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“Let me know when you’re finished with the books Bodhi gave you,” Tess pipes up from her spot next to Bodhi in the row behind us. “And you better not have un-dog-eared all the dirty pages. I refer to those when I need extra inspiration before sex.”
While Tess and Bodhi argue behind us about how he’s the only inspiration she should need, I look over at the scoreboard and calculate how much time is left in the game. After practicing my phone sex skills and quite frankly just being anywhere near Shepherd, I can’t wait to go home and be alone with him.
Home…
Good God, just saying that word makes it seems so small and insignificant when the ginormous mansion Shepherd bought for us is so big I could drive a car through the entryway. Miss Abigail and her husband hadn’t been living in the home for a few months, so it was completely empty and just waiting for us to move in. Which we did, the same day Shepherd made the offer, at the insistence of Miss Abigail, who just couldn’t handle having the home her husband built for her when they first came to Summersweet empty for even one more day while the paperwork went through. She was so happy the house would be going to a Summersweet local, especially when we told her they were more than welcome to stop by and see the place whenever they were in town, that she hired a gourmet chef to cook dinner for us every night our first week there as a special thank you. The fact that her home is now mine, the castle that always starred in all of my fairytale fantasies growing up, and I’m living in it with the man of my fairytale dreams was seriously thank you enough, but good God that spicy shrimp pasta the chef made on night two almost gave me an orgasm at the dinner table.
At the very southeastern end of the island next to SIG, the 6,000 square foot, three-story, fairytale home with light-gray siding and white pillars sits right on the water with its own private dock for Shepherd’s boat. And Owen’s jet ski—although he’s still not allowed to ride that damn thing without an adult. With four bedrooms and five-and-a-half baths, we have stunning, panoramic views of the ocean from all of the floor-to-ceiling windows, a gourmet kitchen, a theater room, an insane pool with waterfalls and a freaking grotto, and one of my favorite parts: Huge, white, wraparound porches on the second and third stories that I plan on curling up with Shepherd and watching many, many sunsets together. Of course he’s already planned to put a flat-screen television out there by the electric fireplace so we can watch baseball games, and Owen has already invited the entire freshman class for a pool party in the heated pool next weekend.
But my absolute favorite part about the whole house? It’s definitely the archway from my cottage that Shepherd had a contractor remove and install in the entryway of the kitchen at our new house, with fifteen years of height markings for Owen. Including the most recent marking yesterday of goddamn five-foot one after, of course, a sleepover at Aunt Birdie’s.
I look up at Shepherd and smile right before he tilts his head down and presses his lips to mine. It’s a soft and gentle kiss while the crowd around us cheers when the Dukes fumble the ball, and it’s picked up by a Wildcat for a fifty-yard run before he’s tackled. But there’s no such thing as a gentle kiss with us. As soon as I feel his tongue push past my lips while we stay seated in the bleachers as everyone around us jumps to their feet when the Wildcats score another touchdown, I seriously consider leaving the game early or kicking Birdie and Palmer out from under the bleachers like Shepherd suggested.
Every morning I wake up, I have to pinch myself that this fairy tale is really my life. And every time Shepherd kisses me like this, like there’s no one else in the world but the two of us, I can almost forget that only a few months ago I thought I would be alone and miserable forever. It’s not all unicorns, and glitter, and Lisa Frank stickers all the time. I still have days when I feel like I’m not doing enough when Shepherd does so much for us, but those days are getting fewer and farther apart, and I’m getting more and more used to being spoiled, thanks to him. I’m not gonna lie; going to the mall now is a freaking blast when you don’t have to take a calculator with you and decide if you’d rather have a new pair of shoes or buy groceries that week, and you can just have your boyfriend pop you right over there on his boat.
