Epilogue
“You awake?” I whispered quietly, not wanting to wake my mate unless he was already up. “Miguel? Are you sleeping?” Okay, so maybe I wanted to wake him up just a teensy bit.
A long arm flopped backward from the warm body in front me, and a large hand landed smack dab on my backside, giving me a hard squeeze. “I am now.” Miguel’s just-woke-up voice was a mite scratchier and deeper than his regular voice, and it made my breath catch in my throat and my prick throb with need.
I flattened my chest to his back and ground my erection against him. “Sorry,” I said. “Go back to sleep. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“Ah!” I cried out when I was suddenly flipped onto my back by my sexy vampire.
In one fell swoop, he somehow managed to straddle my hips, sit on my thighs, and pin my arms over my head by crossing my hands at the wrists and holding them with one of his big hands. Of course, that left his other hand free.
“You didn’t mean to wake me, huh?”
He looked positively wicked. His long black hair flowed downward over his shoulders. His chocolate eyes raked down my body like I was dinner. And he pinched my nipples, skimmed my belly, and then wrapped his hand around my aching shaft.
“Just like you didn’t mean to wake me, what was it”—he glanced at the clock on our nightstand and then returned his attention to me—“two hours ago? But then, ’cause we were both conveniently awake, you shoved that big monster of yours up my ass and rode me hard until I fell asleep?”
I would have answered, or at least tried to, but I was blushing and stammering, and then he started moving his hand up and down my hard flesh and I stopped breathing.
“Or maybe it was like how you didn’t mean to wake me up the time before that? But then, since I was up and you were hungry, you figured there was a convenient way to get protein without leaving the bed?”
“I didn’t say that!”
“Sorry,” he said, not looking the least bit sorry. “I guess I got confused after the way you devoured my dick.” He smirked.
“I didn’t hear you complaining,” I mumbled.
He squeezed my shaft and skimmed his thumb over my crown, making me shiver and gasp.
“Oh, I’m not complaining, baby. I love the things you do to me with your mouth. I was just taking an inventory of all the ways we’ve tried, without any long-term success, to get you tired enough to sleep so we can figure out what to try next.” He wedged his knee between my thighs, making me spread my legs wide, and then dragged one finger across my shaft, over my testicles, and down into my crease. “Do you have any ideas?”
“Not a one,” I said.
He pushed his finger inside me and crooked it just right, touching that spot inside that made me moan. “Are you sure?” he asked as he pulled his finger out and then slipped it back in, manipulating my gland again.
“Yeah,” I said hoarsely. “I’m sure.”
Miguel released my wrists, then reached over to the nightstand, grabbed the lube, and drizzled it into my cleft so it dripped down to my hole. He pulled his finger out and rubbed it through the lube, then pushed it just inside my opening.
“Because I might have something we can try,” he said. Then he shoved three slick digits into my body.
“Ah!” I cried out and ground my hips onto his hand, riding his fingers.
With his fingers in place, filling my body and tapping at my prostate, he settled down on top of me, his face hovering just above me, combing through my hair with his free hand. “That feel good, wolf?” he asked.
After nearly twenty years together, he already knew the answer. He knew what I liked, knew where to touch, where to lick, where to kiss, and where to bite. My vampire had played my body like a fiddle every day of our long lives together, and I never stopped being grateful.
“Uh-huh,” I said. “Always feels good with you.”
He pulled his fingers out and lined up his hard length.
Soft lips pressed to mine. “I love you, Ethan,” he said tenderly, and then he pushed in hard and fast, impaling me on his thick pole over and over again.
“Miguel!” I cried out and clasped his back, scratching my nails into his skin as I grappled for purchase.
“Right here, baby,” he grunted as he pounded into me. “Right fucking here.”
He tangled his fingers in my hair and locked my head in place. Then he struck, sinking his fangs into me and drawing out my blood. I cried out his name and filled the space between us with my release. Miguel followed me seconds later, arching his neck and bellowing in ecstasy as he came deep inside me.
