Epilogue

Blair

The cotton sheet was soft to the touch, delicate and decorated in pink rosebuds. I lifted a corner, carefully, then folded it back and exposed the chubby little arm, clenched in a fist beneath it.

“Little fingers,” I sang, softly. “Little toes.” I stroked my baby daughter’s back and sighed.

Only two days until her first birthday. The party was planned, a little celebration with Samson, me, and our Emily, with her grandpa already confirmed to attend. Grandma? That was a different story.

I clutched the crib’s side rail and leaned over, studied her features by the soft glow from her twinkling star nightlight.

She looked so much like Samson it made my heart swell. The pregnancy hadn’t been easy, and neither had the birth – thirty six hours and induced labor, oh my god – but we’d received this true bundle of joy out of it.

I touched a hand to my stomach and straightened. It will be all right. He’ll be happy.

Would he, though? This apartment was big, but it wasn’t the right place to raise –

The nursery’s door creaked open behind me, and I turned, smiled.

Samson crossed the space, his shoes creaking on the boards. “There you are,” he whispered, and took my hand. He pulled me into his arms, pressed his lips to my forehead and inhaled. “I was worried.”

I ran my hands up the lapels of his suit jacket, then tugged on them, craned my neck and brushed my lips against his.

Three years on and he still melts me from the inside out. How am I this lucky?

Samson squeeze me tight, then released and focused on Emily. He brushed his finger over her cheek, a smile forming on his lips, so sweet it gave me a toothache. My strong man, my no-nonsense asshole, reduced to smiles and tears by his little girl.

My stomach did a little flip and I tried, but failed, to quash the butterflies skirting around in there.

It will be fine! Stop being ridiculous, Blair.

Samson tugged the little blanket back into place, and tucked it underneath our daughter’s warm little body. She gave a little huffy, snort sigh, and we both backed out of the room, as quietly as possible.

In the hall, Samson slung his arm around my waist and we walked through to the kitchen together. I relished his touch – he’d been super busy at the restaurant, and I’d spent most of my time this past two weeks stressing out, looking after Em, and painting up in the attic.

“I’m fucking starving,” Samson grunted, and shuttled over to the refrigerator. He clunked it open and stuck his head inside. “What’s good?”

“There’s leftover roast from the other day. And some corn, I think.” My voice warbled a little.

Samson froze, then straightened. “What’s wrong?” He bumped the fridge closed with his hip.

“N-nothing.”

He crossed the tiles and took me in his arms once again, looked down at me, eyes narrowed to slits. Even now, years on from our first Christmas weekend together, he glued me to the spot, built heat inside me in the height of my anxiety.

Those butterflies did flips and jived around like crazy.

“Mrs. Barnes,” he said.

I shivered – I loved it when he called me that. It was just a reminder of how things had changed. And how they’re about to change all over again. “I’m fine, Samson,” I said, and buried my face in his shirt. “Fine.”

“Blair.”

“I miss you,” I whispered. “That’s all. I just miss you.”

“I’ve been working too much lately,” he replied.

I didn’t want him to feel guilty. “It’s not too much. You’re passionate. I respect that,” I said, and raised my head.

He caught me with those crystal blue orbs, and held me in place. He brushed the hair from my forehead, leaned in and pressed a kiss there.

My skin tingled. “I want you to be happy,” I said.

“I am,” he replied. “And so are you, right?”

I didn’t answer.

“Blair.” He pulled back and held me at arm’s length, concern etching lines into his cheeks and across his forehead. The down lights in our kitchen caught the glossy sheen of his hair, style to perfection, shaved on one side. He’d trimmed his beard recently.

An ache throbbed within me and I swallowed.

“Blair,” he repeated.

“I’m late,” I said.

“Late for work? Late for a deadline?”

I pinched the fabric of his suit jacket. “Late for a monthly visit from the torture in chief. Mother nature.”

Samson raised both of those darkened eyebrows.

I chewed on my bottom lip, a nervous smile tugging at its corners. “So, I guess what I’m saying, is we’re going to need a bigger apartment.”

