Blair passes me the potatoes, and I scoop them onto my plate. “Good. And that’s what you want? To go to college?”
I look at Rhett and grin, then turn back to Blair. “Yeah. I want a degree in whatever area I choose to go into. I think it will help to have it. And he didn’t seem opposed to me taking over someday.”
“That sounds good.” Blair smiles widely as she fusses over how little Max has on his plate and plops more down.
His bruises are beginning to fade, but I still see red every time I think about him in that bed. Every time I hear Rhett’s angry cry in my head from that night. I know I can’t change the world, but I’d like to go into some sort of degree that will allow me to make it a little bit better.
Even if it’s just in my own way.
FIFTY
“Come.”
Rhett groans. His hands are pressed against the tile of the shower, his ass angled back at me as I pump into him. “Close.”
I reach around with my soapy hand as the water pours over my back and stroke his cock. “Now. We have to get going.”
“Ungh.” I love when he gets like this, desperate and needy as he thrusts his ass backward, riding my dick just as much as I’m pushing into him.
I bite the back of his shoulder, sinking my teeth into his flesh and fill his greedy hole over and over, stroking him with my hand. “Come for me, Rhett. Paint the shower wall.”
“You’re so fucking dirty.”
He loves it. His ass clenches around me so hard I see stars and push into him harder, knowing I hit the perfect spot when he cries out. Jet after jet of cum sprays from his dick, and I lose it, coming deep inside him.
We said goodbye to condoms as soon as we moved in together after I got tested and made damn sure I was clean.
I pull out of him, and he turns to face me, pushing us under the spray of the shower as he kisses me deeply.
“Blair is going to be pissed if we’re late.”
“Please never mention her name when we’re naked.”
I laugh and rinse off, smacking his bare ass before I climb out and dry off. “We need a bigger shower.”
“Someday, rich boy. I have no doubt you’re going to insist on a big-ass house.”
I wrap the towel around my waist and go to the sink to brush my teeth. “Maybe a cabin.”
I catch his reflection in the mirror and wink at him. “Now that I would like.”
“Me too.” He climbs out, turning the water off and wrapping a towel around his waist. He grabs his toothbrush and scrubs his teeth next to me.
It’s all very domestic.
“Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas. Was that my present?” He nods toward the shower, and I laugh, spitting the toothpaste into the sink and rinsing my mouth.
“Yup. Christmas cum.”
He snorts a laugh—he laughs so much more now—and then spits into the sink before turning to me and planting a kiss on my lips. “Couldn’t have asked for anything better.”
I laugh and grip his hips. “I want you later.”
He shivers visibly—apparently, I do that to him—then nods his head. “You’re on.” He nibbles on my neck, but I have to pull away and force him to get dressed, so we won’t be late for Christmas breakfast with his family, who has also become my family.
They’re everything I could have asked for. Even Fletcher, who’s started to like me, I can tell. Okay, or he at least puts up with me for Rhett, and I’ll take it.
I had no idea it could be like this. That a family could be so warm and caring and hell, not even share any blood, but it doesn’t matter. All of them are Rhys and Blair’s kids, and I’m pretty sure they’ve adopted me too.
I start school next semester. I don’t talk to my parents, other than to get the check for school, but it doesn’t matter. I have Rhett. I have his love. And his family. A cabin.
I wouldn’t change a goddamn thing.
EPILOGUE
* * *
7 years later . . .
“We need to get going.” Grayson walks into the living room with a giggling kid turned upside down and hanging down his back.
I laugh and stand up, grabbing the five-year-old and turning him upright, holding onto him. “What are you doing, goofball?”
Andrew just giggles—a happy kid now—a far cry from when we first met him last year. He was dirty and way too small for a four-year-old, crying and clinging to his brother.
Grayson finished college faster than anyone should, but he got a degree in business and humanities with a minor in art. He immediately got a job with city mission, overseeing a lot of projects there.