We stayed tangled together, catching our breaths, letting our hearts slow to normal, and exchanging soft licks and kisses. Eventually, Miguel rolled onto his back and pulled me close to him. I flung my leg over his hip and my arm over his chest. He tucked my head under his chin, and I sighed in contentment, pleased that my body fit just right with my mate’s.
“You feel better, baby?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“You know, this visit from your family is going to be just fine. Every year you stress and fret, and then everyone has a wonderful time and you realize it was all for nothing.”
“I know I’m being silly,” I admitted. “It’s just that Crissy’s boys are already grown, starting their own families, and the twins are sure to follow suit.” I shrugged. “This might be the last summer they come with Crissy for her annual trip.”
“Each of your nephews brings his brood up here at least once a year. Those boys love the lake. And Joan and Leah think their godfather hung the moon. Do you really think they’ll stop coming to see you?”
I licked his skin, just because I could.
“No,” I conceded. “I know they’ll come. And they’re our goddaughters.”
“Good, then it’s settled. Our goddaughters are going to have a ball visiting their favorite uncles. And we’ll go to Kfarkattan for a few days in the winter and rent a room in that new hotel so we can meet that Jeremy person Joan’s been dating—”
“Leah,” I corrected him.
“What?”
“Leah is dating Jeremiah. Has been since fall. Crissy suspects Joan’s dating someone too, but she hasn’t brought him around yet.”
“Okay,” Miguel said with a chuckle. “I stand corrected. We’ll go to Kfarkattan and meet Leah’s new guy. Is that better?”
I grunted.
“It’s almost sunset, baby. Let’s try to get some sleep.”
“All right,” I said and closed my eyes.
“And Ethan?”
“Yeah?”
“If you’re having trouble sleeping again,” he said as he skimmed his hand down my back and over to my bottom and gave me a squeeze, “you go right ahead and wake me up.”
“Hey, what are you doing out here all alone?” I asked my sister as I approached. She was standing in front of the lake, looking over the water with her arms crossed over her chest and a pained expression on her face.
“I was just thinking,” she said and turned to me, holding her arms wide open.
I stepped into her embrace and hugged her tightly. “I miss you more than you know, Crissy,” I said.
“Oh, I know,” she answered with a sniffle. “Because I miss you just as much.”
We stayed together for several long minutes, neither of us wanting to let go.
“Mama and Pop are doing well?” I asked her.
She patted my shoulder and stepped back. “They’re fine. Getting older. You know how it is.” One corner of her mouth turned up in a wry grin. “I take that back,” she said. “You don’t know how it is.”
I chuckled. “I’m getting older. It just doesn’t show as quick on me.”
“Lucky you,” she said, sounding unaccountably sad.
I held up the sweater I’d picked up for her on my way out of the cottage and draped it over her shoulders. “What’s going on, Crissy?” I asked, feeling more than a little concerned.
“We’re fixin’ to lose Joan,” she said.
I jerked in shock. Of all my nieces and nephews, Joan was the most special, probably because she was the spitting image of my sister. And I didn’t only mean that she looked like Crissy on the surface, though she did. But it was more than that. She had Crissy’s spirit and strength. And the last couple of times I’d seen her, I noticed her eyes clouding over like Crissy’s used to when she saw more than what was in front of her. I’d asked my sister about it once. She was real proud and told me her girl had inherited her gift.
“What do you mean you’re going to lose Joan?”
“She’s seeing someone,” Crissy said. “I done told you that, right?”
“Yes.” I nodded. “You did.”
“Well, she hasn’t brought him ’round none, but the other night we scented him on her clothes.” She swallowed thickly. “He’s human.”
It was a shocking revelation, sure enough. Humans and shifters didn’t mix. But neither did shifters and vampires, so our family was particularly well suited to overlook such things.
“She’s young, Crissy,” I reminded my sister. “Barely twenty. Maybe she just needs time to explore.”
“Maybe.” My sister nodded. “But Richie done told her she’d have to move out if he ever smelled the human on her again.”
My jaw dropped. “Richie said that?”
