His eyes narrow, his gaze assessing. Once he’s come to his conclusion, his head tips slightly.
“No fun?” He reaches up to graze my neck with his thumb, his voice low. “Holly.”
He leans in and presses kisses at the trail his thumb tracked, his lips ending at mine, but he doesn’t touch them; instead, he hovers, his warm breath mingling with mine, creating heat and tension.
“I’m pretty sure I can manage a little fun, don’t you think?”
And just like that, I’m back on board, desperate for him to press his lips against mine.
“Yes,” I breathe out, grabbing onto his t-shirt with both hands. “I want fun, I want fun so bad.”
“Then let’s go have a little fun.”
He pulls away without ever fully kissing me to buckle his seatbelt and start the car, and while his hands stay firm at ten and two on the wheel (precious cargo, you know), mine roam all over his body, under his t-shirt, over his pants, everywhere I can reach. He chuckles low and deep and it makes me hungry for his skin, to press my lips to his throat so that I can feel the vibration.
“Mama, just hang on,” he tells me gently, keeping my hands away from the part of him I want to touch most.
The car stops and, yay!, we’re home.
“Wait, why are we here?” I whine, looking at the front of Red’s Surf shop instead of our house.
“Because Grace is going to take Lennon for a little while,” he grabs my face and kisses me hard. “I want you all to myself, Mama, no interruptions.”
“Yes, great idea, best ever,” I kiss him back. “I’ll just wait here because I’m embarrassed.”
“Alright,” he smiles against my lips. “Be right back.”
With the efficiency of a highly trained Marine, he’s got Lennon (in her car seat) and her diaper bag out of the car and into the shop.
“If I touch you now, we may not make it home,” he says, climbing back in and buckling right up, keeping his hands to himself.
“Okay, I can wait that long.” I follow his lead and keep my hands to myself, but my eyes linger on all my favorite parts of him. Snippets of memories of him bare-chested, after a run, salty and wet from surfing, his hand rubbing against his scruffy cheek, flood my mind. This is weeks and weeks of pent up lust, folks, coming to a head right now.
The car isn’t even turned off before I’m unbuckled and we’re flying in through the front door.
“The first time, we did it here, against the wall,” he reminds me, pressing my body against my living room wall.
“Yes, I remember.” I can barely talk, I’m so distracted by his hands. “Take your shirt off.”
“Who’s bossy now?”
“Me. Me, I’m bossy, and I order you to take your shirt off.”
His hands still while his eyes meet mine. Hello, stormy eyes.
In slow motion, he reaches behind his neck, grabs his shirt, like he’s done so many times after his run, and pulls his t-shirt off. And then he’s there and I’m here, free to touch as I please, and I do. My hands move over his chest and his abs, and around to his back. His skin is warm and smooth, except for the patch of hair at his chest and the one that leads down into his jeans.
“I want you so naked,” I breathe out, my eyes unable to focus on just one spot.
“So, am I to understand that you’re all good now?”
“What do you mean?” I ask, not really paying attention because…Dean has no shirt on.
“Whatever the doctor said, it looked like it freaked you out. You good now?”
“I’m good, but I’d be better if you were naked.”
The look on his face makes me pause and attempt to focus.
“Yeah, I’m good, I am. I was a little freaked out, but, just take it slow.”
“Slow?” He asks, lifting an eyebrow, a grin creeping across his face.
“I mean, not too slow.”
“Just talk to me, Mama, okay? Tell me what you need and I’ll give it to you.”
My head hits the wall. Would I ever get used to how horribly sweet and thoughtful Dean Slade is?
“I will.”
And it’s like those words are his permission, his trigger to give me all he’s got. His lips meet my neck, his hands go up under my shirt, and we spend a solid handful of minutes making out up against the wall before he throws me over his shoulder with a growl and hauls me off to our bedroom. The bed isn’t made, hasn’t been made since Lennon came along, which is okay since we’d just mess it all up, anyway.
He tosses me onto the mattress (such an animal) and yanks my pants off with such graceful efficiency. It’s when he moves to relieve me of my shirt that I remember I just had a baby.
“Okay, wait,” I tell him, grabbing his hands at my stomach.
“What?” He stops instantly.
I open my mouth, but nothing comes out.
“It’s just, well, remember how my stomach looked a mere six weeks ago?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, well, just remember that when you take off my shirt, okay? Remember that six weeks ago, our tiny baby was in here,” I gesture towards my squishy belly, “and a body needs more than six weeks to recover-“
My words are cut off by the feeling of his lips against the skin just above my panty line.
“You,” kiss, “are,” kiss, “perfect,” kiss. “A body that can produce the most perfect baby in the world is beautiful, okay?”
His chin rests on me while his eyes catch mine. “Okay?”
“Okay.”
And, there goes my shirt.
“Also, remember, I’m nursing, so my boobs-“
“Holly, shut up.”
I comply. And I’m so glad I do because Dean makes it his mission (get it, cuz he’s a Marine) to make our first time together post-baby amazing (there’s a slight hiccup when I have to run down the hallway half-naked to retrieve the samples of lube and birth control Dr. Graysen had given me from my purse, but it’s cool, we laughed it off and got back down to business).
