34. Henry

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

henry

“Wow. This is nice.” I take in the home Felix and I are looking at. It has a backyard with a swing set. It has a big kitchen, a living room, and three bedrooms. Two bathrooms, and one of them has a bathtub.

“You like it?” Felix asks as I stand in awe.

“I love it.” I bite my bottom lip nervously. “Can we afford it though?” I have some money saved up from working at the gym, but I doubt it even comes close to a down-payment on a place like this.

“Yes. We can. Do you want it?” he asks, his voice a quiet, sexy rasp as I nod my head and lift Hazel up higher on my hip. She wants to get down and run around the house, but it’s not ours yet.

“I do.” He smiles with that bright smile I love so damn much.

And that’s all there is to it. We begin the process of buying the house together, and a month later, we move in with the help of several people from the gym.

Hazel has her own room that Felix painted purple when she picked out the bright shade in the store, and we bought a king-sized bed for our own bedroom.

“It’s a nice place, you guys,” Ben says after setting down one side of the couch he carried in with Roman. The new couch we bought. We told him we could switch it out for the one in the apartment, but Ben declined.

“I like it,” I say, looking around at the rooms that are slowly filling with our things. My daughter and Caleb are already happily playing in her room with the many, many toys she acquired, thanks to my boundary-less boyfriend and her uncles.

“You guys need anything else?” Ben asks, and I shake my head at the same time Felix answers.

“No. I think we’re good. I’m going to make our first dinner, if you all want to stick around though.”

They all politely decline, saying it should be only ours and leave slowly. We’ll have to think of another way to thank them for their help.

Felix starts dinner in our kitchen while I unpack and then set up Hazel’s booster seat at the used kitchen table we found. When dinner is ready, I strap her into her seat and put a plate of spaghetti in front of her.

“Really? Spaghetti the first night? Thought it would be fun to stain everything?”

Felix chuckles happily and sits down with his own plate. “She can do no wrong.”

“We’re going to have to change that mentality of yours before her teenage years,” I say, handing her a fork, which she’s getting used to using but I know she’ll eventually forgo to use her hands.

Felix is staring at me, though, and I give him a questioning look. He smiles, spinning some spaghetti on his fork. “That’s pretty far into the future.”

“That okay with you?” I know I haven’t said anything about the future before, but I can see it. All of it. My forever includes Felix.

“More than okay.” He takes a bite and chews, but I see the worry on his face after he swallows. “I was a little worried Maggie’s visit would send you into a spiral.”

I’ve actually heard from Maggie once since she left. Not to check on Hazel or really even me, but she did send a pic of the farm she’s living on. Not of her. I don’t know if she’s using again or not, and I realize it’s not my worry to carry anymore.

“I was thinking about something . . .” I say, and his eyes are on me.

I don’t want to put any worry there, but I’ll always be honest with him. “I think I might go to a meeting. Not because I’m worried about us or anything,” I start, but he reaches his hand out for mine and squeezes it.

“That’s a great idea. I know it has nothing to do with me, but I think it’s a great idea.”

“I might have a little more trauma than I realize,” I admit, and he only smiles, not shoving it back in my face or anything like that.

He looks happy that I’ve come to this decision. Maybe Maggie had it worse than me growing up, but it’s also no one else’s call to make. My parents being shitty worries me. I don’t want to let Hazel down in any way, and that fear often creeps up on me.

I don’t ever want to treat Felix any less than what he deserves. And that fear keeps me up at night sometimes too.

I don’t want to be afraid that I’ll wake up one day and he’ll be gone. I trust him completely, but my past still haunts me in my quiet moments.

Maybe going to a meeting will help me through that. Maybe it won’t. But I’m going to do everything I can to try.

After we eat and clean up the massive mess the spaghetti mixed with my daughter made, we give her a bath—that she does, in fact, love—and put her to bed in her own room.

I have a monitor next to my side of the bed because I can’t give up too much control just yet, but Felix seems to want it there just as much as I do.

Something that’s not at all surprising to me. He’s in our bed, messing with his phone when I pull my shirt off, climbing on the bed and blanketing his firm body with mine, then steal his phone from his hand.

I put it on the nightstand and grasp his face in my hands, pulling him in for a deep kiss. He’s smiling when I pull back enough to look into his beautiful face. “What do you have in mind?”

“I was thinking about starting with kissing.” I kiss his lips softly and slowly, working my way down his neck and then finding the hem of his shirt, lifting it up and over his head. Kissing his nipples and dragging the flat of my tongue over them.

I drag my tongue over every ridge of muscle on his stomach and pull his sweats down, loving that his cock jumps up, full and flushed, ready for my mouth. “Then, maybe sucking your cock.” I kiss the tip, and he groans.

I watch his hands as his fingers dig into the sheets on our bed. Our. Bed.

“And we don’t have to worry about a crib being right next to us. Or being too loud with customers downstairs at the gym.” I lick up his shaft and then back down to his balls.

“Stop talking,” he says breathlessly, and I laugh before taking him into my mouth, relaxing my throat so he can go as deep as he wants to.

I tease and suck, licking until he’s ready to come, but I have more planned for us, releasing him and making him groan in frustration until I grab the lube from the nightstand and pour some on my fingers.

But instead of preparing him to take my cock, it’s my ass that needs to be filled tonight. I make quick work of stretching my hole for him with my fingers while his hands slide over my bare skin. Then I lean forward, kissing him hard as I find his dick and guide it to my entrance, needing him.

He thrusts forward, guiding himself inside me as we kiss, and I ride him fast and hard, working us both toward the edge of bliss. His nails claw my back as he holds onto me, and when we come, it’s a high like none other.

But it’s more than that.

It’s a complete feeling with no fear and only love.

That’s what he gives me.

What he always has. What I know, without a doubt, he always will.