“Wow, that was amazing. I’d half convinced myself that I’d imagined how good it had been. I wonder if it’s going to be like that between us every time.”
“Of course it is,” I assured her.
She tilted her head back to look up at me. “How do you know?”
“Because love makes it better.”
Holy fuck, now I was the one saying corny things.
Her pretty blue eyes filled with tears. “You love me?”
I rolled over and grabbed my jeans off the floor. Pulling the black velvet box out of the front pocket, I turned back to Melody and wiped at her wet cheeks with my empty hand. Then I flicked open the jewelry box and lifted my grandmother’s ring out of it. “I’m head over heels, crazy in love with you, Melody. That’s why I asked my mom for my grandmother’s engagement ring this morning.”
“It’s beautiful.” More tears spilled down her cheeks as I slid the ring on her finger. “I love you, too.”
I’d already figured that out for myself, but I’d never grow tired of hearing it. No matter how often she’d say it in all the years we were going to spend together...and that was going to be all of them.
Epilogue
Melody
“I can’t believe our liquid lunches have come down to this.” I slurped at the last of my virgin, frozen margarita and shook my head. I knew it was okay to have an alcoholic beverage since I could pump my breast milk and dump it, but I’d gotten used to ordering virgin drinks during the pregnancy. The ones with alcohol tasted too strong whenever I ordered them while I was out.
Not that I’d been out very often in the past couple of months. Trace and I had stuck close to home ever since Stella was born. He was super protective of her, which wasn’t a surprise considering how he’d been with me ever since we met.
“Hey, at least we’re at a place where someone else is cooking the food and cleaning up the mess,” Aubrey pointed out. She kicked her feet up on the empty chair across from her seat. “You guys only have one baby to worry about. I have two, which means I run around twice as much as either of you. I could care less about the alcohol. I’m just enjoying the adult conversation and having someone else wait on me.”
“Wise words, my friend.” I lifted my empty glass her way like I was toasting her. “Adjusting to being a mommy to my adorable baby girl is hard enough. I’m not sure I could handle two at the same time, even though my ovaries do tend to spontaneously combust when Trace blinks those sexy green eyes of his at me while he’s holding her.”
I noticed that Madison’s cheeks filled with heat. “Hey, you.” I pointed my straw at her. “Why are you blushing like that?”
“Nothing! It’s nothing,” she yelped. “Maybe I’m just hot.”
“Or maybe my comment about ovaries and having another baby made you blush.” I leaned across the table in her direction and hissed, “Are you guys trying again already? Caden is barely twelve weeks old!”
She sputtered a denial and Aubrey laughed. “Oh, yeah. That was definitely a yes.”
“It’s not my fault!” Madison insisted. “It’s all Ethan. I’m powerless to say no when he puts his mind to it, and he really wants another baby.”
“At least you’re having sex again. I still have to wait,” Aubrey complained.
“Just you wait,” Madison warned. “As soon as Nash can get back inside you, I’ll bet he’s going to try to convince you to try for more.”
“Tell me about it,” I grumbled softly. I’d been cleared to resume sexual activity a month ago, and I couldn’t count the number of times Trace had already talked me into going bare.
“Hey! I recognize that look,” Madison cried. “Were you giving me a hard time about trying to get pregnant again while you’re doing the same thing?”
“Maybe,” I admitted softly.
“Yay!” Madison did a little dance in her seat. “We might get lucky and have the same sex this time around. Then they can be best friends like us. Although Caden and Stella already seem to be awfully fond of each other. Maybe they’ll end up being more than friends. If they got married, then we’d be related.”
“Don’t ever say that anywhere Trace can hear you,” I warned. “Or else he’ll never let the kids hang out together when they’re older.”
“Yeah, like by the time they start walking,” Madison snorted. “At that point, he’ll already be worried that my little man will try to carry off his baby girl.”
We all burst into a fit of giggles at how crazy the idea was. And how true it was, too. Each of our babies had their daddies wrapped around their tiny fingers.
“Did you have fun with your friends, angel face?” my gorgeous husband asked as he crawled into bed with me after putting baby Stella down for the night.
“I did. I really did,” I sighed, cuddling into his chest when he pulled me into his arms. Tilting my head back, I smiled up at him. “Thanks again for taking over baby duty today and giving me time to be with the girls.”
“No problem. The guys and I hung out for a few hours at Nash and Aubrey’s house and made taking care of four babies a team effort.” He chuckled softly, shaking his head. “Well, except for when Nash got stuck with a diaper blowout situation with one of the twins. Ethan and I decided that an OB-GYN was more than capable of taking care of it all by himself and high-tailed it out of there.”
“You didn’t?” I gasped.
“Hell yeah we did.”
“You guys are so mean,” I giggled.
“Mean, huh?” Trace flipped me over onto my back and hovered over me. “I’m the dad of a daughter. I need to be at least a little mean so I can scare off any boys who think they’re going to mess with my baby girl.”
“You’re so fucking hot when you get all protective.”
“Hot sounds more like what I want to hear from those pretty lips of yours, angel face.” He dipped his hand under the sheet and encountered a whole lot of naked skin. His green eyes widened, and he yanked the covers off of me. “And here I thought I was the mean one.”
“How is waiting naked for you mean?”
“Because you didn’t tell me about it sooner,” he chided as he rose up on his knees and whipped his boxer briefs down his legs to kick them off. “I could’ve been inside you minutes ago.”
“Then what’re you waiting for?” I wrapped my legs around his waist.
He slid his hand between our bodies and circled my clit before drifting lower. “You’re already drenched, angel face. Have you been thinking about this all day?”
“I have. I really, really have.”
“Like you said, what am I waiting for?” he groaned as he slid his cock inside me. Since I was dripping wet for him, he was able to go deep with one powerful thrust. “I don’t want to waste any time, not when I want to fill you up with my come and give you another baby.”
Oh, yeah. My husband knew exactly what to say to ratchet up the need in me. No matter what I said to my friends about not being ready to get pregnant again, any time my sexy husband talked about it I was more than ready to spread my legs and take one for the team. Over and over again, as many times as it took for him to knock me up. “That’s right, honey. Give it to me.”
“I’ll give it to you, all right.” He flipped me over onto my stomach and gripped my hips as he thrust back inside from behind. “I can go deeper this way. Make sure my come gets all the way in there. We don’t want any of it to leak out, do we?”
“Nuh uh,” I panted as I clawed at the sheets while he hammered in and out of me with powerful strokes.
“You gonna come for me, angel face?” he groaned.
“So close,” I whimpered.
He reached underneath me and tugged at my clit. It was exactly what I needed to make me come around his cock. He rode me through my climax, and buried himself deep inside when he finally followed me. When he pulled out, I collapsed on the mattress in an exhausted heap. “Did you feel it, angel face?”