by Whitley Cox
His hand rested on the flat of her stomach. “Which means our kid has also hit the genes jackpot. Because I’m going to be honest here: I am one hell of a healthy specimen.”
There was the laugh he was after. He kissed the top of her head and held on tighter to her and their baby.
“I’m sorry I was such an idiot earlier,” she said, folding up the papers and setting them on the ground beside her. “The emotions of the past few days got the better of me, and I took it out on you. You were right, you know. Knowledge is power.”
“And do you feel powerful now?” he asked, even though he already knew the answer, even if she didn’t. Tessa Copeland was one of the fiercest, kindest, most powerful women he knew. She’d taken what was left of his cold, shattered heart and warmed him up from the inside out, filling in the crevices with her patience and love until he once again felt something akin to whole.
“I feel better knowing,” she said with a shrug. “But maybe I can only say that because what I know isn’t bad.”
“I think you’d feel better either way,” he said, rubbing his hand down her arm. “Because then you’d be able to stop living your life in limbo and start living it fully.”
“Perhaps.” She yawned and adjusted her position on his lap. “I mean there are still hundreds of unknowns out there about me, more so now than if Lily and Bruno had been my biological parents. Because at least then I could run my mother’s DNA and find out more about myself. But I have no clue where to start now. I have no idea who my birth parents were, where they were from. I could still develop Alzheimer’s, not all forms are detectable.”
He growled, his brows furrowing at how dark she was going again.
Her coy smile had his knitted brows relaxing. “But knowing that what my mother has isn’t in my DNA does give me some kind of comfort.” She relaxed against him. “I have no idea what tomorrow or the next week or month will bring, but I do know I like my odds of remembering it all.”
He chuckled against her, pressing his lips to the side of her head.
“So now what?” she breathed, melting even deeper into his arms—where she belonged.
“Now?” He kissed her again. “Now we celebrate. We won the case against Rickson, you have your dog back, you have your PhD, you’re having my baby, and I was just given two and half more months of sabbatical leave. We can celebrate all summer if we want to.”
Her phone buzzed her in pocket, and she reached for it, hitting the answer button and putting it on speaker. “Hello?”
“Hello, Miss Copeland. This is Jolene over at Frozen Moo Juice. We have your custom ice cream flavor ready for you to pick up.”
Atlas narrowed his gaze on her curiously. “Ice cream flavor?” he mouthed.
“Right, thank you so much,” Tessa said, a sly grin now on her flushed and gorgeous face. “I’m just down the street, so I’ll swing in shortly and grab it. Thank you.”
“See you soon.”
They disconnected the call, and she glanced up at him from her phone. “I commissioned a discontinued flavor. Perhaps you’ve heard of it … citrus cooler?”
As if he couldn’t love this woman any more.
“An ice cream celebration it is, then,” he said, shaking his head and smiling hard at how fucking happy he finally was. “We’ll grab you some pistachio while we’re there and the girls some of that godawful Tiger Tiger garbage.”
“I want to celebrate everything with you.” She hit him hard with those sparkling blue eyes, which told him everything he needed to know about the future. “I want to celebrate everything with you for the rest of my life.”
“And that is going to be a very long, very lucid, very happy life.” Then he claimed her mouth as his, because it was. Because Tessa was his.
Epilogue
Nine months later …
Atlas cracked his neck side to side and let out a grunt. How long had they been at this? He was sure he was going to have shit in his hands any minute if they didn’t get a diaper out soon.
“Just like that, guys, perfect. Now if Mom and Dad can move their hands down just a bit so we can actually see baby Magnus’s head and not just big grown-up thumbs, that would be awesome. Yeah, perfect. Great.” Mitch’s camera clicked half a dozen times as he crouched down in front of Tessa and Atlas, who were holding their naked ten-day-old son in front of a black backdrop. “Okay, Tori, your turn.”
Tori, who was an amateur photographer and studying under Mitch, had offered to take free newborn photos of Magnus and the family, but she wanted the baby “extra squishy,” as she said, which was why they were there not two weeks after Tessa had given birth.
