I reach up and place my hand on his arm. “Yes, we are. You’re stuck with me now.”
“Baby, there ain’t anywhere else I’d rather be or anyone else I’d rather be with.”
Our lips meet again, and it’s like sunshine on a rainy day, when all the doom that’s been cast your way during the pounding rain finally clears, and you see those first rays of a rainbow mixed with glints of sun.
So many shades of colour.
That’s what Luke’s love gives me.
Epilogue
Four Months Later
Luke
Family.
I never imagined it could feel like this.
My family is my everything.
They’re my centre.
My heart.
I watch my wife as she moves effortlessly through the crowd of our loved ones on her way to me. She stops and laughs with Mum and Avery, her head falling back as laughter floats out of her mouth and her eyes close in happiness for a beat. They exchange words and then Mum kisses her on the cheek before letting her go.
She takes the last few steps towards me, her lips curling up into a sexy smile. I hold my arm out, and she glides into my embrace, her lips coming straight to mine.
No quick kisses.
Ever.
She blesses me with a slow, deep kiss that tells me everything a man needs to know.
My woman can’t get enough of me.
I move my hand lower until it slides over her ass. When she finishes kissing me, I murmur against her ear, “You have way too much material covering your ass. I can hardly feel it through this dress.”
My ears fill with the sound of her sharp intake of breath. “You love my wedding dress.”
I smile. “I do, but I’m gonna love taking it off you even more.”
She tilts her head. “Why are you at the bar, baby?”
I find her eyes. “That would be because my wife has been busy dancing. I figured she would eventually need a drink, so I waited here for her.”
She grins. “You are such a smart man.”
I nod, tightening my hold on her. “That, I am.”
Quirking a brow, she says, “Oh, so cocky.”
“I can afford to be because I know I’m right.”
Running her hands over my chest, she says, “Please tell me how you are so sure.”
“Nailing you made me the smartest man on this planet.”
She laughs and shakes her head in amusement. “Nailing me, huh? So romantic.”
“I never professed to being romantic.”
“But you can cook, so there is that.”
“True.”
She moves a little closer. “And you bring me coffee in the morning.”
“I do.”
“And listen to my country music even though you hate it.”
“I don’t hate it.”
She scrunches up her face. “You do. A lot.”
I concede defeat. “Okay. I do.”
“You also sit through documentary after documentary with me when you’d rather be in the garden or—”
“—In you.”
“Yes, well I was going to say something else, but there is that, too.”
I pull her hard up against my body. “You give me more.”
“I don’t think so.”
“You gave me back my work.”
She pulls a face as if what she gave me was nothing when it was everything. “I just helped you shuffle your staff around and took on a few shifts myself so you could take that job on, that’s all.”
“That job just happens to be the second best thing that’s happened to me in a long time.”
“Drawing buildings is your happy place. I would do anything to give you your happy place. We both got lucky with our work.” Publishing books looks good on Callie.
“You love my son as much as I do. You gave him a stable family.” I eye Sean dancing with Mum. Now that he has both Callie and his mother back in his life he’s the happiest I’ve ever seen him. The fact he gets to spend time each day with his mother is the icing on the cake. Thank God she won her appeal.
Her lips brush across mine. “He’s easy to love,” she murmurs and then adds with a wicked glint in her eyes, “Maybe more so than you some days.”
I press my lips to her ear. “You bring your A-Game more than I deserve.”
Her hand grips my chin and angles my face so our eyes lock. “That’s because I love your cock so damn much.”
I groan. “I should have known your dirty mouth wasn’t far away.”
She grins. “It never is. And that’s one of your favourite things about me.”
I grip her ass harder. “I don’t have favourite things about you, baby. I love everything equally.”
“And you said you weren’t romantic. You, Mr Hardy, are a big softie underneath all this moody bullshit.”
“And you, Mrs Hardy, are a pushover under all this argumentative bullshit.”
She sighs. “That’s only because I finally found a man worth letting boss me around.” She kisses me long and deep again, before giving me everything. “I finally found the man who stole my breath, and I will always let him boss me around.”
Keep reading for a bonus chapter!
Bonus Chapter
Callie – 4 months later