A Lifetime of Afters - Bonus Epilogue

“Noelle!” Hawkley hollered from the front door. “Get your round arse down here right now!”

Hunter ran down the hall, slapping his hand down on my rump in the exact same manner he’d seen his dad do a million times as he passed me to get to the stairs.

“Hunter Bennett! Only dad is allowed to do that!” I called after him.

He stopped in his tracks and turned, warm brown eyes peering up at me. “Why?

“It’s disrespectful,” I answered absently, looking down at the bag at my feet to take a mental inventory.

“Dad disrespects you?”

I twisted around, my brow furrowed. “What?”

“Dad disrespects you?”

Only in the very best of ways.

And not nearly as often as he used to.

“No, of course not.”

“Dad smacks your butt.”

“It’s different.”

“How?” he persisted.

Sensing an opportunity to get under my husband’s skin, I met Hunter’s curious gaze, and smirked. “Why don’t you go ask him?”

Eight-year-old Christy, born fifteen months after Hunter, circled around behind me, her ponytail swinging forward as she tilted her head to the side. With a small frown, she assured me, “It’s not that round, Mama.”

It’s certainly rounder than it used to be, I complained silently.

“Thanks, baby. We’ve gotta hurry up before your father leaves without me.”

I checked my bag for the third time, assuring myself I had everything I needed, and slung my arm around Christy’s narrow shoulders to lead her down the stairs.

I touched the wall by the door where I’d earned my punishment so many years ago as I passed, noting it needed a fresh coat of paint as a sense of loss, maybe even loneliness dogged my steps. It’s not like I expected the same level of hunger and passion that we enjoyed in the beginning, but there were times we got too caught up in the minutiae of daily life with kids and seemed to forget where we all began.

After we piled into the truck, Hawkley twisted around to face the back seat and ordered, “Seatbelts.”

Once the kids clicked their belts into place, Hawkley tugged on mine to make sure it was secure. His teeth flashed in his beard as his dark eyes smiled into mine. “Ready?”

I huffed out a laugh and twinkled back at him. “So ready.”

When we got to Dan and Lou’s, Hawkley growled when I made him get out of the car.

I laughed up at him. “You can’t spare five minutes to get them settled before we take off?”

His annoyance slid off his face at the look on mine, then softened into a smile. With the backs of his fingers, he brushed my cheek. “I’m so ready for this weekend. I can’t begin to tell you how much I’ve missed you, missed us.”

Tears sprang to my eyes. “Really?”

His eyebrows flew up. “Of course.” His eyes darted back and forth between mine, and his voice lowered. “Noelle, of course. I’m sorry if I haven’t done a better job showing it. I’ll make up for it,” his brows lowered ominously, “a whole lot sooner the faster we get out of here.”

Grinning up at him, I acquiesced. “You’ve convinced me. We’ll be quick.”

True to my word, we were back on the road within fifteen minutes. I started talking the second we turned out of my in-law’s street and didn’t stop until two hours later when we rolled up the driveway to our cabin in Moose Lake.

With two uninterrupted hours, I managed to offload my worry about my dad and his mom, my concerns about the kids, and my hopes for all of us.

I waited for Hawkley while he grabbed our bags from the back. He stopped beside me; his eyebrow raised quizzically.

I released a contented sigh, my soul feeling so much lighter already. “I love this place,” I admitted.

The morning sun peeked through the leafy trees, dappling the ground in front of us. A cool breeze rustled the pines, reminding me how very early it was in the summer, and how lucky we were that the weather forecast was holding.

Hawkley’s gaze, no longer shadowed by the past, swept across the front of the house. “A lot of good memories here,” he agreed. Setting the bags down, he turned and pulled me into his arms. “And we’re going to make more.”

“As long as that’s the only thing we make,” I teased as we made our way up the path, and the cabin welcomed us inside.

When Hunter was six months old, we had managed to slip away for one night. Thinking we were covered by the fact I was breastfeeding and had yet to get a period, we fucked like bunnies.

Nine months later, we had Christy.

He shook his head. “No chance, baby. I took care of that as soon as Christy crashed the party.” Suddenly grinning, he added, “But I intend to give it the old college try.”

“That’s what I want to hear,” I proclaimed.

My husband had never once given me a reason to doubt myself, but I saw the differences ten years and two pregnancies wrought on my body while he had barely changed. Still tall, strong, and thick with muscle, his beard as sexy as it ever was, my husband didn’t appear to have aged much at all. I didn’t count the laugh lines at the corners of his eyes or the streaks of silver at his temples, those things only increased his appeal.

Dropping our bags into the bedroom we preferred, he called back, “Stop thinking so hard. You’re burning up all the oxygen.”

I snorted, unwilling to admit where my mind had wandered.

Coming back out, he dipped to meet my eyes. “You okay?” he asked in a rare moment of softness.

I shrugged. “I’m okay.” Looking down at the floor, I contemplated saying any more, then blurted, “I miss us.”

Drawing me into his chest, he pressed his mouth to the top of my head. “Me too. It’s been quite a year.”

