time. Even if you couldn’t understand a word she said, she kept a steady stream of noises and words going most of the time.

  When they came around one more time, Tyler got the ride attendant’s attention so that they could exit. “What should we do next?” he asked them.

  Meredith checked her watch. “How about we get some ice cream and head back to the condo. We can get a good night’s rest. Tomorrow’s gonna be a big day ’cause we’re goin’ to the aquarium.”

  At the mention of the word, Addie’s eyes lit up. She’d been excited since the first mention of it, after Meredith had explained to her what it was.

  “I still think she just gets excited ’cause we’re excited,” Tyler whispered. “I feel like we could call her all kinds of bad names, and do it in that tone of voice, and she would think it’s the best thing ever.”

  “Tyler!”

  “What?” he questioned. “It’s not like I’ve done it before or anything.”

  She stopped walking in front of them and looked back at him. “Oh my God, you have. Haven’t you?”

  “It was a scientific experiment,” he defended himself. “I was tryin’ to learn something, and I did.”

  Meredith couldn’t stay mad at him; she’d never been able to stay mad at him long. “Don’t do it again.” She pointed her finger at him.

  He leaned in, grabbing her finger in between his teeth and nipping gently. “Yes ma’am.”

  There was something about the way he said the words that made her think she was in deep trouble when they got back to the condo and put Addie to bed.

  *

  “She’s down,” Tyler told her as he came out into the living area.

  “I was worried she’d have a hard time because it’s a new place for her. She’s used to the clubhouse and stuff.”

  He blew against his fingernails and rubbed them on his chest. “I’m that damn good.”

  She giggled as he scooped her up from the couch. They’d come in from having ice cream and had all taken showers or gotten baths, so her hair was still wet, as was his. “We shouldn’t go outside with wet hair,” she told him as she saw him point them towards the balcony.

  “It’s summer, wifey. Live a little.”

  There was a piece of her heart that got excited when he called her wifey; it made her a quivering mess, to be honest. Never in her life had she thought she’d be that person who would get caught up in labels, but that was one label she would never give up.

  “This place is gorgeous,” she told him as he took them out on the balcony and they had a seat on the lanai.

  He pulled her closer to him, tucking her in front of him. “It is,” he agreed. “There’s something about the way the lights move and the way you can look at and see them for miles. You don’t see that at home. It always looks so inviting and like people are having a good time all the time.”

  “The lights are probably to entice the kids and to make their parents pay a million dollars for all the fun things there are to do on the strip.” She laughed as she ran her hands up and down his legs.

  “Good point, but you have to admit, we spent a pretty penny tonight, and Addie’s not really even old enough to enjoy much of this. We’re suckers.”

  “That we are.” She leaned back and angled her head so she could see him. “She’s worth bein’ a sucker for, though. There isn’t anything that I wouldn’t do for her.”

  “I agree with that.”

  A thought occurred to Meredith. She quickly glanced to the sides and saw that no one could see them from the sides; no one could see them from the front either. Even though they faced the strip, there was no way for people to see their balcony. Turning over onto her knees, she gifted him with a saucy smile. “There’s nothin’ I wouldn’t do for you either.”

  He knew that; she’d told him that many times over the course of their relationship, but there was something about the way she was looking at him, something about the way the air had changed between them.

  “What do you have in mind?” he asked, wanting to know what was going on inside that head of hers.

  The saucy smile turned downright sexy as she reached for the hem of her shirt and took it off. For the first time he noticed she hadn’t worn a bra after her shower. “Why don’t you sit back, relax, and I’ll show you exactly what I had in mind.”

  ‡

  Chapter Thirteen

  The air whooshed out of his lungs as she leaned forward and bunched his shorts at his knees, effectively hobbling him from moving. When they’d come out to the patio, this hadn’t really even been a blip on his radar, but his dick had gotten hard in .02 seconds.

  “Goddamn, Mer,” he breathed out. “What the fuck are you doin’?”

  “If you don’t know, then I must be doing it wrong.” Her eyes met his, and she gathered her long hair in one hand before she leaned forward and circled the head of his manhood with her mouth.

  Throwing his head back against the cushioned furniture, he closed his eyes as he gasped deep breaths into his lungs. It had been far too long since they’d taken time to play like this—even the other night at the pool had been somewhat different from the things they’d used to do, because they knew someone else was watching Addie. This was different, this was a side of his wife he hadn’t seen in a long time, and if he was honest, he’d missed it. Tangling his fingers in her hair, he grasped the back of her head. “Loosen up those jaws, sweetheart,” he instructed.

