My mouth opened on a silent cry as I shattered against him.
That addictive bliss surging through my body and making me feel weightless for those few seconds before I came crashing back to reality.
A reality that felt more like a dream.
“Beau,” I managed to say through my ragged breaths.
My body was trembling. Shuddering.
I gripped weakly at his hair as he continued to devour me like he couldn’t get enough.
Worshipping me with his tongue and fingers, pushing me through my orgasm until I tumbled into a second one.
Weightless.
Bliss.
And then he was moving over me and settling between my thighs as he deftly removed his athletic shorts. His long length pressing against my entrance as his mouth made a path up my neck.
“Love you,” he whispered against my skin.
“Every breath,” I vowed as he pushed inside me, slowly taking me inch by inch. A groan raking up his throat once he was fully seated.
“Fucking heaven.” His hand curled around the comforter as he eased out before pushing back in. His hips rolling faster and faster until he found a rhythm that had my breaths coming out in soft whimpers.
Had my eyelids fluttering shut as he loved me so wholly, so effortlessly.
“Open,” he softly demanded as his lips brushed across my cheek. His dark eyes all love and adoration and fire when I looked into them. “There you are.”
Twisting my fingers into his hair, I brought his mouth to mine. Kissing him until I was dizzy off his lips and tongue and the way he moved inside me.
Dizzy off Beau and everything that made up us.
Pressing up with one hand, he grabbed my leg with the other and curled it around his hip as his thrusts quickened. The muscles in his body tensing as he neared his release. As he gently claimed me. Body. Heart. Soul.
It didn’t matter how long we’d been doing this or how we came together. Rough . . . easy . . . every time stripped me bare in the purest of ways. Exposing every vulnerability and shaking me to my core. Flooding me with the breathtaking knowledge that this man was mine. That he had so clearly chosen me from that first day and continued to.
A gritted curse burst from him when he came inside me, his body tightening for long seconds before little tremors began rolling through his arms and back and transferring to me.
He slowly released my leg and lowered himself to rest just above me, our chests moving in unison with our ragged breaths as we watched each other in that moment we always lingered in. The fierce beat of his heart matching mine so perfectly and feeling like a comfort in its familiarity.
“You’re everything,” he murmured. Capturing my lips in a soft but brief kiss as he eased out of me and rolled us to our sides.
Warmth bloomed in my chest, a lazy smile tugging at the corner of my mouth at his words. At the tone. As if he still couldn’t believe we were finally here, after everything we’d been through.
I understood it all too well.
But we’d made it through my parents trying everything to separate us before finally giving Beau their blessing. Through their public wishes for me to be with someone else. We’d made it through cop cars and holding cells. Through the repeated, crushing loss of death and people leaving. Of the separation from Hunter and Cayson . . .
Through it all, we’d gotten our dream. The plantation house was ours—fully restored and more beautiful than I ever could’ve imagined. Blossom Bed and Breakfast had been up and running for a couple years. And we had our little girl.
Beau’s stare danced across my face as I thought, a soft smile lighting his eyes as he did.
“What?”
“I hope Quinn has your freckles.”
A shock of a laugh bubbled free. “Why?”
His answer was immediate. “I love them. Have since that first day.” When I just looked at him with amused confusion, he asked, “You don’t remember?”
“Apparently not.” But I snuggled deeper into the pillow and curled closer to him, excitement billowing as I waited to hear his side of it.
He sighed and looked toward the ceiling as he thought. “You asked if I was gonna stay away from you because of your freckles. Said you didn’t think they belonged on your face.”
Another laugh tumbled past my lips, my shoulders shaking from the force of it. “I still think that,” I admitted.
His eyes snapped to me and narrowed in a playful glare. “They’re fucking adorable.”
I lifted a hand in mock surrender.
“When I told you they weren’t gonna make me stay away from you, you said something like my anger wasn’t gonna make you stay away from me—like they were the same thing.”
“Oh.” The word was a soft exhale as the memory tugged at my mind. My chest aching when I remembered sitting by a tree with a mud-covered Beau. “Because they both made us sad.” When Beau slanted his head in a nod, I added, “But they’re both just parts of us.”
Eyes bluer than the ocean searched my face again as he said, “I hope Quinn has them.”
“I hope she has your heart.”
Beau looked as if I’d said the most horrific thing imaginable. For a while, he watched me as if waiting for something. When I didn’t offer anything else, he asked, “Why would you want her to have anything of me?”
That ache in my chest grew and grew for the man I loved. The one who, even after years of controlling that darkness and rage inside him, still couldn’t see himself as anything else.
“Well, there are a lot of things to want,” I said softly, lifting one of my shoulders in a shrug. “Your eyes. Your dimples and your smile.”
“I don’t smile.”
“You do,” I argued as a smile of my own broke across my face. “And, oh man, if you ever showed it to anyone else, it’d be enough to stop people where they are. It still stops me.”
“You’re different.”
I lifted a brow, silently challenging him. When he just dipped his head, letting me have that one, I went on. “But those are just physical. Your inner strength is unmatched. And your heart? Beau, you feel everything so deeply, and it’s so beautiful. Why wouldn’t I want her to have that?”
Long moments passed in silence as he seemed to consider my words. After a while, he spoke. Voice soft and haunted. “Feeling that much can be damaging. I wouldn’t want any of our kids to experience that.”
I lifted my hand to his face, brushing my fingers across the hard set of his brow and jaw as my pain for him flared. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I hate that it feels that way to you—wait, did you say kids?”
“Yeah,” he responded unapologetically.
“As in, more than just Quinn?”
Confusion creased his features. “I thought you wanted multiple kids.”
“Yeah, but that was before I realized how hard fixing up a mansion would be.”
“Already done,” he said with an easy shrug.
“Or having one baby.”
“She’s a pretty great baby,” he added, amusement dancing in his eyes.
“Or looking like a freaking whale for months.”
A wicked grin slowly crossed his face. “Babe, do you have any idea how sexy you are when you’re pregnant?”
“But I just got my body back,” I cried out . . . only to realize I was actually crying.