by Lane, Nina
When bliss crashes over me, I clutch the bedcovers as Dean presses his fingers against my clit, his deep voice murmuring husky words of pleasure. My body is still vibrating when he moves his hands to my hips and plunges inside me with his own powerful release.
With a groan, he rolls to the side and pulls me closer, his breath stirring the tendrils of hair at my temple. I tuck myself against him, absorbing the slow ebbing of sensations.
As my mind clears from the fog of desire, I become aware of a nagging worry that took root during my many hours of researching before-and-after pregnancy issues. I push up to one elbow and look at Dean, who is lying there with his eyes closed, all sweaty, disheveled, and content.
“Hey, Dean?”
“Hey, Liv.”
“Are you worried about having a baby?”
He opens his eyes. “You mean the labor and delivery?”
“No, I mean…” I twist a corner of the sheet. “Well, last fall you said you didn’t want anything to change between us. But of course with a baby, it will. And, you know, things will change sexually…”
Dean shifts to face me. To my surprise, a smile tugs at his mouth.
“Liv, you turn me on like no woman ever has,” he says. “You always will. And sure things are going to change, but we’ll work it out. Haven’t we always worked it out before?”
Have we ever.
“Okay. I was just… you know. Wondering.”
He’s still looking at me. “You don’t think I’m going to pressure you into anything before you’re ready, do you?”
“No, of course not. But what if it’s weeks and weeks?”
“Then we’ll wait weeks and weeks.” He shrugs. “Liv, I love having sex with you but I’m not a complete jackass.”
“You’re not?”
He reaches up to tweak my nose. “This is how it’s going to go down, Mrs. West. After the kid is born, we’re going to wait as long as necessary to have sex again. Months, if we have to. Until we’re both ready. Then we’re going to figure things out day by day. If something’s bugging you, you’re going to tell me. We’re hiring a babysitter at least twice a month so I can take you out. We’re getting a lock on our bedroom door so the kid can’t walk in on us when we’re doing it.
“There will be lots of kissing,” he continues. “I will stare lustfully at you when you walk past me and often try to cop a feel. This in no way will obligate you to have sex with me, but if you want to I’ll rock your world. And when the kid goes to college, all bets are off and you and I are going to get naked and dirty in every room of the house. In the middle of the day.”
Since I’m speechless, I just sink against him, soft and melting. He folds himself around me in his enveloping, protective way, wrapping us both in the knowledge of all that we are to each other now and all that we will ever be.
“See you tomorrow, Liv.”
Allie and I wave at each other as we leave the Wonderland Café one Sunday evening in July. The sun has started its slow descent, and Avalon Street is crowded with people sitting at the sidewalk cafés, wandering along the lake paths, and window shopping. I walk home, enjoying the warm air and the breeze drifting in from the lake.
I go up the stairs to our apartment, pausing at the sight of a note taped to the door.
Warmth fills me. Though I know Dean isn’t luring me to the Butterfly House for a sexy encounter—he’s too mindful of my pregnancy these days to pursue me anywhere except in the bedroom—I hurry inside to shower and change. Whatever my husband has planned, I’m not showing up all grubby after a day’s work.
As I drive toward Monarch Lane, I wonder if Dean has the same idea I’ve been thinking about for the past couple of weeks. I pull into the driveway and get out of the car, my breath catching at the sight of the huge, ramshackle house. Though it’s still mostly boarded up and overgrown with weeds, right now it looks like a dream.
Tiny white lights shine like fireflies from several trees around the house. Lush, potted plants and flowers bloom along the walkway leading to the front porch, which is draped in a waterfall of twinkling lights. With the sunset casting a reddish glow over the sky, and the lake and town spread beneath the mountains… it’s a picture right out of a much beloved, classic fairy tale.
Except this fairy tale belongs only to us.
A tingle rains down my spine at the sight of a certain handsome prince standing on the front porch. My heart rate intensifies as Dean approaches me, a smile curving his mouth. Dressed in charcoal-colored trousers, a navy shirt, and a blue-and-gray striped tie, he radiates that distinct air of sexy, brilliant professor that quickens my blood.
He stops in front of me, his eyes warm. A tangible crackle of awareness fills the space between us.
“Hi,” I breathe, my whole being flooded with both pleasure and astonishment. “This is beautiful.”
“So are you.” Dean brushes a kiss across my lips before extending his arm to me.
I slip my hand into the crook of his arm as we walk along the broken flagstones to the porch.
“You fixed the steps,” I remark, pausing to look at the repairs he’s completed. “And the balustrade. It looks wonderful.”
“It’s just a temporary fix,” Dean says. “They’ll have to be replaced eventually.”
I let my gaze follow the roof of the porch to the tower where Dean once took pictures of me before things got downright hot. A little shiver runs through me at the memory.
“What did you ever do with those pictures?” I ask.
“I printed out the ones of you fully clothed,” he says. “I have a couple of them in my wallet and one in my office. I deleted the others.”
“Really? Why?”
