Page 47 of Vow of Vengeance (Destruction & Vengeance Duet #2)

I watch my wife wringing droplets of water from her hair, her back arched like she's posing for a sports magazine. She's fucking glorious, now more than ever.

I loved her pregnant, swollen with my child, but the exhaustion took away so much of her energy toward the end.

But now? The weight she gained during pregnancy has stuck around in all the right places, and it's only served to make her more addictive than she was when I first fell for her. The sharp edges are gone between us, and when she holds our child, I wonder what hell I will have to suffer in my next life for having known such sweet heaven this time. It doesn’t matter.

I’d spend an eternity in hell just for another day like this one, with her and our child.

Truly, I don't know how I got so lucky.

The turquoise water glitters around them as she swirls our son through the water, his head tossed back as a continuous stream of giggles escape him.

She's been doing this for the last half hour, and I know her arms must be aching, but the sound of his joy is clearly worth it.

I offered to take over, but I honestly think she's having as much fun as him. Besides, I'm enjoying the view.

"What time is it?" Soren turns to me, glancing up to where I am lying on my side on the deck, one hand under my head and the other in the water as I watch them.

A quick glance upward tells me it's afternoon, later than we intended to stay out. "Definitely nap time."

A grin splits her face, but she tries to hide it with a roll of her eyes. "You would want it to be nap time." She chuckles, lifting Kaisen out of the water for me to take.

I push up and take him, pulling him close to press a kiss on his forehead, as he chomps on his finger and grins back at me.

"Ready for some lunch and a nap?" I ask him, pushing the excitement into my voice that he already got from splashing around in the water with his mother.

I reach out a hand to help her as she climbs onto the back of the boat, too.

I press a kiss to her forehead, breathe her in, the smell of the sunscreen waking my hunger for her more.

I never realized coconut was an aphrodisiac, but every time I catch a whiff of that sunscreen causing water to bead on her skin, I feel feral.

Soren knows exactly how I feel because I've been jumping her bones every day, multiple times a day.

And who could blame me when she looks like that and tastes so fucking sweet?

"Kaisen needs his lunch first, right buddy?"

My eyes track to her breasts, full and firm, the veins straining under her fair skin, and I groan.

That's the only drawback we've had since becoming parents, my only complaint.

I've lost the right to touch her breasts at all, unless I'm massaging them, in which case I have been strictly forbidden to go near her nipples.

I understand that the stimulation is too much, that I don't want to cause her to leak, that it's uncomfortable for her.

And I'm willing to wait as long as it takes for her to be ready for me to touch them again.

In the meanwhile, she's opened up to me more fully, including opening other parts of her body.

Turns out, anal sex can be fun for both of us when we do it right.

I usher them to walk ahead of me, so that I can wrap my arm around her waist as we head to the galley.

"Ah!" Marguerite smiles brightly as we step inside, reaching her arms out for Kaisen, who happily goes to her.

"Traitor." I mutter, watching him grin at her like she's his favorite person. Obviously, she's not. Kaisen is a momma's boy, and I don't blame him even the slightest for it. With a mother like the one he's got, how can you not adore her?

I told Soren from early on that I could give her the world if she'd just let me, and I've made good on that promise.

Sitting around the penthouse with a newborn wasn't doing any of us any good once Marissa left to follow Wes and Violet wherever they went.

I could tell that Soren was willing to support her best friend however she needed, but staying in that town was too hard on Marissa, and saying goodbye was too hard on Soren.

They still talk as often as they can, but once I convinced my wife that we didn't need to be tied to a place that had nothing left for us, we went for it.

In the nine months since, we've been to Greece, Malta, Turkey, and now Croatia.

We're heading back to the United States by plane in a few weeks to celebrate Kaisen's first birthday with friends (a month late because we spent his actual birthday unplugged in the islands), and we've met new ones in the time we've been cruising.

Nature seems to have been almost as healing as therapy for my wife, who seems to be better each day. A large part of that, I'm sure, is finally fulfilling her dream of becoming a mother.

Another part of that is probably laying to rest the baby she lost..