Have you ever found yourself pressed snugly against the bare chest of the man you didn’t even know you dreamed of, your beautiful sleeping baby in a bassinet next to you, relaxed to oblivion because you’d been loved to heaven and back? Well I hadn’t either…until tonight. Until right this very moment. And good gravy, Dean Slade’s lips and hands are magnificent. They are magical. Ladies and Gentlemen, they are metaphysical (as in, not of this world). But then again, so is his brain, and so is his heart.
As far as I’m concerned, no man prior to Dean matters. And I was not this woman, mind you. I did not fall in love with men I picked up in bars, I didn’t give my heart away, and I certainly didn’t plan for forever. But then again, I never thought Dean Slade was an option.
Epilogue
Holly
“Dean, give me that baby,” Grace all but stomps her foot in demand. “It’s not fair, you get to hold her all the time, I don’t.”
“I do not get to hold her all the time, I work all week long and besides, I’m her dad.”
I watch Lennon’s little head twist back and forth between her daddy and her auntie, trying to keep up with their sibling tiff. Alright, enough. I stand from my seat in his parent’s backyard and saunter over, taking Lennon from Dean’s lap and placing her in Grace’s arms. Grace smiles, immediately turning all of her attention to our sweet baby girl; Dean scowls, until I replace Lennon’s body with my own, settling into his lap.
“Yeah, now this is a compromise I can deal with,” he says, low and gravelly, sticking his face in my neck.
“Behave,” I command. He nips my collarbone in response.
It’s Sunday and we’ve come to Dean’s parent’s house for barbecue, as has Grace and her family, Bear and his wife, Barney and his family, Red and Babe, some guy named Finn, and a few other people I don’t really know. It’s September, the most beautiful time of the year in our neck of the woods, as it’s when the weather is at its warmest, and we’re here celebrating Dean’s bir
thday; he turned thirty-six a few days ago (I’d horded him all to myself on his actual birthday). We’d eaten burgers and sang to him before slicing up the cake, and it’s a pretty perfect scene, surrounded by family and friends in this picturesque place we live. I was feeling good, feeling happy, feeling stronger and more confident than I ever had in my life.
Lennon is only six months old, but already, it’s like I can’t remember a time she wasn’t a part of my life. Her hair has stayed dark, like Dean’s, but her eyes are bright blue like her Mama’s. There is not a single storm cloud brewing inside this happy little baby, and I can only hope it stays that way her whole life. She really is such an easy-going, happy girl; I don’t know who she takes after. Perhaps it’s her Great-Uncle Red.
Dean pulls me in closer to his body, his right hand wrapping around my legs, his left around my hips. We’ve grown stronger, too. I’m actually pretty proud of us. Dean’s work schedule makes things interesting, as he’s gone most the week, but we’ve been fortunate to have help from his family in taking care of Lennon, now that I’ve gone back to work. And we talk every single day, usually video chat so Lennon can get in on the fun, but also, late at night sometimes, just him and me. Every so often, he’ll make the trip home for the night because he misses us. He admitted to feeling split between the two places, so when Lennon was about a month old, he rented his own little apartment, that way Lennon and I could stay with him during the week when school was out. We were being flexible, we were compromising, and we weren’t going to give up. He had all of me, all of my heart, all of my trust, and I received the same from him. Some of our conversations were tough; when he chose to share memories of deployment, about some of the things that haunted him, those were the toughest. It took him a little while to come back to us after those conversations, but he always did-usually after surfing.
“What’d you get Dean for his birthday, Holly?” Bear asks, taking a seat near us.
“Oh, he didn’t really want anything,” I answer, hoping like heck I don’t blush. I was not about to discuss what exactly I gave Dean for his birthday, it was a gift of a personal nature.
“She is gift enough,” Dean says.
“Uh huh, I’m sure she is,” Bear responds, and Dean laughs silently, his chest bouncing against my arm, his warm breath puffing against my neck.
“When are you two gonna get married?”
I’m about to roll my eyes when Dean answers, “Well, Bear, funny you should ask,” and pulls a box out of his pocket, setting it gently in my lap.
He uses the fingers of his right hand to pry the top open and inside is a gorgeous, art deco diamond ring. The center diamond is round, a pale turquoise color, with small white diamonds surrounding it.
I’m stunned.
I was not expecting this.
My eyes lock onto his and everyone, now silent, fades away.
“Holly, will you marry me?”
His eyes are so clear, so heartbreakingly pure; I can’t possibly imagine a future where I don’t look at those eyes every day.”
I slide my hands down from where they’re covering my open mouth and whisper, “Yes.”
His nimble fingers slide the diamond out of its bed and onto my finger where it looks so good, then he wraps my face up in his capable hands and kisses the hell out of me. It’s a good thing I’m wearing pants because, that way, when I straddle his body to kiss him better, it’s only mildly indecent.
“I love you, Mama,” he growls into my mouth. “A whole fucking lot.”
“Me too, Dean.” My arms are banded around his neck, I feel like I can’t get close enough.
