Epilogue
Bella
Eight months later
“Don’t cry Darling,” Dottie brushes a tear off my cheek. “Amelia had a very exciting life, she was completely content when she died.”
She sees Jacket behind me and reaches up for him. He clasps her around the waist lightly so as not to break her. But firm enough that her toes leave the ground and he picks her up to kiss his cheek.
Those two seem to have some special bond. All the aunties adore Jacket. Which makes up for my parents being less than thrilled with my choice of beloved. I can’t exactly explain things to them so we just wait and hope time will ease all prejudice.
I’m so glad to have my fiance at my side for the next family event we have to attend.
“As usual, you only come here for weddings or funerals,” my mother snips at me. “And your sister doesn’t come at all.”
Jacket’s hand lifts from the small of my back to snake around my hip. He pulls me a little closer into his side, slightly behind, subtly letting me know he’s shielding me.
“I know you’re hurting that you don’t get to see your daughters that often,” I tell Mom calmly but firmly. “Those kinds of comments don’t help me want to come any more regularly.”
She looks shocked that I stood up to her like that. Then that’s immediately replaced by hostility that she directs at Jacket. Like it’s his fault that I’m so resilient with her. Perhaps it is down to him, in a good way. It’s amazing how much more inner strength you feel when you don’t expect to be abandoned for being who you are.
“And Scherri’s as big as a house,” I add.
My sister is carrying twins and can hardly move off the couch.
“Well, I wouldn't be party to that information,” Mom replies with a sniff.
“You could Skype her any time, like I do. She’d be glad to hear from you. She’s getting nervous now she’s about to drop her first babies and I’m not much help without the experience.”
Jacket’s fingers grip slightly into my hip. He’s been talking about children a lot recently. Dropping into casual conversation, while we make dinner in our little kitchen, how he’d like to have his own family. Now that we bought a house.
I know, I know, we tried to take it slow but it didn’t work.
“We have to go very slowly and carefully with this,” I told him when I woke up the next morning in what we always refer to as the Honeymoon Inn.
He’d already ordered breakfast brought up on a tray. A beautiful big old fashioned one covered in white lace edged linen. Silver cutlery, flower patterned old china and big droopy roses. Plus a topless man wearing only some low riding sweats, his hair bed-tousled and his beard rough enough to scrape the toast. If the kitchen had burnt it which they didn't. Everything that first morning was perfect.
Scary perfect.
“I’m falling in love too fast,” I told him plainly.
“Welcome to the club,” he said, yanking the white cotton sheet off my body and kissing his way up my body from my toes. Stopping after nipping the side of each knee, he looked up at me with a grin and announced; “I’ve been in love with you for six months.”
“Right,” I said, disbelieving, “You’ve only known me two day-eeeze.” I let out a squeak as he sucked the flesh at the top of my inner thigh into his mouth.
Pushing my legs further apart, he lifted his eyes up to mine. I looked down at him in shock, right there – his face was right there, an inch from my spread pussy. Just hanging out. The air from the room and the hot air from his mouth started making me tremble all over again.
Wasn’t it enough that I hadn't stopped quivering all night long? From the second he threw me over his shoulder and carried me half naked through town and then the Inn’s reception to end up in his room.
Jacket grins, like he’s got a big secret.
He’d driven me crazy, his mouth an inch from my clit. I was getting wetter and wetter as he casually lay there there on his ripped abs, languidly looking up from under thick dark lashes. Oh god, there isn't a more gorgeous man in the entire world.
He kissed along the hard ridge of my throbbing clit then as he continued up my tummy, in between each inching peck, he explained how he stalked me.
I squirmed and laughed and moaned. Not sure whether to believe him. Delight and lust mixing up inside me.
“And I’ve come back for you twice, across the width of this massive country,” he said between nips.
“It sounds very romantic when you put it like that,” I whimpered. What he was doing to my body made it hard to focus on much.
He reached my lips and planted a kiss on them so I got a taste of myself. Then he lifted up off the bed to grab the tray and bring it back to me. I sat up and laughed as he dipped a strawberry in the whip cream he ordered and fed it to me.
Teasing.
Tantalizing.
Trailing cream along my lip and then all over parts of my body.
“I guess cream is always going to be our theme now,” I said, without stopping to think, grabbing at the coffee he poured from the press.
He stops and looks at me, smiling like a little kid.
“Always?” he repeated. “That sounds like a yes.”
