Total pages in book: 177
Estimated words: 173392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 867(@200wpm)___ 694(@250wpm)___ 578(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 173392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 867(@200wpm)___ 694(@250wpm)___ 578(@300wpm)
I feel good today. I feel better a lot lately, but it might not last. I can’t make her any guarantees. I’m not ready for kids. Not yet.
She touches my face. “I want you to talk to someone.”
I shift underneath her. I really don’t want to do that.
“I’d be destroyed if anything happened to you,” she whispers. “You need someone who knows what they’re doing. Will you try?”
I swallow hard. I’ll do anything she wants me to. Not that I’d be okay losing anyone in my life, but I can’t lose her. I want us happy.
Every day doesn’t have to be easy, but I want her to know every day that I love her.
“Okay,” I reply.
She smiles, and I feel her body relax in my arms.
“I’ll be a handful, you know,” I warn her.
And I don’t even mean the moods.
She laughs. “I’ve got two hands.”
She slides on top of me, kissing my lips. “I know who you are,” she says. “And I want every minute of it.”
I grip her ass, rubbing her over my groin. “You sure?”
“Oh, baby, I won’t be a picnic, either.” She kisses me deep, slipping her tongue in again and again. “But you like pains in the ass.”
I break out in a smile. They seem to be my lot in life.
Just then, we hear a bellow outside the door. “Ah!” someone shouts.
Was that Mars?
There’s pounding on the stairs, and then I hear Dallas. “Get these clothes out of the dryer!”
We hold each other, listening.
“Macon!” Trace calls out. “We can’t live like this. We’re going to need another bathroom. Like, yesterday!”
Yeah, we need the addition to the house finished, like, yesterday. We’re at full capacity.
I bury my face in Krisjen’s neck, rethinking my desire to leave the bedroom at all. Ever again.
But she pops up, straddling me. “Oh, can we get a Christmas tree today?”
I shake my head. “I’m not stepping foot in that shithole of a town right now.”
She flashes me a bold smile along with her breasts. “Good things do come from that shithole.” She wiggles her eyebrows. “You know you like to slum.”
I arch up, kissing her chest, her neck. “My little princess from the wrong side of the tracks …”
She circles my neck with her arms, both of us stirring again.
But just when I think I’ve successfully distracted her, she pulls back and looks down at me. “Tonight,” she tells me. “We’ll take everyone out for food, pick out a tree, put the kids to bed, and then we’ll break into Mariette’s for dessert and have sex on one of the tables.”
I chuckle. Fine. “With the skates?” I ask, hopeful.
She smiles wide, but then stops me as I start to kiss her neck again and glances over her shoulder to where they lie on my bedroom floor. “Hey, how did they get in your bedroom, by the way?”
I crash back on the bed, squeezing my eyes shut. “Ah, shit.” Fuck. I totally forgot about that.
“Macon?”
“I can explain,” I rub my eyes. “Just give me a sec …”
But she grabs my throat, her eyes zoning in like bullets. “Explain … what?”
“Nothing happened.”
Her scowl deepens. “What didn’t happen?”
I hold up my hands in surrender, loving everything about having her in my bed with me, and trying to keep the laughter at bay.
She’ll be a handful, indeed.
And I’m here for all of it.
Epilogue
Krisjen
Four Years Later
I think I’ll marry Army next. Or Trace. He’s agreeable and teachable. Why not? It’ll be great.
Or … I could just run the Bay on my own. The newly widowed queen who steps in, because she’s a fucking widow now, because she’s going to kill Macon Jaeger!
“I need a shower,” he says, laughing as he comes through the door with his brothers.
I pull my thumbnail out of my mouth and spin toward him as I stand at the window.
He drifts into the dark house, the grandfather clock chiming 5:00 a.m. “Let me wake up Krisjen first.”
But I grab the framed picture of us, me in his arms, my legs wrapped around him, my happy smile peering over his shoulder as the camera captures only his back. Good times. Better days.
I throw it across the room, but it just clips his shoulder.
He rears back, stumbling, but then rights himself and looks in my direction. “Ow.” He rubs the spot it hit. “What the hell?”
“You’re two days late!” I bellow.
His face falls, and he holds out his hands like he’s trying to wrangle a horse. “I’m sorry, okay? I …”
But I grab the coffee-table book of Mammoth Cave that I got in Kentucky, because we just closed our eyes and picked a place on a map for our honeymoon.
I throw it as Army, Trace, and Dallas back up, out of the way. I grab the remote, a magazine, and a potted plant, and hurl every single one at my husband. He ducks out of the way as Trace chuckles at the scene.