Page 37 of His Curvy Obsession

“Before I take this off,” he murmurs, playing with the zipper of my skirt. “You need to put this on.”

He pulls away from me and opens the ring box. The gold band glides up my finger easily, the diamond sparkling in the glow of the nearby lamp.

“Don’t ever take it off,” he warns me.

“You’ve always said engagement rings are meaningless tokens,” I reply. “Now I can’t take mine off?”

“I’ve changed my mind,” he says. “I used to believe they were purposeless, just a thing to make women happy. Now I realize that the diamond rings are actually for the men.”

“How?”

“It’s our way of marking our territory,” he says. “This ring says ‘back off, she belongs to me.’ Other men see this and know.”

“Not all men respect a ring,” I tease him. “Not all men see it as a sign to back off.”

“I’m aware. And those men will be dealt with,” he replies.

With the ring now securely on my finger, Eric continues to undress me with hurried hands until I’m in nothing but a bra and underwear. Then he takes his arm and sweeps it across the desk, throwing the dictionary and my laptop to the floor.

“I’ve always wanted to do that,” Eric mutters, pushing me back onto the desk and kissing my neck.

“Pretty sure you just broke my laptop,” I reply. “Isn’t damaging company property against the employee rulebook?”

“Fuck the rulebook.”

Epilogue

Eric

The only problemthat married life presents to me so far is the trouble I've had finding a replacement assistant.

I've gone through at least half a dozen in the three years that I have been married. It seems like there's not a single professional in the entire city who can do what Rebecca once did for me.

“I'm going to have to hire a second one,” I say.

“What?” Rebecca asks, looking up.

She’s topping off my cup of coffee, her long hair glowing in the summer sun that shines through the French doors of our large dining room. At the other end of the table, her beaten-up laptop rests next to her own cup of coffee and a plate of untouched pancakes.

“Aren’t you hungry?” I ask, nodding to her neglected breakfast.

She grimaces.

“It just…doesn’t seem appetizing this morning,” she replies. “Maybe Loren will eat them.”

Loren.

Our seven year-old daughter, officially adopted last year into our family. The social workers warned us that she’s beenthrough a lot, that there’s a chance Loren would never feel totally at home in our house due to the instability of her life so far.

But Rebecca and I have been working at it hard. Every single day. When Loren was first placed in our home, Rebecca quit her job and I took a leave of absence for six months, the longest I’ve ever been able to step away from work. We spent every day with Loren, our soon-to-be adopted daughter, bonding with her and slowly building up her trust in us. In our home, in our family, in our ability to be dependable, reliable, and routine.

Routineismy middle name.

After those six months, our daughter was a completely different child. No longer fearful and nonverbal. No. She was a thriving, happy little girl. The social worker and her child therapist can hardly believe the progress she made in her first few months, and that progress has only grown since then.

It’s a proud moment for me, Loren’s dad, when we’re at the grocery store and she’s not afraid to let go of my hand, exploring the toy aisle without looking back at me to make sure I’m still there. It means that she trusts me. That I’ve proven to her that I’ll be the man that she needs me to be, the dad that she needs.

Being a father and a husband means more to me than I ever thought it could. More than work. More than my own life itself. I would do anything for my girls, and they know it.

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