“It is a yes, so long as we take it slow and no freaking out.” I left out the part about not being sure that I can handle him.
He’s still a lot of man to manage. But I’m going to keep giving it everything I’ve got.
When we left the Inn we left together and kept going together. Jacket refused to let me out of his sight ever again and like he said, he had nowhere pressing to be other than with me. We decided he’d come to LA while we figured it out. Where we wanted to live. Check out whether he could manage the big city.
He found a room in a shared house, with a bunch of guys in a boy band trying to make it. They had a lot of parties and that was the excuse for him sleeping at my apartment every single night.
Right. He could have been living cloistered with monks and he’d still have stayed with me. Much as we tried to take it slow, when the end of the date came, neither of us was able to initiate the part.
Jacket
Turns out I’m a simple sort.
All I need to be happy is to work with my hands and not have to deal with people pushing me around. And to come home to my girl every night. I found building work and especially carpentry, suits me fine. Out here in LA there are plenty of folks looking to have shit built in their swanky houses. I'm already building myself a fancy business.
“It’s all the bored housewives of Beverly Hills, hiring you for endless cabinetry they don't really need,” Bella tells me. “They just want to stare at those biceps all day long. Flexing and bulging as they saw back and forth.”
“I’ll show you sawing back and forth,” I growl, picking her up and finding the closest shelf at the perfect height to set her down on.
She cracks me up sometimes. I don't know how I lucked out in getting her to say yes but I spend every night proving to her that she wont ever be sorry.
“You’re insatiable,” she squeals and runs away making me chase her around the empty house I just bought her.
“You make me that way so come here and take your punishment for tempting me every second I’m with you.”
I hurtle after her, catching up to her fast and tearing the scanty clothes she always seems to be wearing when I arrive home. Our home. I drove past the place, out in Hermosa Beach, on my way back from a job on an Italianate mansion owned by some record producer.
“Up and coming neighborhood,” he told me.
The Realtor was knocking her sign into the grass as I rode by on my way back to Bella’s little apartment downtown. I asked if I could take a look.
“Make an appointment,” she snapped.
“Okay, let me just jot down your number,” I slapped down my torso for a pen and as she looked up at me her mouth fell open.
“Why don’t we just go back inside right now?” she purred.
The place was perfect. And the Realtor that should have been working for the seller, instead told me about a couple of problems with the roof. That insider info allowed me to offer a price I could afford. I wanted Bella out of that ridiculous job she has to disguise and have her spend her days in a place she loves.
I put Bella on the back of the bike soon as I got home and drove her back down the coast to check it out. We stopped on a bluff to watch the sunset, then I blindfolded her and put her back behind me, clinging to my solid abs all the rest of the ride.
My heart was pounding like a girl the entire way. I needed her to say yes so bad. If she refused me, it would end me.
I lifted her off the leather seat and into a bridal hold.
“Can you take this off now?” she whispered.
The nervousness in her voice as intense as that beating at my blood vessels.
“Wait until I tell you, baby.”
Her fingers dug into my pec as I carried her up the path. I set her down and unknotted the scarf. She looked around the porch in confusion, then back at me, standing there gurning like a doofus.
Her eyes found the For Sale sign and she immediately got it.
“Can we afford the mortgage?” she whispered, her eyes all sparkling with tears about to tumble down.
“Don’t you worry about that. All you need to do is tell me if you want to live here with me.”
“Of course I do.”
She leapt into my arms, her legs flying around my pelvis. We had to force ourselves to stop so we didn’t get a bad rap with the neighbors before we even moved in.
But now we have all the counter space and bedrooms we need. We have a gas range out back where we host BBQs for all the guys and their wives.
And we have our own mutt that we rescued from the pound. We had to get him, he reminded us both of Peb. Bella named him Rocky.
“Are you watching me sawing back and forth,” I ask, as I cut some wood for the new kitchen I’m building her.
We’re designing our place together step by step with each check I receive. I do the work myself while Bella stands behind me, or sits on a counter top in a scanty outfit waiting for me to lose my mind.
“You’re so good at sawing,” she tells me, a naughty lilt in her voice. “I’ve never had a workman as big as you in the house.”
I end up getting up of my knees with a growl and coming to where she’s waiting for me. I push her legs apart and she takes me in, her arms wrapping around my neck.
It feels like homecoming every time.
*
I hope you enjoyed reading Jacket’s story. For a very limited time I’m including Stick and Scherri’s story here too. Scroll on down to read that.