She took up Mitch’s post, crouched down on the ground. She didn’t snap a pic, but glared at Atlas. “Smile, you big grump.”
He rolled his eyes. “I thought we were supposed to be all serious and in love,” he replied, tossing on a half smile.
“That’s fine, but you looked like you’d rather be anywhere else but here,” Tori said, beginning to snap pictures.
Tessa chuckled, then slid her thumb down farther so as to not block their son’s face from the shot.
“Now one with the girls,” Tori said. “Everybody sit on the ground like the big happy family that you are and stare at Magnus like he’s the most beautiful baby you’ve ever seen. Call Forest over too. It’s not the whole family without that big fur baby.”
Tessa whistled for a sleepy-eyed Forest who had curled up next to the heater and he immediately trotted over to her, sitting at her feet obediently and gazing up at her with all the love and patience in the world.
Atlas beckoned to Aria and Cecily, who were sitting on the ground with mouths full of dinosaur-shaped fruit snacks to keep them in line. The girls rose from their spots and joined their parents.
Because they were their parents. Tessa had embraced motherhood with Aria and Cecily as if it were second nature to her, and now with Magnus, she was every bit the glowing, capable new mother he expected she would be.
Tessa gently encouraged Forest to spin around and face the camera and the big lug did as he was told, but sat on her feet and gazed up backward at her, his brown eyes soulful and almost worried. She rubbed his head. “It’s okay, buddy.”
“Forest!” Tori sung, snapping her fingers and then whistling.
Forest dropped his head and his eyes widened at the same time his tongue dropped out the left side of his mouth in a smile.
“Perfect,” Tori cooed. “Okay, everyone smile and look at Magnus.” Tori’s camera clicked, and she shifted about on her knees to get different angles.
“Have the girls kiss his forehead,” Mitch instructed.
“Girls, can you give Magnus a kiss on the head?” Tori asked.
“Mag-ass kissy kissy,” Cecily cooed, giggling as she bent over and kissed her brother on the top of his head.
“His forehead is wrinkly under my lips,” Aria said.
Tori continued to snap pictures.
“Okay, now one of just Mom and Dad,” Tori said, catching Atlas’s eye and winking over her camera.
He nodded and took the baby from Tessa.
“What? We’ve already done that. Where are you going with my baby?” Tessa asked, a mix of worry and confusion on her tired-mama face.
Atlas ignored her and passed a now-snoozing and still very naked Magnus off to Mitch. “Diaper him, will ya? Kid’s due for a shit any minute.”
“I’m snipped because I didn’t want to do diapers anymore,” Mitch joked, taking Magnus from him and wandering over to the blanket next to the heater. “No swimmers, means no diapers, period.”
“What’s going on?” Tessa asked again. “My boobs are starting to hurt. I think he might be hungry.”
“He’s sleeping,” Tori said, dismissing Tessa’s worry and helping her stand up. “Just roll with it, Tessa. I want to get a few pictures of the happy parents.”
“Without the baby?” she squeaked. “What about with me and the girls?”
“We�
�ll do that after,” Tori said. “But first I want to get this.”
Tessa’s eyes were pinned on Mitch as he attempted to diaper Magnus. “Get what?”
That was Atlas’s cue. He reached for the ring in his back pocket, slid down onto one knee and waited for his exhausted woman to finally get a clue and look down.
Tori cleared her throat. “Tessa.”
“Yeah?” Tessa still didn’t look down. “Mitch, he needs a bit of diaper cream on his butt. It’s getting a little red.”
“On it,” Mitch called, reaching into the diaper bag.
Atlas made a noise in his throat this time. She still didn’t look down. He and Tori exchanged amused glances at each other, and he rolled his eyes. His woman loved her son more than anything in this world, and Atlas wasn’t sure Magnus and Tessa had been this far apart from each other yet. Even though the baby was just across the photography studio, to Tessa it probably felt like a million miles.
“I can change his diaper if it’s too hard,” she called to Mitch.
