When we’d woken up the next morning, the storm had died down. And in it’s wake, we all woke to a perfect winter scene of stillness and fresh snow. We had coffee in the kitchen I’d grown up in, before Colin invited all of us — my parents included — back to his home for Christmas Eve brunch.

He flew us.

Over the gorgeous, fresh winter snow, Colin flew me and my stunned parents back to the helipad at one of his buildings back in Boston. A waiting car took us to his townhouse, where his kids ran out the front door to wrap their arms around him, and then me. Andrew made us brunch, my parents tried to swallow the shock of where they were, and Colin went out of his way to promise them he had every best intention for me.

That night, in front of the Christmas tree, he proved it even further, when he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him.

I don’t think any Christmas Eve will ever top that one.

After that, we just drifted into our very own happy ever after. I moved in permanently immediately, and married Colin the following summer.

Needless to say, we got a new nanny for Beckham and Lillian.

The kids were a big part of me coming into his life, and he told me later that their warming to me the way they did was one of the biggest reasons he’d asked me to be his wife. I had a special kind of relationship with them, and I carried the responsibility of that relationship with the highest regard. I wasn’t their mother — that I made clear. Stepmom, yes, but as broken as she was, they did have a mother. I loved the two of them as if they were my own kids, of course, but it was never my place to replace Helen, only to act as a better caregiver to them than she could be.

There was a sweet spot I found, somewhere between “friend” and “mom,” and it worked out wonderfully for all of us for a time.

Well, until the incident.

Helen had broken the terms of her parole by flying to Paris to intimidate Colin and I. A more vindictive man would have come after her for everything, and made sure she never saw her kids again. But while he was firm, and viciously protective of those he loved, the man I married wasn’t cruel.

Colin did eventually — eventually — grant supervised, in-home visitation of the kids with Helen. It was for Beckham and Lillian, of course, not for her, and for a time, it worked.

That is, until she’d shown up drunk to one of the visits and tried to attack Colin with a taser she’d smuggled into the house. After that, and after they found evidence of her planning another lawsuit against Colin — a breach of the terms of her visitation — Colin shut that door for good.

Cruel? No. Fiercely protective? You bet.

The thing is, Helen hadn’t ever actually been after her children, just a way back to Colin and his bankroll. After the incident at the house, when it was quite clear to her that she was never getting her hooks into him again, she quite readily and willingly signed away all parental rights to her kids. After that, she’d flown off to Europe somewhere with the disgraced Dr. Peters.

Her just giving up Beckham and Lillian like that sickened me though, and after that, the dynamic of our relationship changed.

Because after that, I formally adopted them as my own.

I finished school at Harvard, moved on to the Business School graduate program at the same college, and eventually moved into a leadership position with one of Colin’s acquisition firms. I loved the work and the challenges, and I loved that I’d been afforded a chance to do the work I’d always wanted to do.

I also really loved that my boss would occasionally drop by my office, lock the door, bend me over my desk with my hands tied behind my back, and fuck me until I was a puddle.

Separation of work and play?

No thanks.

Bridgette was born three years after we married — a beautiful baby girl and an anchor that just tied our little family all together.

Colin was nothing I was ever looking for, and yet everything I hadn’t even known I wanted. The kind, loving husband that centered me, the warm, doting father to our children.

And yet, he never stopped being the other things I loved about him.

Dominant.

Wickedly dirty and toe-curlingly demanding and controlling when I needed him to be.

We had both the sugar and the spice — the warm fuzzy love and the down and dirty steam that kept me moaning for more and begging for it harder. And he never disappointed on either front.

We still sometimes would go back to that club, where it all began. We’d approach each other as strangers, he’d buy me a drink, he’d let his hand trail over my skin. And just like that first time, I’d be dripping wet for him in seconds.

He’d take me through the crowds, pull us into the bathroom, tear my panties away from me and fuck me hard and dirty — rough and controlling just like I craved and just how he loved.

But unlike the first time, those times, we’d leave together, and go back the the life and the family we’d created together. And maybe that wasn’t everyone’s idea of love. Maybe to some people, my husband fucking me against the tiled wall of a nightclub bathroom with my torn panties binding my hands behind my back and my hair wrapped around his fist until I came like a banshee was something to look down on. Maybe to some people, him pulling me back through the club afterwards with our clothes disheveled, the sweet bruises from our roughness already rising, and his cum dripping down my thigh wasn’t love at all.

Those people didn’t bother us one bit, because it was for us.

We had it all, and that’s what mattered. We had the family, the love, and the sweet and the hot.

Sugar and spice, as they say, makes everything nice.

The End.