Where We Left Off (36 page)

Mallory

The two bands on my finger felt like home. That was the only way to describe it. I’d worn rings before, and there was a familiar comfort in them, but this time, when I glanced
at
my
fourth
finger and saw my mom’s engagement ring, and the diamond-encrusted band that Heath had chosen to match, I couldn’t imagine my hand without it.

With that, I was instantly comfortable.

With the white lace nightie and matching panties, not so much.

We’d decided on a date that was close to our engagement. Like four weeks close. Heath had reasoned that we’d waited a dozen years already and that waiting wasn’t something we needed to exercise anymore. We were experts in it.

But there were things to do and affairs to get in order. The first was selling my house. As much as I’d loved that place, it was the backdrop for my life with Dylan. It wasn’t a new life that I was embarking on, I knew that, but it was okay to let go of pieces of the past when stepping into the future. Plus, we’d found the perfect little cottage three blocks down from
Grow
where I’d be able to walk to work. It was also fifteen minutes closer to Whitney High, so that was another huge selling point.

We’d spent the last couple of weeks packing and unpacking, but tonight was the first official night our new place. It was also our first night as husband and wife.

Heath and Mallory McBride.

The ceremony had been small—only fifty of our closest friends and relatives—and Boone had joyfully agreed to officiate. Heath nearly busted a gut when I’d told him that Boone was an ordained minister. Apparently a burly, three-hundred-pound hulk of a man did not fit his idea of a pastor. But even with his gruff exterior and occasional misplaced remarks, Boone did a beautiful job. I wouldn’t have wanted anyone else to marry us. It was the perfect day
from
the guests to the flowers to the celebration.

Everything related to us getting hitched went off without a hitch.

But I didn’t have that same confidence when I looked into the
full-length
mirror hung on the back of the bathroom door. I’d been working out this past month like all engaged women seemed to do, and though I noticed a bit more muscle where I’d been softer, I doubted Heath would recognize the improvements. It was a subtle and less than impressive difference.

I pushed my hand to my stomach to cover my belly when I heard him call out from the bedroom. “You okay in there? I’m ready whenever you are.”

Of course he was. The poor guy had been
waiting
our entire relationship for this moment, and it would be a lie to say I didn’t share that same anticipation, too. I grabbed my wineglass from the counter near the sink and threw back the last swallow that remained.

“Coming.”

With a wink at my reflection in the mirror for a boost of confidence, I pushed open the door. Right away, I noticed the candles that dotted the furniture, their amber glow flickering against dark walls. Quiet, instrumental music filtered from the surround sound speakers.

And there, leaning against the foot of our new queen-size bed, was my husband.

God, he was gorgeous. He wore gray drawstring pants low on his hips, and the strong V that trailed into his waistband made my heart ram into my throat. He was all muscle and man and strength
bound
in this incredible body that was all mine.
Mine.

I smirked to myself.

“What are you smiling at, Mrs. McBride?” Heath took a step toward me and dropped his large hands possessively to my bare hips. He nipped at my neck. “Hmm?”

“Nothing.” I smiled against his skin, arching my head back to allow his mouth to continue its greedy exploration of my body.

“You sure about that?” His breath was hot. I shivered when it hit my chilled and pebbled skin. “You looked pretty damn amused.”

“Did I?” The words became harder to form. My brain was suddenly working in short and choppy sentences, unable to string anything more significant together.

“Mmm
hmmm
,” was all he responded before swinging his arm around my back and spinning me in one motion. With one move forward, Heath pressed his leg between mine and forced me softly back so the backs of my knees hit the mattress. My breath trembled from my lips and panted out. “You okay?” Heath’s eyes searched mine. His brow quirked up.

“More than okay,” I assured him with my mouth on his neck, his chest, his shoulder that I was, indeed, very okay.

“All right,” he said through a convincing smile.

Then Heath hauled over me, gentle and tender though everything from the sheen of sweat on his bare chest to the way it rose rapidly with his shaking breath showed the enormous restraint that took. I backed myself up on the bed, scooting along the mattress as Heath crawled above me, his arms on either side of my head.

Everything buzzed as his full mouth explored each inch of me that now belonged to him and no one else. Every piece that was forever his. Heath slipped my straps from my shoulders and eased the garment from my body and every place his fingers touched, his lips eagerly followed.

My breath quivered and my chest followed its shaky rhythm. The nerves I’d harbored were instantly replaced with a new hunger for Heath. To explore his body. To discover the pieces of him that, only now, were mine. He brought his lips back to mine and he slipped his tongue into my mouth and I grasped onto his shoulders as our mouths moved against one another in the same rhythm as our bodies and our souls.

I’d had sex so many times in my life. I’d even made love before. But what Heath and I were doing wasn’t on that same scale. This was where they’d said two became one. I’d never understood it before, how in marriage and in love that could ever happen, but this was it.

I no longer belonged to myself, and Heath was not his own.

We were one in flesh and body and life and love.

As I tugged at his waistband and found a place for my hands to fall, every hesitant emotion that I’d clung to before dissipated immediately. I was safe with Heath. He was my protector and now my world. My former anxiety that wound tight in my chest was replaced with the intense need to be with this remarkable, astonishing man. To surrender my insecurities and my worries and to trust him with my heart, with my body.

He’d had his own
hang-ups
, too. More than once he’d apologized for his leg and expressed his worry that it would be a turn off for me.
In
that
moment,
I understood the anger he’d felt when I’d apologized for my body before—for the stretch marks and the changes that being pregnant had brought about. In my eyes, there was nothing about Heath that wasn’t perfect. I finally understood that he felt exactly the same when it came to me.