“Changed thousands with my own kid, Tess. I got this,” Mitch replied. “Maybe you should look down instead of criticizing how I put zinc cream on a butt crack.”
Tessa’s brows furrowed, and she finally glanced down.
Atlas’s knee was beginning to ache on the concrete floor, but he maintained his position and held up the ring.
Tessa’s eyes grew with surprise, and her mouth opened. A gasp followed.
“Finally,” he said, reaching for her hand. “Tessa Marie, you brought me back from the brink, shed light on and patched up my dark and broken heart, making me whole again. Marry me, please?” He’d never been one to wax poetic, but he’d rehearsed what he figured he should say over and over in his head. Do you think that’s what came out when the moment came? Fuck no. But he said what was in his heart, how he felt and what Tessa meant to him. He hoped she knew she meant everything to him, even if he couldn’t get all the right words out.
Her eyes welled up with tears, but her smile said it all as she nodded and held out her hand.
He slid the ring onto her finger, but it didn’t quite fit.
“Damn it, I’m still puffy,” she whined, more tears spilling down her cheeks.
He shook his head and stood, pulling her into his arms. “We’ll get it resized, or you can wait to wear it in a few months. It doesn’t matter. I love your fingers just the way they are.” He pulled her fingertips to his lips and kissed each one.
All through this, Tori was snapping photos. He’d arranged to propose at this photo shoot, thinking that it would be a nice memento for Tessa as well as their kids down the road.
Tori pulled out from behind the camera, her own blue eyes watery. “Well, that was absolutely beautiful. I can’t wait to go through these shots.” Mitch was entertaining the girls and a now-diapered Magnus over on the blanket and Forest was back sleeping next to the heater, snoring like a bear. Tori took her cue and gave them some privacy.
Atlas turned to Tessa and laced their fingers together. “I meant what I said. All of it and more. You are my new light. A beacon in the storm that I thought I was destined to live in for the rest of my life. My crotch-rocket-riding, hippie-skirt-wearing, serial-killer-documentary-loving woman. You are my fresh start and my happy ending, and there is no one I’d rather grow old with than you.”
A sob caught in her throat, and she collapsed into him. “These are tears of joy,” she wailed. “It’s the hormones. So many hormones.”
He rubbed her back and kissed the top of her head. “And I’ll be here to wipe every one of them away, for as long as we both shall live.”
She looked at him, teary-eyed and flushed-faced. More beautiful than ever. “I love you, Atlas Stark.”
“And I love you, Tessa Soon-to-be-Stark.”
Falling with the Single Dad - Sneak Peek
Single Dads of Seattle Book 10
Chapter 1
“Ah! Thanks for the fuck.” Richelle rolled off Liam, swung her luscious legs over the side of the bed and sauntered her sweet ass to the ensuite bathroom. Moments later she returned, not bothering to climb into bed for snuggling, because that was NOT what this was about.
“Another satisfying hump day—and Thursday morning fuck,” Liam said with a laugh. The sigh that followed was accompanied by a mix of emotions. It was both a relief and a disappointment that she wasn’t going to stick around longer. A relief that he didn’t have to go make a big breakfast, but a disappointment in how business-like their arrangement had become. Hell, he wasn’t even expected to see her out or kiss her goodbye. She was not his girlfriend. They were not dating. They were not a couple. This was about sex and only sex.
Good sex.
But just good sex.
“Never had an unsatisfying one yet.” Richelle shot him a sassy smile over her sculpted shoulder as she reached for her bra on the floor. “Is that why you proposed Wednesdays be our day to have sex? Because it’s hump day?”
He tucked his hands behind his head and shut his eyes, still enjoying the euphoric high that followed a nice long fuck and a killer orgasm. “Might have been. But you know Jordie is with my parents on the Wednesdays I have him.” He opened his eyes again.
