“Daddy!”
Like it always did, my pulse quickened as I heard my daughter call for me. A moment later, she was flinging herself into my arms. Right behind her was her mother, beautiful and covered in flour and cookie dough. Dessert came before dinner—just like it always did on Friday nights.
Tradition.
Though I still followed many of the traditions begun by my father, I favored those we had made up ourselves. Katie seemed to think all traditions should involve some sort of sweets, but we tried to have some practical ones as well.
Well, Tria did. I kind of liked the dessert-related ones.
Katie ran to her room as soon as dinner was over and was out three minutes later, dressed in her tiny dobok with the green belt wrapped around her waist. I swore she decided to start with Taekwondo because she loved to kick me, and she was already a natural.
Tria had been pissed when I first brought it up—she didn’t want Katie learning to fight. Once I went over all the ways she would be able to defend herself, and Katie gave her a serious amount of pouty face, Tria gave in and allowed it. Once I started training with my little girl, the real benefits became obvious to my wife.
Once we were done training, Katie was exhausted and would be in bed and out like a light by eight in the evening. I’d kiss her forehead, make sure her iPod was playing Chopin, and quietly close her door. Then I would tiptoe across the hall where my wife would be in our bed, ready to start working on Katie’s little brother or sister.
Like most evenings when Katie dropped off early, Tria was ready for me—no doubt about that. She was splayed out in the center of the king-size bed, wearing absolutely nothing at all. She was on her back, legs spread, and her little fingers were playing around with her luscious pussy.
“Vixen,” I growled. I pulled my shirt over my head as I approached her. “I can’t wait to get inside you. You already look so warm and wet…”
“Ready for your cock,” she replied softly.
“Oh, you know what that dirty talk does to me.”
Tria giggled, and I quickly pulled open my pants and let them drop around my ankles. As I crawled over her, I kicked off my boots, pants, and boxers, and watched them fall to the floor next to the bed.
I was still a bit of a slob when it came to laundry.
I moved my hands over my wife’s thighs, past her hips, and all the way up her body. I cupped her face as I kissed her lightly on the lips a few times. When I pulled back, I gazed down at her for a moment, smiling at—but not mentioning—the little bit of cookie dough in her hair.
Tria ran her fingers over my chest, tracing the scripted words there.
the reason my heart beats
Tria, Katie
“Time to work on that third name,” I told her.
“Hmm…” I kissed her finger as she reached up and ran her fingers over the side of my face, stopping at my lips. I could taste her on her own fingers, which made my cock throb.
“You’re so fucking sexy, you drive me insane,” I informed her.
She wrapped her legs around my waist and brought me to her warm core. Lips and tongues reacquainted themselves with each other as our bodies merged. She was as warm and wet inside as she had appeared, and I slid home effortlessly.
“Yeah, baby…that’s it…you feel so right!”
Tria just moaned and nipped at my neck as her hips matched my rhythm. I placed kisses down the front of her throat and between her tits. I tilted my head to one side, captured a nipple in my mouth, and then moved over to the other one. Once they had their attention, I moved back to seize her mouth with mine.
“You love that, don’t you?” I mumbled against her lips. “You love my cock in you.”
More moans.
I knew I was right.
Everything about being inside of her made me feel like I was where I was supposed to be, where I needed to be. It was something far, far beyond contentment. If there was perfection in the world, being buried inside of Tria was it. It made all the struggles and all the pains of the past worth the experience.
If that didn’t bring about another child, I didn’t know what would.
I slid my fingers over her breast and across her stomach. I found the spot right above where we joined and gave it some attention from my thumb. Tria’s hands moved from my shoulders to my back, her nails making light scratches in my skin, which I loved.
I bucked against her, pounding hard and deep.
Tria moaned and grunted under me as her hips tilted up to meet each thrust. I kept my thumb right over her clit—circling it, adding a little pressure, then circling again until she was writhing and tossing her head back and forth.
“Ohmygod!” she cried out as her back arched and her legs tightened around me. She grabbed at my ass. “I love you!”
“I…fucking…love…you…baby…” My words matched my thrusts as her warm, wet walls tightened on my cock.
I couldn’t hold back any more.
“Oh, fuck yeah…” I moaned as I held myself deep inside of her. Tria’s fingers dug into my backside, anchoring us together for a minute before we finally parted.
I flopped down on the bed on my back, stared at the ceiling, and tried to get my breathing back to normal. Tria lay on her back with her legs in the air, but I didn’t laugh at the pose.
Not again. I learned my lessons well.
“So?” I asked. “Did it work?”
“Well, I think we have to wait a week or so to find out.”
“Not us!” I laughed. “You said you talked to Nikki today.”
“What makes you think I’ve heard?” Tria asked with a sly, secretive smile. I captured her smile with my own lips.
“Good news then?” I prompted.
