The Private Serials Box Set(111)
There weren’t many words after that, just moaning and the sound of wet skin meeting with every pounding thrust. He let out a long hiss when he was close, as he tended to do, and reached around my waist and touched me to urge me over the edge with him. I came hard, as I tended to do with Preston, and loved the sounds he made as he came with me. It wasn’t terribly romantic, it wasn’t champagne and rose petals, but it was him and me, connecting, giving each other what we promised we would never again give to anyone else: ourselves.
I would take a quickie in the shower with Preston for the rest of my life over flowers and chocolates with anyone else. No contest.
He splayed kisses over my shoulder, his hands finding their way to my breasts, making me laugh. “Aren’t you done yet?” I asked, laughing.
“Never,” he said with so much sincerity it made my heart ache.
Eventually he spun me back around and gave me the slowest and deepest kiss, then we just proceeded to shower, making sure we took the opportunity to soap each other up.
Hours later, after the baby had woken up from his nap, we were pulling up to his parents’ house for our weekly Sunday dinner.
It had taken me a while to decide that Portland was where we needed to be, or to believe I could even go back to Portland and be happy there. But, the truth of the matter was, our whole family was there. Well, Preston’s whole family—who had become my family—and my Sam. When we found out in Athens we were indeed pregnant, the idea of raising a child without the support of everyone who loved us seemed not only stupid, but also unfair to all the people who loved Preston. I had lamented for my whole adult life my lack of family, so who was I to take Preston away from his? And the thing that sealed the deal was that Preston would have lived somewhere far from them if it was what I wanted. He would have resigned himself to yearly visits and Skype calls, if he thought I would be happier anywhere else on the planet.
So, we’d moved to Portland when I was seven months pregnant and never looked back.
Piper opened her parents’ front door and my little Nadia came bounding out, reaching directly for her father. He knelt down, scooped her up in his arms, and kissed the side of her head as she snuggled him.
“That one is a handful,” Piper said as she hugged me. “We stopped at nearly every store in the mall that could have even possibly had anything princess related.”
“Well, your first mistake was taking one of Lena’s kids shopping. Nadia here inherited her shopping gene. I avoid malls like the plague,” Preston said those words as he pressed his forehead right against Nadia’s, making her giggle. I slapped his arm playfully, pretending to be offended, but laughing because he was pretty right.
“Daddy, Auntie Piper bought me this pretty princess dress and even a tiara. I was a good girl so she took me to get ice cream, even though I hadn’t had dinner yet.”
“Oh,” Preston said, giving his twin sister the stink eye. “Sounds like Auntie Piper gets to take you home for a sleepover in that case.”
“Really, Auntie Piper? I get to sleep at your house?”
Piper laughed. “We’ll see, sweetie. First I need to snuggle your little brother.” She took the car seat from my hands and almost ran away with it. I would have tried to stop her except I didn’t mind not having to carry it and I knew I’d never be able to wrestle the baby from her. And once Preston’s mother got hold of him, it would be game over for sure.
If Nadia was the princess of the Reid family, our son Devlin was the prince. He was beloved by all and could do no wrong. I happened to agree with their assessment so I never argued with anyone about it.
We walked into the kitchen and my eyes found Piper lifting Devlin from his car seat and pressing her nose into his neck and taking a long, gratuitous sniff.
“Oh, my God. My ovaries are firing like a freaking machine gun,” she whined. “He smells delicious.”
Preston’s mother greeted me with a hug and I didn’t miss how her eyes found my hickey. “How’s my favorite daughter-in-law?” she asked, as she always did. Preston was the only child of hers who’d married a woman. Parker was married, but his husband was her favorite son-in-law.
“I am well, thank you.”
“Yes, I can see that,” she replied with a knowing wink. I tried not to blush but it was no use. I liked it better when she didn’t comment on the hickeys.
“Oh! Happy Anniversary!” Piper whisper-yelled, as Devlin lay asleep in her arms.
“Thank you,” Preston said, wrapping his arm around my shoulders and holding me close.
“Six years of marriage. That’s pretty exciting,” his mother said. “I still wish I’d been able to be at your wedding.”
There it was—the obligatory guilt trip that we’d gotten married in Las Vegas with no one but Elvis as a witness. We endured it every year, and his family didn’t mean any harm. They weren’t trying to make us feel bad about it; they just genuinely wished they could have been at our wedding.
“Maybe when we hit ten years we’ll renew our vows,” I said. It was my automatic answer to their obligatory guilt trip. But I meant it—maybe we would renew our vows. I never got to throw a big party when I married Preston, and if there was anything worth celebrating, it was our marriage. Marrying him was the best decision I’d ever made and everything that had come after that day had been nothing short of perfect. He’d practically rescued me from the worst kind of marriage and given me something I’d only ever dreamt about. He was my knight in shining armor. Well, my knight in a shiny black Lotus, anyway.