  She did as he told her to, and immediately he slipped further back into her throat. Meredith felt tears gather at the corners of her eyes. She was out of practice and had to take a minute to breathe through the panic. When she felt the feeling subside, she slightly nodded, and Tyler began pumping his hips towards her, pulling her head down with the pressure on her neck.

  Letting one hand slip from her neck, he reached down to
where her unbound breasts hung and grabbed one. “Help me,” he begged her.

  She used her hand to help him wrap her flesh around his.

  This was something out of a wet dream he’d had once but had never been able to participate in. He wasn’t sure what had overcome Meredith, but he was not letting her back out of this. Below them, he could see cars driving along the main strip, but he knew they were far enough away that no one could make them out. It gave their encounter a forbidden and illicit feel, though. He hadn’t been this excited since he was a teenager.

  “Can you take it deeper?” he questioned, his voice soft as he moved his hand from the nape of her neck to cup her jaw. His touch was as soft as his voice, and he groaned as she responded to him with a vigor she’d never had before. Apparently vacation sex was something that his wife approved of.

  Moving his hand from her jaw, he put his hand over hers and gripped her tightly around his cock. The warmth of her mouth, the enthusiasm with which she was using to go down on him, and the mere fact that she was the one doing this for him was enough to send him over the edge. Before he could warn her, his body exploded like a body rocket and he was spilling into her mouth.

  “Motherfucking son of a bitch,” he breathed out, his stomach and chest pumping to get oxygen in his lungs. She’d taken him. He couldn’t believe it. His eyes rolled in the back of his head and sweat poured down his neck as he laid his head back against the cushion of the lounger. It was difficult to catch his breath; she’d rocked his world that hard.

  “You okay?” she asked, giggling when he moaned, not able to form words yet.

  “I think you literally blew my mind. I’m not even sure what my name is. If anyone were to ask me pertinent questions right now, it’d be a whole lot of I have no idea.”

  She was pleased with herself as she moved so she straddled his waist. It had been a long time since she’d left him with that smile on his face. It’d been a long time, period, since she’d thrown caution to the wind and not had one ear out for Addie. It was nice, focusing all her attention on him she realized now that she’d missed it. Obviously he had too.

  “Give me a few minutes.” He was still breathing heavily, but the smile on his face was the best present she’d ever been given. Pulling her up his body, his lips met hers. Their tongues tangled together as he jerked her mouth to his and rolled them over so that he could pin her against the cushions.

  “My turn to play,” he whispered as his dark eyes looked into hers.

  There was something there that turned her mouth dry, it felt like sawdust coated it, and she wasn’t sure she could form words. After she’d taken a bath, she’d only put on a shirt and a pair of boy shorts. The shirt was gone, and the only thing that separated them now was the flimsy clothing of her boy shorts.

  “Tyler…”

  His name whispered on a groan like the one she let out could have been angels singing, the way it affected him. Wanting to hear more of that sound, he moved down her body so he could capture her beaded flesh in between his teeth. Going for broke, he moved his hand down her body and moved the cloth of her boy shorts to the side, dipping a finger inside her warmth.

  Grasping his hair in her fingers, she pulled roughly. “God,” she groaned.

  He knew he was getting to her when she spread her legs wider for him. It was a tell tale sign of hers that he’d learned early on in their relationship, and uninhibited Meredith was a sexy as hell Meredith. “What do you need?” Making her tell him what she wanted was sometimes the best part of what they did together.

  “You.” She pulled her bottom lip in between her teeth and thrashed her head against the lounger.

  Pulling her flesh between his teeth, he tugged harder before letting her go. “Be more specific, baby. What do you need?”

  “Make love to me,” she begged, threading her fingers through his hair and pulling him down to her.

  “You sure you want me to do that?” he teased, moving back up to her lips. Sometimes they weren’t all pretty, they’d moved on from that at some point in their relationship. Gone was the woman who’d been battered and scared. She’d come out the other side a different person, one confident in her husband and in her sexuality.

  “No,” she breathed, moaning as he slid his fingers deeper inside her body. “I want you to fuck me.”

  He smiled against her lips. “It will be my absolute pleasure.”

  There were times in their relationship when his wife tried his patience, and this was one of those times. She never knew how hot she was, never knew how sexy she could be. It was a mystery to him how she didn’t see herself through his eyes, but he loved to show her.

