by Piper Lennox
For your mom.
“I did the math.” He touched my earring: pearl studs, handmade by Clara as a wedding present. “If we invest it well, the dividends will pay for the in-home care she needs.”
Fresh tears blurred his handwriting. I felt too many things at once: pure joy, disbelief...an old, deep-seated kind of shame, as I shoved it back into his hands.
“Theo, no. I can’t accept this.”
“Yes,” he said firmly, pushing it back, “you can. You’re my wife now, Ruby. Your mom is my family. And Durhams take care of our family, no matter what they have to do.”
I started to protest again, but something in his voice stopped me. It wasn’t just how confident he sounded, that steeled tone telling me he was going to make sure I accepted his gift if it was the last thing he did.
There was something else to it—a grittiness, and some kind of exhaustion. Like getting this check had been far harder than I could imagine.
And I knew it wasn’t because his dad made it difficult. Just the opposite, in fact: Gil was probably thrilled Theo asked. And Theo, knowing him, hated himself all the more for doing it.
Six years ago, when Theo and I moved into our first tiny apartment, he declared he was done accepting money from his father. He said he couldn’t promise me anything close to luxury…but that he’d always find a way to give me what I deserved.
As the gravity of this gift hit me, I took back the check and leaned across the console to kiss him. Hard.
I wanted to show him I was grateful. To thank him for that sacrifice: briefly turning into the person he needed to be, not who he wanted to be, so that he could give me the one thing I wanted most.
“Do you know what you’re doing? Like, actually know?”
I lean out from under the sink and slide the wrench to Wes across the linoleum. “Care to try, smartass? You’ve been criticizing me for a good twenty minutes, so please, show me how you fix a sink.”
“You get out your phone,” he laughs, stepping over me to take a grape from each of his kids’ plates, “and you call a plumber.”
I wipe the dripping water off my forehead with a dishtowel and get up. Hal grins when I pop up across from him, while Journey babbles to Wes in what I assume is English. I’ve got a hard time understanding either of them, honestly. All I know is, they’re cute as hell.
“Journey’s starting to look exactly like Delaney did, at that age,” I tell Wes, who nods and pops another grape in his mouth. I look at his son. “But damn, poor Hal. Looks just like you.”
Swiftly, Wes sweeps his foot out to try and knock mine out from underneath me. I hop right over, laughing.
We take the kids to the backyard. Ruby just finished putting in a coy pond, and they’re obsessed with it.
I hold Hal by the straps of his overalls—kid would dive right in, if he could—while Wes stretches out on the grass and lets Journey crawl over him.
“Ready for dad life?” he asks, eyes shut against the afternoon sun, and his daughter’s fingers poking him in the face.
“No.” I stop Hal from reaching into the water, when one foolishly brave coy finally ventures out of its hiding place. “But I’ll get ready.”
“Yeah, that’s how it goes.” He sits up as Journey stumbles off after her brother; besides the coy pond, their other current obsession is the fairy garden Ruby installed, just for them. “Can’t fully prepare until the kid arrives.”
I sit beside him. “I just hope all the renovations are done by then.”
“I’ll help.” He dusts some soil off his palms. “My next tour doesn’t start until October. It’s all local spots, anyway.”
“Appreciate the thought, but we couldn’t even fix that leaky-ass sink.” I right myself when he shoves me. “Also, I just have to say it: I don’t know how you’re still doing shows with two kids. Or how Van and Juni still travel in that Transit, now that they’ve got the twins. Seems like such a hassle.”
“It is, sometimes. But, like…is there anything worth having that doesn’t come with some hassle?”
I think about arguing with this, but decide he’s right. My entire life used to be staged, captured, planned, and funded. Effortless. And I despised it.
My life with Ruby is messy. There’s occasional stress over bills, arguments over renovations, and days when nine-hundred square feet doesn’t feel like nearly enough for two people, let alone the third on its way.
But I think that’s what I love most about my life. It’s just uncomfortable enough to make me appreciate how comfortable it really is.
It’s real, and honest, and so damn good.
“Couldn’t fix the sink, huh?”
“Nope.” I hug Ruby tight from behind. “We don’t really need running water, do we?”
“We do if you want dinner.” She tries to bump me off, but I just change tack and hold her butt against my hips while she laughs.
“Put it on simmer.” I move her hair out of the way and bite her ear the way she loves. “I had a horrible experience with that sink today. Make me love the kitchen again.”
She keeps stirring, giving me bored glances I know are completely fake. “And how would I do that?”
“Sitting on the counter and letting me eat you out, letting me stir dinner while you get on your knees and blow me, bending over the dining table so I can fuck you from behind—”
“Wow.” She laughs again, but I hear the breathlessness creeping in. “Didn’t realize your answer would be a multiple choice.”
“Oh, those weren’t options.” I reach past her and turn down the burner, then let my hands commence their dirty voyage across her body. “It was a checklist.”
I start with my latest foreplay routine: licking and biting her earlobe, shoulder, and neck while I touch her stomach. The bump there is invisible to the rest of the world, but not me.
“Counter,” I order.
