AllFreeNovel
Share Us
My hands shot to the headboard above me and I smiled at his soft laugh. The teasing was gone and so were my pants. Decker didn’t waste time testing the waters before diving in, mouth closing over my center and devouring me. Lucky for me, the pleasure was so great that I didn’t flinch until after he’d made me come. He was still grumbling about healing times as I fell asleep in his arms, sated and content to hear his cranky arguments for life.
I had him, my sanity, a found family, and the rest of my life to live on purpose and in passion. The time for living in the reactions was finally over.
EPILOGUE
DECKER
2 YEARS LATER
“You can’t wear that tie,” Lake growled as she stepped into the closet, still fastening her diamond studs to her ears. I looked down at the simple black tie before looking back up at her with an eyebrow raised in question. Then I finally took in her dress, a deep red color that made her green eyes stand out even more. The deep V cut and high slits on either side of her thighs, could have made the dress indecent on anyone else. But the fabric hugged every curve like the dress had been sewn onto her body. That, coupled with the blood red stilettos and her brown hair cascading in loose curls around her, made me want to skip the event all together just to keep her in bed and under me.
She read my intentions before I could even take a step forward and raised a finger in warning at me. “If you make us late for this, I will weaponize sex against you.” An empty threat, but enough to make me remember why we were dressing up in the first place. I stepped forward and grabbed her hand from mid air, turned it over so I could kiss the engagement ring glistening in the light.
“Why can’t I wear this tie?” I asked, guiding her back to the earlier issue.
“Because I got this tie that matches!” She reluctantly pulled her hand away and went to the drawer where I kept the majority of my ties and pulled out one that matched the deep red of her dress. I made a face and she glared. “I know you’re going to say something irritating like ‘this isn’t prom’ or whatever, but this is an important night for me and I need you to suck it up and wear the tie.”
I took the fabric from her and began to loosen the knot I’d already had perfect. I wouldn’t argue with her tonight, I could tell she was one more minor fire from spiraling out completely. Lake rarely spent time in the public eye anymore, and a night where media and influential people alike would be focused on her had her understandably nervous. If putting on a matching tie could alleviate some stress from her evening, I’d make the entire Remington crew sport matching ties.
It had been a long road back for Lake after surviving Dominic Parker. She hadn’t fully accepted all of the death around her at once, slowly mourning for each as a certain memory hit her and opened the floodgates. The Pasternaks were the hardest for her, probably because they’d been the most loving out of the people she’d lost. Scout had gone back to DC with her fiance after he was released from the hospital but made it a point to be there any time Lake began to break. Scout had been there for the small memorial service Lake held at the house in the Hamptons, just before she sold it. I’d known the memories attached to that home were forever tainted by the evil that had stalked her there.
She had attended Bailey’s service, but after being blamed by the Voss family for their daughter’s death, she’d opted out of Monica’s. I’d almost lost it in the middle of the service when Lake had taken the verbal lashing, but she stood strong, nodded to Augustin Voss and left. She’d told me later that they would blame her just as Bailey and Monica would have. There was no arguing with people who would search for blame in times of grief. That night, with absolutely no fanfare or ring, I asked her to marry me.
It wasn’t until Robert’s funeral that I saw her turn a corner, it seemed he was the final hatchet she needed to bury with herself. Scout and her new husband had made sure the details were taken care of, and Lake made sure her father was remembered for his good deeds, but made no excuses for his shortcomings in her eulogy. The night we’d gotten home from the service, Lake had informed me that she was starting a shelter for kids and teens in the foster care system. A place where they could come to escape the horror and find help. She’d already hired Ellen Downing, her father’s old secretary, to help get her plans in motion. And that night, she finally agreed to marry me.
And now, a year and a half later, we were still engaged because Lake wanted to obsess about one project at a time, and getting the Harrington House off the ground had been hard enough work for her. Tonight was the first fundraiser since the house had opened its doors, and she was in full freak out mode. It still baffled me that she got nervous in these situations since she was raised in the life of schmoozing.
“Oh, I forgot to mention, Avery called and said she’ll be late.” I didn’t even dare glance at her as I kept my eyes focused on the tie I was doing up in the reflection of the floor length mirror. I still heard the growl of frustration and bit back a smile. “Easy there, tiger. She said it wouldn’t be more than ten minutes.”
With the tie done up perfectly, I turned and grabbed her hand, pulling her from the closet and out of the room. The less she had time to fuss, the less she would worry. We were in the car before she finally relaxed, finally giving in to the fact that she was past changing or controlling the evening now. We sat in the back seat as the city blurred past, hands held and resting between us, and I wondered if this type of peace could last the rest of our lives.
“Ellen has the administrative side of the Harrington House so far under control that I think it might start running itself.” The offhand comment in the silence was enough to pull my eyes to her, but not enough to interrupt. Lake was revving up for something. She looked at me, moisture glistening in her eyes.
“Ellen has that covered and Stevie has that house in perfect condition, the kids all respect her and listen to her. I’m barely needed there.”
I squeezed her hand in an attempt to reassure her that her brain child still needed her, but she shook her head with a smile. “It’s true, I’ve spent way too long fussing over something that doesn’t need me. I should stick to fundraising and event planning. It’s my skill set.”
“If there’s a point, you better get to it. I’m not letting you go in there with tears in your eyes and feeling like you don’t contribute when the number of kids you’ve already helped is amazing.” My voice was stoic but I made sure she saw the love in my eyes when she met them again.
“My point is, now that the planning is done for this particular event, I wanted to move on to another.”
“Which other?”
“Our wedding.” She said it off the cuff and with a slight shrug as she turned her attention back out the window.
With a growl I unbuckled us both and hauled her into my lap, the slits on the side of her dress making it easy for her to straddle me. Lake attempted to glower down at me but let out a breathy laugh as I dove into her deliciously exposed cleavage. Nipping and licking the sensitive skin between her breasts I groaned as she ground down on my rapidly growing erection.
“If you mess me up before photos, I might have to kill you,” she gasped, holding no serious threat. Still, I stopped myself, pressing my forehead to her collar bone as she traced her nails up and down along the back of my neck.
“Don’t make the wedding too big. I want to spend our wedding night taking you on every available surface, and a long reception will ruin all my plans.”
“I wanted something small anyway.” She pulled back to look down at me, smiling with a contentment that I would have never imagined all those years ago when I stood in her father’s office, looking into her challenging glare. She disentangled herself from my embrace and set herself to rights as we drew closer to our destination.
As we pulled up to the event space, flashing cameras immediately illuminated the evening around us as we exited the towncar. Lake’s smile was big and genuine as she pulled me along, looking like a Hollywood starlet, while I looked like her ever watchful bodyguard. Some things would never change in that regard. What would change soon was the name the cameramen were yelling. The sea of “Ms. Harrington” was deafening in its own right, but I squeezed our intertwined fingers before stroking my thumb over the diamond on her hand. She tossed me a mocking eye roll and I knew she had guessed my thoughts. It was just another reason why I was completely in love with this woman. My woman. My world.
