“How long have you been standing here?” I murmur, walking on dreamlike legs toward him.
“Awhile,” he says, his eyes glinting playfully. “It’s given me time to think about how much I love you.”
I gasp as I reach him, standing beneath him and staring up into the firm cut of his strong jaw. I try to speak – to return his words – but all that comes out is another gasp.
“I love you, my little dreamer,” he snarls, stepping forward and cradling my face in his giant’s hand. “I loved you the moment you stepped into my office. I’ve loved you every second since then. I’ve burned with love for you. I should’ve told you sooner, but I wanted to get this arranged first. I wanted to make it special.”
“It is,” I gush, my words croaking with tears and euphoria. “It’s the most wonderful thing that anyone has ever done for me.”
He leans down and brings his lips close to mine, our bodies teasing each other.
“I. Love. You.”
He kisses me softly, our tongues colliding, my mouth filling with all the promise and heat of our future.
“I love you too,” I sigh breathily when he pulls away from me. “Oh, Solomon, I love you so much. I didn’t know if you felt the same. I didn’t want to be the one to say it first.”
“Of course, I feel the same,” he smiles. “You’re the love of my life. You’re everything to me.”
I almost scream when he steps back and slowly lowers himself to one knee, moving fluidly, the same way he did at the café when he demonstrated that he’ll always protect our family, that he’ll always protect me.
He reaches into his inside pocket, taking out a ring box, keeping his eyes fixated on me the whole while.
Even when he becomes all blurry with my tears – even when the world seems to start spinning – his eyes sear into me, pinning me in place, looking at me as nobody ever has before.
“Sophia, I love you,” he growls, a beast claiming his mate. “You, me, our future, it’s all I can think about. I always thought I’d grow old and die alone. I’d come to terms with that. I didn’t count it as any great loss, because I’d never found a woman I truly wanted to be with. But with you, my little dreamer, it’s so much more than that. I don’t want to be with you. I need to be with you.”
He opens the ring box, showing an elegant sizable diamond, glinting in the shimmering leaf filtered sunlight.
“I need to stand by you as you bring our children into this world, as you develop into a wonderful, caring mother. I need to be there for you as your art career takes off and you shock the world with your undeniable talent. I need to be the shield that protects you from the assholes of this world, never letting jerks get away with disrespecting you. I need you, Sophia, all the things, all the little pieces that make you who you are.”
My hand covers my mouth, my face hot and flushed, every part of me feeling as though the sun is trying to break through my skin. Happiness flies around my body and my womb lets out a carnal scream of pure joy, the scream coiling through me, capturing every part of me.
I’ve dreamed about this moment a thousand times.
I always imagined what it would be like to have Solomon Sky propose to me, but I never thought it could happen anywhere but my imagination.
Now it’s real, and it’s so much sweeter than I ever could’ve imagined.
“Sophia Clarkson,” Solomon says. “Will you marry me?”
I leap down at him, my arms outstretched, hardly even in control of what I’m doing anymore.
He laughs and catches me, softening my fall by leaning back and cradling me in his arms. I end up on top of him, both of us intertwined, our bodies crushed close as though any moment we could melt into each other.
I kiss him harder than I ever have before, moaning through the release, savoring the taste of him, the roughness of his lips.
I’ll never get tired of kissing this man.
“Is that a yes?” he chuckles, breaking off the kiss and holding my face in his hands so that the heat of his palms flickers against my cheeks.
“Of course it’s a yes,” I sing. “It’s a hell yes. It’s a fuck yes. It’s a yes and now put the ring on my finger, you handsome man.”
He grins and takes the ring box from the leaf-laden ground, takes out the ring, and slips the cool comforting metal onto my finger.
I hold my finger up to the sunlight, admiring how it glints and shimmers.
“How did you know my ring size?” I ask.
“I measured you in your sleep,” he smirks.
“Oh, sir,” I say, giggling, my voice brimming with sarcasm. “I am absolutely violated.”
He chuckles and squeezes me close to him, our noses tickling each other as we stare into each other’s eyes, into each other’s souls, consuming each other with everything we have.
“Do you like it?” he asks.
“I love it,” I whisper, my voice shaking with love. “I love everything you’ve done. I love it all, Solomon. And I love you most of all.”
“I love you, my little dreamer,” Solomon growls passionately. “And that’s never going to change.”
EPILOGUE
THREE WEEKS LATER
Solomon
“Oh, Solomon, you didn’t have to,” Jackie says, pulling the phone from the birthday wrapping paper.
I grin at her across the counter of her kitchen and then gesture down at my plate of scrambled eggs.
“Ma’am, after tasting eggs these good, you deserve a whole lot more. Believe me.”
She laughs and rolls her eyes. It brings true happiness to my soul to make my woman’s mother light up like this.
Sophia stands off to the side, leaning against the counter, her eyes shimmering as she drinks in the sun-painted scene.
Her eyes have been shimmering a lot lately, flooding with happiness every chance they get. She tells me they’re tears of joy, and I believe her, but part of me thinks something else is going on, too.