“I don’t need prints of them.” He pulls me closer, his eyes darkening with heat as he taps his temple with his forefinger. “I’ve got every one of those pictures locked up here where only I can see them.”
A wave of pleasure surges beneath my heart as I lean toward my husband like a flower stem bending to the wind.
“I think we have the same idea about this house,” I whisper.
“What idea is that?” He slides his hands around to the small of my back.
“The one about buying it.”
“Buying it?”
I ease back to look at him, realizing suddenly that he has no idea what I’m talking about.
“Isn’t that why you asked me to meet you here?” I ask. “Didn’t you talk to Florence Wickham?”
“I haven’t talked to Florence since last week.” A faint confusion furrows his brow. “Why?”
“She told me that developers are starting to ask about the property again,” I explain. “Once they found out the Historical Society couldn’t raise the funds to save it, they realized they could swoop right in. Of course they’d just raze the house and make it a commercial site.”
“That would be a damn shame.”
“That’s why I was wondering…” I take a breath and rest my hand on the swell of my belly. “What do you think of us buying the house?”
“Us?” Dean repeats. “You and me?”
I smile. “Last I heard, us is definitely you and me.”
“Why do you want us to buy it?”
“I thought we could renovate it and eventually live here.” I look up at the house again, all the lights twinkling around it. “The location is amazing, and with the right care and attention, the house could be beautiful again. I know it’ll take a ton of work and money, but saving and restoring an old house… it feels like something we should do.”
And I know to the center of my heart that Dean and I were meant to bring this place back to its original glory.
“You’re the perfect person to make sure the details are all historically accurate, and to preserve the integrity of the original building,” I continue. “And I’d love to find out abou
t the furniture and decorating. We could stay in the apartment with the baby for the next year or so until we get it all done.”
Dean is still quiet, his gaze traveling over the front of the house. I can almost see the thoughts and assessments shifting through his mind.
“We’d just have to make a plan,” I tell him. “Preferably a Professor Dean West plan.”
Dean turns to smile at me, his eyes crinkling at the corners, and my heart gives a leap of pure happiness.
“It’s a great idea, Liv,” he says. “I’d love to restore this house and live here with you.”
“I’d love it too.” I twine my arms around his neck and stand on tiptoe to kiss him. “When I saw your note, I thought you had the exact same idea.”
“I do now.” He rubs his nose against mine. “But I actually asked you here for another reason. Do you remember what day it is?”
“July… oh my God.” I press my hands to my cheeks, shock diluting my pleasure. “I did not forget our anniversary.”
“I think you did.”
“Oh, Dean. I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be.” He gently tugs a lock of my hair. “We’ve had a lot going on, and I was kind of hoping you’d forget anyway. I wanted to surprise you.”
He takes my arm and guides me up the steps to the porch where white lights fall around us like a curtain of stars. The sun is a halo of reddish-gold behind the mountains, and the town lights shine through the dusk.
Dean tightens his hand on mine, his dark eyes fixing on me with that singular intensity that shuts the rest of the world out. My heart flutters with anticipation.
“Liv, I think…” Dean pauses and clears his throat. “I think you know everything there is to know. You know that I fell hard for you the first time I saw you. You know that nothing on earth could have kept me from following you that day, and that I had to struggle not to touch you when we stood there on the sidewalk. You know you were the prettiest girl I’d ever seen. That you always will be. You know I went to Jitter Beans every morning in the hopes of seeing you again.
“You know I looked up the university rules before I asked you out, and that I spent hours coming up with the idea of seducing you with library call numbers. You know you’re the sweetest, sexiest woman in history.”
My entire body warms with love, and I smile through the tears blurring my eyes.
“You know I’ll always fight for you,” Dean continues. “That I’ll always protect you and always want to give you everything. You know you’re the one who showed me the meaning of bravery. You know you make my heart pound every time I see you, and that you drive me crazy with your insistence that I put the cereal boxes back in alphabetical order.”
I laugh, thinking it’s to his credit that he actually makes an effort to do that.
“And,” Dean says, his deep voice washing over me like the sun, “you know you’ll always be my beauty.”
I fumble for a tissue from my purse to swipe my eyes. I do know all that. I’ve known since the day we met, like a tiny seed was planted right in the center of my heart and has blossomed over the years into a thousand flowers.
“But there are a few things you don’t know.” Dean reaches up with his other hand to brush a tear off my cheek. “You don’t know that I never dared to believe a woman like you existed in the world, much less that you’d ever love me or let me love you. You don’t know that you fulfilled a million secret wishes I didn’t even realize I had.
“You don’t know that I started believing in impossible things after I met you. Maybe a person could slide down a rainbow or taste the clouds or count to infinity. Why not, if there was Liv in the world? The stars shone brighter, the colors of the world became more vivid, everything was clearer, happier, better. All because of you.”
“You’d better stop, professor.” I scrub my eyes again and disentangle my hand from his so I can press my palm against his chest. “I’m a pregnant woman who is about to end up on the floor from sheer excess of emotion.”
Dean smiles and then, to my surprise, he goes down on one knee in front of me. I wipe away my tears again.