“Not only did it take this time,” Tria said, “but Nikki and Brandon are having twins!”
“Fan-flippin’-tastic!”
They had tried in vitro twice before, and both times had been failures. Taking money from us had been hard enough on Brandon’s pride—something I understood wholeheartedly. There was no way he was going to take money again, and the initial fee only paid for three attempts.
“If they decide to join us for Christmas next year, your parents’ house is going to be full of kids.”
Like Mom was going to mind.
“Well, we already knew there would be at least two more,” I said. “I have to admit, I wasn’t expecting Ryan and Mandi to have such an instant family, and now Brandon and Nikki, too?”
My cousin and his wife had gone overseas to adopt a child and ended up coming home with two—an orphaned brother and sister ages four and six. Amanda couldn’t stand the thought of splitting them apart, and Ryan apparently agreed. They ended up adopting both.
“I don’t think your mom is complaining,” Tria said. “She loves the whole grandmother thing.”
“She loves hyping Katie up on junk food and sending her home,” I muttered.
Tria propped herself up on one elbow and looked over at me.
“And you never do that, do you?”
“Who, me?
“You took her out to the grocery store last weekend, and she came back covered in chocolate.”
“It was her ‘special snack’,” I reminded her. “She helped find all the stuff on the list.”
“Whatever!” Tria rolled to her back and rolled her eyes at the same time. “It took me two hours to get her to go to bed while you were at the gym last weekend.”
“Well, once I’m in school, you won’t have to worry about that,” I reminded her.
Tria sighed, and her hand came up and traced over the side of my face.
“You sure you want to?”
I shrugged.
“I always meant to go to college,” I told her. “I was always supposed to run the business.”
“But you don’t want to,” she said.
I shrugged again.
“It’s not that I don’t want to; I do. I just don’t know about running the whole damn thing. R
yan’s better at it, and he enjoys it. I also know he can’t really do it all himself. Sometime Dad and Michael are going to want to retire, and no matter what I say, Dad insists it’s all going to me.”
Tria nodded. She’d been witness to those conversations plenty of times.
“My next option is to just turn around and sign it all over to Ryan the day it’s given to me, but I can’t really do that to Dad. So, I have to do something.”
“Business school,” Tria stated dryly. “You could have had a UFC contract.”
“I wasn’t going to do that to you,” I said quietly. I reached over and tucked her hair behind her head, which brushed the bit of cookie dough onto her shoulder. “Not to you, not to Katie. Besides, I’m closing in on thirty-five. There’s no way I can keep fighting into my forties.”
“You like making rings.”
“I do,” I said with a nod. “Ryan and I have talked a little bit about maybe keeping him on the finance side and me on the operations side. I could be more involved in the day-to-day shit then—focus on jewelry making.”
It was Tria’s turn to sigh as she snuggled up against me, and I wrapped an arm around her shoulders. With her nose against my chest, I kissed the top of her head.
“I just want you happy,” she said softly.
“I have you, don’t I?”
She nodded.
“And Katie?”
Another nod.
“Working on another one as often as possible?”
A giggle and a nod.
“Then I’m happy.”
“Daddy?”
I quickly grabbed the blanket to be sure it was strategically placed around us.
“Whatcha need, Artichoke?” I asked as I looked over to the opening bedroom door.
“I had a scary dream, and I woke up,” Katie said as she padded over to the edge of the bed.
It was a crock of bullshit because if she’d had a nightmare, she’d be crying.
“Do you mean to say you just don’t want to be alone?” I asked her as I reached out and stroked her hair.
“Yes,” she replied.
“Say what you really mean,” Tria told her. “Don’t say something that isn’t true just because you think you are going to get what you want. Ask for what you want and the real reason why; you know Daddy’s going to lie down with you.”
“I woke up, and I couldn’t go back to sleep,” Katie said. Her lower lip jutted out as she rubbed her eye. “I wanna sit in our chair.”
“Go get your blanket, Artichoke,” I said. “I’ll be right there.”
She nodded and walked out, which gave me the time to get some clothes on.
“Why do you call her that?”
“What?”
“Artichoke.”
“I dunno,” I said as I slipped out from under the sheets and grabbed a pair of lounge pants off the floor. “It just fits.”
“Have you ever given her one?”
“One what?”
“An artichoke!”
“I don’t think she’d like them.” I grinned at my beautiful wife, and she groaned and rolled her eyes at me. I dodged a flung pillow and headed to Katie’s room across the hall.
Months ago, I argued and fought with my daughter about staying in her own bed and going to sleep on her own but ultimately gave up. It wasn’t worth it. I just didn’t think there was much chance she’d still want to fall asleep on me when she was twelve or twenty—she’d grow out of it eventually.
In the meantime, I enjoyed it as much as she did.
Why fight?
