Page 22 of Curtis & Jae (Mate Match #1)

Epilogue

Jae

I thought parenthood was an adventure. Doing a book tour with a baby was the same game, just on hard mode.

Luckily, I had Curtis and my mom with me for a lot of the tour.

Curtis had made Marty a partner in his business along with expanding further, so he could take the time off to see the country with me and baby Leo.

He’d pay Marty back when it came time for Marty to go off for parental leave.

Yeah, our friends were finding love thanks to Mate Match, just like we hoped.

Navigating being a dad, writing and illustrating another book, and still working was rewarding. I wouldn’t have changed anything in my life for a second.

Yet, I still loved mornings when I knew I had time to lie in bed with my man.

Leo was sleeping through the night and we had an hour before my mom would arrive to take him to a baby group, she had heard about.

Mom loved spending time with her grandbabies.

Getting with Curtis had brought her closer to Iseul, too.

She often looked after Nari and Leo together, giving me time to catch up with my sister, or just have a break.

I wriggled down the bed, running my hands over the curve of Curtis’ stomach. I loved his big belly! He roused when I pulled his hardening cock out of his underwear and took it into my mouth.

“Jae,” he moaned as I sucked him. I worked my tongue over the head and into his slit, lapping up the precome there. “Baby, let me taste you.”

Totally up for that, I popped off his cock and lay back. I shoved off my underwear, flinging them to parts unknown. With my luck my mom would find them when she was cleaning up.

I was distracted when Curtis pushed back my thighs and licked down my ass crack. He flipped me over to my stomach to get at my hole easier. He pushed his tongue inside me, groaning at the taste of my slick.

Our foreplay wasn’t drawn out. There wasn’t the time to really play with each other’s bodies. We didn’t want to risk Leo waking while still knotted. Curtis thrust inside me, pulling me up so my back was against his chest. I loved this position. He was so deep inside me I felt like I would burst!

On and on he pumped into me until I felt him swell and he came. He continued to rock through his orgasm and stroked me until I reached mine. It was quick, but exactly what we both needed. We lay together on the bed, still joined until his knot went down and he slipped free of my body.

In the room next to us, Leo let out a cry.

“I’ll get him,” Curtis said. He got up, that delicious body on display making me want him again. I wondered if I should get ready for a heat. Leo wasn’t nursing anymore, so they could return soon.

“Curtis?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you want another baby?”

Leo gave another impatient cry. “Let’s get the wedding and our trip out of the way first, huh? Then we can talk about more babies.” He paused at the doorway. “Why? Is it your heat?”

“Yeah. I think it might be soon.”

“Okay, let’s talk to your mom about having Leo.” Our son was getting irritated. His cries grew in volume. “Go shower. We can talk about this later.”

My mom arrived when Curtis was in the shower. We’d switched off Leo duty after a quick, emotional discussion about future babies. “Jae, I think you might be going into heat,” she remarked almost as soon as she scented me.

I guess it was official. I was about to have my first postpartum heat. There was so much to do before then. We’d already decided to give my body more time to recover before having another child. Our life was busy enough and we could afford to wait another year or two.

Despite our first try with DuoStop, there wasn’t anything else we could use that wouldn’t make me sick or draw out my heat longer than it needed to be. We’d just have to trust it would work this time now that the faulty batches were gone.

The way our family and friends rallied around us to get me through this heat and take care of Leo was a testament to how far we’d come.

Grace covered Curtis at work. She was now the leader of her own team and would hold down the fort with Marty while Curtis was with me.

Brady moved some things around, giving me time to enjoy my heat experience and relax after it without a deadline looming.

My parents and Ricky packed up Leo to stay with my mom and dad for a couple of days.

It was wonderful to have so much support.

What was better was having two almost completely guilt free days just enjoying my mate.

Curtis

It took us ten months to get married. Our ideal venue had two spaces.

One when Leo was two months old, which was far too soon to throw a wedding together, or this one when Leo was crawling and standing up all over the place.

It wouldn’t be long before he was walking!

