“Do you think we could move to the bed first?” I ask.
He laughs. “Sex on the ground is kind of our thing. We can pretend like this is the treehouse,” he teases, but helps me up anyway.
We get in bed, kiss and explore each other’s bodies some more, and then Sutton Winters shows me exactly how much he loves me.
A few more times that night.
***
“These boxes aren’t going to pack themselves.”
He agrees with me, but makes no move to leave the bed. “I’d much rather lay here with you than pack.”
I open my mouth to protest, but he seals his lips over mine before I can get a word out.
“Let me have this, Squirt,” he murmurs against my mouth, swollen from his kisses. “I miss us like this.”
“You didn’t have me enough to miss me,” I point out. Sutton and I weren’t together much, and when we were, it isn’t anything like it is now.
“I’m making up for lost time.”
He flips me onto my back and his mouth starts its descent down my body, stopping at all the important places it finds along the way to its destination. His fingers get there first and my quivers turn to thrusts as he moves them in and out of me, all while his mouth explores between my legs.
I beg and plead with him, but I’m not sure if it’s for him to keep going or to stop the delightful torture. His eyes come up to meet mine, a fire burning bright, the lust shining through.
“Come for me, Scarlett, and I’ll stop teasing you.” He kisses down my belly and his mouth is hot on my flesh as he travels back to where he was before.
He attacks me, hungry, feasting on me like a man starved. In mere seconds I’m calling out his name, convulsing around his tongue and fingers. Stars are exploding behind my eyelids, a testament to the intensity of the orgasm he just gave me.
“I love how responsive you are to me.” A satisfied grin is spread across his face as he crawls up my belly and gets settled between my legs.
I wrap my legs around his waist and urge him forward, bracing for him to enter me. My moan mixes with his heavy breaths as he pushes inside. His tongue strokes my neck and shoulder as he moves in and out of me, the pace slow and torturous.
“I want to go slow,” he whispers. “I want this to last forever.”
I grab his face and seal my mouth to his. Our kiss mirrors the dance that our bodies are engaged in. The room is filled with the sounds of our gasps and moans, along with the lapping of the ocean waves that can be heard through the open window. Sutton becomes greedy in his lovemaking, all thoughts of going slow leaving when I clench around him and scrape my nails down his back, a silent plea for him to give me more.
“Greedy tonight, baby?” he asks as he rears back and plunges into me, causing me to cry out.
“Please, Sutton,” I beg again.
He moves harder, faster, with more power behind his thrusts until we are both crying out, our names mixing with the sounds of the waves hitting the sand.
“Jesus, Scarlett,” he exhales, unable to say much more. As soon as he tries to roll off of me I lock my arms around his back and hold him in place.
“Stay. I like you here.”
After another kiss he rolls to the side, taking some of the weight off me, but still covering my body with his. His hand is tracing lazy patterns along my spine and causing my eyelids to droop. I want to stay awake and soak in this time with him, but I’m exhausted after two spectacular orgasms and sleep wins.
I open my eyes and look on his side of his bed, but it’s empty. Lying on top of the empty sheets is an envelope.
Open me when you wake up
I smile and reach out for the paper, my fingers skirting along the words. My heart aches when I think about all the other envelopes like this I used to have, and burned, when he told me about Laura being pregnant. I push the thought out of my head; I don’t want to dwell on the past. We need to focus on the future. I sit up and wrap the thin sheet around my body, ready to read his words to me.
Squirt,
I couldn’t bear to wake you, especially when I saw how peaceful you looked. I didn’t want to leave you in the bed all alone, but I needed to take care of a few things. The last time I wrote you a letter while you were sleeping next to me, I had to get on a plane and leave for California. I swear, if I would have known what that meant for us, I would have never left you. But, what’s done is done. We can’t change the past. This time, as I sat here and wrote this to you, I got to think about us getting on a plane together and going back home.
So many possibilities, all of them too good to be true.
When you’re done reading this, put on the dress I have on the edge of the bed and come out to the beach. Don’t make me wait too long.
All my love (which is more than a little),
Sutton
My eyes move to the edge of the bed and I see a white dress hanging off the edge of the mattress. I quickly slip it over my head and make a trip to the bathroom to brush my teeth and hair. Not bothering with shoes, I step out of the back of the house and I spot him right away. As soon as the door closes behind me he turns from the ocean and looks toward me, a huge smile spread across his face. When I get closer to him and the torches he’s got set up in the sand, I can hear songs from our playlist. An old blanket is spread out on the sand.
“What’s all this?” I ask.