“Olivia West,” Dean says. “My best friend, my wife, my girl, my key to everything good, my beauty. Will you marry me?”
“Will I…” I swallow past the tightness in my throat. “You… you’re proposing to me?”
“I’m proposing to you.”
“This is why you asked me to meet you here?”
“This is why.”
“But—”
“I never asked you to marry me,” Dean says.
I blink. “What?”
“When we were at that antique shop.” Dean rises to his feet and settles his hands on my shoulders. “I bought you the cameo ring, but I never asked you to marry me.”
“You didn’t?”
He shakes his head.
I think back to that day when I’d stood at the counter as Dean pulled out his wallet and said he hadn’t bought me an engagement ring yet. I remember being a little confused by his disbelief when I’d said I would love to be his wife, but I’d been so flooded with exhilaration and love that I hadn’t even noticed he didn’t actually ask the question.
“Well,” I finally say, “it’s a good thing I read between the lines then, isn’t it?”
“A very good thing,” Dean agrees, amusement lighting his eyes. “But you deserve a real proposal, so I’m asking you now. Will you marry me?”
“Oh!” I realize I haven’t even responded yet. I clutch Dean’s hands as an immense happiness and excitement course through me. “Of course, love of my life. I’ll marry you over and over again, until the end of time. Yes. Yes.”
A smile breaks over Dean’s face as he hauls me against him in one of those enveloping, tight hugs that secures the world beneath us and presses our heartbeats together.
“Give me a kiss, beauty,” he murmurs.
He cups the back of my head as I reach up to press my lips against his. My soul sprouts wings that lift me through the air, twirling and spinning.
When we ease away from each other, Dean reaches into his pocket. I wipe the lingering tears from my cheeks as he extends a small box. Inside is a silver band engraved with two keys and the words Liv and Dean.
Dean takes the ring from me and slips it onto my finger alongside my wedding band. I look from the ring to him, overwhelmed by the immensity of the love between us and its power to banish our fear.
“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” I say. “That we found each other and flew in love. How strong we are together, how much more we’ve become because we know how to love each other. How so much has changed…”
Dean is looking at me as if I’m the answer to all the questions in the world.
“Some things will never change, Liv,” he says. “We’ll always fall asleep and wake up together. I’ll always make you coffee in the morning and tease you about your bathrobe. We’ll always love each other to distraction, argue, hold hands, and kiss an awful lot. And I promise you that no matter what, we’ll always have us.”
I smile at him. I know this to the center of my soul. Like milk and cookies, pencil and paper, the moon and stars, please and thank you, movies and popcorn… Dean and I belong together.
We lift our left hands at the same time and place our palms together. Our wedding bands click softly as we entwine our fingers.
“You and me, professor.”
“You and me, beauty.”
He gathers me into his arms, strong as steel and warm as sunlight. I press my face against his chest, filled with a lovely sensation of coming home to the man whose heart I will keep forever safe. The man who understands all my strengths and flaws, who warms me from the inside out, who knows how to silence the noise of the world so all we can hear is us.
My husband and I will always be two people living one life of perfect imperfect
ion. We’ll always live here, in the place of Liv and Dean, where problems are solved and locks are opened. A place of infinite love, persistence, tenderness, passion, acceptance, and forgiveness. A place where wishes are granted, dreams come true, and stories have happy endings—not because of fate or magic, but because we love each other so hard and so well.
EPILOGUE
ink and red hearts, adhesive cupcakes, and smiling snowmen plaster the windows of the shops lining Avalon Street. Our curtains frame a view of white-capped mountains and skaters gliding across the ice-covered surface of the lake. Children walk with their parents along the street, stopping to play in the snow piled at the curbs. University students trundle past with backpacks slung over their shoulders and paper cups of coffee clutched in their hands.
Dean comes out of his office, looking deliciously rumpled in faded jeans and a King’s University sweatshirt, his hair all disheveled and his jaw covered with that day-old stubble that I always find so sexy.
His eyes warm with affection as he approaches me. He kisses my forehead as his hand comes to rest gently on the five-day-old baby sleeping in my arms.
“Want me to put him in the bassinet?” Dean whispers.
Since I need to use the bathroom, I nod and shift Nicholas’s weight, soft and cuddly as a bird in a nest of cotton. Dean moves to take Nicholas from me, cradling the bundle of blankets and baby close to his chest.
My heart fills with a wild tenderness as I look at them, my husband and our son, both dark-haired and dark-eyed, already knowing that they are the best of friends. A now-familiar expression of wonder crosses Dean’s face as he looks at Nicholas, then he returns to his office where the baby’s bassinet is set up right beside his desk.
After using the bathroom, I head into the kitchen to make a pot of tea.
“Go sit down.” Dean comes up behind me, giving me a gentle pat on the rear. “I’ll get it.”
I return to my overstuffed chair beside the window, and Dean soon comes in with the tea and a plate of the Wonderland Café’s popular Home, Heart, and Courage cookies, which he sets on a table beside me.