Her breath quickens as I turn her around, pull her leggings and underwear down, and help her hop onto the countertop near the sink. I don’t even mind that I couldn’t fix it today. Tomorrow, when I finally get the determination to try again, all I’ll be thinking about is this moment: shoving her legs apart and feeling that heat against my fingers.
I rub her clit, reveling in the sigh she gives. “How many?”
“Once is fine.” She shudders as I pull down her shirt collar, duck my head, and draw her nipple into my mouth. “But build it up really big.”
By the time I put my head between her legs, she’s close. I drag it out: teasing my tongue in and out of her slick opening, flitting upward to her clit just long enough to keep her at the edge, and sliding only one finger inside her when she asks for more.
“I told you to build it up,” she pants, clutching at my head to pull me closer, “not to be cruel.”
“The more times I get you close without letting you come, the more intense it’ll be when it happens. It’s just science, baby.”
“Easy for you to say. You’re not the one getting tortured.”
I glance up at her, then stand straight. My hand grabs hers and presses it against my erection.
“You feel how fucking hard I am, Ruby?” I growl against her neck. “Don’t tell me I’m not getting tortured. Listening to you moan like that is killing me.”
Deftly, she undoes my zipper. “Then let’s move on to Item Two on tonight’s agenda.”
The way she touches me buries me in more lust.
The cute way she hops off that counter, ties back her hair, and lowers herself in front of me? If I weren’t already so stupidly in love with her, I’d be falling right now.
I sigh her name as she teases the tip of my cock around those kissable, biteable, fuckable lips. It’s a shame I can’t do all three at once.
Her tongue traces a vein on the underside of my shaft. Heat fills my face, pressure growing in my abdomen.
The second she takes me into her throat, my knees weaken, and I have to brace myself against the counter behind me.
“
Damn, baby, give a guy some warning,” I pant. Her laugh hums across me.
I swallow hard and let my head fall back on my neck. The edge of my palm lands in something wet.
It’s her, I realize: all the liquid I drew out of her body, with my teasing mouth and fingers.
“Oh, God, Ruby—Ruby, you gotta stop.” My orgasm’s almost started. The more I think about that small puddle on the counter.... “I’m too close.”
She looks up, but doesn’t stop. I groan my warning again, finally getting the strength to guide her away from me, just before I can finish.
She wipes her mouth and pouts as I help her up. “I barely got to do you at all.”
I kiss her, combining our tastes until her complaints turn into moans.
“You’re building mine up, too,” I tell her, before my teeth sink into her bottom lip. I draw back and nod through the alcove, to the dining table. “Let’s go. Grand finale.”
“Fuck, baby. That’s exactly what I wanted.”
I smile. While he made sure all the curtains in the dining area were closed, I undressed down to nothing and positioned myself. I know the sight he just found—me, bent over the table with everything open to him—is driving him wild.
Clara and Juni warned me pregnancy would bring uncontrollable horniness, but I guess I’m one of the unlucky ones. Most of my days consist of fatigue and nausea, where sex is the last thing on my mind.
But every now and then, Theo manages to break through all that and remind me my sexual appetite is far from gone.
Like right now, when he pushes the head of his cock into me from behind, pauses, and bends down to kiss my spine. “I’ve been waiting for this all day,” he says. “The chance to taste your pussy, fuck you senseless, and come inside you.”
I’m sure he assumes it’s his movement—one hard, sudden drive of his length inside me—that makes me cry out in pleasure, so loud it echoes through our entire house, but it isn’t.
It’s his dirty talk. I’ve always loved it, but this new theme is a definite favorite. Novel, primal, and limited edition.
“I never want to use a condom again,” he pants, rocking his hips against my ass hard enough to screech the table forward. “I love this too much—being inside you exactly how we are. Feeling every single thing.”
“Me, too,” I manage. It’s almost impossible to speak; he’s driving into me at such a perfect angle, all I’ve got left are animal instincts. My one and only thought is, He feels so fucking good.
The cool surface of the table hardens my nipples. I feel them rub back and forth against the woodgrain, faster and harder when his pace picks up.
“Theo,” I cry, “I’m so close....”
And, just like I knew exactly how to position myself on this table for him, he knows my warning is really a plea. I want one more line. Something simple and dirty to echo in my head.
He slows, leaning down to kiss my back again.
“Beg me for my cum, Ruby,” he whispers. “Tell me you need it inside you.”
While I grip the edges of the table, my whimpers twist themselves into words. “I need your cum inside me, Theo,” I moan. My face burns. I feel a twinge of embarrassment, but it’s drowned in arousal.
The only thing I like more than his dirty talk...is how easily he makes me echo it.
How, the second I say it, I really believe it.
“I need it,” I say again. It stutters out of my mouth, over and over, until my orgasm swells and crashes.
Theo stiffens and releases inside me, one hand on my hip; the other, gently resting on my collarbone. He pulls me closer. He holds me against him.
He keeps me right there in his orbit, and himself in mine, until nothing in this universe could pull us apart.
“Hey. Let’s go to bed.”
“No,” I mumble. “I’m so comfortable.”
