I hold her thighs open as I drill into her, hitting as deep as I can reach. Ellis’s nails claw at my forearms leaving stark red streaks in their wake that I wish would scar forever. Her mark on my skin just turns me on even more, she has already marked my heart. A part of me wants to chase my orgasm but I fight off that selfishness. No, she is going to come again before I do if it kills me. I take one hand off her thigh to grab a pillow to stuff under her hips lifting them for a better angle. When she yells my name, I know she feels me in her lungs.

I thrust hard and fast into her as she pants against my throat, licking and kissing between her moans. When I start to circle her clit with my thumb Ellis moans that she is close and I am right there with her.

I whisper broken praise against her ear, telling her how good she feels, how good she is for me, how excited I am to make her my wife and then she is coming. We finish together in a tangle of limbs and sweat.

Well, at least we finish round one.

Epilogue

May

Ellis

One way I know I am nothing like my mother is the amount I worry. Eleanor couldn’t care less if I did my homework or had hobbies as long as I was her perfectly poised daughter. Now, me? I care about everything, almost too much. Today I think all that worrying is going to give me an embolism.

That’s because today is Jack’s big day, his first real hockey game against a real team and not just his friends from the rink or sparring with the guys. My baby boy is going to lace blades to his feet and fight off a bunch of other kids for a little piece of rubber and I just have to watch. If someone takes the puck I can’t yell at them. If he gets into a fight I can’t jump the glass and fight it for him. If he loses, well there is nothing I can do to make that better, I just have to tell him that we all lose sometimes and to try again next time. And then I have to let him do it again next week. I think it might send me into an early grave.

“Jack, do you have everything?” I yell up at him but, to be fair, I have yelled basically everything today. I’m too on edge to talk at a regular volume.

“Of course I do Mum, can we go now?” For the first time I think ever he is the first one ready to leave. Liam is still getting Charlotte ready and instead of Jack lagging behind half asleep he is stood at the door with his kit bag over his shoulder.