by Riley, Alexa
“Really?” I say as I look to where she’s pointing.
“It’s adorable. Let’s go look at it.”
We walk over and see a snowman that’s as big as she is with a cute little top hat. It’s even got a carrot nose with a coal smile and eyes. She’s grinning as she walks up to look at it. After a moment I see her squint like she’s trying to see something.
“That’s weird,” she says, and I move beside her.
“What?” I ask.
“There’s something around the carrot.” I stand and wait as she takes a step closer to the snowman. “Oh my god.”
She puts her hands over her mouth, and when she turns around I drop to one knee in the snow. She looks behind me and she gasps as she sees the lights in the tree spell out Marry Me.
“Claudia Chambers, I love you and will always love you until the day I die. You are my soulmate and my forever. Be my wife and make me the happiest man on earth.”
“Brian,” she whispers as I reach up and take the ring off the snowman’s nose. I place it on her finger and she gasps again when she sees the rock.
“Say yes, beautiful.”
“Are you kidding me? Of course, yes. Yes forever, yes until the end of time. I love you so much.”
She crashes into my arms and we roll onto the snowy ground. I kiss her madly and somewhere in the distance I hear the cheers of my family. She laughs as I pick her up in my arms and carry her to the house. We’re covered in snow and our cheeks are rosy, but my soul is so full it might just burst.
“Can we get married today?” I ask, and she laughs at me.
“I’m pretty sure we have to file for a marriage license,” she says as she kisses my cheek.
“Okay then, but I want it soon.”
“Deal,” she says, and I hug her close.
I didn’t think I could love her more, but the moment she said yes, I married her in my heart. Holding her in my arms is every dream I’ve ever had come to life and I can’t wait to begin our next chapter.
Epilogue
Claudia
Eight years later…
“I’m sorry it took so long to get you here,” Brian says as he comes up behind me and passes me a glass of champagne.
“That might have something to do with our four kids at home and the fact that you couldn’t stop getting me pregnant,” I say when he clinks his glass to mine.
His hand goes around my waist and he holds me close as we stare out into the lights of Paris. My dream of coming here finally came true and it’s all because of my wonderful husband. Yes, he might keep me pregnant every chance he gets, but I have to admit that I have just as hard of a time keeping my hands to myself. Our attraction to one another has only grown over time, and it sounds cliché, but every time really is like the first.
My possessive man always knows exactly what I need and he’s all too eager to give it to me. Whether it’s washing clothes or cooking dinner for the whole family, he’s stepping in by my side. From what I hear he’s a rare exception, but when I look at his parents’ marriage and his sister Sage’s, I can’t help but think this is just the way things are. I know I’m lucky, but that’s not because of what Brian does for me, it’s because of his soul.
He was right the first time we had dinner together. Soulmates are a feeling, and when you know you know; and the first moment I laid eyes on him I knew. I gave a poor attempt of trying to fight it, but in the end, he knew I’d give in.
“I think maybe we should try again tonight.” He nuzzles my neck from behind and I close my eyes as I smile.
“You’re just trying to see if you can prove the doctor wrong,” I tease.
We decided two girls and two boys were enough for us to handle, so he gave his soldiers their marching orders and he got a vasectomy last year. I was really sad the day it happened even though we both knew it was the right decision, but I have to say that telling him he can’t get me pregnant might have been the worst decision ever. Now he wants to have sex even more than before just to see if he can make it happen.
“Life finds a way.” He quotes Jurassic Park and I laugh as I turn in his arms to face him.
“Thank you,” I say, feeling suddenly mushy.
“You’re welcome, but for what?” He kisses me sweetly on the lips and then I rest my head on his chest.
“This, our kids, my life. All of it, Brian. I love you so much and this has all been more than I could have ever dreamed of. It’s because of you that I’m here in Paris.”
“You said this was the one place you always dreamed of going.” I feel him kiss the top of my head and I close my eyes.
“It is, but it’s more than that.” I look up into his eyes and feel mine begin to water. “This was something that I never thought was a possibility. It was along the lines of growing wings and flying away from my life. Coming to Paris, and with the man I love?” I shake my head. “You’ve given me the impossible and I can’t ever thank you enough.”