And there was nothing about the two of us that wasn’t perfect together.

We found our connection almost instantly, the slow build that graduated into a rhythm that surged with the need our bodies knew exactly how to achieve. I trusted him fully and he reciprocated that surrender with each kiss and intense look in my eyes that fluttered my belly and threw my heartbeats off course. Our clothes, the sheets, our
hands,
and legs all tangled together as we chased our desire and our longing. Only when he pulled back to ask if I was okay did we stop or pause to let our breath catch up with our racing hearts.

“You are incredible, Mallory,” Heath said as he ran his hands over my body, his eyes dragging down with them. “This is incredible.” His words sighed against my feverish skin. “I’m seriously the luckiest guy in the entire world.”

Maybe we were both lucky, though. Lucky that life allowed us just one more chance.

We spent all night in one another’s arms, our bodies and hearts connected in the most intimate ways. I fell asleep there in the
safety
of his embrace.

We’d had our rocky start, our choppy seas when the storms came, but Heath would forever be my safe and constant place. He was more than just my boat now. He was my heart’s vessel. Maybe he always had been. Maybe he’d been keeping it safe for me all this time and finally, now as one, our hearts could beat together.

All I knew was that from now on, until the day it stopped, mine would forever beat for Heath, the first—and last—love of my life.

Heath

“Look what’s here!” I flung open the front door and the pewter handle smashed into the drywall. I cringed. “Sorry—I’ll fix that, but did you see what the mailman left on the porch?”

Mallory was sitting cross-legged on the floor in a flowing purple dress while Corbin ran circles around her. The dizzying scene made my head spin and I raced as quickly as I could to interrupt his current lap, scooping him up in my arms. I’d been walking for nearly a year now, but I still wasn’t as proficient as I’d hoped to be. Mallory said I
was being
too hard on myself, but sometimes I figured it was her job to talk me down. It was a job she was infinitely good at.

“What are you all excited about?” I said to my son, who tried hard to wriggle free from my grasp. “Hmm?”

“I could ask you the same,” Mallory grunted as she pushed off the ground, using her belly as momentum with a hand to her arched back. “What’s in the package?”

I’d written him only a week ago and did not expect such a quick response, or even one at all. That it had just been a few days was insanely impressive. I was dying to rip it open.

“Just a little surprise for you.”

“Heath.” Mallory smiled and it pushed her full cheeks to her eyes. “You know it’s not a good idea to surprise a pregnant woman, right? You want to send me into early labor? How comfortable are you with home births?”

“This is one you’re really going to like. Much better than the last one.”

“Why you would think an obscenely pregnant would want a striped magenta bikini is beyond me.”

“Because, umm, have you
seen
your preggo boobs?” I scratched at the back of my neck and smirked. “And yeah, because boobs.”

Mallory swatted me with her hand. “You are too much, you know that?”

“Back to my surprise.” I brought the package from where I’d settled it in the entryway and propped it up against the family room wall. I stared at it for a moment, wanting to savor the anticipation a bit longer. This was going to be so good.

“Are we going to open it, or just admire the wrapping?”

“Admire.” My fingers rubbed my chin and then I let out a satisfied sigh. “Okay, done admiring. Have at it.”

Her brow raised. “You want
me
to open it?”

“Yep. Go for it. Just rip right in.”

Waddling adorably to the package, Mallory tossed a wary glance over her shoulder before taking the edge of the paper into her hands. With a synchronized
one, two, three,
she peeled back the parchment and let out the loudest, sharpest squeal. “Oh my God, Heath! We’re having a girl?”

There, on the canvas, was a smattering of pink paint, strokes and splatters of peaches and corals.

“I thought you wanted to wait to find out?”

I shrugged and came up
behind
my wife, wrapping my hands under her belly and bringing my chin to her shoulder. “In case you haven’t caught on yet, I’m really bad at waiting.”

“I think there are plenty of people who would disagree with you on that. Remember those twelve, long years?”

“I’m good at waiting when I have no other choice. But we had a choice here. I honestly couldn’t wait any longer to find out more about that baby of mine growing in your belly, so I sent your dad the envelope with the ultrasound and asked him to let us know the verdict.” I pressed a slow kiss to Mallory’s neck. “I want to know everything there is to know about our baby. Her likes, her dislikes. The sound of her voice. The way her tiny hand is going to fit in mine. Would you hurry up and finish with this whole pregnancy thing so I can finally meet her?”

Mallory’s round stomach tightened with the laugh. “Only a few more months. You’ll just have to be patient with this.”

“If I have to,” I relented. “But only because you asked so nicely.”

“Oh really?” I loved that even though we’d been married ten months and pregnant for six, Mallory still had the energy and desire to flirt. It was a huge turn-
on,
though everything she did turned me on. “Only because I asked nicely?”

“Mallory, have you not realized that you can ask me for anything and it’s yours? This really isn’t a big secret, you know.”

“I don’t need to ask for anything else. I have you and Corbin, and now our daughter.” Her eyes rounded and she turned in my arms to look at me with an awestruck expression. “Wow.
We’re having
a
daughter
, Heath.”

“I know.” I was still processing it; how incredible our lives had turned out to be. “It’s pretty damn amazing, right?”

She rested her head
on
my chest, turning her belly sideways to fit deeper
into
my arms. “Did you ever think way back when you stood on my front porch that this is where we’d end up?”

I nodded my head and my chin pressed into her soft, red hair. “Yes. This is exactly where I wanted to end up. Remember when you asked how on earth we weren’t a thing already and I said that I was working on it?”