She makes a face, looking around at all the people who have gathered. There’s a sound in the room as everyone gets offended for her, at least the people old enough to realize what he’d meant.
“Then the jerk made a comment about knowing where she lived because he’d picked her up, and how he was going to invite himself in.” I pick up the story. “At that point, I knew I had to step in.”
She giggles. “I remember him pulling up a chair, and when I glanced over I was in shock. I’d never seen a guy as gorgeous as you, hot stuff.”
“That’s right, eat your heart out.” I give a wink as I look around. Moving my hands up from her waist, I cup her jawline. “But I’d honestly never seen anyone as beautiful as you. And it pissed me off that this guy was scaring you and didn’t realize what he had sitting there right in front of him. I knew pretty quickly that I wanted you in my life.”
“You did?” she asks softly, almost as if she doesn’t believe I knew almost immediately, and I can tell why she wonders. It took me forever to tell her my feelings. But that was more me than it ever was her.
“I did.” I lean down kissing her lightly on the lips. “Then the months of amazingness came, and I wondered what I’d done to deserve it, waited for the bad thing – whatever it was going to be – to happen. Because, babe, with me, there’s always something right around the corner.”
I hear sniffles in the room, can see tears in Ruby’s eyes, and I know she’s thinking back to the summer. How I pushed her away, how I was a fucking asshole, just trying to cope with the bullshit that was handed to me. “But you didn’t leave me, Ruby Red. You kept fighting for me, for us. It wasn’t long after that, I knew you were the one.”
“It took that long?” She pinches my arm as everyone laughs through their tears.
“I knew it before then, but it took me longer to admit it. Sometimes, I’m slow. You know this.”
She leans in, kissing my jawline. “Doesn’t matter, Caleb, I love you just the way you are.”
My heart pounds in my chest so loudly I’m surprised she and everyone around, doesn’t hear it. “You do love me. Anyone who didn’t, wouldn’t have been able to put up with me for those weeks while I did everything I could to push you away.” I swallow roughly. “They wouldn’t have stayed, they wouldn’t have listened to the shit I spewed and still kept coming back for more.”
“Caleb…”
“No.” I put my finger up to her lips. “Let me finish. You’re the strongest woman I know besides my mom, it takes a strong woman to love me. For all my goodness, I have a lot of faults. For all my strengths, baby, I have a ton of weaknesses. But with you beside me, they don’t cripple me. Not like they used to. I’ve learned that instead of pushing you away, I need to lean on you. That when I’m not strong, you are. When I’m faced with a mountain of self-doubt, you’re right there beside me when we scale it, go over it, and conquer that bitch.”
She laughs, as does everyone else. It makes me feel like I’m doing a good job, and I’m not fucking this completely up.
“You love me, you love my sister, and that means more to me than anything in this world. I waited a long time for her, as you’ve come to know.” I grin. “But I’ve waited even longer for you, Ruby Red. I didn’t know it, didn’t realize it, but everyday we’re together I’m reminded of what my life could be like without you. I smile so much now, I laugh, I get this fluttery feeling in my stomach and chest when I see you.”
“I get it too,” she whispers, standing up on tiptoe to kiss the dimple in my cheek. “Every time I see that strut you have, the swagger, the attitude. Every damn time.”
“You’re beautiful, and you’re too good for me, but I don’t want to ever let you go, don’t think I ever can let you go.” I lean my forehead into hers, closing my eyes as I breathe deeply.
It takes a lot of courage to bare yourself in front of your friends and family, in front of the woman you want to spend the rest of your life with. But I’ll do it anytime I need to for the woman whose forehead touches mine. Taking a big inhale, I remove my forehead from hers, reach into my pocket for the ring, and take a knee in front of her.
The whole place loses it, as does she. There’s already tears streaming down her face, and fuck it, I’m feeling choked up too. This is the culmination of a lifetime of not feeling like I’m good enough, and I’m about to ask this woman if I truly am good enough for her. There’s a chance she could say no. I don’t think she will, but there’s always a fucking chance. I push that thought out of my head and forge on with what I want, more than anything.