“You’re pregnant,” Samson said, and the growl in his voice swirled my insides around. It was a territorial sound. He’d down the exact same after I’d announced my first pregnancy. “You’re pregnant!”

“Yes,” I said. “I went to the doctor this afternoon. Eight weeks pregnant!”

Samson let out a muted whoop – we’d switched to everything ‘muted’ since Em’s birth – and lifted me from the ground. He spun me in a slow circle, then plopped me onto the kitchen island.

The granite top was cold against the backs of my legs, and my summery dress hiked up my thighs. “I was nervous to tell you,” I said. “I know that’s dumb, but I just – you’ve been busy with work, and the apartment’s not big enough for another baby, and I –”

He shut me up with a kiss, pressed his lips to mine, heated them, parted them, and tasted my mouth. His tongue claimed me and it was like the first time all over again.

Samson’s kiss scorched me from the inside out. It left me ragged, breathless.

“You’re so fucking perfect for me,” he said. “Perfect in every way. My woman, my wife, the mother of my children. I couldn’t ask for more or better.” His fingers swept down, rested at the back of my neck, thumbs stroking my jaw.

“You’re happy then?”

“Over the fucking moon.” He kissed me again, this time, deepening it. He sucked the air from my lungs with that kiss, and I tumbled into dizziness.

I groaned into his mouth, and tightened up at the core. A hot throb originating from my solar plexus and spreading downward. My need for Samson was so fucking visceral it never ceased to amaze me.

He kissed a trail from my lips to the crook of my neck and suckled there, drawing flesh between his teeth, nibbling, tasting.

I arched my back into him and groaned.

“How much did you miss me?” Samson asked.

“More than – oh god,” I whispered. “Samson –” I took his hand and dragged it down the front of my dress, to the apex of my thighs. I pressed those thick fingers against my panties, already soaked for him. “This much.”

“Fuck,” he grunted.

Samson ripped down the sleeve of my dress, tugged it off one shoulder, and one of my breasts popped free – fuller now, not as perky, but he loved them just the same. He took the nipple into his mouth and slurped on it, a rumble growing in his chest. His fingers worked against the cotton of my panties.

The friction took me to new heights, and I grabbed hold of the back of his suit jacket, anchored myself to him. “Please, please, I need you. Now.”

He suckled and cupped my breast, pinched the nipple, inhaled my scent, then straightened. “Now,” he repeated. “Fuck, I wish I could put another baby inside you. Twins.”

I parted my legs as wide as they could go, the hem of my dress biting into my flesh.

Samson dragged the wet fabric aside, then stroked a finger down my pussy, to the glistening opening which craved him, pulsed for him.

“You’re swollen,” he said.

“For you.”

He undid the front of his pants, reached in and drew out his dick. It pulsed against my entrance, thick and veined, so impossibly wide that I still couldn’t fathom how he fit inside me.

Samson collected my juices with his head, then used a thumb to rub them over the ridge, and down the shaft. “Fuck,” he said, and jerked at the sensation.

I rested my forearms on his shoulders and looked at our point of contact, his fleshy tip pressed against my pink lips, the veins down his shaft, now wet with my fluid.

“Now,” I whispered. “Please, Samson. I need you.”

He took hold of my ass cheeks and scooted me forward on the counter.

Riiiip.

My dress tore down the sides, right at my thighs, but I didn’t give a shit. He was my everything and I needed what he could give me. All of it.

Samson worked his head into my pussy, popped it inside and threw his head back, let out a soft growl. “Yes. Fuck, Blair, you’re so wet. I’ve missed this sweet pussy.”

“It’s all yours,” I whispered. “All for you.” I held onto him, kissed his lips, sucked on the bottom one then released it. “Fill me, please.”

“You want my cum?”

“All of it,” I replied, and it came out as a moan. Desperate, keening, half trapped in my throat by my own need for him.

He entered me inch by inch, achingly slow, pressing his dick into my wet heat, pulsating with each advance. Finally, he buried himself within me, one hand biting into my bare hip, the other caught in the tangles of my hair.

I placed the heels of my feet on the counter, opened to him like a bud in spring, and leaned back.

