Forbidden Princess (The Princess 4)

“Wanna bet?” I move my lips to her neck and then kiss a trail back to her shoulder.

“I’d never bet against you. You’d cheat.”

“You’re probably right. There’s no way I’d take a chance on losing anything to do with you. You’re my world, and you’re about to make it even better.” I rub her belly again and close my eyes. “I love you, Tabitha.”

“I love you, too, Vlad. And especially your inner caveman.”

I growl against her skin, and she giggles. It’s the sweetest sound, and I vow to spend the rest of my life making sure I get to hear it.

Epilogue

Vlad

Twelve years later…

I watch my princess as she plays with our children. They’re running around at the fair that came into town this weekend. God, I didn’t think she could get more beautiful than the first day I laid eyes on her, but here we are, all these years later, and she is. She throws her head back, and her dark, lustrous hair bounces as she laughs at something one of our sons says to her. Then she leans down and kisses him.

Whatever he said to her earned him a pile of tickets to go on more rides. I still wonder how that body of hers gave birth to five boys. Two pregnancies had been twins. I didn’t think women loved being pregnant, but she did. Motherhood was something she was born to do.

I lucked out with our last child. I thought my wife was going to murder me one night in my sleep if she didn’t get a little girl. She had a little girl’s room made up the third time she found out she was pregnant, sure it would be a girl that time, only to find out she was expecting twin boys. She was still excited at the thought of having twins, but I knew she longed for a daughter.

Our baby girl came into the world with all the attitude her mama has. She had us all wrapped around her little finger like Tabitha from the moment she bellowed out that first scream in the delivery room. She also looked almost identical to her, and I thanked God that day that I had five boys to help me keep an eye on her.

Keeping an eye on her mama is hard enough at times. It doesn’t matter that she has a horde of kids always running around her feet, men still try to grab her attention. Like the one who is eyeing her now. He’s clearly not from around here and must be a tourist or something. I keep trying to see if maybe he has a kid with him and it’s just coincidence, but no kid has come near the man. And he keeps getting closer to my princess.

“It’s perfect, Daddy.”

I look down at my daughter, who has her hand in mine as she sits in a chair getting a butterfly painted on her cheek.

“It is beautiful. But not as beautiful as you,” I tell her, making her smile even more.

“She is beautiful.” I glance over at the boy standing with one of my twin boys Nathan. He reaches over to his friend and punches him in the arm.

“Watch it,” he growls, and I have to hold in a laugh. My daughter rolls her eyes, looking more like her mother than ever.

I glance back over to my princess, and now I see the man I’d been eyeing before is talking to her.

“I got it, Dad,” my son tells me, taking my daughter’s hand from mine and holding it in his own.

I lean down, kissing my daughter on the top of her head then ruffling my son’s hair before heading towards my wife. I can’t look away for two seconds and someone is trying to hit on her.

I walk up behind her and wrap one arm around her waist, pulling her into my body. She molds to me like she always does, and I don’t even have to look at her face to know she likely just did the same eye roll our daughter did.

“You’re standing too close to my wife,” I tell the man who has taken a few steps back.

“Stan was just abou - ”

“Stan was just leaving.” I cut my wife off. I’m sure she thinks he’s being polite and friendly, but I see through his shit. Saw it the second he started eyeing her. “Weren’t you, Stan?” I finish, giving him a look that sends him running without even a goodbye.

Tabitha hits my chest. “You’re such a caveman.” I drag her to my chest and wrap both my arms around her.

“He wanted you,” I tell her in a muted snarl.

“You think everyone wants me,” she says, but she wiggles closer to me, twining her arms around my back. God, I’m lucky my jealousy and chest beating turn her on or this marriage would have had me groveling a lot. Not that I don’t enjoy when I’m on my knees for her. Like this morning when I had one of her legs over my shoulder…

I lean down, pressing my lips to her mouth and tasting the cotton candy on her lips.