Is it too early for pregnancy hormones?
Jackie laughs and shakes her head at me, looking almost identical to Sophia for a moment.
“You don’t have to call me ma’am,” she says.
“A man should be polite to his future mother-in-law,” I say. “But if it means that much to you, I’ll you Jackie.”
She laughs again, looking over at her daughter.
I devour the sight of her as well, standing there in her flowing spring dress, the same sort she was wearing the morning I proposed to her. She has her arms folded over her breasts, squashing them alluringly, and the mist-like fabric falls like smoke across the curvaceous beauty of her body.
Her engagement ring couldn’t look more perfect on her finger, winking at me with sunlight.
“You’ve picked a good one here, Sophia,” Jackie says. “And I’m not just saying that because of the phone.”
Sophia smiles and then steps forward.
There’s something official about the way she does it, rehearsed, as though she’s been building up to this moment ever since we started breakfast. It’s strange enough that she seemed too amped-up to sit down, and now my mind is going into overdrive, spinning around and around the possibility of what she’s about to say.
“I have something to tell you,” she murmurs. “I’ve already told Caitlin. But …”
She sighs, trailing off.
My heart stampedes in my chest. I almost blurt the words out, roar what I think it is, but there’s no way I’d steal the glory of this moment from her.
Caitlin is currently on a writer’s retreat in Europe, but she and Sophia seem closer than ever, talking on Skype almost every night.
Every time I walk into our bedroom and find my woman propped up with her laptop on her knees, talking with my daughter, I have to double-take to make sure I’m not seeing things.
I have to check that things truly have worked out so incredibly.
I’ll never take any of this for granted.
“What is it?” Jackie murmurs.
/>
“It’s good news,” Sophia says, perhaps sensing some unease in the warbling tenor of her mother’s words.
“Say it, Sophia,” I rumble, rising to my feet, my smile making my cheeks ache.
Please let this be true.
“I’m pregnant,” she cries.
Jackie screams and dances around the kitchen, pulling her daughter into a dancing hug, and then I run around the partition and lean down and kiss the back of Sophia’s head.
She giggles and turns toward me, collapsing against my chest as Jackie retreats, clasping her hands together as she gazes at her daughter and her future son-in-law … and never mind that her son-in-law is a few years older.
None of that matters when we’re as happy as we are.
“Pregnant,” I say, putting passion into the word. I let my hand fall down to her belly. “I can feel it. I can feel them. I can feel our child, Sophia.”
Tears sparkle down her cheeks as she gazes up at me.
“I thought you might think it’s too soon,” she murmurs.
I lean down and kiss away her warm tears, keeping my face close to hers.
“With us,” I whisper, “there’s no such thing as too soon.”
EXTENDED EPILOGUE
ONE YEAR LATER
Sophia
I sit on the floor of my studio with Katie in my lap, holding her tiny hand in mine, and giggle as I bring it to the bare white wall. I press her hand down as I let my face fall forward, bringing my nose to the wonderful scent of her hair. She hasn’t got much of it yet, but it’s sweeter than anything I’ve ever smelled.
It’s heaven.
Our lives are heaven.
We moved into our suburban mansion right after the wedding, when I was still pregnant with our little bundle of joy.
My plan is to fill my studio with all our children’s handprints so that when the last of them leaves home I can come in here and greedily gaze at all the love, all the contentment, and belonging.
I pick her up once her handprint is in place, taking her over to the cleaning station and wiping her softly. I made sure that all the paints were safe to use around her.
Just like Solomon would kill to protect our little Katie-kins, I’d die before I let anything happen to her.
Once she’s clean, I cradle her to my chest and rock her, wandering over to the window.
The sun is setting and Solomon is in the pool, his powerful body catching the fading light with each stroke, his muscles contorting and glistening as he pulls his massive frame through the water.
It seems I’ve picked the perfect time to get a look at my husband because he hauls himself out when he reaches the end closest to the house. The water cascades down his body and I feel my body responding in turn, my breasts aching, my sex pulsating.
I turn away, not trusting myself to tame these primal feelings, and I don’t want to get all excited with Katie in my arms.
I whisk her through the house, our house. The walls are covered in my favorite artwork, as well as some pieces of my own. I’ve got my first gallery showing next week. I still work at Solomon’s company, but mostly on a contract basis now.
My husband has given me the opportunity to pursue my dreams of being an artist and a mother, and there’s no way I’d pass that up.
I carry Katie over to her rainbow crib. We call it that because, when we were putting it together, Solomon and I got into a paint fight and ended up turning it from oak colored to every color of the rainbow.
I guess that’s what we get for assembling it in the studio … which was originally going to be the baby’s room.
I never thought I’d have such a big house that choosing which rooms served what purpose would be a problem.
I lay her down and then lean down, laying my lips against her forehead and kissing her tenderly.
“I love you, Katie-kins,” I murmur. “And so does daddy. So much.”
“Of course I do,” Solomon says, sliding up next to me with his characteristic grace.
I smile and lean against him, confident in the knowledge that he’ll always catch me, no matter where I fall.
