I don’t.
I credit my husband. He gave me what I needed most.
His love and his patience.
Every night I watched as he danced with our daughter to the song, he first danced with me and after the final note was sung, he’d tell her a story.
“Once upon a time there lived a young girl who battled depression and an older man who struggled with addiction. They fell head over heels in love with one another…”
One night as he was telling her the story, he came to the part where the heroine told the hero she was pregnant.
“She was so happy and so in love with the thought of having a little piece of him and her. As the months went on life wasn’t very fair to them. What they always dreamed of being the most special time of their life became the most trying. Their love and will was tried and tested but that little girl growing inside of her got them through. She brought hope. She brought joy. She brought everything God promised she would, and they fell in love with her before they ever met her,” he said.
“And even more in love when they saw her for the first time,” I whispered.
His eyes snapped up and met mine instantly and I’ll never forget the way he looked at me as I made my way towards them. There was so much hope in those sad eyes of his. So much love. At our worst times, I thought love wasn’t enough, but he showed me it was all I ever needed.
Lithium wasn’t the crutch.
It wasn’t my savior.
Blackie’s love was.
Just as the switch flipped taking me away from my daughter, it flipped bringing me back to her. I wasn’t afraid to touch her or to hold her. I wasn’t afraid of loving her. The only thing I was afraid of was that she forgot me.
I don’t know if Blackie sensed this or what, but he placed our daughter in my arms, and everything fell into place. The love I have for Jacqueline can’t be extinguished. It’s meant to burn wild and free so when I’m gone, she always knows her mother loved her more than the moon and the stars.
Depression is no joke, people.
It will tear you apart and make you doubt everything.
It’s a silent killer.
Not everyone is as lucky as I am. My husband went to rehab because a judge forced him to, but he came out a better man. One who not only saved himself but the man who saved his family. We’ll always be the girl who battles depression and the older man who struggles with addiction, but we’re Leather and Lace and we’ve got hope.
Not every fairy tale is a tragic love story.
But sometimes you have to navigate Hell to find Heaven.
Epilogue
Blackie
Three years later…
Throwing Lacey’s legs over my shoulders, I dip my head and lick her pussy from ass to clit. The first taste of her is always the sweetest and I groan against her clit as the flavor of her bursts on my tongue.
Fucking Heaven.
Her ankles lock around my neck as she arches off the bed and threads her fingers through my long hair. My name sounds on her tongue and I go to work. Licking and sucking her until her pink pussy is slick with her come and swollen from the assault of my mouth.
Sometimes I wonder if we’ll ever get enough of one another. Then she comes violently on my tongue like she just did, and I laugh.
My body may have thirteen years on hers, but it will never grow tired of this.
Of us.
Of her.
Loving her.
Fucking her.
Worshipping her.
They’re all the things I was created for.
Her legs fall from my shoulders to the mattress and I lift my head, licking my lips as my eyes find hers.
Once so full of sadness, they’re now full of joy. Well, joy and lust. My girl is insatiable. One orgasm is never enough. A hard feat for parents of two little girls under the age of three. Wrapping my fist around my cock, my eyes dart to the clock on the nightstand. We’ve got like fifteen minutes before Dominique wakes up for her three o’clock feeding. Plenty of time to have her mother come on my cock.
Rolling onto my back, I drag Lacey on top of me. Her hands move to my shoulders as she straddles my thighs. I cup the back of her neck, bringing her mouth to mine and kiss her like I did the first time my lips ever touched hers.
Like she’s mine.
It took some time for the rest of me to catch up, for my mind to know what my heart knew the minute she came into my life. It took years, several overdoses and the threat of losing her forever for me to realize there was a greater purpose to life than drugs, alcohol and fucking the law. When I look back on those days, I see pain, mistakes and a shit ton of heartache but when I look in the mirror, I see strength. I see lessons learned and a man who is clean and sober, living a prideful life. A life full of chaos. The beautiful kind of chaos that comes with being a father.
I still ride with the Satan’s Knights, but I never took a rank after I handed in my vice president patch. They say a man can’t find a balance between his club and his family but when they’re one and the same, there is no searching. The lifestyle in which I chose doesn’t work without putting things in perspective. I love my brothers but the only people I’ll sacrifice myself for are my wife and our two daughters.
My very greedy wife who is currently pinching my nipples as she impales herself on my cock, filling herself to the hilt. Gripping her hips, I lift my ass off the mattress and pound deeper inside of her. Her tits bounce with every thrust, reminding me how much I love the way her body has changed since having our girls.
“Get it, girl,” I grunt, leaning forward to take her nipple between my teeth. Her nails rake my shoulders as she slams down on my cock. Her pussy constricts and when she cries my name, I feel her spasm around me. Three thrusts later, I release her nipple and bite her shoulder as I come inside my wife with two minutes to spare.
She collapses on top of me, panting as I rub the bite marks on her shoulder with my thumb.
“How is it that we just keep getting better?” she questions breathlessly. The corners of my lips quirk as I think about the answer.
We’re not perfect.
But we’re well.
After Lacey recovered from the postpartum things were smooth sailing for a while. She saw her therapist regularly and with the new medication, her episodes with her maker became scarce. I attended meetings weekly and even meditated now and then. I still do but with Lacey now. It’s something she adapted to when she became pregnant with Dominique.
We weren’t trying.
I think both of us were too scared to have another child. Honestly, as much progress as I made being a recovering addict, I don’t know if I would’ve been able to maintain watching my wife go through all she did again. Every man has a breaking point and mine is Lacey’s pain.
Jacqueline had just turned one when Lacey found out she was pregnant. Like her first pregnancy, she stayed off her meds for the first trimester. As soon as she hit thirteen weeks, we were in Dr. Spiegel’s office. She took a lower dosage of her meds throughout the pregnancy and remained stable. I think me being with her also helped things out. I was able to calm her insecurities and assure her whenever she needed me too.
Dominique was born twelve hours after Lacey’s water broke and I was there, holding her hand the whole time. When it came time for her to make her final push, Dr. Heltzer called me over and I caught my little girl as she came out of her mother. It was another beautiful memory to take with me when I go off to the other side.