Crissy gave me a sad smile. “Don’t look so surprised, little brother. She’s his baby girl, and he don’t want to give her to no man. Finding out this one’s a human is probably just an excuse, but he won’t listen to reason. He thinks he can tell her what to do, that she’ll choose her daddy over her man. He can’t seem to see that she’s grown and he’s pushing her away.”
“What are you going to do?” I asked.
“I’m going to do the only thing I can. I’m going to let her go.” Crissy looked back at the lake and rubbed her hands over her arms. “It ain’t easy being a female. We have to be strong, just like the males, but our strength needs to be quieter, steadier, more constant. We bring children into the world, through our bodies, through our love. And it’s our responsibility to feed them, nurture them, and protect them so they’re able to make their way long after we’re gone. I raised my girl the best way I knew how, and now I have to trust her to do what’s right. Even iffen it ain’t under my watch.”
I draped my arm over my sister’s shoulders and absorbed what she’d told me. Talking to Richie wouldn’t do no good. First off, it sounded like he’d already dug his heels in nice and deep. And besides, maybe it was time for Joan to move out of her parents’ den and gain a little independence. I’d run off with Miguel when I was the same age as my niece and it was the best thing I’d ever done.
“Do you want me to have Miguel talk to her?” I asked my sister. “You know she’s crazy about him. He’s probably the only person around who can pry into her life without getting his neck chopped off.”
Crissy snickered. “He is, at that. Can’t say I rightly blame her.” She smirked at me. “We’ve all seen your man, and I didn’t raise no fools.”
Well, I couldn’t argue with that.
I waved goodbye to my family as they drove away, and then turned back to our cottage and started laughing.
“What are you doing?” I asked Miguel.
“Enjoying the sunlight,” he said.
As time passed, we’d noticed his tolerance for the sun was building up. He still couldn’t walk outside in broad daylight. But during times like this, when the sun was halfway down and the sky was awash in pinks and oranges, we could sit together on our covered porch and enjoy the evening air. And it looked like that was just what my mate was fixing to do, seeing as how he was stripping off his clothes until he was naked as the day he was born.
I walked over to him and took my spot by his side on our new porch swing. “Aren’t you cold?” I asked.
He reached down and came up with a thick blanket. “I’ve got it covered, baby.” He wrapped the soft cotton around both of our shoulders and then curled his arm around me and pulled me tight against him. I smiled up at my mate before resting my head on his shoulder.
“Did you have a good time visiting with everyone?” he asked while he squeezed my knee and then caressed my thigh.
“I did, at that,” I answered. “You were right, as usual. Everyone had fun.” I moved my hand over to his belly and traced each of his tight muscles. “Did you have a chance to talk to Joan before they left?” I asked him.
“Yeah, I did. Just for a few minutes.”
I tilted my chin up and looked at him. “And? What’d she say about this man she’s seeing and about moving out of her daddy’s den?”
“Not much,” he answered. “She pretty much told me the same things you heard from Crissy.”
“Was she upset?” I asked.
“No.” Miguel shook his head. “Actually, she seemed really at peace, more than I’ve ever noticed before.”
I sighed. “Well, I suppose that’s good, then.”
“Yeah, it is. She did say one thing that was sort of strange.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“She said she’s going to need our help with something really important, but she wouldn’t tell me what it was, just said we’d know when the time came. And then she got that weird look in her eyes, you know, like the one Crissy used to get, and she said I should tell you that it was worth it and that she was happy.”
“Huh,” I said, not really knowing what to make of that, but accustomed to it after growing up with Crissy. “Well, I reckon happy is good.”
Miguel shifted a bit and wrapped his long fingers around my neck, pushing my chin up so our gazes met. “You know what would make me happy right now?” he asked, his husky voice giving me a good indication of what he was fixing to say.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Watching you strip out of those clothes and sit on my lap.” He planted his feet on the wood floor and pushed back, making us rock. “I think we can have a lot of fun on this swing.”
I’d never taken my clothes off faster in my life. My very long, very blessed life.
The End