“You do it every day, beautiful. Don’t you see?” He wipes my tears away and smiles at me. “The way you take care of our babies and the way you love me. The way you’re always there to help my family or volunteer at the animal shelter. You light up my life in ways I didn’t think were possible, and every moment is better than the last.”
“Stop saying all this sweet stuff or I won’t stop crying.” I laugh through my tears as he leans down and kisses me softly.
“No more of that. This trip is about bread, remember?”
I laugh again and nod at him. “All the carbs.”
“That’s right. Sex and carbs.” He kisses me again, and this time it’s deeper.
My desire stirs and I’m ready to get into bed with my husband and not come out for hours. As if reading my mind, he picks me up in his arms and carries me towards the bedroom.
“Now get in here and take off your clothes and let me have my way with you.”
“We won’t have any kids in our bed with us tonight to spoil our fun,” I say as I undo the buttons on his shirt.
“Don’t say that or I’ll start to miss them,” he says and pokes his lip out.
I shake my head and then squeal as he tosses me on the bed. “We’ll FaceTime them in a couple of hours and say good morning.”
“I just hope Sage and Jensen can handle them,” he says as he takes off my shoes and kisses his way up my legs.
“They’ve got your parents to help, I’m sure they’ll be fine.” I’m not so sure, but I’m trying to sound positive so Brian won’t worry.
He loves us all so much and being away from the kids is new for us. But a week with just the two of us is going to be absolute bliss and I’m going to try and enjoy as much of it as I can while sandwiching in FaceTime with our babies.
“I think a distraction might be nice,” he says as he pushes up my dress and wiggles my panties down my hips.
“That sounds like a really good idea.” I spread my legs shamelessly as he lowers his mouth onto my pussy. “Oh god!”
When I tell him later that night that all of my dreams have come true, he whispers that it’s time for us to come up with new ones. He’s right, but I don’t know if my heart can hold any more happiness. I guess we’ll just have to find out.
THE END
Chapter 1
Noelle
“Please,” she begged. “I need to feel you inside me now. It’s been too long.” Annabelle pleaded with Sam before taking matters into her own hands, grabbing his hard cock and guiding it to her wet pussy. Wanting to make them whole once again, to never be apart from the only man she’d ever loved. Would ever love.
“I’ll give you what you want. Just give me what I want,” Sam demanded, pulling back just a little from her, the head of his cock barely touching her opening. She knew what he wanted, and she was sick of fighting these feelings. She’d find a way to make them work, no matter how different their worlds were.
“I love you. Only you.” She gave him the words he wanted because they were true. She
Samuel thrust home into her welcoming body, his hard cock just as hungry for her as he was.”
The heavy breathing through the phone pulls me from my narration “Mr. Lockwood, are you okay?”
“Alex,” he grunts, sounding irritated with me. “Say it.”
“Alex,” I whisper. He’s been correcting me for months now, but for some reason I always still say ‘Mr. Lockwood.’ It reminds me of who he is—that he isn’t a friend I’m talking to on the phone. He’s a client and nothing more, no matter what my late-night fantasies tell me.
I hear a grunt, then the line goes quiet. I wonder if he’s mad at me, and I inwardly curse myself. I had steady work before I started narrating books for his company, All for You, but with him offering me more and more projects, he’s been my only client for well over two months now. It sounds silly, and I’m sure I can get more projects elsewhere, but I like working for him. He handles things a little differently than most clients I work with, but I like his way. Seems I like a lot of things about Alex, despite knowing very little about him.
The silence hangs in the air as I wait for him to speak again. His words do things to me. Things they shouldn’t. I’ve somehow latched myself onto him recently. Waiting for our daily calls has now become a little bit of an obsession, one I’m sure my mother would tell me was just as unhealthy as my lack of a social life.
“Hmm,” I mumble, trying to break the uncomfortable silence. I can’t bear the tension, but all I hear is his heavy breathing, something that reminds me of the many erotica books I’ve read. The hero would breathlessly pant into the heroine’s ear after a hard round of sex. It’s a sound I’ve never actually heard myself, but I find myself imagining what it would be like if Alex made the sound in my ear, his body on top of me.
“I think that’s enough for today,” he finally says, his deep voice rolling over my skin like a warm rough caress, like it always does when he speaks to me. If anyone should be narrating a book, it’s Alex. He has a voice like I’ve never heard before, and I’ve heard many in my line of work. Voices that are supposed to be the best aren’t anything special compared to his.