“Say the words, Holly.”
“I love you, Dean.” I’d learned to choose my battles when it came to Dean’s issuing commands, and, really, telling him I loved him was an easy capitulation.
It took several moments for me to realize our family and friends were cheering and clapping and, after a good deal of kissing, catcalling.
Cue the blush. In our first picture of us as an engaged couple (if you didn’t count the one Bear took of me straddling Dean like a wanton hussy), my face is red as a tomato. But my smile is so big, my eyes are bright, and I look ridiculously happy.
Later that night, after the party, after we get Lennon home and laid down, asleep in her crib, Dean pulls me down to our bed with greedy hands.
“I want another baby, Holly,” he says between kisses.
“Wait, what?” I halt all foreplay. “Did you just tell me you want another baby?”
“Yes,” he affirms, trying to pull me back down.
“You do realize our first baby is only six months old. I’m still nursing, she’ll be in diapers for at least another year and a half.”
“So?”
“We just got engaged.”
“So?”
Gah, he’s strong. He’s managed to pin me down under him on the mattress, those greedy hands back to groping.
“I will not be a pregnant bride.” As much as I liked those stretchy maternity pants, I was not interested in getting married in a pair of them.
“Well, then hurry up and plan a wedding.”
“Dean Slade! Get your-stop-would you just-gah!” I push with all my strength and only manage to get him to lift his chest off of me. “Just slow down a minute and talk to me.”
He sighs, resigned to pausing our naked times.
“Holly, you have given me a life I never could have imagined, and I guess I’m a greedy fucking bastard because I just want more. I want more babies, I wanna watch your belly grow with our baby from day one, I want a redhead, curly-haired little girl, I want a son, I want a hundred years of living here with you, and I don’t want to wait.”
Oh, sheesh, like I even stand a chance against this man.
“Dean,” I whisper, wrapping my hands around his face. I can think of a hundred reasons for absolutely not getting pregnant tonight, but none of them are stronger than the force of the man currently holding me captive beneath him. “They’d be less than a year and a half apart.”
“They’ll be best buds.”
“You’re crazy.”
“Yup.”
“Take your clothes off, you stupid oaf.”
“Ooh, baby, your pillow talk, it does things to me.”
I giggle while tugging at his shirt.
“Let’s make a baby, then,” I concede.
So I plan a wedding. Quickly. And on a Saturday in the middle of January, when I am four months pregnant, Dean and I get married. He wears his dress blues, looking beyond handsome; I wear a vintage, cream, satin wedding gown that, gasp, showed the swell of our second child, only because it hugs my body so fabulously. Our wedding has as much old school glitz and glamour as one could whip in just a few months (my hair looked a-ma-zing), and it’s all just so perfect.
After Lennon, Dean wants more babies. When Samuel was born, he looked at me and said, “I want more,” after Connor, he said, “I want more.” It wasn’t until little Riley, with her wild head of curly red hair appeared, that he didn’t say, “I want more.” Instead, he looked at me and said, “I’m done being greedy, Mama.”
It’s our fiery little Riley who’s currently bundled against my chest in a baby wrap while Connor, now two, rides on Dean’s shoulders, and Samuel and Lennon, four and five and a half, run ahead, kicking up sand as they go.
If the old me were to see the current me walking down the beach, I don’t think she’d even recognize her (and it wasn’t just because I’d had four kids in five years). I was the woman the old me didn’t dare dream to be, didn’t think she could be: happy, strong, and just so content. Obviously, my life is a whole truckload of crazy-I have four kids, for crying out loud, and some days I was so darn happy to leave them behind and run to the sanctuary of my library. But Dean retired from the Marines a few years ago and is now a stay-at-home dad. He leads a support group for veterans twice a week at the Veterans Memorial Building, putting his psychology and social work degrees to great use.
All of this just proves, life goes on, and like Rumi says, “Don’t sit and wait. Get out there, feel life.”
Before Dean, I was sitting, I was waiting; I didn’t even know what for. But now? I feel everything, all the feelings-the love, the grief, the crazy, I let it wash over me, and then I look around at all I have, the man, the family, the friends, the beautiful home, and I am grateful. I am grateful to feel this life.
THE END
About the Author
Anna Chastain is a born and raised California girl. She currently resides on the central coast of California with her husband and two daughters. She is addicted to books, music, pizza, and donuts (and makes no apologies for it). Locked Out is her fifth published novel and even though she is not yet rich and famous and her career as a rock star hasn’t panned out, she is super proud of her five books. On an average day, you’ll catch her hanging with her kindergarteners, holed up with a book, or embarrassing her daughters with her musical talents.
Other Works by Anna Chastain
Morning Star
The Good Side of Crazy
My Kind of Crazy
Locked In
License Notice
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be resold. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Locked Out
Copyright: Anna Chastain
Published: 06/19/2018
ISBN:
Publisher: Anna Chastain
The right of Anna Chastain to be identified as author of this Work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyrights, Designs, and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system, copied in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise transmitted without written permission from the publisher. You must not circulate this book in any format.
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