Richelle nodded as she clasped her bra behind her back. Fuck, she had great tits. The perfect handful, with tight, delicious raspberry-red nipples, dusky areoles that puckered when she became cold or aroused. And the way her breasts squeezed his cock when she titty fucked him, God almighty she was good at that. At the thought of being sandwiched like a Frankfurter between her creamy mounds his dick lurched beneath the sheet. He couldn’t get another boner now and take care of it himself. Not after that amazing fuck fest. Could he ask her to stay for one more round?
The clock on his nightstand said it was seven-thirty in the morning. He had to be at work in an hour. He knew his cock could certainly go again, the question was, could Richelle? Would Richelle? Did they have time?
She was still naked besides her bra and he spied her G-string at the foot of the bed. With a slight twinge in his back from the acrobatics they’d engaged in last night, he hinged up and snatched the panties, tucking them into his fist.
“Have you seen my underwear?” she asked, her hawklike amber eyes scanning the bedroom floor. “Hot pink G-string.” Her lips spread revealing perfect teeth and a salacious feline smile. “One of your faves, I believe.”
“You mean these?” he asked, his teeth now clenched around one of the strings.
She glanced up at him, her socks and shirt in her hand. “Those would be them, yes.”
He plucked the G-string from his teeth and held them on one finger. “Come get them.”
His eyebrows bobbed in a way that easily conveyed the payment required for retrieving her underwear.
That mouth he knew like the back of his own fucking hand continued to smile. “No time, stud. I have a deposition at nine this morning. Can’t be late if I intend to kill it. Then I’m off to Mallory’s school for career day.” She grumbled. “How fun is that going to be? Going to a school and telling five hundred plus kids how rewarding it is being a divorce attorney …”
She wandered around to the side of the bed and bent down, giving him the ultimate view of her cleavage. He slipped his free hand into one of her cups until he found a nipple and tugged. The moan that rumbled in her chest told him she may not have the time, but she’d certainly make it.
Her lips hovered above his. “I can’t.”
“Can’t? Or won’t?” He lunged forward and took her bottom lip between his teeth.
She groaned and her eyes squeezed shut. He could see her resistance crumbling. Feel the heat of her body and the way it radiated off her in a new way, a way he’d come to recognize and respond to primitively. The woman was a sexually charged animal. She also took control in the bedroom most of the time—which Liam had no qualms with—and by the time they parted ways Thursday morning he was exhausted, achy, drained and happy as fuck.
But he a
lso knew how to make his lioness purr. He knew how to make her roll over to her back, show her belly and become a playful kitten.
To look at her, you’d never expect the four-foot-eleven woman with short blonde hair, hawklike eyes, and the arms of a professional MMA fighter to be as fierce as she was. He reminded her of Tinkerbell—with an axe to grind. Hence, the nickname Tink or Tinkerbell that he’d given her ages ago. He’d even gone so far as to buy her a Tinkerbell costume one time (a sexy one of course) and he wore a generic pirates costume, for a little bit of role-playing.
Somehow, despite his mighty sword and dashing eyepatch, the woman had bewitched him with her pixie dust—or whatever—and he found himself on his hands and knees on the floor of his bedroom sucking her toes as she held his sword to his throat.
That had been one hell of fun night.
He’d called her Tink that night, and the nickname stuck. She didn’t seem to mind—as long as he never called her that in public.
He pinched her nipple harder and slid his tongue across her bottom lip. “I promise to have you at your deposition on time.”
She hummed against his lips. “You and your promises, Dixon.”
“Never broken one in my life, babe. You know that.”
“Do I know that? I hardly know you. We eat Thai food, watch movies and fuck, that’s it. I really don’t know a damn thing about you.” Her fingernails scraped down his bare chest and torso to slide beneath the covers, past his neatly trimmed hair to where his cock stood up creating the mother of all tents. She raked her French manicured nails down his shaft until he inhaled against her mouth. She breathed him in and chuckled. “Two can play the game.”
“You know I’ll play as much and as hard as you want to, baby. You know me better than you think.”
“I don’t even know your middle name.” She wrapped her fingers around his cock and slid her thumb over the crown, swirling the bead of precum around the tip.