I haven’t moved for what feels like hours, too high on the afterglow of my orgasm. Too in love with this moment: my husband’s erection softening inside me, the warmth of his release spilling down my thighs...the soft, quiet darkness of the home we’re building together, resting peacefully all around us.
Theo laughs and slips out of me, then scoops me up. Lazily, I put my arms around his neck and shut my eyes while he carries me. I don’t want to study the shadows on the walls, or the unfinished projects still piled up around us. I just want to hear his heartbeat.
When I feel him lower me to the bed, I hold on tighter to his neck so he’ll climb in with me. He likes to disappear after we’ve made love, sometimes, to go play his piano.
Usually, I like it: falling asleep to the soft, slow versions of showtunes, his lullabies to only me.
But tonight, I want him beside me, not rooms apart. I want the pulse of his heart underneath my hands, not the pulse of quiet music in my ears.
“Stay.”
He kisses my forehead. “I am.”
We drift together. Our hands roam underneath the sheets. He finds the chill bumps on my arms. I find the cooled sweat across his chest.
He touches my stomach. I rest my hand overtop his.
“We still haven’t decided on a boy name,” I remind him. At the top of our girls’ list sit classics like Ava, Emma, and Gracie, but neither of us can decide if a normal boy’s name is the way to go, or if we should continue the Durham tradition.
“Here.” Theo rolls away from me and flicks on his lamp, then digs through the nightstand. He sits up against the headboard and shows me.
It’s a coin.
“If it’s heads, we use a normal name,” I say.
He nods. “Tails: tradition.”
With a dramatic breath, he flips the coin into the air. It lands in the pool of blankets between us, hidden.
“Care to do the honors?” he asks.
I push up on my elbow and feel through the covers until I find it. Theo shuts his eyes and sinks back into his pillows, hands behind his head, while he waits for the verdict.
I lean forward and look.
“Dig out the family records,” I laugh.
Theo grins, eyes still shut. “Good. I’ve already got a bunch written on a receipt in my drawer.” He holds out his hand. “Pass me the coin. We’ll narrow them down gauntlet-style.”
For the next half-hour, we pit names head-to-head, cross the losers off the list, and follow this game of fate until we’re left with only one.
“Ashcroft,” he announces, circling the winner in the center of his scribbled bracket. “Nickname, Ash.”
I admire it a moment. Strange, yes—but something about it feels right. “Whose maiden name was that?” I ask him, tucking my head against his shoulder.
He slips his arm behind me and draws me closer, then tosses the list aside. The bedroom goes dark when he clicks his lamp back off, nothing but midsummer moonlight and the glow of his alarm clock across the room.
“Margaret Mae Ashcroft,” he says. “My great-great aunt, give or take a generation. She was a flapper.”
“Seriously?”
“Yep. Apparently she’d party in the city all night, then purposely show up to church late the next morning looking exhausted, smelling like smoke and alcohol, just to piss off her deacon father. Very scandalous.”
I crack up. “Okay, yeah, that’s definitely a winning name, then. And honestly…I’m liking ‘Mae’ for a girl.”
“Yeah?” He glances at me; I nod. “All right, then. No matter what we get, Great-Great-Maybe-Another-Great-In-There Aunt Margaret Mae will be the namesake.”
We slip deeper under the covers together, back to touching and light kisses. He caresses my stomach again. He whispers our child’s names to himself, cementing them even deeper in my memory. Making me love them, and this baby, and himself, even more.
“Are you scared?” I ask.
“Yes. But that’s how I know it’s going to be the best thing we’ve ever done.”
I smile as he kisses me. He’s right.
It’s just like moving to a new city, meeting new
people, or accepting a proposal. Changing a home, or your name, or your entire life.
Learning to trust someone, or learning to forgive.
They’re all terrifying. Probably the most nerve-wracking things we can do in this life, in fact. But the most worthwhile.
“I love you,” he whispers.
I say it back, losing myself in the sweet kiss he places on my forehead. He keeps his mouth there, even after I’m sure he’s fallen asleep.
That, I realize, might be the scariest thing any of us ever do: love someone else. Nothing else can break you faster or more thoroughly, if it goes wrong.
But, when it finally goes right...there’s nothing else like it.
Also by Piper Lennox
Durham Boys
Fake Halo
Seven Sins
Lost King
Now Entering Hillford
The Midwife’s Playlist
The Carpenter’s Wedding
The Poet’s Cookbook
The Bartender’s Countdown
The Hawthorne’s Girl
The Fairfields
Darling, All at Once
Honey, When It Ends
Baby, Be My Last
Love in Kona
Pull Me Under
Crash Around Me
When We Break
Standalones
All Mine
Teach Me
The Road to You
Think I Wanna Marry You (Subscriber Exclusive)
About the Author
Piper Lennox is the author of the Amazon Top 100 Bestseller Darling, All at Once, the Now Entering Hillford series, All Mine, and more. Her favorite heroes are sexy and broken; her favorite heroines are feisty (and, usually, also a little broken). Lost King is her eighteenth novel.
Piper lives in Virginia with her husband, their children, and a Siberian Husky too smart for his own good. Before she spent her days writing about life and love, she wrote copy for insurance companies. She will never, ever go back.