The fact was, everything I did was a fight. I didn’t mean that in a bad way at all; it was just life. I still struggled sometimes, but I was learning to deal with the shit that was thrown at me without running away from it. That was the important part.
Erin asked me if I still craved heroin sometimes, and I had to admit that I did. The thing was, even though there might have been that little itch in the back of my head, there was no way I would ever do it. I couldn’t imagine what that would do to Tria and Katie. I would never risk it.
I carried my little girl into the living room and sat down in the big “person and a half” chair Mom had insisted on buying for my last birthday. Katie and I had spent a lot of time hanging out in my old recliner, watching television and whatnot, and Mom decided it wasn’t big enough for both of us as Katie got bigger.
Clicking the remote didn’t help us find anything interesting to watch, and Katie eventually settled on some Animal Planet show about dogs. She was obviously wiped out, and the exact show didn’t seem to matter as much as it sometimes did.
Before too long, she placed her cheek against my chest and closed her eyes. I circled her with my arms and held her in a warm, safe embrace.
I was reminded of her mother and the cold nights when we first moved in together. I remembered the gunshots and alarms outside and the way I would hold Tria close to make her feel safe. Katie would never know conditions like that if I had anything to say about it, but I still liked that she slept safely and comfortably with me watching over her.
Nothing mattered to me more.
Maybe there was a time—a time that seemed so long ago—when my first thoughts were of myself, my predicament, and my grief, but those were long gone. There might have once been a time when I would have resented not going after a UFC contract or maybe abhorred the thought of going back to school to learn to run the family business. Those days were gone, too.
I had Tria.
I had Katie.
The rest just failed to show up on the comparison scale. I was far, far from perfect. I had done some moronic shit in my time as well, but I’d eventually learned from it. I’d learned to forgive my parents and forgive myself. I learned to live for the time when I came home to my girls and found them covered in cookie dough and looked toward what the future had to bring.
Another life to love.
My mouth turned up in a slight smile, and I kissed the top of Katie’s head as I held her against me. I closed my eyes as I imagined Tria’s stomach all round again. I remembered what it felt like to hold my hand over the right spot when the baby would kick.
I hoped, closed my eyes, and even prayed tonight was the night we made another child—another one with Tria’s eyes, maybe with her hair color this time, too. Tria made everything in my life all worth it, and I couldn’t wait to be able to look down into another tiny person’s face and see my wife’s eyes look back at me.
I couldn’t imagine anything better.
I was never one to believe in fate, but with Tria and Katie at my side, I embraced my destiny.
~The End~
Author’s Notes
Thank you so much for hanging in there with me through this crazy trilogy. If this is your first Shay Savage journey, please check out my other books! I’d also love to hear your feedback, so please consider leaving a review on Amazon, Goodreads, etc. I can’t express enough how important reviews are to an independent author!
What’s up next?
A lot of things.
I’m currently working on another Ancient Rome piece called The Gladiator’s Slave. I don’t have a release date yet, but it will be sometime before the end of the year (I hope). I’ve got a lot of other works in progress, so we’ll see what else manages to come out of my fingers in 2016! If you want to keep up-to-date on what’s going on, join our group, Shay Savage Stories, on Facebook, follow my blog and author page, or just shoot me a message! All the links you need are in the “About the Author” section.
Major thanks to my street team for keeping me going throughout this extraordinary ride! Your input, encouragement, and yelling at me to get shit done are a godsends! Love you all!
More Books by Shay Savage
Surviving the Storm Series:
Surviving Raine
Bastian’s Storm
Evan Arden Series:
Otherwise Alone
Otherwise Occupied
Uncockblockable (a Nick Wo
lfe story)
Otherwise Unharmed
Isolated
Irrevocable
Stand Alone Novels:
Transcendence
Offside
Worth
Alarm
Novella Collection:
Savaged
Caged Trilogy:
Takedown Teague
Trapped
Released
About the Author
Shay Savage lives in Cincinnati, Ohio, with her family and a variety of household pets. She is an accomplished public speaker and holds the rank of Distinguished Toastmaster from Toastmasters International. When not writing, she enjoys spending her weekends off-roading in her bright yellow jeep, watching science fiction movies, masquerading as a zombie, and participating as a HUGE Star Wars fan and member of the 501st Legion of Stormtroopers. When the geek fun runs out, she also loves soccer in any and all forms - especially the Columbus Crew, Arsenal, and Bayern Munich. Savage holds a degree in psychology, and she brings a lot of that knowledge into the characters within her stories.
Website - http://www.shaysavage.com/
Webstore - http://www.shaysavage.com/#!merchandise/cw7q
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/ShaySavage7289
Goodreads - https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5160667.Shay_Savage
Twitter - @savage7289
Blog - http://shaysavage.blogspot.com/
Shay Savage, Released
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