Page 56 of Misadventures of a Curvy Girl
Caleb’s nodding in agreement, pressing his face to the back of my hand, as if he can’t bear not to touch me for even a moment.
“Ireland,” Ben continues, his voice growing raspier, more pained. “It kills me that you’d ever think we wouldn’t be anything other than ecstatic to be with you. I don’t know what it’s like to be fat”—he uses the word in the same mild, casual tone Mackenna did—“and I can’t pretend to know all the ways society makes your life harder because of it, and that means I’ll be learning as we go sometimes. But I do know how I feel. I don’t love you in spite of your body. I love you with it, as you are, and I’ll never be anything but fucking proud to be yours.”
Caleb assents to this last with a nuzzle of his face against my hand and a murmured, “Me too.”
My heart lifts. I knew Mackenna was right about everything, of course, but having it confirmed nearly makes me break into tears again.
“You mean all that?” I whisper to them.
They nod solemnly at me.
“We mean it, peach,” Caleb says. “And we’ll beat the hell out of anyone who says different.”
“And we possibly have,” Ben says.
I look up at their faces, mischievous and possessive all at once. “Oh, you didn’t.”
“We just paid your ex a little visit is all,” Ben answers mildly. “He won’t be bothering us again anytime soon. And he says he’s sorry, by the way.”
“I feel like I should scold you,” I tell them, shaking my head, “but I have to admit, I’m not sorry.”
“Good!” Caleb grins. “Neither are we.”
Greta barks and prances around our feet, as if trying to signal that she’s also not sorry.
I take in the happy dog and these two perfect, amazing men, who are currently trying to kiss me around thei
r hug-crumpled sunflowers.
“Let’s go home,” I say, kissing them back. “Let’s go home together.”
And we do.
Epilogue
Caleb
Christmas Eve
“Greta! No! Bad Greta!”
My dog has grabbed the end of Ireland’s long scarf with her teeth and is trying to tug it free of its owner, growling a little at the red fabric when it doesn’t do as the dog likes.
Laughing, I come over and pry Greta’s teeth off the scarf and then banish her to the kitchen to her bed by the wood-burner. Normally we don’t get much snow in December here, but as an early Christmas surprise, the skies darkened and rumbled and dumped a good eighteen inches onto our hilly stretch of the plains. Enough snow to cover the long grass on the hills that crest around the farm—more than enough to sled on.
And sled we did, Greta-dog bounding through the drifts around us as we took turns on my childhood Flexible Flyer, and we went down the hill so fast that even Ben giggled.
Ben. Giggled.
And now we’re back home, red-faced and snow-crusted, and I know exactly what I want to do with the rest of my Christmas Eve. I unwind the rest of the scarf from Ireland’s neck as she pulls off her hat. Clouds of silky dark hair glisten with specks of powdery snow, and as she tosses her hat onto the table, I can see several big snowflakes still caught in her eyelashes.
Beautiful.
Ben catches on to what I want to do right away and joins me in undressing our woman. He tugs off her gloves, slowly, finger by finger, and then kisses her red, cold-nipped fingertips until she’s shivering from something other than cold. We unzip her jeans and peel the denim from her legs, and I drop to my knees and press my face against the cold skin of her thighs while Ben takes off her sweater.
“Your beard tickles,” she says, but her laughter changes into a soft gasp when I mouth the soft triangle between her legs, letting my warm breath blow over the silk that cups her pussy. Even after all these months, she still gets this hitched, surprised breath when I touch her there. It goes to a man’s head, all that wonder. And the look on her face when I make her come? Makes me feel about eight feet tall.
I want to see that look now, even though we aren’t anywhere near a bed, and I press my lips harder against her and kiss her through the fabric, licking and licking until she’s soaked through and rocking her pussy against me.
