Page 91 of Long Road Home

I grabbed another drink for Jordan and we spread out on the living room floor, laughing and giggling and stuffing our faces with pizza and good drinks. Later, once Toby was asleep, Jordan and I grabbed the pile of blankets from the living room and took them to my room.

We kissed. We touched. We laughed and teased.

We made out like kids, Jordan telling me he’d wait until he could get me in a bed again, and when it was late, and my eyes were barely staying open and I could barely speak without yawning, Jordan pulled my back to his chest, his arms around my stomach.

It was then, he rocked my world even more than he already had by saying, “When we get back, don’t want you to take your stuff to Tillie’s. Move in with me, Destiny.”

I might have been tipsy from the wine. I might have been delirious from lack of sleep.

But I was fully aware of my response as I said, “Yes, of course. I love you. Where else would we go?”

He kissed me, rolled so he was on top of me, and my legs spread, welcoming him, but when I thought we were going to make out a little bit more, Jordan changed the plan.

He made love to me slowly, quietly, but no less passionately and when we separated and came together, again and again, we did it telling each other how much we loved each other.

We fell asleep entwined, woke up with sore backs and hips and shoulders, too old to be sleeping on a hard floor all night.

The next morning, bright and early right as the sun was beginning to rise, we loaded up the moving truck—

And we got on the road. It might have taken me a decade, it might have been a winding trip, but I had never been more excited to take that long road home than I was nestled in the moving truck with Jordan driving and Toby nestled between us.

Epilogue

Jordan

“You may now kiss the bride.”

I turned my head away from the bride and groom as Cooper leaned in toward my sister. For the first time, it wasn’t because watching my sister make out with someone made me want to puke, but because for the entirety of their service, where I stood next to Cooper as best man, I couldn’t pull my eyes off Destiny.

She was wearing a pale pink dress. It dipped down far in the front, giving me a delicious and inviting look at her cleavage. It curved around her hips and ended a couple inches above her knees. Her hair was pulled back at one side by a clip that shimmered when the sun hit it.

They weren’t real diamonds, though they looked it. It was the only jewelry she wore, that tiny little fake-diamond clip in her hair and I knew she was only wearing it because it had once been Tillie’s. The rest of her, including a specific finger on her left hand, was bare.

I was going to change that soon. I wanted to give us time to get settled, but there were no doubts in my mind that Destiny was mine. Someday soon, she’d be mine, and I wasn’t fucking around with a yearlong engagement like Rebecca had done. We’d get married first chance I could whisk her and Toby away. Not to Vegas, but to the Caribbean somewhere. We’d take Rebecca and Cooper. Her friends, Allison and Drake. Toby would come, and that was all I needed.

Destiny and Toby. My wife and my son. My family. One I also planned on expanding as soon as Destiny accepted the ring I was going to give her in the next few months.

But today, we were celebrating my sister and Cooper’s wedding. The crowd cheered as they kissed. The music started playing as they pulled apart. I met Brooke, Rebecca’s matron of honor, at the top of the altar. I held out my elbow and she slid her hand in as we made our walk back down the aisle.

As I passed Destiny, she blew me a kiss.

We’d almost been late for the small wedding. I was so undone with how beautiful she’d been in that dress when she’d gotten ready this morning, I’d hauled her off to our master bathroom where I’d planted her against the counter, dropped to my knees, lifted her skirt and yanked down her panties. I’d feasted on her, spurred on by the pleasured moans escaping her throat, sweet little mewls she made when she was trying to be quiet.

When I was done, I’d adjusted myself, grabbed her hand and hauled her ass out of the house she was making our family home before we’d miss the ceremony completely.

“You should be careful,” Brooke whispered next to me. “You keep staring at Destiny like you can see her naked, you might accidentally burn her clothes off.”

“And that’d be bad?”

She bumped my hip with hers. “I don’t really need my man seeing her naked.”

I thought of any man seeing Destiny besides me and smoke almost bloomed from my ears. “Point taken.”

We reached the end of the aisle where Rebecca and Cooper were standing, laughing and kissing and so entwined together they looked glued together.

Their wedding had been small. Only twenty of their closest friends and family. They’d been married before with disastrous results for both, so this wedding was small and intimate. Cooper’s sister, Katelyn, was there, kissing Rebecca’s cheek and hugging her new sister. His parents were both there, his dad shaking Cooper’s hand and hugging Rebecca. Then his mom.

Then I was there, doing the same thing.

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