“I wanted to look at the stars with you.”
“It’s my favorite thing to do.”
He pulls me down on the plaid blanket and sits behind me. “Do you remember the first time we did this?”
“I do. We were on the roof and sitting just like this. I couldn’t figure out what I was looking at so you got a marker and drew a map on my leg.”
He kisses the cluster of freckles on my shoulder. “I did. And if I recall, you went home and recreated that map so you wouldn’t forget.”
I turn in his arms. “Do you still have that journal?”
“What do you think I use to teach my daughter about the stars?”
The thought of the two of them sitting with my journal warms my heart.
“Turn back around,” he says. “I want to draw you a new map.” He pulls a marker from his pocket. “Do you mind?”
I shake my head and settle back into my original position as he starts to draw a series of dots on my leg. I watch, wondering what he’s doing, until he starts to connect the dots and it becomes clear what’s going on.
“Oh my God,” I say from behind my hand.
“Do you see it?”
“Yes.” I nearly knock him down when I crash into him and kiss him with everything I have.
He pulls away and holds my cheeks. “Is that a yes, you see it, or a yes to the question?”
“Yes to both. Oh my God, Sutton, a million yesses.”
He moves one hand from my cheek and sticks it in his pocket, and I watch as he produces his mother’s ring. “Marry me,” he says, his words matching the ones he drew on my leg.
He pushes it onto my finger as I nod my head and cry.
“That’s your mom’s,” I tell him, even though he’s already well aware.
“It’s what she wanted.”
“It’s what I want.”
We lie back and stare up at the night sky. “I knew we would get here eventually. Even when I left you in the woods that day, crying and heartbroken, I knew that we would find our way back to each other again.”
“How did you know?”
“It was written in the stars, Scarlett. We were fated to be together.”
I gasp. “I’m going to be a stepmom.” Turning to face him, I think about the possibility that this may not be what Estella wants. “What if Estella isn’t okay with this?”
“Not okay with this? She helped me plan it. That little girl is thrilled at the idea of us getting married. She can’t wait for you to be a part of our family.”
“Can I call her?” I ask.
He gets his phone from the edge of
the blanket and shuts off the music so he can pull up Claudia’s number. As soon as Estella answers she’s talking nonstop and covering every topic under the sun, from a wedding date to the prospect of a baby brother or sister.
I’d say thrilled is an understatement.
That little girl is over the moon… almost as ecstatic as I am. My heart is full and happy, thanks to Sutton Winters and his beautiful daughter.
Epilogue
The first time Sutton Winters ever came to my rescue, I was twelve years old. Even today, I can count on my husband to save me. More often than not, though, he’s saving me from myself.
He was there for me when I was mourning the loss of both his mother and my best friend, Easton.
As the doors of the church opened on our wedding day and I froze, hit with the realization that my own father wouldn’t see me marry the love of my life, he simply strolled down to meet me with a smile on his face and a hand extended toward me.
In the hospital, mere days ago, scared to take the pain medications the nurses were offering me, but in so much agony from childbirth I could barely function, he reassured me that I was a wonderful mother, and I would never turn into an addict like my mother.
“Doc’s here,” Estella screams, pulling me from my thoughts. I roll over in the bed, wincing from the pain, to check on my son. For the millionth time since we’ve come home, I place my hand on him, relaxing the instant I feel his belly moving up and down.
“Take him back there to see your momma. I need to start dinner.”
Momma… I love hearing Sutton and Estella refer to me that way. The inevitable conversations about her biological mother haven’t happened yet. It helped that I officially became her mother shortly after the wedding. She started calling me ‘Momma’ as soon as the judge signed the paperwork and hasn’t looked back.
“I’m not here to see Scarlett,” Doc jokes. “I want to see my grandson.” Their voices are getting closer, so I sit up and bed and try to fix my rumpled appearance, but it’s next to impossible.
“You can see Zeke, but you have to be careful when you pick him up. That’s what Momma and Daddy tell me.”
“You’ll have to show me what to do.”
Doc’s eyes light up when he walks into the bedroom. He’ll never be the same Doc I first met, but he’s healing. It helps having Estella here. She keeps him on his toes. He eases down on the edge of the bed and peeks over the side of the cradle. Estella is fawning over the baby, so he lets her have her time with her brother.
“Hey, honey. How you feeling?”
“Like I just gave birth to an eight pounder.”
“Are you staying on top of the pain?”
“When it gets bad enough.”
“I wish Vera were here to see what a good Momma you are,” he says, his eyes misting over.