“Okay, Mis— Alex,” I correct myself quickly, once again making myself look like an incompetent fool who can’t remember anything. “I’ll have the Scott book sent over this afternoon. Just a few more touches and it will be finished. Then I’ll start on this new one, if you liked the sample I just did.”
Alex likes to do the samples over the phone and also likes to check in daily on my project status, something that’s not normal with audio work. Almost everything could be done over email, but Alex says he likes to do it this way. For what he’s paying me to voice audiobooks, I’m happy to jump through hoops for the projects. Okay, that’s only partially true. I would jump through the hoops, but our phone calls mean more to me than just work.
Sometimes our calls dip into personal life, mainly about me and my life. Every now and then, I find myself rambling on, and he just listens. Maybe he’s really polite and feels sorry for me for having to carry on conversations with someone who is virtually a stranger. Though he doesn’t feel like a stranger anymore.
“That sounds perfect. I have a lot going on tomorrow, so I want this taken care of tonight and off both our to-do lists,” he says, slipping back into business talk. It’s crazy how he does that. Sometimes I wonder if maybe he has a crazy sex life, because my narrations always seem to run on the dirty side and they never affect him.
I usually end up in a pile of goo when we we’re done, with hard nipples and wet panties. We’d hang up and I’d have my hand down my pants before the line even cleared. It wasn’t narrating the books that turned me on. I’ve been doing romance narrations for years. Normally I did them alone so no one would hear. But somehow, reading aloud to Alex has me beyond turned on. It could be that the pieces he selects for samples are always the dirtiest parts, or it could just be him.
I told myself it was because Alex was playing with me. I thought maybe he even had a little crush on me like I did him, but after time went on, he never seemed affected. He never tried to be more friendly to me like I was with him, and after a while I thought maybe I made it up in my head. My mother always told me I live too much inside myself, and it seemed to have happened again. I’d built something up in my mind that wasn’t really there. Worse, the thought of not having this interaction anymore was terrifying in some weird way.
“Okay. I’ll send the file right over.” I try to keep my tone just as causal as his, but I’m still chewing on the fact that he has a lot going on tomorrow. It’s Christmas, so I should expect him to be busy. All I have planned is a TV dinner and Netflix.
“Have a merry Christmas, Noelle.”
“You too, Alex.” I hit End on the call, promptly wanting to disconnect from him. I drop the phone onto my desk and bring up my emails. I want to go ahead and send the file, but my internet won’t connect. After restarting the modem and my laptop, I make my way over to the window while everything reboots.
It really is a perfect Christmas Eve. Snow has already begun to fall, and the Christmas lights on my tree behind me reflect in the window. It’s as if they’re mocking me. My house is decorated like I’m hosting a Christmas party tomorrow. There isn’t a spot that isn’t covered in some kind of Christmas decoration. Why I do this to myself, I have no idea.
I’m an introvert and always have been. I made a couple of friends in college, always preferring to have my nose deep in a book. But since then they’ve dropped off one by one, slowly losing contact over time. No one wants to be friends with the girl who rarely leaves the house.
Who knows where my parents are this time of year. No one likes to travel more than they do. I still have no idea how I came from such social butterflies. I like things small and intimate, and I always wanted to spend a Christmas like that with my parents. When I was a kid, my mom would go all out, kind of like I did in my own home, but she always filled the day with people I hardly knew.
It’s almost laughable now. I hate how she’d do that, but now here I am in a house all made up for Christmas and not one soul to spend it with. I’m not sure which is worse.
My mind wanders back to Alex, wondering what his plans might be. Would he have a special person to spend his Christmas with? The thought sends an irrational surge of jealously through me.
Maybe I can come up with a reason to get in touch with him, or just call to wish him a merry Christmas. I chastise myself for the silly idea. Considering how fast he got off the phone moments ago, he probably has plans tonight.
Growling at myself, I pull my hair from my ponytail to relieve some of the tension I’m feeling.
Pull it together, I tell myself. I’ll finish this project for Alex, get into my Christmas pajamas, eat those cookies I spent all day baking and decorating, and watch my favorite holiday movies. I will not let myself have a pity party.
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