I had so much to do in the house to baby proof it now that he was mobile.

Brady and Haneul still complained that barely ten months wasn’t long enough to plan a wedding, but they’d done it.

The wedding was tasteful, yet simple, held in a local hotel and attended by most of our family and our friends.

Brady was Jae’s best man, with his brother, Jun, also standing with him.

I had my best man, Marty, and best woman, Lara, as my attendants.

Both were too important to me for me to choose between them.

Milo led his sister down the aisle, helping her spread rose petals.

We each walked down the aisle after the best people went down together. Jae was with both his parents, me with my dad. I knew my mom was there in spirit.

Out of the perfect day, the only downside was some sadness that Jae’s grandparents were unable to attend due to his grandfather’s ill health. They watched the ceremony and speeches over a video call, taking part in the day they had insisted they pay for.

Despite Jae’s worries, they didn’t care about my ethnicity, too busy fussing over Leo to care who his alpha parent was.

It helped that Leo was the mirror image of Jae, with his golden skin and dark hair.

He had my nose and lips, maybe. Time would tell on that.

If all our kids looked like Leo, then I’d have a football team’s worth of them!

Still, they were proud of him, not just for his novel, but for how he chose to live his life on his terms and the work he did changing the law to help other omegas.

I really believed they were happy for us and I was looking forward to our trip to Korea to meet them for Leo’s first birthday.

Dad was coming, along with Jae’s parents.

Jae breaking from familial expectations brought him and his sister closer.

Not to be left out, the eldest, Jun, made more of an effort with his siblings, especially after accidentally telling his grandparents we were pregnant before we could.

They were regulars at our home, having playdates with their kids and Leo.

They welcomed me into their family easily and I felt like Jun could become a close friend.

“You better get going. You need to check in for your flight,” Haneul warned. Minjun was holding his grandson, completely unaware we were still there. Jae was hesitating over leaving our son.

“Are you sure—”

“Jae,” his dad chided, showing he had known we were lingering.

“We can manage. We have Ricky coming over for dinner. Lara is on speed dial if anything happens.” He spoke faster to prevent Jae from interrupting.

“Which it won’t. You forget we had three children.

Leo is such an angel, aren’t you?” He grinned at our baby.

“We’re going to have the best time, and you are going to relax for a change. ”

“Come on,” I said, taking my husband’s hand. “Give him one last kiss and we’d better go. We don’t want to miss our flight.”

His grandparents had paid for first class flights to an exclusive wellness resort as a sort of mini-moon.

Our Korea trip would be our true honeymoon, and we’d explore the country while Leo got to know his great grandparents.

But first, a fancy spa was going to pamper us for three days.

With Leo’s first year almost behind us, we needed it.

I loved being a parent, and now, a husband.

Wouldn’t change it for the world, but the first few months were exhausting.

There were times I fell asleep sitting in the shower after work.

Jae struggled with the guilt of working and raising our child, feeling that he was being selfish to have something for himself.

His mom had talked him out of that, omega to omega.

All of it helped us get to where we were now. Married and still very in love, even thinking of another child after we visited Korea. We’d gotten through these last few months stronger.

We kissed Leo once more and got into the car. I’d just pulled away when I got a message.

“Check that for me, would you?”

Jae unlocked the device. “It’s an email from Mate Match.”

“What does it say?” I glanced over at him to see his jaw hanging open. “What’s wrong?”

“Uh, nothing bad. They want permission to add us to the testimonials for successful matches. They’d love to display one of our wedding photos on their website.” He thought for a moment. “What do you think? Do you want to? I feel like we should. We wouldn’t be together if it wasn’t for the app.”

“I’m on board. Mate Match gave me the life I’d only dreamed of before.”

I picked up his hand and kissed it. If I wasn’t driving, I would have kissed the mark on his scent gland. We’d done the marking in private after our wedding. Jae was everything to me. My husband and my mate. The mark just proved it to everyone.

Jae beamed at the simple show of affection. “A loving husband I adore and a cute baby. Mate Match really delivered that happily ever after.”