Charming as Puck(94)

The kitten eyeballs me with milky blue eyes, and if I wasn’t already in love, I would be now. “You brought the kitten home.”

“Mrrrroow mowww mowww mrrrrrrrooooooooww?” Jen says.

“Oh, you got a talker,” I say with a laugh.

He slides onto the bed behind me, still wet and very naked, and presses his lips to my shoulder. “Are you talking to her or me?”

“Both of you. Does she pull pranks too?”

“I’m missing a sock.”

Jen bounces down the bed and attacks a speck of dust floating in the air, and Nick pulls the covers down and beckons me into the warm cocoon before sliding in next to me. “I love you,” he whispers while he pulls me to his chest.

His heart thumps under my ear, steady and strong. I squeeze him tight. “I love you too.”

“I want to marry you.”

“No take-backs,” I warn him.

He chuckles. “I should be saying that to you, because I’m definitely getting the better end of the bargain here.”

“I don’t know. Considering how much you love to give gifts, and how you’re always topping yourself, I’m sure I’ll be ahead within a year or two.” I stifle a yawn and snuggle closer, wanting to hold his whole heart in my hands while it thumps that steady, comforting rhythm. “There are so many better gifts than marriage and dream houses with room for cow-dogs.”

“I want to raise babies with you,” he tells me softly.

His pulse stays steady, no terrified leaps, and there I go, getting the sniffles again.

Because I was kidding about topping himself, but there he goes.

Of course he does.

It’s Nick.

That’s what he does.

“Kami?” he murmurs while my eyelids get heavy and that soothing rhythm of his heart pulls me deeper and deeper into bliss. “Thank you for dumping me.”

“Thank you for fighting for me,” I murmur back.

“Always,” he whispers. “Always and forever.”





Epilogue





Nick



Not much has changed since I got myself domesticated.

There’s the kitten.

Sharing a house with Kami, three dogs, and a cow, who’s only allowed inside on special occasions, and less and less often as she gets bigger and bigger.

There’s Sunday afternoon yard duty, which Kami keeps threatening to take away from me, because she doesn’t trust what I’m doing with all the bags of dog shit that I keep gathering.

Oh, and the walks around the neighborhood.

I’m one of those guys who takes walks with his dogs and cow and significant other now.

I’ve also gotten really good at giving baths.

To everything in the house with a pulse, because apparently I still have a lot to learn about dog-and cat-proofing a home.

But I’ve pretty much nailed being a good boyfriend.

Or so Kami told me while I was giving her a bath last night.

She needed it.

Not because she stank, but because she was on her feet all day baking brownies and pies and sweet potato casseroles, prepping mashed potatoes and homemade bread and some kind of fancy herb butter rub for the prime rib.

Plus, it’s officially Christmas as soon as the sun sets on Christmas Eve—at least, in my family—and I figured a Christmas orgasm in the bathtub was the best way to help get her in the mood for the holiday.

Especially since our house is being overrun with guests for Christmas dinner.

And for the record—I was in the kitchen with her the whole time.

We’ve been binge-watching Food Network to learn how to cook together. And I’m only a mild hindrance now, much improved from a major hindrance when we first started.

Her parents, brother, and sister arrive first, and I take them all on the grand tour of the first two levels of the house while Kami shoos us all out of the kitchen. Then my parents arrive, who had the tour three times while I was in the process of buying the house, so they don’t need the tour again.

Then Felicity and Ares and Zeus and Joey, along with Mr. and Mrs. Berger, their daughter, Ambrosia, her husband, and his mother.

Lavoie and Jaeger join us too.

So do Muffy and Aunt Spanky-Span—I mean, Aunt Hilda.

Because if we’re going to host Christmas, we’re apparently going to do it big.

Kami shoots me a look over the rolls she’s buttering, fresh out of the oven, like she knows what I was calling her aunt in my mind.

She probably does.

I don’t get away with a lot.

But I do get away with grinning at her and stealing a kiss on my way through the kitchen.

“Are you the doofus responsible for the dick glitter?” the Berger twins’ sister asks me while I carry a massive bowl of mashed potatoes into the dining room, which is surprisingly too small for our first big family gathering.

It’s not often I underestimate what I need. I clearly wasn’t thinking about extended family when I decided this house was big enough.

“It was Kami’s idea,” I say, because once anyone meets Kami, she charms the hell out of them, and then the odds that I’ll be in trouble with this woman for one-upping her with better glitter bombs will go down.

“Completely my idea,” Kami calls from the kitchen. “I was pissed he didn’t do it sooner.”