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He chuckles and kisses my forehead. “Five minutes. Give me five, and I’ll be ready to fuck you hard again, little girl.”
“From behind this time,” I say, snuggling closer to his side. “And pull my hair.”
He clucks his tongue playfully. “Bossy, bossy…”
“You love it,” I say, knowing it’s true.
“I do.” He catches my hand, bringing it to his lips, his thumb brushing over the ring that gleams in the moonlight. “And I love seeing this on your finger.”
“Me, too.” My smile fades as I add in a softer voice, “Let’s be together forever, okay?”
“Sounds like a plan,” he says.
And it is, one we stick to like a treasure map.
Soon, our life together is so bright that it makes those dark months alone in Maine, wondering if I had what it takes to be a single mom, seem like a bad dream.
But they weren’t a dream.
Those days were very real and very hard—for both of us. We learned a lesson during our time apart, one that makes us hold on even tighter, determined never to lose each other again.
We’re married in a simple ceremony on the roof of our building in October, surrounded by friends and family, our loved ones as happy for us as we are to finally be saying our “I dos.” And then Sully and Weaver take the girls home with them for a long weekend—they’ve decided not to have children, but they’re the best auntie and uncle ever.
Hunter and I drive to a cabin upstate, surrounded by gorgeous fall leaves, and don’t come out of the bedroom for three days straight, except to grab food and the occasional shower.
Nine months later, Phillip Mendelssohn-Murphy is born, howling even louder than his big sister Fiona did, and we decide it’s time to hire more than a part-time nanny.
Three kids under the age of three is…a lot.
A lot of diapers, a lot of chaos, and a lot of wonderful.
Life is wonderful, and it’s all thanks to this man and a contract we keep tucked in a drawer in his office, a memento of the crazy thing we did before we were the parents of three little kids who keep us too busy to be wild very often.
Though we still get around to it, every now and then…
Like tonight, when the nanny has the kids and we’re stealing away to our favorite hotel in the city, where we plan to stay up all night doing very filthy things to each other.
And sweet things.
And forever things, because that’s the kind of love we have.
The kind that lasts a lifetime.