“Ruby Red, will you do me the absolute privilege of letting me take care of you the rest of your life? You can take care of me too.” I bite my lip, trying to hold back the emotion. It’s threatening though, threatening to break free and show everyone just how much this woman means to me. “We can do this thing you’ve taught me – ya know? Take care of each other. We can wake up together every day, go to sleep together most nights – when Havoc doesn’t have me working night shift.”
The guys laugh, and so does she.
“But more than anything, I’ll have a partner. We can eat junk food, watch stupid TV, walk in the rain, and do everything either of us have ever wanted to. Bonus is we don’t have to do it alone.”
She leans down, caressing my face. “You’re never gonna be alone again, hot stuff.”
“Do life with me? Be my best friend? Be the amazing mom to my kids I know you’ll be? Marry me?”
“Yes!” she screams loudly as she launches herself at me, knocking me to my back on the floor.
I close my arms around her, holding her tightly to me, whispering so many words, I don’t even know what they are. She’s straddling my waist, kissing my neck, mouth, every piece of skin she can get to. I’m kissing her too, giving her everything she’s giving me. Eventually as everyone surrounds us, they pick us up, and I put the ring on her finger.
Eventually I feel someone tugging at my waist. I look down and see Kels. “Yeah?”
She reaches up, hugging me tight. I pick her up, so that I can hear her above all the noise. Ruby comes to us. With a huge smile on Kels face, she says what I’m sure she’s wanted to say a long time. “Told you both you were gonna get married, and now she really is going to be my sister!”
A while later, Dad pulls me aside. “How does it feel?”
I look up at him, because he’s still a little taller than me. “Just like you said it would. It feels good to be wanted.”
“You’ll never know what it’s like to be alone again.” He hugs me tightly.
And I realize he’s right. What my mom did to me, didn’t define me. It never has, and with Ruby Red by my side, I’m never going to feel like the kid who wasn’t good enough again.
As I walk over to her, scooping her up in my arms, twirling her around, Leigh brings out the food she’s prepared. I realize this is the beginning of my journey. It’s not the end, not the middle.
This is where Caleb Harrison beats the odds and becomes the man he’s always been meant to be.
EPILOGUE
Cruise
Five Years Later
“Molly’s asleep.” I press my wife up against the door to our bedroom, spreading open-mouth kisses along her neck as we grind against one another. Pulling back, I push my hands up her tank top, palming her breasts, moaning as I feel her nipples peak against her bra. “I paid Kelsea her stupid-ass babysitting fee, she’s gone. We’re alone.” I can hear the annoyance in my voice. It’s been an on-going argument between the two of us, how I’d watched her for free as a kid, and now she charges us.
We’ve been out with friends and family, had a DD, and both of us have had a little too much to drink. Her with the margaritas she likes to indulge in with the ladies, and me with the whiskey Morgan and I were shooting straight with my dad.
“God, I want you.” She rakes her nails across my neck, down my back, and fists my shirt in her hands.
I want her too. Molly is three now, born within the fi
rst two years of us getting married, and we’ve finally got this parenting thing down. But for the last few years, we’ve been winging it, quickies while she’s napping, weekend fuck fests when we can both get the time off and grandparents are willing to take her, but all of it is planned. There’s really no spontaneity anymore, except tonight. This right here, is the most spontaneous we’ve been since we brought Molly home from the hospital. It’s not planned, set aside time to be with one another. It’s this crazy passionate moment where she’s been teasing my cock all night, and as soon as the bedroom door had shut, I couldn’t wait to get my mouth and hands on her, cock inside her.
“Fuck, I want you too,” I moan as I finish pushing the tank top up and over her head. My hands are clumsy as I pull down the lace cups of her bra, those tight nipples calling to me, making my mouth water as I lean my head down and take first one, then the other deep, twirling my tongue around them. When I lean back to admire my handiwork, I see the evidence of the moisture of my mouth there, bringing my thumbs up to worry the nubs into even harder points.