“Me too, Doc.”
I miss her every single day.
Sutton and I bought the house from Doc after we got married. He claimed he wanted to be closer to his office, but I think it was too hard for him to live with her ghost. It’s impossible for me not to think about her when I’m in the kitchen baking with Estella, or tending to her flower beds in the front of the house.
My husband comes in the room with a glass of water and a bottle of pills. “Here, Squirt.”
I open my mouth to argue, but I know better. I hate to take them. Not only does it scare me, but I don’t want to miss out on a single second of time with my son.
“You need to rest,” Sutton says, knowing the thoughts that are running through my brain. “Let me and Doc take care of Zeke for a while so you can sleep.”
“What if he needs me?”
“I’ll wake you up.” He leans over, planting a kiss on my temple. “I’ve done this before, Squirt. I can handle it.”
“I know. I just,” I don’t know how to explain to him how important it is for me to be present for everything… every diaper change, every cry, every single moment. But of course, he knows that.
“How about we go outside? It’s getting dark, it’s a beautiful night, and there’s not a cloud in the sky. We can look at the stars.”
“Thank you,” I whisper.
Doc bundles up Zeke and Sutton helps me get out of bed. As we pass through the front of the house my eyes widen at the mess.
“Don’t even think about it,” Sutton whispers against my cheek. “It’s a lot, but I’ll get to it tomorrow.”
There are bottles, dirty clothes, and breast pump parts scattered across every available surface. Estella’s toys and shoes are making it nearly impossible to walk to the front door. As soon as we step onto the front porch, Estella starts bouncing up and down, clapping because Claudia’s car is pulling into the drive.
“Reinforcements are here,” she sings as she gets out of the car, holding bags from our favorite restaurant.
“You didn’t bring my brother?”
The look that she shoots my husband is not a good one. “Why would I do that?” she hisses.
“You two seemed cozy at the hospital.”
“Must be your delirium talking. We are not cozy. We are not anything.” She kisses the top of Zeke’s head. “I’ll go put this up.”
The second the door shuts, we start to laugh. Claudia and Easton are something, but none of us can figure it out. The two of them are either tangled up together or about to kill each other.
She comes stomping out a few seconds later. “Dinner has to wait. We can’t even sit at the table. Give me twenty minutes.”
Claudia is a lifesaver.
Sutton gets me settled on the old porch swing. His gaze sweeps over my face, searching for signs of discomfort.
“I’m fine. It feels nice sitting out here.”
“I love you.”
Hearing that from him still makes my heart flutter, just like it did the very first time he said it.
“How much?”
“A lot.”
“More than what?”
“More than a little.” He kisses me, and it’s so tender I practically melt into the swing. “Now relax. I need to give my son his first lesson in star gazing.”
I listen to my husband, eyes closed and swing moving gently back and forth, describe the constellations to my three day old son. Just as I’m drifting off to sleep, I hear what I’ve been waiting for.
I saved the best for last. Look, Zeke, there’s Virgo…
The End
About the Author
Gretchen Tubbs lives in South Louisiana, surrounded by her amazing family. When she’s not writing, you can find her tucked away in her classroom teaching first graders how to read, chauffeuring her three daughters around, or basking in the awesomeness of her husband. She’s a total book junkie, and thinks Kristen Ashley and Colleen Hoover can do no wrong.
Gretchen’s other books, including the series that started her writing journey, can be found exclusively on Amazon. The links to those titles can be found at http://www.amazon.com/Gretchen-Tubbs/e/B00VH0C3WA
Connect with Gretchen on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/authorgretchentubbs
Find her on Twitter @gretchentubbs
Acknowledgements
I’m going to keep this one short and sweet. As always, I have to thank my husband, who puts up with me getting out of bed at four o’clock every morning to sit in my office and write. He doesn’t care when I go to Starbucks all day on a Saturday to have a change of scenery, or when I bounce book ideas off him. He’s just an awesome guy. He doesn’t read what I write, so he has no idea that there are snippets of him in each and every book!
Rachel, I’m glad my book could keep you company in St. Thomas! I promise you that one day I’ll get my act together when it comes to using a comma.
Dana, I don’t think I could do this without you. You’re the reason I started writing, and I don’t think you’ll ever let me stop. Love you!
Justine, as always, your help was invaluable. Yes, I had a mild heart attack when you suggested I re-write the entire seco
nd half of the book, but it made it that much better. You are awesome!
And last, but certainly not least, if you take the time to buy and read my books, it means the world to me! Thank you from the bottom of my heart!!!
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