  Somehow, before they even knew it, he’d entered her body and she’d wrapped her arms and legs around him, giving herself over completely to him. It did things to him, the way she tilted her head back and gave him free rein. There had never been another woman in his life who’d trusted him so much. There had never been another woman he’d wanted to trust him that much, and to know he’d been lucky enough to get it on the first try? Fuck, it obliterated him every time.

  Tilting her head back up, her brown eyes met his, and he knew he saw forever there. No matter any arguments they had, any misunderstandings there were, he would never let her go. She was his until death or until the end of time. They had what it took to make it, and he would never do anything to jeopardize the life they had built with one another.

  A small smile tilted the corner of her mouth. “You can move faster, move harder, do it like you mean it.”

  When he growled, a giggle escaped and she shrieked, holding on tight as he did exactly what she’d asked of him.

  ‡

  Chapter Fourteen

  They were both moving decidedly slower than normal the next morning, but they exchanged secret smiles and glances with one another—something they hadn’t been able to do in a while.

  “Did you sleep well?” Meredith asked him as she poured some cereal for Addie.

  Addie wasn’t a morning person, so they always put in extra time for her to have time to wake up. Normally by the time she’d eaten her breakfast and gotten dressed and had her hair done, she was good to go. She wasn’t one of those children who could hop out of bed and be in a great mood the rest of the day if they immediately left to run errands.

  “Better than I have in a long time.” He grinned over his ever-present skull coffee mug at her.

  They were only in their second day of their vacation, but she was excited that they’d decided to come on it. She truly hadn’t realized how stressed she was at home. There was no tension in her neck, no headache waiting to come on. This was exactly what she had needed. “Me too.” She smiled widely up at him.

  In her high chair, Addie beat her fists against the tray.

  “You done?” Tyler asked her.

  She nodded and he unhooked the tray, grabbing her up out of it. “I’ll get her cleaned up, if you want to finish gettin’ ready.”

  Meredith looked down at the shorts she wore from the night before and realized she did need to finish getting ready. “Thanks, probably shouldn’t go out and about like this.”

  “I’m not complaining.” He winked as he took Addie towards the sink to wipe her mouth and hands. “Look at you,” he playfully scowled at her. “Got such a big mess.” He leaned in, blowing raspberries on her cheek. It was her favorite thing for him to do to. She squealed happily and grabbed fistfuls of his hair, yanking. He knew he should scold her for it, she couldn’t go around grabbing everyone’s hair, but he didn’t. He let her do what made her happy.

  “Da,” she squealed, giggling when he leaned in again.

  Every time he heard that word, it made his chest swell, and he lost a piece of his heart to her. Bringing her into their lives had made an already full life even more so. Without a doubt, he knew he would lay his life on the line for her and do whatever it took to protect her from the evils of the world. “Love you,” he told her, scooping her up in his arms and hugging h
er close to him.

  “Love you,” she told him back. One of the new phrases she’d learned and had taken to saying. She repeated it, just like she knew what it meant, and he prayed that she did, because there was no small amount of love in this household.

  “You two ready?” Meredith asked, breaking up the moment.

  He turned with Addie in his arms and wolf-whistled. She wore a tank top and a pair of capris with sandals and her hair in a ponytail.

  “Stop.” She laughed as she reached for toddler in his arms. “We need to make sure and put some sunblock on her. She’ll be out most of the day, and not everybody in the world is blessed with your skin tone.” She quirked her lip up at him.

  “I’m perfection.” He shrugged. “Not many can live up to this.”

  As she finished spreading sunblock on Addie, Meredith snorted and grabbed up her diaper bag. “C’mon, oh magnificent one…we’re gonna have some fun.”

  *

  “This shit is a rip-off,” Tyler mumbled to Meredith as they stood in line to buy tickets for the aquarium. “We’re in the wrong damn business.”

  “Stop.” She laughed, switching Addie over to her other side. “It’s a tourist trap, yes, but she’ll have fun and hopefully we will too.”

  Reaching out, he grabbed Addie from her. No matter how much the child weighed, he easily shouldered it for hours; Meredith wasn’t sure how he did it. When it was their turn, she stepped forward and paid the entrance fee, shooting a look back at him.

  They made their way into the building, and both she and Tyler watched Addie carefully. They hadn’t introduced many animals to her, but when she encountered them, she loved them, so they figured she’d love this place.

  “Look at that, Addie.” Meredith pointed to a large glass enclosure that held a large fish. “Look how big he is.”

  Addie’s mouth hung open, much like it had the night before on the Ferris wheel.

  “I think we are totally rocking her world,” Tyler whispered, holding his hand up for a high-five.