“Damn it, I ache for you.” She’s pushing her core hard against my cock.
I haven’t been this drunk in a long time, and all I know is I want to fuck. It’s the only thing I want to do when I get this far gone. “I ache for you too.” I hold her against the door with one hand, while with the other I tear at my belt, push my boxers down, and free my engorged dick. “Shit, that feels better.” I lick the palm of my hand, bringing it in between her thighs, where the only thing covering her is a short skirt, and some skimpy as fuck lace panties. My girl knew what she wanted tonight when she got dressed.
“Really, Red? Lace bra and panties? Were you horny? Did you want to tempt me? Is that why you couldn’t keep your hands off me under the table tonight?”
Her head falls back against the door, a loud bang, that I pray to God doesn’t wake up our daughter. “Yeah.” She thrusts against my fingers. “I need you, hot stuff, need you so bad.”
When I push inside her, throwing my head back, because every time with her is always like the first time, she gasps loudly.
“Babe, do you have a condom?”
What the fuck? “No, we’re married. What the hell Ruby?”
“I’m late in getting my birth control renewed. You know, with us having two more-than-full-time-jobs, a child, life. I don’t have an appointment until the end of next month.”
But that doesn’t stop her from grinding on my length. “You keep doing that, and there’s no chance in hell I’ll be able to pull out,” I groan loudly, wrapping my forearms around her thighs, as I walk us over to the bed, throwing her down as I climb on top of her, and really give my hips room to work.
“Feels so good.” She claws at my shirt, fisting it as she pulls it off my body, running her hands along my chest, tweaking my nipples how I like it.
“Fuck, Red.” I’m trying to keep it together here, but she’s not making things easy. She’s thrusting against me, and I’m pushing into her, the bed is hitting against the wall, and neither one of us are caring about the noise we’re making. That’s when I feel it, the tingle in my lower back. Separating from a kiss that’s out of control, I pant. “Gotta stop, babe, we need to stop. I’m gonna come.” I try to prevent my dick from pushing inside her, try to pull away. I give it a valiant effort, but at the last second, she thrusts up. “Gotta come.” And right as I feel my cock pulse, she encloses me with her wet heat. “Fuck,” I groan out for more reasons that one, as she trembles around my body, holding me tightly.
Long minutes later, we’re still lying connected, each panting as we try to get our breath back. “I tried,” I breathe into her neck. “I love you, so I tried.”
“I know.” Her breath tickles the skin of my ear as she giggles in that way tipsy people do. “I don’t think the timing was right anyway. I’ve only been without birth control for a week or so, it’s probably still in my system. We’re good, hot stuff. Either way, I love you for trying.”
Ruby
A Few Weeks Later
“Before I give you the prescription. is there any chance you could be pregnant?” My OB/GYN asks as I sit in her office, having already done all the other examinations I need to get my birth control refilled.
“No,” I answer, but then that super-hot night where Caleb and I didn’t use anything comes to the forefront of my mind. “Wait, yes. There was one time, a week after my birth control ran out, but I figured it’d still be in my system, and it was only once,” I shrug. “Although I haven’t had a period since then, and I have been feeling a little off the past few days, I just figured it was stress.”
“Once is all it takes,” she laughs. “Let me go ahead and take some blood. We’ll run the test, call, and let you know.”
Sitting in the chair, waiting to have my blood drawn, is the most nerve-wracking experience ever. Molly had been planned; we’d gone into it with the decision we wanted a baby, had bought a house in preparation of her coming, not too far from either one of our parents’ and had done it by the book. This is giving me anxiety. This, if it turns out to be positive, has not been planned. As I get up from the chair, I’m a little dizzy, causing me to sit back down for a minute while they wrap my arm with gauze. “I haven’t eaten today,” I explain when they look at me funny.
