Three Years Later

Five years ago, I was a different person. Five years ago, terror struck my life but I also met my savior. Tonight, I am going to celebrate five years with the greatest man I’ve ever known.

“So, where’s he taking you?” Suki asks, flopping onto her stomach on my bed.

“I don’t know, it’s a surprise.”

“It’s Thursday, who’s teaching for you tomorrow?”

“Mrs. Albertson, she doesn’t know crap about music but I left a lesson plan for her to follow, she should do fine.”

I teach music at Park View Elementary School on Blue Bell Island, ten minutes from our house. Those who can, do; those that can’t, teach, they say. Drake says that doesn’t apply to me because I can do both, but I don’t care, I love my life now. I would never trade it for fortune and fame. I believe Drake’s view that everything happens for a reason more than ever now.

“Well, I’m glad you got the day off. You two deserve a three-day weekend alone with no kids, how long has it been anyway?”

I turn and check out my ass in the mirror making sure it looks good in my new dress. My wide eyes snap to hers in the glass, “Five years.”

“What? No way, you guys don’t go away for the weekend once in a while?”

“No. We spent the first two years together recovering from one thing or another and then we had Jack and then Sydney”

“Yeah, I guess you have been kind of busy.”

I roll my eyes. “A little.”

She rolls onto her back and throws her arms over her head, “Good thing you have good ol’ Auntie Suki to babysit.”

“Thank you. We appreciate you coming to help. Giselle will be back tomorrow, I promise you won’t be stuck with them all weekend.”

“I can handle it if grandma doesn’t show up, you go and have fun. Do me a favor, though.”

“What’s that?”

“Don’t get pregnant again.”

“Oh hush, you act like we have a dozen kids.”

“You have two more than me. Dylan doesn’t want kids yet. I keep telling him I’m not getting any younger over here. I’ll be thirty next year. I can feel my eggs drying up.”

“Mommy!” Jack yells running through the room with Drake on his heels. They’re playing hide and seek, their favorite game. You’d think it would be difficult for Drake to be the seeker but he has developed supersonic hearing with the loss of his sight. He can hear you breathing a mile away. I know because he always finds me.

He says it’s not my breathing but my scent that leads him to me, though.

“You can’t hide from me, I hear you.” Drake wiggles his fingers and Jack squeals when he scoots under the bed. He’s a goner. Drake roars as he charges the bed and grabs Jack’s foot right before he disappears under the bed skirt.

Suki sees the attack and looks at me, “How’s he do that?”

Drake pops up with Jack giggling in his arms, “I can still see.”

Her mouth falls open and she sits up on her knees looking at me for an explanation.

“He likes to make people think he can still see. It’s stupid. I told you not to do that, Drake.”

“It keeps people on their toes. They’re never sure if I’m watching them or not. And by the way, you tell me to do a lot of things that I don’t do, Mrs. Sassy.”

“Mrs. Sassy? That makes you Mr. Sassy then, right?”

He shrugs and Buddy waltzes into the room to see what’s going on. Buddy is Drake’s service dog, but he’s off the clock, so to say, when we are home.

Sydney starts to cry on the video monitor and I close my eyes.

“I’m on it,” Suki says jumping off the bed. “You guys are nuts. I’m going to play with the only normal person in this house.”

“Sydney is not normal, take that back.” Drake doesn’t like anyone to refer to his children as normal. He’s all about individuality and considers normal an insult.

“I will not. She hasn’t had time to be corrupted. Out of the four of you, she’s the most normal member of the Valentine family.”

“You know we can leave tomorrow when my mother gets back in town. We don’t have to leave our remarkable, unique, talented daughter in the hands of this mediocrity lover.”

“Oh, will you stop, please? Your remarkable, unique, talented daughter will be fine with me for one night.”

These two have developed an odd relationship since Suki and her husband Dylan moved to North Carolina to take care of his ailing grandmother. They bicker and banter, but they agree on one very important thing, they both love me.

With Jack slung over his shoulder laughing; Drake carefully counts his steps from the bed to the door and leaves the room with a huff. Suki isn’t far behind him when Sydney lets out an exceptional yelp followed by a long scream. Maybe he’s right. She seems to be a uniquely loud screamer. Not a talent I’m excited for her to have.

Buddy sits down and stares at me as if he’s waiting for an explanation.

“I don’t know, Bud, I really don’t know.”

I watch Suki pluck Sydney from her crib. She rocks her back and forth and tries to convince her that screaming isn’t the answer. Wow, does she have a lot to learn about babies.

I turn back to the mirror and jump when Drake is standing an inch away smiling like the cat that ate the canary.

“Shit, why are you sneaking up on me?” I ask.

“Because I’m good at it.”

“That you are.”

“I want to check out your dress,” he tells me.

I hold out my arms, “Check away.”

He starts as he always does, with his hands on my face tracing my cheeks and my jawline ending with a thumb on my bottom lip.

“My dress is down here.” I move his hands to my hips and he slides them up to my breasts.

“I am aware of that. It’s beautiful.”

“You can tell that from copping a feel of my breasts?” I ask with a smile on my face.

“I don’t really give a shit about the dress, I want what’s inside of it,” he retorts.

He brushes his thumbs over my taut nipples and I sigh. God, I miss uninterrupted sex. Having kids really changes things.

His warm hands slide down the black fitted silk dress and around to cup my ass. Pulling me against his solid chest, he pushes his cock against my tummy.

“I can’t wait to have all of this to myself for three whole days.” The growl in his voice sends a shiver up my spine and I slide my hands over his broad muscular back.

“Where are you taking me?”

“Who cares? You’ll never see the outside of the hotel room.”

“Neither will you.”

“Ha. Ha. Very funny.”

We have long since stopped being careful about his blindness. We shock people with our jokes and non-politically correct references, but as the years roll by it’s less and less a disability and more a way of life.

“You should probably punish me for that,” I suggest teasingly.

“You’d like it too much,” he responds with a wink.

“You’re incorrigible.”

“Your point?”

“This is my point.” His mouth crashes down on mine and he reaches back to close the door. His fingers feel for the zipper of my dress and he lowers it trailing the tips of his fingers as it opens.

“Mm, I can’t wait until tonight, I need you now,” he murmurs against my neck.

“The kids…” My protest is pathetic, mostly spoken out as a motherly obligation. I know they’re being taken care of and I want him as much as he wants me.

He ignores me, thank God, and pushes the dress off my shoulders peeling it from my skin until it’s on the floor in a heap. It’s going to be a wrinkled mess. I won’t be able to wear it to dinner if we even make it to dinner.

“Did you pack the handcuffs?” he whispers kneeling in front of me to remove my lace panties.

“Yes.” I hold his muscular shoulders for balance when I step out.

“Zip ties?”

“Yes.”

“Rope?”

“Yes.”

“That’s a shame, I’ll have to wait until we’re on the ship to tie you up.”

I snap from my relaxed trance-like state, “You’re taking me on a cruise?”

“Yes.” He places a kiss on my navel. “I’m going to make love to you on the high seas, Mrs. Valentine.” He kisses me again a little lower and I reenter my trance. “And the low seas.” Another kiss on my mound and my knees wobble. “And every sea in between.” His last kiss is more than a kiss and I collapse against his body, but he’s got me.

He’s always got me.