Chapter 15 - The Life That Mattered

Two.

I stuck two candles in the birthday cake. Where did the time go? How was it possible that our little guy was turning two?

“You’re not crying, are you?” Ronin asked, sliding his hands around my waist and kissing my neck.

My teary gaze lifted from the cake, focusing out the window at our family and friends building a snowman out front with Franz. It was all he wanted for his birthday. A snowman. Man … I loved that kid so damn much my heart always teetered on the verge of bursting.

It was another perfect day in our life together. Well, almost perfect. Graham and Lila couldn’t make it. They didn’t make it to a lot of things. Since they got married, my friends took on a new life that didn’t involve us quite as much. Ronin saw Graham more than I did. They skied several times during the winter and managed to play golf once a week during the summer.

Lila took the role as First Lady and ran with it. I was so proud of my friend for walking away from a profession she loved to embrace her own civic duty. She wanted to make a difference in the lives of the great people of Colorado, and she did. Sadly, that meant I saw her maybe once a month, relying on quick phone calls and texts as our new form of communication.

“I’m not crying. It’s just dry in the house. Did you refill the humidifier?”

Ronin made me turn toward him. “Yes. I did.”

I nodded, averting my teary-eyed gaze. “Good. That’s good.”

“He’s two, not twenty.” Ronin slid his hands into the back pockets of my jeans and pulled me closer to him.

I held out my arms because my hands were a little sticky from frosting the cake. “It’s not that. It’s how bittersweet everything has become in our lives. It’s the change. It’s Lila and Graham being too busy to make it to the party.”

“It’s life, Evie. He’s The Governor. He was supposed to ski with me last week, but he had to cancel. I didn’t take it personally. And neither should you.”

“I’m not.” Well, I sort of wasn’t. I knew Graham and Lila weren’t missing any birthday parties for Graham’s family. I hated feeling like we were growing apart. Family wasn’t supposed to grow apart. It was stupid of me to fix up my best friends, like putting all my eggs in one basket. It felt like I was losing them at the same time.

I sighed, licking the frosting from one of my fingers. “They’re not even done rolling the first snowball for the body. They’re going to be out there for a while. I should throw in a load of laundry since I have a few spare minutes.”

“Or …” Ronin grabbed my wrist and sucked on the finger that was just in my mouth.

“Or?” I questioned with raised eyebrows.

“I could fuck my wife.”

I coughed on my next breath. We were married with a child. We made love. We didn’t “fuck.” Where did that come from?

Ronin kissed along my arm. “Franz is always in our bed. We have very quiet sex with him in our bed. I have to make the tiniest movements as to not wake him. And while we manage to get the job done when the stars align, I miss fucking my wife.”

“Roe …” I whispered a little out of breath as he sucked the frosting from my other fingers.

“I miss that too.” He grinned, releasing my finger. “I miss you moaning ‘Roe …’ as my tongue makes its first swipe between your legs before I finger you to your first orgasm, lick every inch of you, then give you a second orgasm with my cock pounding into you over and over.”

“Roe …” I closed my eyes, fighting my weak knees. His effect on me hadn’t worn off. If anything, the lack of his dirty mouth had only intensified its ability to make me want him so badly.

“Do you miss that too, Evie?” He palmed my ass and jerked me into him.

I nodded a half dozen times while making a quick glance over my shoulder. They were just completing the first snowball for the snowman. As soon as I turned back to Ronin, feeling a bit unsure if we could do it and be finished before anyone came back into the house, he kissed me so hard my lungs burned for air.

I missed kissing him like that. The urgency. The bite of his needy fingers digging into my flesh. He lifted me up, so his erection wedged between my legs as he carried me to the bedroom. He kicked the door shut and reached around to lock it.

Good boy …

We tore off our clothes in record time … some of them actually getting torn, like several buttons on his shirt and my thin, white cotton panties.

He pushed me onto the bed and attacked my mouth and neck, working his way down to suck and bite my nipples causing me to yell his name.

God … I hoped no one sneaked into the house unexpectedly.

He didn’t stay in one place long before kneeling on the floor, jerking my hips to the edge of the bed, and draping my legs over his shoulders while burying his face between my legs. His tongue relentlessly probed inside of me as he hummed like a starving man eating for the first time in weeks.

My body contorted and twisted as he kept my hips pinned to the mattress, slaying my efforts to hold off, ripping an orgasm from me then plunging his cock into me before I could see clearly again or find a single thought to make the slightest protest.

Then … he fucked me. And I liked it.

No. I loved it. I needed it. He was right. After two years of silently tiptoeing through sex with a sleeping child a few feet from our naked bodies, I needed to be taken the way he took me when we first met. Until the padded headboard thrummed the wall, I’d forgotten how it felt to get tipsy from oral sex and completely intoxicated by him fucking me so hard it felt like we were in another dimension.

The hard, concentrated expression on his face as he moved above me.

The slap of our skin.

The taste of sweat.

And the explosion … the string of swear words … and his body collapsing onto mine, pulsing with labored breaths.

“Oh … my … god …” I whispered on a heavy breath, completely exhausted and drunk on Ronin Alexander. “That was …”

Ronin nodded with his face buried in my neck. “Yeah …” His hot breath washed over my skin. “It sure as fuck was.”

That day … it was the day we conceived Franz’s little sister. It was also the beginning of a lot of ends that we never saw coming.