When I leave, I head straight for The Café, where Caleb and I are meeting for a rare lunch date. As I walk in and look around for my husband, I’m struck with how hot he looks sitting in the booth, Molly sitting on his lap, him holding his phone, so they can watch something. He’s got his chin resting on her head, and they’re engrossed in whatever it is. Fuck he’s hot when he’s being such a good dad. As I get closer, his head lifts, and the smile that spreads across his face makes my heart pound faster. Getting up out of the booth, he carefully sets Molly down, before meeting me and wrapping his arms around me.
“Hey, Red, what’s with the arm?” I kiss him softly before we snuggle into the booth together, sitting next to one another. “By the way, I already ordered for you.”
That’s the good thing about having a husband that knows you so well. He knows what you like, when you’re freaking out, and when something is going on. The waitress comes, dropping off a water for me with lemon. I offer her a smile, before I turn to my husband.
“They had to do blood work.”
Immediately, those brown eyes of his are worried. “Something wrong?”
Looking around, to make sure none of our families are here, I lean in. “I had to take a pregnancy test. Ya know, because of that night?”
“Shit, it was once, I mean that doesn’t happen, right?”
“Karina said it happened for her and your dad.” I push my hand through my hair. “It wouldn’t be an awful thing, I’ve been thinking about it.” I hook my arm into his elbow. “Granted it wasn’t planned like Molly, but if it happens, it happens.”
* * *
Eight months later as I’m holding my son, Levi, in my arms waiting for my in-laws and Molly to come meet him, I glance up at my husband and smile.
“Are you happy, Red?” He leans down, pushing the blanket back from Levi’s face.
“Very! Tired, but happy.”
When the door opens and they walk in, Molly slowly makes her way over, before I reach out with my hand, smiling at her. She smiles back at me, the same smile her dad has. “Come meet your little brother,” I encourage her, glancing at her “Big Sister” shirt.
Caleb stands next to his dad, the two of them patting each other on the back. Mason folds his arms over his chest. “What did y’all end up naming him?”
“Levi Mason Harrison,” he says the words like they’re no big deal, but when we get to his middle name, Mason and Karina gasp, and I can feel the emotion in the room.
My husband looks at his dad. “A strong name for my son that matches the strongest man I know.”
As I watch them embrace and hand Levi over to Kelsea, I reach down to my phone and take a picture.
; Two men, thrown away by one woman, who overcame every obstacle to be the amazing people they are today. If that’s not a testament to love, I don’t know what is.
In this moment, Caleb and Mason Harrison, they set the bar for this baby held in his aunt’s arms, and they show Kelsea who real men are. And the one on the left who wears the ring I put on his finger? He shows me loyalty, compassion, and the love of a great man every day.
If anyone asked me to describe him?
Caleb Harrison. Good man, wonderful father, and the greatest love of my life.
The End
Click here for a bonus Cruise scene!
The MVP Duet featuring Slater “Savage” Harlow is next!
On the DL – July 20th
MVP – August 3rd
SNEAK PEEK OF
ON THE DL
PROLOGUE
Savage
March
My gaze is intensely focused, watching as the pitcher on the mound of dirt checks the runner on first base, and then throws a fast ball towards home plate. Me and him? We’ve faced each other twenty times, and I’m batting about fifty percent. He’s one of the few in the league that’s stumped me.
When he rears back to throw again, I take my practice swing, imagining the bat connects with the leather covered baseball, that it goes over the fence, and I’ve defeated one of my foes. Instead, my teammate strikes out to the annoyance of every fan behind me.
“Batting third, Center Fielder, Slater “Savage” Harlowe!”
The roar of the crowd is deafening. I’m a fan favorite, and have been since I was called up from the minors. Even in spring training, people come to see me. It’s not cocky when it’s the truth, and I’m the real fuckin’ deal.
When I get to the batter’s box, my eyes connect with his. Every single person I face when my feet plant in the dirt, I stare down. There’s no way in hell I want any of them to know they intimidate me. The first pitch is a ball, second is a strike, and the third one is a fuck up on his part. It’s huge as it comes to me, in what seems to be slow motion. As I situate my body to send this ball over the fence, I plant my foot down and turn into the swing. As I do, my cleat catches on something, chances are, I’ll never know what.
Cruise Page 20