. a baby that was conceived of something cruel, but that she would have loved every bit as much as she loves ours.

We named it after her sister, Ashlynn, and I bought a memorial for her in the same cemetery Soren's mother is in so that she has a place to go, proof that that life was there, that it existed, and that it mattered.

"You're ready to eat then, little man?" Marguerite asks, tickling his belly and making him giggle as she carries him to the highchair.

"You've got him, right Marguerite?" Soren asks, the hint of anxiety in her voice just barely noticeable.

Georgia, the therapist, insisted that we needed a nanny, much to Soren's immense displeasure.

She ranted that it felt invalidating, cried that she didn't want to share our child with a stranger, and then finally one night, after weeks of distress about it, she admitted she was worried we'd hire a nanny, and I'd cheat on her with someone younger or more beautiful.

I still can't convince her there is no one more beautiful, and I can't be mad at her for being scared I'll cheat on her even though I know I would never.

I don't care for other women... they just don't matter to me, because Soren and Kaisen are all that do.

They're everything to me, and I'd never jeopardize them even if I wasn't completely obsessed with my wife.

But I can't hold her insecurities against her; her first 'husband' broke her down before she ever had a chance to bloom.

He ruined her self-esteem in a way that I'll spend the rest of my life rebuilding, because she is absolutely worth it.

Because healing isn't quick. Because it's not linear, and I can't unwrite the past for her.

But what I can do is give her all the tools she needs to be her best self.

And Georgia was right that it's not feasible for Soren to never get a break.

As much as motherhood has been a dream to her, she can't be only that thing, or else she risks every bit of self-discovery she's worked at over the past year.

It's why we didn't hire a nanny- we hired Marguerite.

A chef, a mother whose own eight children have flown the coop, who serves as a pseudo-grandmother for our child.

We didn't ask for that to be the requirement, but it worked out that way since Marguerite is still waiting on grandchildren herself.

We trialed her for two months before testing her sanity to see if she'd be willing to join us, and she was.

And while Soren trusts her entirely, she gets nervous any time Kaisen is out of her eyesight.

"I sure do have the little man!" Marguerite says, dropping a handful of tiny sliced strawberries onto his tray.

Kaisen claps his hands together in approval and digs in immediately, grabbing a handful and bringing them to his mouth. He certainly worked up an appetite in the water.

"Go on, now, you two." Marguerite waves us off to go get cleaned up, and Soren grabs my hand, her fingers lacing with mine as she drags me to our room.

I'm contemplating whether I should throw her on the bed or let her shower first when she slams the door shut behind me and flips the lock, a devious little grin on her face as she pushes me toward the bed.

I let her shove me easily, so that I fall back onto the mattress as she stalks toward me, reaching for the string on her swim top.

A little tug is all it takes and the top falls free, her breasts so full they don’t even move as she drops her top to the floor.

I groan, aching to grab them in my hands, to be reacquainted with them as she loosens the strings on her bottoms in tandem, so that they fall to the floor too, leaving her bare before me.

She’s heaven. Utter fucking perfection.

“Should you pump first?” I ask as she straddles me, smirking down at me as her hot pussy comes down to rest on my bare stomach.

I don’t want to stop her for even a second, but she weaned Kaisen two months ago and began pumping exclusively so she could slowly decrease her supply.

I didn’t understand the relevance of any of it, but she explained that she had to quit slowly to keep from getting infections and clogged ducts and honestly, it sounds like a fucking nightmare.

Except, I don’t think her supply has really decreased at all.

“No.” She shakes her head, grinding against me so that her breasts jut into my face.

“Soren…” I warn, my voice low with the danger that she’s putting herself in. “If you don’t want me touching them, you better get those things out of my face.”

She just giggles at that. Fucking giggles. “Or what?”

My wife is a bit of a brat, it turns out. Who’d have guessed?

“Or I’ll do what I’ve been dying to for the last year, and I don’t think you’ll like it.”

“Maybe I will.” She huffs, breathy as she presents her breasts for me again, shimmying her shoulders just the slightest bit.