“It has.” Between Lou’s cancer scare, Pop’s minor heart attack, my own bout with pneumonia, and looking after the kids, there had been little time for fun. It seemed the moment we recovered from one crisis; we were hit with another.

His big hands roamed over my back. “That’s life, baby. We know that’s life, but we’re okay. And we’re going to be okay.”

I wrapped my arms around his waist. “As long as I have you.”

“You have me. You always have me.” Leaning back, he smiled into my eyes. “Food or fuck first?”

“Do you really have to ask?”

“Nope!” He grabbed my hand and tugged me toward the kitchen.

“Hawk!”

“Gotcha!” Laughing out loud, he spun back around, dipped down, and tossed me over his shoulder before heading to the bedroom.

I helped myself to two handfuls of his ass, earning a bark of laughter from my handsome husband. My hands drifted down further, just reaching the back of his strong thighs. It had been months since I’d been able to explore him.

Or him me.

Lately we came together like a flash flood – fast and hard in the few minutes we found between the demands of our kids, our aging parents, and our jobs. It was good, always. Hawkley made sure of that. But I wasn’t sure how much of me he’d really seen or looked at lately.

For the first time in years, I was nervous.

Sensing the change in my mood, he eased me down slowly and laid me out on the bed.

Gently, he combed his thick fingers through my hair, spreading it out on the pillow beneath me. “I remember the first time I woke up with you in my bed,” he murmured. His eyes met mine as he whispered, “You looked so delicate, so vulnerable. You terrified me.”

I swallowed hard at the admission. I opened my mouth to reply but nothing came out.

“It’s that same vulnerability that makes you strong.” He huffed out a muted chuckle. “Stronger than I’ll ever be.”

I cupped his face in my palm. “You’re strong, Hawkley. You carry all of us,” I reminded him, my voice husky.

His eyes wandered over my face, his fingers tugging the ends of my hair. “I still feel that same sense of wonder when I wake up with you asleep beside me.” Meeting my eyes, he dipped his head closer, lending gravity to his next words. “It’s never going to fade.”

“I love you,” I whispered harshly, wanting him to know, know without a doubt, that he was mine.

“I know, Noelle. You show me every day. You show all of us every day.” He bent his neck and pressed his mouth to the divot at my throat. “Now I’m going to show you how much I love you.”

Slowly, with exquisite care, he rolled the hem of my shirt up and pulled it off over my head. My bra went next, followed by my jeans, panties, and socks. Through it all, he’d yet to touch me.

Sitting back on his haunches, his gaze traveled the length of my body and back up again. “Remember you called me prude?”

I laughed but tears stung my eyes. “My feelings were so hurt.”

Lifting my ankle up and over his head, he pressed a soft kiss to the inside. “You had every right.” His lips dragged up my calf. “Believe me when I tell you, I didn’t need more than those few seconds for you body to be forever imprinted in my mind.” He flicked his tongue against the inside of my thigh before placing my leg down on the other side of his body, leaving me spread open before him. “You were exquisite to me then and you’re even more so now.”

I melted into the bed. “Hawkley,” I whispered. “How do you always know exactly what I need to hear?”

He shrugged. “You’re mine, Noelle. If I ever stop paying attention, I expect you to call me on it.”

Reaching behind his neck, he yanked his shirt off over his head. “There is nothing more important to me than you. Nothing.”

Flicking open his jeans, he backed off the end of the bed and pushed them down his legs along with his briefs and socks. “Not my business. Not my parents. Not the kids. Nothing.”

Beginning at the inside of my other ankle, he nipped and licked a trail up the inside of my leg until he reached my center. “Fuck, I want to savour you, tease you, but I’m so fucking hungry, baby.”

With that, he opened his mouth over my sex and flattened his tongue over my clit, rubbing it firmly.

My back bowed off the bed as I fisted my hands in his hair, holding him to me.

He lifted his dark head, the threads of silver more visible in the morning light streaming through the window. “Lie back and relax, my beautiful girl. We’ve got all the time in the world. And I’m not going anywhere.”

I loosened my hold on his hair and let him have his way as he licked and laved and loved me to orgasm.

I let him have his way when his broad palm covered the roadmap of stretchmarks across my stomach.

And I let him have his way when his tongue wrapped around the peaks of my breasts that had once been the source of so much of my pride.

I let him have his way when he rolled me onto my stomach and pressed his lips to the crease at my thigh.

And I let him have his way when he spread me open and speared me with his tongue.

When he pushed my knees up into my chest, I let him have his way. And I let him have his way when he slowly pressed deep inside me, rolling his hips, drawing out my pleasure.

And his own.

Until his way reminded me of our way, how far we’d come, how good we were together, and how we’d always be.

When my body tightened around his yet again, tears leaked from beneath my lids as he carried me through my orgasm before claiming his own with a harsh grunt, tucking his face into my neck.

Pushing up onto his elbows, relieving me of some of his weight, he lifted my hand to his lips. Kissing my fingers, he stated, “We’re doing this again. Soon.”

I smiled and laced my fingers through his, my heart content. “And often.”