When Andrew and Ben were introduced to us through one of the after-school programs, we knew it was right. That they were supposed to be ours.
A lot has changed in the last seven years, but Grayson’s spirit and unyielding stubborn love have only grown. He’s grown into the man I know his grandfather would admire. I certainly do. We were married a few years back in a small ceremony with all my family in attendance. Josh was even his best man, while Bree and Fletch stood by my side.
When we decided we wanted to adopt Ben and Andrew, we bought a house near Rhys’s and my shop—yes, I went into partnership with my dad, and I couldn’t be happier about it. I earned it, and I’m damn good at my job. And I’m coming up with new ways to market the shop and making it even more profitable.
We also still have the cabin in the Ozarks that we go to any time the kids aren’t in school and we can take off for a bit. But right now, we’re late for Christmas. “Grandma Blair is going to be mad if we’re late,” I say in a teasing way to my son.
Andrew just giggles and squirms out of my arms. “Grandma never gets mad at me!” he singsongs, and he knows it’s true. The little shit can get by with anything.
Grayson laughs as Andrew tugs his boots onto his feet by the front door. “I can’t believe Blair insists on being called ‘Grandma.’ She seems like one who wouldn’t like that title.”
I laugh because yeah, she’s still blonde and a total bombshell, but if Ben and Andrew call her anything else, she tells them quickly just exactly who she is to them. “She loves it.”
Grayson turns to me, cupping my face in his big hands. “I love you.”
“You’re being gross.”
He just laughs, strong and heavy with happiness. “Yup. Join me.”
I kiss his nose. “I love you too. Now let’s get our kids ready to go because I don’t want to hear the lecture from Blair. She loves to give me shit.”
“Ummmm! You said a bad word!” Ben says as he bounces into the room.
I roll my eyes but grab him around the waist and tickle him. “You’re not going to tell on me though.” I tickle him more, throwing him into a fit of laughter. “Right?”
“Okay, okay,” he giggles. It’s the most beautiful sound in the world. Fight me on it. You’ll be wrong. He puts his hands up in surrender. “I won’t tell.”
I release him, and he runs away, laughing as Grayson pulls a coat on Andrew, and I watch in awe. I never thought this was possible. That a broken kid whose parents didn’t want him could find so much damn love in this ugly world.
Who couldn’t just have it but could also give it back, but that’s what Grayson has done for me. He’s shown me love. Hell, he wouldn’t take no for an answer and loved me through all my anger and bitterness until I had no choice but to love him back.
Bree is happy now. Married with one kid and another on the way. Fletch—yeah, he shocked us all, and I’m pretty sure he’s totally and completely in love too. Blair and Rhys are solid. Still happy beyond believe, and when Max and Ian left home to go to college, Blair found two more souls who needed a home.
I used to think she saw Rhys in all of us. That she was trying to right a wrong, and maybe she was in her own way. But she told me recently that to her, we’re each our own perfectly individual human with our own thoughts and struggles. With our own souls that need guidance, and she gets something unique from each of us.
That we actually healed a part of her and continue to do so.
She’s an angel in her own right, but she claims we are too. I don’t know if that’s true, but I do know she’s one hell of a mother, and any kid who lives in her house becomes hers, through and through.
Grayson kisses my lips and studies me carefully. “You okay?”
I grin, something that’s so easy for me now. “Yes. Let’s go.” He kisses me, and we grab the boys and head out to the car.
I still consider myself demisexual, but the specific label hasn’t mattered to me in a long time, because once I was with Grayson, he’s all I needed. He’s all I’ve ever wanted. Still, I realized I blew everything up into a huge thing when maybe it wasn’t at all.
My family, they’ve loved me, no matter what, since I’ve known them. I should have trusted them, but I can’t change that I didn’t do it then. Now I do. They loved me, and I just had to let them.
Because when you’re offered love, even if you don’t trust it at first—when they show you over and over again they love you, you just have to accept it.
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: