Total pages in book: 42
Estimated words: 38249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 191(@200wpm)___ 153(@250wpm)___ 127(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 38249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 191(@200wpm)___ 153(@250wpm)___ 127(@300wpm)
His honesty has my heart threatening to beat out of my chest. I want to say yes. God, I want to say yes so badly it almost hurts.
So I do.
"Yes," I whisper, the word barely audible. "Yes, I'll marry you."
He grins, bright and blinding. "Yeah?"
"Yeah," I say, and suddenly I'm laughing, because this is nuts, but also the sanest, happiest thing I've ever done.
He wraps his arms around me, crushing me to his chest. "Good," he murmurs, his lips against my hair. "We'll pick out your ring together so it's exactly what you want. You're stuck with me now, baby."
"Sounds perfect."
He presses his lips to my shoulder again, and then I feel his hand sliding down my hip. I groan when he hauls me beneath him, covering my body with his.
His lips come down on mine in a deep kiss as his hand slips between my legs, lighting me up.
By the time he slides inside me, I'm already on the edge, moaning his name. It doesn't take him long at all to send me careening over the side into an earth-shattering orgasm.
I fall with his name on my lips.
He falls with words of love on his, sheltering me in his arms.
We stay like that for a long time, our bodies tangled and our hearts pounding in sync.
The world outside is cold and chaotic, always waiting to knock me off balance. But in here, in his arms, everything is clear. Everything makes sense.
This is what I want.
This is where I belong.
This is home.
Epilogue
Trent
Five Years Later
"Shit," I groan, sitting upright in bed when I hear our four-year-old giggling from the kitchen. It's five in the morning on Christmas…not a great start to the day, frankly.
My wife's side of the bed is empty, the sheets cold.
As soon as I realize she's missing, my first thought is worry for my survival. My second is that whatever is happening down there is probably going to cost me a fortune to fix.
I groan and peel myself out of bed. My back twinges and my knees creak in protest, but I've got another full week off before I'm due back on the campus where I coach, and nothing to do except be a husband, a dad, and—if I play my cards right—a consumer of at least four cinnamon rolls before noon.
It's a damn good life, even if I never did learn to sleep past six.
I drag on a pair of sweatpants, step over the Legos scattered like booby traps in the hallway, and nearly get impaled by a rogue rainbow unicorn horn Alisha left on the stairs. At the bottom, I'm immediately blinded by the Christmas tree, which blinks with approximately eight thousand watts of sparkling LEDs.
Dani went all in on Christmas this year. She's got the tree covered in hockey ornaments, a train that circles the base, and tinsel on every flat surface. She even dressed up the thermostat as Santa.
I grin, because the only thing more over-the-top than our living room is the sound of our daughter cackling at whatever ungodly science experiment is happening in the kitchen.
I round the corner, bracing myself.
The kitchen looks like a fudge factory detonated. There's flour on the cabinets, cocoa powder streaked across the fridge, and chocolate splatters on the ceiling. Bowls, measuring cups, and spatulas are everywhere. There's a haze of sugar in the air so thick I can taste it, and the oven is giving off a smell that's more arson investigation than holiday treat.
Dani stands in the middle of it, radiant and wild as always, wearing an apron that says "Kiss the Cook" over her baby bump. The once-white apron is now the color of brownie mix. Her hair is piled on top of her head in a bun that's already unraveling, and her face is streaked with chocolate.
Alisha, our four-year-old and the light of my goddamn life, stands on a stool in front of the counter, wielding a wooden spoon like a weapon of mass destruction. She's got Dani's blue eyes and my dark, disaster-prone hair.
"Daddy!" she yells, beaming at me with teeth that are already suspiciously coated with chocolate. She abandons her post to run at me, smearing cocoa across my calves as she flings herself at my legs. "We're making fudge for Santa's favorite girl!"
Dani turns, brandishing a mixing bowl that sloshes dangerously close to the edge. "Correction," she says. "We're making fudge for everyone except Santa's favorite girl. She's already eaten two pounds of marshmallows and three candy canes."
"I was testing them," Alisha says, completely unrepentant.
"Uh-huh," Dani mutters, licking a glob of fudge off her thumb.
I snort, but instantly regret the choice. There's a burned sugar tang to the air that makes my immune system quiver in terror.
Dani must see the look on my face, because she wipes her hands on the apron and comes over, squinting up at me. "You okay? You look like you're about to faint."