He caught me, held me at an angle, then thrust into me, once, deep. He filled me and I gasped. My breasts bounced, one still trapped beneath the fabric of my dress, the other free, nipple puckered in the cool air.

The kitchen hazed around us. The tiles a blur, the counters, the fridge.

And our connection, the slap of our bodies meeting, Samson’s feral grunts and my faint moans, became our reality. Just this. Just the building pleasure, the sweetness of his breath, and tickle of hair brushed back from my throat.

His thickness lunged into me again, and again. My legs fell open even wide, my feet slipping on the granite top. I played with my clit, circled it and tapped gently, then dipped my fingers down toward our meeting and stole some of the wetness from the side of his dick.

“Such a tasty cunt,” he said.

“Mmm, you still like it?”

“Fucking love it,” he replied, and pulsed inside me.

“How much?” I trembled, vibrated almost, from the pleasure winding between my legs, backward, into my core. “How much do you love it?”

“This much,” he grunted, and thumped into my, harder, this time. His lips parted in an expression of purest distraction – jaw dropped, eyes glazed yet focused on me.

The pressure of his dick inside me, scraping against my g-spot, and the knowledge that he’d come for me, sent me toward my edge. My brink.

“Oh god,” I said, and tightened around him. “I’m coming. I’m coming!” I bucked forward and my pussy tightened around him, a buildup of sweet pressure, and the ecstasy of release.

Samson fisted a handful of my hair, leaned in and caught my lips with his. “Me too,” he grunted, and pounded into me, one, two, three. His cum slathered my walls, filled me and spilled from my opening. “Fuck yes.” Samson kissed me one last time, then pulled out of me, extra slow.

My feet slipped from the counter, and I jolted upright, groaned. “Oh god,” I said. “Samson.”

“I love you,” he said, and tucked himself away. He fixed my dress, smoothed it down, then tugged on the torn edges at my hips. “Shit.”

“One hundred percent worth it,” I said, and he chuckled.

Samson picked me up and carried me through to our living room, then placed me on the sofa and took up a position beside me. I snuggled up to his chest, and we breathed in the scent of each other, admired the view of downtown New York, its lights and buildings from our window.

Outside, the world scurried along. People went about their business, babies were born, people passed on. It was an ebb and flow, but every moment spent with Samson, in our home, with our child, froze time for me.

It was our moment. It was our present.

“We’ll have to move out of the city,” Samson said. “I’ve been thinking about it for a while, and I’d like to give me daughter a small town upbringing.”

“Your daughter and the little one.”

He kissed my forehead, and inhaled. “Do we know the sex yet?”

“Not for another twelve weeks,” I replied, then scooched around and considered him. The serious wrinkles of his brow, and that perfectly trimmed beard. I traced fingers down his aquiline nose. “Do you really want to move?”

“Yes,” he said. “Wherever you want to go. I can manage my businesses from afar, and it’s about time I diversify. Somewhere sweet. Somewhere we can raise our family together. Where life flows a little slower.” He paused, scratched his temple. “Shit, that would take us away from your mother.”

“That’s a bonus,” I said. It wasn’t that I hadn’t forgiven her, it was that she hadn’t changed a whit. She didn’t understand that what she’d done cut deep, and that I wouldn’t allow my children to experience similar from her or anyone else. “She’ll visit whenever she can, I’m sure, but it’s not like she’s been particularly active in Em’s life. She’s not even coming to her party.”

“You’re right,” Samson said. “And thank fuck for that.”

Samson would never be a Regina Scott fan and I didn’t blame him.

I stood up and walked to the window which overlooked the street outside. Cars whipped by, lights shone in windows of apartment buildings. I loved our little penthouse, but it was time to move on.

Time to leave the city and the past behind.

Samson walked up and halted beside me, tucked my under his arm. “Don’t be sad, gorgeous. We’re going to be happy.”

“I’m not sad.” I looked up at him, the lights from outside catching the hollow where his eye met his nose, and the curve of his upper lip. “I’m happy. As long as I’m with you, I’m happy.”

And that was the truth.

Wherever we went, as long as we had our little family with Em and the baby growing inside me, we were home.