Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 88841 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 444(@200wpm)___ 355(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88841 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 444(@200wpm)___ 355(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
Unlike our ravenous kissing, he makes love to me slow and deep, as if he wants to stay in me forever. Like he can never get enough. And I feel the same way.
Ryder doesn’t stop until we’ve both found our orgasm, and even then, he stays inside me, raining kisses all over my face, my breasts. And even though I know why he’s doing it—because he wants to memorize every inch of me—I let him. Because there’s nowhere I’d rather be than in Ryder’s arms, with him inside me, worshipping me.
RYDER
“Mommy!” Addie runs into the house and goes straight for Kira, sounding like she hasn’t seen her in a week when it’s only been eighteen hours.
“Chunk!” Kira picks her up and twirls her in a circle, raining kisses all over my daughter’s face. “I missed you.”
“Miss you!” Addie giggles.
She wiggles down and runs over to Violet, who hugs her tightly.
“I missed you, Addie.”
“Miss you!” Addie repeats.
“Damn, looks like I’ve been replaced,” I joke when Addie doesn’t even bother to come over to me. “You going to give your dad a hug?”
I bend down, and Addie runs into my arms.
“I love you, Monkey.”
“I lub you,” she says, making my heart swell.
“We’re so glad you guys are okay,” Ana says, giving Kira a one-armed hug since she has her daughter in her other arm. “I can’t believe that woman was her.”
“I know.” Kira sighs. “But our attorney said with everything they’re being charged with, they’ll both be serving several years.”
“Good,” Julian says, holding Kingston in his arms. “I hope they rot.”
“Hey, Violet, what are you doing?” Ana asks, going over to where Violet has gone back to drawing at the table.
“I’m drawing a picture of my family,” Violet says. “Mommy said we get to live here forever.”
This morning, when Violet woke up, she asked if they could stay here, saying she never wanted to go back to Brian’s house again. Of course, Kira and I explained that what Brian and Nora had done was wrong—although we called her Marie since that’s how Violet knows her and trying to explain it would confuse her—and that she and her mom never have to leave again. This is their home, and we’re a family.
“Ryder,” Violet says, glancing up from drawing, “how do you spell your name?”
I walk over and kneel in front of her. “D-A-D.”
She writes the letters, then looks back up at me. “That’s not how you spell your name! That’s Dad.” And then her eyes go wide.
“I know,” I tell her softly. “But I was thinking that maybe you’d want to call me Dad because I’d love it if you were my daughter, just like Addie.”
“You want to be my dad?” she asks, her eyes filled with emotion.
“I would love to be your dad, if you want me to—”
My words are cut off by two tiny arms strangling my neck.
“Yes!” she cries. “I do. I want you to be my dad.”
She looks back at her mom. “Can he, Mommy? Can he be my dad?”
“Yes, sweet girl,” Kira says. “He can be your daddy.”
“Did you hear that, Addie?” Violet says, looking at my daughter, who’s in the process of breaking a crayon while attempting to draw like Violet. “Ryder’s my daddy! That means you’re my sister.”
“Sistah! Daddy!” Addie parrots.
“Yeah!” Violet says, hugging her. “We’re a family.”
Kira’s glassy eyes lock with mine, and she mouths, Thank you.
“You never have to thank me,” I tell her, wrapping my arm around her back and pulling her into my side. “You guys are giving me the greatest gift I could ask for … a family.”
epilogue
RYDER
Eight Months Later
“Is it everything you pictured, Mrs. Du Ponte?”
My beautiful wife nods with a smile that hasn’t left her face since the moment I saw her walking down the aisle with our daughters on either side of her while they threw rose petals all over the floor.
When we discussed her walking down the aisle, my grandfather offered to walk her, and while she appreciated the offer, she turned to me and said, “It’s not just us getting married. Our little girls are just as much a part of this as we are, and I want to walk down the aisle with them.”
She didn’t give a shit that she’d be sharing the spotlight with two adorable little girls. She didn’t care that the photos wouldn’t only be of her. All she cared about was how it would make our daughters feel as they walked down the aisle with their mom so we could officially become a family.
“It’s perfect,” she murmurs, reaching up and kissing the corner of my mouth. “Truly magical.”
“Good,” I tell her. “Because I want to give you the fairy tale. Only, in our version, there’s no happily ever after because this is only the beginning.”
I kiss her deeply, and she sighs into my arms. It’s been a crazy eight months between Violet starting school and our exes being prosecuted, found guilty, and sentenced to several years in prison, Kira finally getting her divorce, Addie turning two, and us planning the wedding—well, mostly me because she still hadn’t gotten used to the fact that I had money and she suggested we do something cheap, like get married in our backyard. And I wasn’t having it, so I told her I’d handle it.