5 Years Later
Swimming in the lake was one of my favorite things to do, and considering how pregnant I was, being in the water felt better than ever.
I jumped off the dock into the deepest part of the water and turned on my back. The sun was scorching today, but I liked it. The weather in Hill View in the summer was still lovely and temperate compared to some of the climates I’d seen summer in over the last five years. From snorkeling the Great Barrier reef in Australia to diving for fish in Okinawa, I’d been all over the world, and I’d had company. The best company in the world.
Since we got married, a whole week after Rhett’s unorthodox proposal, Rhett Sutton had effectively taken a step back from his billion-dollar business empire and followed his adventurous wife around the world and back. For five years, I’d studied, and we traveled. Life had been perfect. And then, when my studies were over and I became interested in research and academic life, a little positive pregnancy test decided for us that it was time to put down some roots.
Why not in Hill View?
The town had settled into a new rhythm in the last five years. Evan had turned the country club into a serious money-making machine and branched out into a change of clubs. The employees there, many from the “wrong” side of the tracks like me, were making it into management, with plenty of growth and education opportunities along the way. Rhett had stayed in touch with Evan, and they’d grown close since we’d moved back to Hill View. Rhett’s house on the lake was the perfect place to raise a family, plus we were only an hour’s drive from the university that I’d be teaching at once the dust settled of pregnancy and birth.
The twitter of the birds in the trees and a small row boat knocking against its moorings lulled me as I floated on my back. A flock of birds took flight by the trees nearby, and I heard the soft splash of someone else in the water. I knew who it was before his hands grabbed me.
“Now, now, what have I found in the water, beautiful, wet, and nearly naked?” Rhett’s voice wrapped around my heart and squeezed. His body came to cushion me from behind, and his arms wrapped around my front, his hands finding my chest immediately.
“You’re home already! I thought it’d be tomorrow,” I said, spinning in the water to face him.
“What can I say? I couldn’t stay away,” he murmured, pulling my legs apart and hitching my knees on his hips. I quickly realized he was more naked than I was. “It looks like I have impeccable timing, as always.”
“I think you forgot your shorts,” I teased as his hand drifted between my legs and stroked me through my bikini bottoms.
I was immediately ready for him. Pregnancy hormones made me more eager for my husband than ever, and Rhett was enjoying every second of it. Sometimes, I felt huge and heavy, and the opposite of sexy, but in the water, weightless and free, we had found an outlet for our physical needs.
I gripped his neck as he pulled my suit to the side and lined himself up. I felt his rounded crown at my entrance, and then he was pushing inside me. I blew out a breath as he reached his hilt, seated deeply inside me. Wrapping my arms loosely around his neck, I settled comfortably in the grip of his strong hands under my thighs, my weight supported by the water and him. My belly was swollen between us but not an obstacle. I was leaning slightly back to make room, and his angle of penetration was satisfyingly deep, rubbing against me in all the right ways.
“How was the office? I murmured. He’d been in the city at a board meeting, one of his few remaining responsibilities.
“Fuck the office. Nothing happened there compared to what’s happening here, right this second,” he grunted, his voice thick with restraint.
I knew how he wanted to lose control with me, but since I’d been pregnant, he never did. He held himself back from his usefully tender roughness, and I missed it. It wasn’t for much longer, and his newfound gentleness was a pleasure in its own right. Rhett’s huge, calloused hands and burly body treating me like I was made of glass? It made me feel like a queen, to be worshipped.
He started to move, sliding in and out of me easily as I relaxed in his capable grip. “Nothing ever happens when you’re not there,” Rhett continued, his eyes staring into mine as heat rose up my neck despite the cool water.
“Is that right?” I muttered, thoughtless now, as I rose higher and higher.
“That’s right, Mrs. Sutton. Nothing happened before you, and nothing happens without you,” he said, picking up his pace and sending me higher and higher. The peak called to me, and I shot towards it. “And that is why I can’t be apart from you, sweetheart. I’m addicted to your company, obsessed with your mind and body,” he grunted and pushed me right over that edge. “My life started when I met you… and I will never, let you go.”
“Promise?” My breath hitched, as pleasure blossomed through me.
Rhett arched into me, growling in my ear. “I fucking guarantee it.”
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