I wrapped my arms and legs around him, loving the heavy weight of him.
Not long later, I reluctantly released him so he could go take care of the condom. When he returned, he stood over my body, his hot gaze taking in every inch of me. I’d never been that confident about my body. I was soft around the tummy and thighs. While I had a small waist, I wasn’t trim. Curvy hips, lots of tits and ass.
I’d held sheets to hide myself anytime I was in bed with a guy… but something about Micah’s expression made me feel like the sexiest woman on the planet. I sank into his mattress, bit my lip to stop the moan that wanted to escape from his mere perusal, and I widened my legs in invitation.
Suddenly he was on me again, his enthusiasm making me laugh.
My laughter turned to giggles, then to gasps, followed by sighs and moans.
Then screams of pleasure as he took his time wringing bliss out of my body.
And when were finally semi-sated by the wee hours of the morning, Micah curled me in his arms and whispered, “I love you, Valentine. Always have. Always will.”
For the first time since I was a kid, I felt safe.
I let myself trust him, trust that his love was unconditional. “I love you, too, Micah Green.”
Epilogue
MICAH
AGE 28
* * *
Valentine Fairchild walked toward me in a white dress. Mindy designed it for her.
It was just Valentine’s style.
She was an absolute angel to behold.
But she could have been wearing nothing but a plastic trash bag and I wouldn’t have cared as long as she was walking down that candle lit aisle toward me.
My mom sat in the first pew on my side of the church, watching Val make her way to me with a bouquet of peonies clasped in her hands. Mom dabbed at her eyes, her joy for us genuine. Her boyfriend, a widower called Rick, who actually seemed like a decent guy, sat at her side as her date.
Wells stood at my side as my best man. Cherry sat next to Rick, a big smile on her face. She and Val got along great. But I knew they would.
And on Val’s side was Mindy in her Maid of Honor dress. Her boy Xander in the second pew from the front on the bride’s side.
In the front pew sat Caroline, Jim, and Val’s grandparents.
The relationship between the Fairchilds and their daughter might never be easy, but I was trying to help repair old wounds and it meant something that they were here and that they were happy for us.
I felt them all. Cheering us on. But I only had eyes for her.
This nervous energy had been rushing through me for days. Probably months.
Valentine had talked me into waiting almost a year before we married.
A fucking year.
It was like a lifetime.
Now it was finally here.
And that nervous energy inside me finally relaxed as I held my wife’s hands and the reverend announced, “I now pronounce you husband and wife.”
I gazed into the warm, kind, beautiful dark eyes of Valentine Fairchild Green and whispered, “You happy, Cupid?”
She grinned, her dimples popping with joy she couldn’t contain. Val threw her arms around me, pulling me into a hug that made me stumble, and we laughed as we held each other tight.
It was the only answer I needed.