Extra Epilogue

EXTRA EPILOGUE

PHANTOM

I dragged a pen in a straight line over my five-year-old daughter’s head and marked the height and name on the door frame. “Damn, pumpkin,” I said to Paige, “You’ve grown two inches in the last year.”

“Really?” she squealed. “Soon I’ll be as tall as Dixon!”

Chuckling, I squatted down and pulled her in for a hug, placing a kiss on the top of her auburn hair. “Not quite, pumpkin. He’s ten, and boys usually end up taller than girls.”

She leaned back and looked up at me with a cute little pout. “But Mommy says I take after you and will be taller than her!”

I laughed and tapped her nose, making her grin. “Yeah, but Mommy is short.”

I expected to hear my wife gasp in outrage, instead I heard a soft sniffle. Fuck. I hated when Tessa cried.

Paige giggled and ran off, yelling about telling her sister how big she’d gotten.

Tessa sniffled again, and I sighed as I stood and turned to face her. Her lip was trembling as she stared at the new line on the door frame that we’d used for the opening into the kids’ playroom. On the opposite side were all the marks that her mom had made when she was growing up. The first time I suggested making it a new tradition to track our kid’s height on it, she’d beamed at me while crying.

It had also become a tradition for her to break into tears whenever we recorded a new measurement on that sentimental wood.

“C’mere, sweet girl,” I murmured as I curled my arm around her and brought her up against my chest. “You know I hate it when you cry.”

“I can’t help it,” she sobbed, her voice muffled in my shirt. “My babies are growing up!”

I understood her distress, not happy over how fast it was happening either. But if I told her, she’d just get more upset. As her old man, it was my fucking job to make her happy.

“Elijah isn’t even out of diapers,” I reminded her, gently rubbing circles on her back.

“But…Tabitha is eleven! She’ll be dating before we know it.”

I stiffened. “Over my dead body,” I growled.

Tessa giggled and dropped her head back to look up at me. “Saying it over and over for eleven years won’t make it true.”

“My forty-five will,” I insisted, scowling.

Tessa smirked. “If you go to jail for murder, she won’t have anyone to stop her from dating.”

My eyes narrowed. “You underestimate my determination to protect my baby girls. I’ll do what I have to and trust me, if it came to it, no one would ever find the body.”

Tessa shook her head with an exasperated huff. “You put on a good show, Kian, but we know you’re a big softy. Especially when it comes to your girls.”

“Would you stop saying shit like that?” I muttered.

She laughed and squeezed my torso in a tight hug. “I promise not to say it in front of your brothers. But honestly, if they give you crap over it, they’re hypocrites.”

My wife wasn’t wrong. All of my married brothers were as gone over their old ladies as I was.

Still… “I think your pretty little ass would tell a very different story.”

I raised an eyebrow, giving each ass cheek a little smack.

“That’s different,” she said, her voice breathy and her cheeks pink.

So fucking sexy.

I bent my head and captured her lips in a deep kiss, full of promises for later that night.

“Daddy!” Tabitha ran down the hallway, skidding to a halt in front of us. “Measure me too!”

“I marked your height on the door last week, Tabby cat,” I laughed.

“I think I grew,” she said with a pout that her little sister had clearly learned from her.

Sighing, I motioned for her to take her place against the door frame and scribbled another line over her head. When she stepped away and whirled around, she bent forward and put her face centimeters from the marks. “See!” she crowed happily. “I grew!”

I smothered a laugh and infused awe into my tone when I agreed, “I guess you did.”

The lines were indiscernible unless you were looking as closely as Tabby was. “Thanks, daddy!” She gave me a quick hug, then ran off. Most likely to brag to her siblings because they were constantly trying to one-up each other.

Tessa sniffled again, and I mentally groaned. Here we go again. “She didn’t really grow in a week, Tessa,” I assured her, failing to suppress a chuckle.

She glared at me and swiped at the tears on her cheeks. “They’re always growing up, Kian. Soon they?—”

“Why don’t we go for a ride?” I interrupted, trying to get her mind off her quickly snowballing worries.

“What kind of ride?” Her sassy tone made me laugh and turned my cock into stone.

I put my mouth next to her ear before answering. “How about we start on the bike, and I’ll take you somewhere I can make you scream while you ride my cock?”

Tessa’s skin flushed pink, and she squeezed her thighs together as her green eyes filled with desire. “As tempting as that sounds,” she breathed heavily. “It’s Saturday, the kids don’t have school.”

I scoffed. “Plenty of my brothers owe us some babysitting time. I’ll find someone.”

Tessa giggled and lifted her lips for a kiss.

When we ended it, both of us were breathing hard, our heartbeats racing.

I smacked her ass and growled, “Go put on a skirt and the thigh high boots I got you last year. Be ready to go in half an hour.”

“Kian! Yes!” Tessa shouted two hours later while she bounced on my dick.

My feet were planted on the ground to keep us steady on the back of my hog, so I gripped her hips and lifted her up before slamming her back down on my rod fast and hard. Her legs were thrown over my thighs, and her knees were squeezing my hips the same way her pussy was strangling my cock.

“Fuck, sweet girl.” I grunted. “Oh, hell yeah.”

I was close, my spine tingling and balls drawing up, but before I came, I needed to ask her a question.

“Look at me, Tessa,” I growled, stilling our movements.

Her eyelids fluttered as she tried to keep them open. When her fevered gaze met mine, I pumped her on my dick once, then grunted, “You’re riding me bare, sweet girl.”

Birth control made Tessa sick, so as much as I hated it, we used condoms when we weren’t trying to get pregnant. Or when we forgot…which was why Dixon was barely a year younger than Tabitha.

“Want me to put on a condom or fuck another baby into your belly?”

Tessa’s breathing picked up, and her pussy clenched as she squirmed on my lap. Her body had given me her answer, but I still wanted to hear her say it.

“Tell me, Tessa. I want to hear you beg me to fill you with my come and give you another baby.”

“Please,” she whispered.

“Please what?”

I pumped her on my dick again and she cried out before panting, “Another baby, Kian. Fuck me and get me pregnant.”

“Yessss,” I groaned. Our pace turned wild, and I slid a hand between us, pressing on her clit to send her into a screaming climax. Then I bellowed her name as I exploded inside her.

Once the whirlwind of ecstasy had calmed, she collapsed against me, going limp as though she didn’t have the energy to hold herself up. I chuckled and palmed her ass, pressing her even closer, making my cock twitch inside her. “How much do you want to bet that I just knocked you up?” I teased.

Tessa giggled and turned her head to kiss my chest. “We’ve certainly had enough practice.”

I laughed and buried my face in her neck, inhaling her sweet scent and reveling in the way it wrapped around my soul. “I love you, sweet girl.”