Total pages in book: 22
Estimated words: 20590 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 103(@200wpm)___ 82(@250wpm)___ 69(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 20590 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 103(@200wpm)___ 82(@250wpm)___ 69(@300wpm)
“You ready to do this, or are you backing out?” I ask her as Russell places her hand in mine.
“Yeah, right, you’d have to drag me away from you, Trace. I’m so ready to be yours,” she replies, leaning into me, and I’m ready to swoop down to kiss her. The clearing of the preacher’s throat stops me though.
“We could have done this long ago, but someone was hell bent and whiskey bound,” I tease her. She rolls her eyes at my antics. I must have asked her once a week about eloping this past year. It never worked, and in a way I’m glad she stood her ground.
“Okay, Mr. Smooth-talker. Let’s get married.” Knox, Blakely, Wolf, and even Dove’s mom laugh at the banter we have going on. I hold my arm out to her. She takes it, my hand going on top of hers, wanting her to know in every way imaginable she’ll always have me in some way, shape, or form.
Our vows are said, repeating when the preacher says to, we exchange the rings, and then, when it’s time for me to kiss my bride, I take her lips. Neither of us cares about who’s surrounding us as our tongues meet. My eyes are open, and the smile she gives me as we kiss tells me just how happy she is. If it’s the last thing I do every night, I’m going to make sure she’ll always have this same smile on her face till the end of time.
Epilogue
Trace
Five Years Later
I’m watching my woman sleep, trying my hardest not to beat my chest like Tarzan. She’s passed out from the orgasms I wrung from her body. It was sleeping time for Matthew, our only son. Though we’ve been trying, it hasn’t happened yet, something we found out might happen after we had our boy. That’s okay with us, and if it doesn’t happen, we’ll still be okay, but I have a feeling there’ll be a surprise in the near future. Dove’s body is slowly changing, and the heightened sex drive she seems to have lately is giving me the intuition that she may be pregnant.
“Daddy,” our son whisper-yells from the opening of our bedroom door. Matthew is the spitting image of me, but boy does he have Dove’s personality, quiet until he reaches his boiling point. Then it’s a full-out tantrum, or he’ll give you the silent treatment. I kid you not, he may be four years old, but the little tike has it down to an art.
“Hey, bub, you wanna get in bed with us?” That’s one thing we’ve had to change, sleeping naked. Those days are long gone unless he spends the night at someone’s house, then it’s a free-for-all. Today is one of those days I’m glad I made sure Dove slid on my shirt and I threw on a pair of cotton shorts. We put Matthew to bed a few hours ago. This has become a routine of his lately. No matter what we’ve done, he wakes up. I have a feeling, though, he’s a night owl like the McCray men are, barely needing sleep to function.
Dove wanted to take him to the doctor until my mom let her know it was something both Knox and I did well into our teen years. She suggested we just go with the flow. So, that’s what we’ve been doing, and if that means he gets into bed with us, we’re okay with that.
“Please.” He’s in a pajama set that has Blakely written all over it, a onesie-type deal for toddlers and in the shape of a dinosaur, his current obsession.
“Come on in here. You okay?” I ask as he carefully slides into our bed, crawling from the bottom, heading to the middle where Matthew lies down until he will fall asleep. More often than not, we leave him in here. Well, until he decides to take up the whole bed and kicks me or Dove out of bed. One time, she woke up with his feet on her face, and another time, his little booty somehow was on top of my chest and he was lying flat on his back. I couldn’t get over that one.
“Not tired.” The truth is in his eyes, though, which are already drooping, added in with the yawn.
“Sure, we’ll go with that.” My arm wraps around him, bringing him into my side so he won’t wake up Dove.
“Tell me a story, pwease?” he asks. I kiss the top of his head and nod my own.
“Sure, let me turn the lamp off, then we’ll get down to it.” My other arm reaches out to do that, then we settle in for a story when Dove opens her eyes, sensing Matthew’s in bed with us.
“You okay, baby?” she asks him, momma bear mode already homing in.