“I’ll never get used to how quiet you move for such a big man,” I murmur.
He chuckles and hugs me close to him in his favorite way, with my back to his front. He likes to rest his head atop mine and inhale the scent of my hair.
I wriggle against him, and he groans.
“Not here, you wild thing,” he growls quietly. “You’ve got to get that perfect body in the bedroom for that.”
I laugh, keeping my voice quiet because Katie’s eyelids are fluttering as she falls into a contended sleep.
“I can’t believe you’re still this attracted to me,” I murmur. “It’s like you don’t even realize that my body is still fifty percent pregnancy weight.”
“I do know it,” he growls passionately. “That’s why I’m so attracted to you. I love seeing how much curvier motherhood has made you. Why do you think I’m so hungry to put another baby in you, my little dreamer?”
I smile and close my eyes, sinking back into his embrace, feeling as though I’m floating as he hugs me tighter.
“I love you, husband,” I say dreamily.
“I love you, my perfect wife,” he replies, his voice husky.
EXTENDED EPILOGUE
TEN YEARS LATER
Solomon
“Daddy, look,” Ryan laughs as he sits on the floor, laying his five year old hand against the handprint he made when he was a baby. “I thiiiiiink my hand’s just a biiiiit bigger. Do yours, Daddy. Do yours.”
I grin and walk over to him, kneeling down and slowly moving my hand toward the handprint. It makes me ache with love that Sophia thought to do this.
The wall shows five rows.
Katie, Ryan, Alexis, Sebastian, and Tessa, each of them in a different color, but all of them sparking the same contentment in my heart.
I can hear my family elsewhere in the house, my wife with her voice raised, singing as she grills dinner in the garden. Her voice lilts to me through the open window.
She’s one of the most successful artists in the country – I always knew she would be – so it’s probably not a great idea to suggest that she change careers to singing. But the way my angel sounds, she could.
Katie is in her room, the one adjacent to the studio, clapping her hands and doing funny voices for Alexis. Alexis has always looked up to her bigger sister, trailing her anywhere she went from the day she could walk. And Katie delights in making her little sister laugh.
She’s going to be an actress. I just know it. She loves inventing different characters.
I hear Tessa and Sebastian, the twins, breathing contentedly on the baby monitor from my pocket. I keep it on me at all times.
When they’re older, they’ll get separate rooms, but for now, I love to listen to their sleepy breathing joining in a song of love, affection, and contentment.
I love my life. I love my family. I love how perfectly everything has gone.
I’m the luckiest bastard alive.
And I’ll never take it for granted.
“Daddy,” Ryan says. “You’re going all dreamy-eyed. Dreamy-eyed Daddy-eyed.”
I chuckle. “Sorry, little man. Look.”
I reach forward, bringing my hand closer and closer to his first handprint.
Just when I’m about to touch it, I change course and direct my tickling hand at his belly instead.
Ryan lets out a giggle of delight and rolls away from me.
I can’t believe there was a time when I thought I could live without my son’s laughter.
It seems like a different life. It is a different life.
“No, Daddy, no,” he laughs, leaping to his feet with his arms at his sides. “I’ll get you.”
“Oh, will you?” I chuckle, climbing to my knees and mirroring his pose.
He has his mother’s spark in his eyes, her defiance.
He has my smile, everybody says so. And that just ma
kes me smile all the more.
He runs at me and I catch him, lifting him over my head.
“Argh, argh,” he yells, doing his pirate voice, pretending he has a cutlass as she lashes his hand at me.
“Oweeeeeeeee,” I yell, falling down and closing my eyes.
“Daddy, Daddy,” he breathes frantically. He brings his hand to my chest and gives me a playful thump. “I’ll save you, Daddy.”
I lurch up and let out a gasp.
“Thanks, son,” I laugh. “That was a close one.”
“Say it prop’lee, Daddy.”
I grin. Prop’lee.
I hope he says it like that for a few years to come yet.
I put on my funny voice, making it deep and ogre-ish.
“That was a close one.”
He collapses into another fit of giggles, and I stare down at him in wonder, my wife’s singing whirling around us and my twins’ breathing purring beneath it all.
Katie makes another joke and Alexis joins her giggling with Ryan’s.
“Kids,” Sophia calls. “It’s burger time.”
“Hear that?” I grin, ruffling Ryan’s hair. “Life really can’t get any better, can it?”
“Nope, Daddy,” he smiles. “It’s the bestest life in the whole wide world.”
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A MAN WHO KNOWS WHAT HE WANTS
Book 1: Baby Lust
Book 2: Veteran
Book 3: Built
Book 4: Bambino
Book 5: Rescued
Book 6: Leader
Book 7: Professor
Book 8: Burned
Book 9: Worldly
Book 10: Pistol
Book 11: Policed
Book 12: Driven
Book 13: Lucky 13
Book 14: Lumberjacked
Book 15: Protector
Book 16: Carpenter
Book 17: Italian Stallion
Book 18: Gardener
Intern For My Best Friend's Dad: An Instalove Possessive Age Gap Romance Page 13
