Epilogue

Finishing up the tail end of Janessa’s braid, I secured it with a band and sat back. “There you go, Jetpack. Ready to rock and roll?”

She spun and hugged me, then snagged her apprentice-level firearm and darted out the door where Boy Scout and Tansy waited to take her to the firing range. She’d been bugging Cam and I to go shooting for half a year standard, so we gifted her this trip for her tenth birthday. I waved at the departing hov-shuttle while the domesticated jat wound around my legs begging for food.

“I already fed you, Ernesto,” I said with a chuckle and turned to see Cam entering the sliding glass door as if carried on the wind.

She sat her basket of produce on the table and gave me a huge smile. “Nine white radishes!”

“Great,” I said, unable to muster more enthusiasm for the Shinterran and human radish hybrid that tasted like dirt with an earthworm chutney.

Cam laughed and swatted her garden glove at me before she laid it beside her other one on the table.

“Janessa off to the range?” she asked and removed her wide hat.

“Boy Scout said Tansy can’t wait to teach our girl how to be a sharpshooter,” I said, watching with hungry eyes as Cam removed her pullover next.

“I don’t know,” Cam said with the shake of her head. “She could have really made her mark as one of the Kaz. Imagine all the free merch, too!”

Mesmerized, I licked my lips when Cam undid the apron she sometimes used to carry extra vegetables in from the garden.

“I’m partial to her current dream of following in my footsteps,” I said, noting the sinuous grace with which Cam slid out of her gardening clogs and stepped onto the plush carpet in their front room. She stretched and moaned, and my fingers itched to unlace her top and slide her loose-fitting pants off her waist.

“You can stop pretending to follow our conversation, you know,” she said and grabbed my shirt front. Dragging me down the hall, she said a few more things about attention spans, lax husbands, and absent daughters, but I was fixated on removing the last remaining stitches of her clothing.

“Oh my Goddess, Roderick, are you even listening to me?” she said on a laugh, but I spun her to face the bed and nudged her from behind until she bent over the bed. “I see how it is,” she murmured in her husky voice and shimmied for me as I slid her pants down over her hips.

“Commando?” I said, my voice cracking on the question, but she only laughed.

“Goddess, you’re beautiful,” I whispered and stroked her hips with my hot hands before sliding them to cup the rounded globes of her ass. Her low moan meant approval, so I did what she loved next, slipping my hand between her legs and exploring her wetness, taking the opportunity to smear it to and fro, loving the way her slick folds felt silken between my fingers. I added more fingers to my explorations, sliding up into her core and retreating while others circled a particular button until she panted and whined.

“More,” she uttered on a hitch, and I chuckled low. She was putty in my hands.

“I’ll give you more, Cam,” I said and made quick work of releasing my cock from my shorts and pants. The sounds she made had it weeping from want. “Are you ready, baby?”

“Uh huh,” she said, her voice pitched higher than normal, and I knew we were on the same page.

We’d compromised, back in the beginning, and jumped headfirst into the life-long commitment after waiting a short while. Smiling at the memory of our first time, I positioned myself at her entrance and pushed, inching my way at a crawler’s pace, until she grunted and forced herself back hard enough that I sunk home.

“Gah!” I shouted and arched my back, savoring her wet heat and the way she pulsed all around me. “I had it under control,” I said, breathless.

“Damn your control, Rod,” she said through gritted teeth. “I want you to go crazy on my ass!”

Belting a laugh, I squeezed her hips then began a steady rhythm, sinking and pulling away to our combined chorus of groans.

“Feels so good, Cam,” I uttered.

“Mm, give it to me,” she mumbled into the sheets, having fallen forward so she could grip them in her fists.

“You know I will,” I said, but I held back, keeping the pace steady for now. At the beginning, it had been quite the adjustment. Instant family; just add water. Janessa had had nightmares, and Cam and I’s together time hadn’t been as frequent as we might have liked. But we were a unit, and we shared the same goals. We wanted what was best for Janessa.

We had more time now, but moments like these I wanted to last longer.

“Roderick Keith Pressman, if you don’t fuck me like you mean it in the next five seconds, I’ll lock myself in the bathroom, swear to Goddess!”

And there it was … the moment I’d been waiting for … when my wife Cam was frantic with desire and losing her mind from being edged.

“Shh,” I said and placed my hand on the small of her back, and she whimpered. Then I gripped her hips and slammed, over and over again, soaking up every yelp and plea, every moan and cry, slipping an arm around front and diddling her button until she caught her breath—then came all over me while I took her from behind, holding on for dear life.

When at last she trembled and laughed, I took it home and emptied myself with the fervor of a zealot, grunting with every spurt until we both collapsed on the bed, hanging half off.

“Damn, you’re an animal,” she said in my ear, and I growled at her. We crawled up farther and tangled our limbs together, listening to our breaths, until our heartbeats were in sync.

“I was supposed to finish building the jat’s house this afternoon,” I mumbled.

“No. Nap,” Cam said, and I heard the stubbornness in her voice.

“Yes ma’am,” I said and let my eyelids flutter close.

“I’m glad we met,” she said, twining her fingers in my beard.

“Mm,” I agreed, drifting into memories and dreams of our life together. “All thanks to Janessa, your little pickpocket. She stole my heart when she tried to steal the Enforcer’s wallet.”

“Whatever happened with him, anyway?” Cam asked.

“A story for another time,” I said and rolled into her arms. I was a man who had it all. A house, a wife, a daughter, a hov-shuttle, and even that damn jat I could hear yowling and hissing on the other side of the bedroom door. I never should have given him Knife’s first name; I had cursed him to be an eternal grouch.

But as I was saying, I was the man who had it all, and now I was going to take a nap. Perfection.