Diana looked up at her mother and said, “And you didn’t even notice him, right Mommy?”
“Well…”
“No, she didn’t, honey,” I said, cutting Nina off before she ruined my version of our meeting. “I tried to get her attention, but she looked right past me. I left the gallery sad that I hadn’t gotten to speak to her, but when I came back because I just had to know who that beautiful woman was, I finally got my chance to say hi.”
“And as soon as she got to talk to you, she fell in love too, right?” Tressa asked, her eyes wide in anticipation.
“I don’t know. Did you?” I asked Nina as I looked over at her.
“Did you, Mommy?” Diana asked.
“Of course,” Nina answered with a smile. “Now it’s time for bed for all my munchkins. Let’s go.”
Tressa climbed off my lap and into bed as Nina placed Diana into her bed. As I tucked Tressa in with her Teddy bear, she said, “Tomorrow when we go swimming, I’m going to go to the deep end like Diana.”
I gave her a kiss goodnight and smoothed her dark brown hair over her pillow. “It’s a date then. We’ll go to the deep end together. I love you, Tressa.”
Nina and I exchanged children, and while she said goodnight to Tressa, I kissed Diana goodnight with her Teddy bear. Her little hands reached up to cradle my face, and she whispered, “I like your stories, Daddy. I’m glad you’re going to come swimming again tomorrow.”
“Goodnight, sweetheart. Sweet dreams. I love you.”
As the girls curled up underneath their blankets with their stuffed animals tightly in their little arms, Nina and I took Ethan’s hands and walked him to his room next door. Jumping into bed, he scooted under the covers. “Why do you always tell girl stories, Daddy?”
Nina chuckled and kissed his forehead as she placed his bear next to him. “Good night, honey. I love you.”
I stood next to his bed, and when she was out of earshot, I leaned over and kissed him goodnight, whispering, “We’re in the minority here, buddy. There are more girls than guys, so a lot of times, we have to deal with girlie stuff.”
Ethan’s tiny bottom lip jutted out into a pout like his mother’s. “I don’t like that.”
Smoothing his light brown hair off his forehead, I nodded. “It’s just the way it is, buddy. It’s not so bad, though. Girls are okay.”
Twisting his face into a grimace, he reluctantly agreed. “I guess.”
“Goodnight, Ethan. I love you.”
“Goodnight, Daddy. I love you too.”
I found Nina lying across the bed looking exhausted after a long day. Still as beautiful as that first night at the gallery, she smiled as I approached her. “What did Ethan want to talk about?”
Sitting down next to her, I said, “Too many girls in the castle.”
“Do you think he gets sick of spending all of his time with females? Maybe I should look for a playdate for him with one of the boys at school.”
Leaning back, I turned to kiss her. “I think that’s nice, but he just wants more manly stories. Maybe I could tell him the Iron Man story next time.”
Nina raised her eyebrows in disbelief. “He’s not even six years old, Tristan. Iron Man seems a bit much.”
“It’s never too early for a man to learn about heroes, Nina, and there’s none cooler than Iron Man.”
“He’s got a cooler one right here in his dad,” she said sweetly.
I pulled her on top of me for a long, deep kiss. Between work and being the parents to three very active children, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had the chance to just be myself with my wife.
Looking into my eyes, she gave me a devilish grin. “I think you might need another towel. You never know who’s going to come in to interrupt us.”
I ran my hands down her back to cup her ass. Pulling her into my body, I shook my head. “No towel this time, lady. I can be ready to go in ten seconds after I lock the door. You give me the sign, and we’re on.”
Nina slowly ran her tongue over the shell of my ear and whispered, “Lock the door.”
I’d locked the door and peeled off my clothes before I even got back to the bed. Nina was still in her bra and panties, but I made quick work of them, happy to take advantage of the two of us in the mood and not exhausted, a rare thing since the kids came along.
“Somebody’s ready,” she said with a giggle as I gently pushed her back onto the mattress.
“I have a gorgeous wife who I want to make love to right now. We don’t get too many opportunities like this anymore.”
Trailing my mouth down her neck, I kissed my way to her breast and took her nipple between my lips. I sucked gently, loving the feel of the tender skin pebbling against my tongue.
Nina held my head in place, moaning as I moved to the other nipple. “I hope you know I wish we could do this more often too.”
I popped the pert nipple from my mouth and looked up at her. “No talking. Just sex, Mrs. Stone.”
As I returned my tongue to flick her hardened nipple, I heard her above me say, “I mean, it’s not like I don’t want to a lot more, Tristan, but with your work and the kids…”
Sliding up her body, I kissed her hard on the mouth to stop her from explaining. “No more. I want to make love to my wife tonight, so let’s just forget we’re the parents of those three kids and remember how much in love we are with one another.”
Her hands slid down my back as I positioned myself over her, and she pulled me into her. Nothing ever felt as incredible as when I was deep inside her wet cunt. Nina sighed softly and wrapped her legs around my waist, taking me into her even deeper. Slowly, I thrust in and out of her body, loving every touch of her hands on my skin and every whimper and moan as my cock slid over that spot I knew drove her wild.
“Oh, God, yes…don’t stop…”
I loved it when she talked like that. The needy sound in her voice told me she was close. Thrusting my hips faster, I pushed into her searching for that sweet moment when her body came apart beneath me. Dragging her nails down my back, she panted near my ear. “Right there, Tristan. Don’t stop. Fuck me…”
“Let yourself go, baby. Let me feel you come.”
Her cunt contracted around my cock, squeezing it gently as she began to orgasm, and I drove into her hard, desperate to come and feel her give in to her body. “Oh, God! Yes…yes!”
Nina’s body shook, her release sending tiny tremors rolling over my cock as I came inside her. Every ounce of energy I possessed left my body as I let myself get lost in the feeling of making love to the woman I adored.
She stayed silent for a long time, and then placed a single kiss just below my ear as she whispered, “I love you, Tristan. I’ve missed this.”
Rolling over onto my back, I pulled her close. With her head on my chest, she traced her fingernail over my stomach, making my skin flutter beneath her touch. “I’ve missed this too. Between my work and the kids, we forgot us for a while.”
Looking up at me, she asked in a small voice, “Do you ever wish we had waited? I mean, I love our kids more than life itself, but I miss being able to just lie here, naked in your arms after making love without expecting a knock on the door.”
Bringing her hand to my lips, I pressed a soft kiss into her palm and looked into those gentle blue eyes. “I know. I miss this too, but I wouldn’t trade a minute of our time with the kids either.”
“I wouldn’t either, Tristan. I know the five of us had a rocky start, but you were there for me every minute of every day. You were their dad from day one, but I needed your help to become their mom.”
I cupped her face in my hands and gazed into the eyes of the only person who ever truly brought out the good in me. “You were always their mother, Nina. You just needed to believe in that. That’s all I did.”
“Someday, Tristan, I’m going to tell the kids the truth about that first night, about how the real story is that it was me who fell for you first.”
I shook my head. “Don’t. I don’t want our daughters thinking they should fall for a guy because of a nice car.”
Nina chuckled and pressed a kiss onto my lips. “You’re okay with our kids not ever knowing the truth?”
I wrapped my arms around her and held her close. “They already know the truth, Nina. You do too.”
She mumbled something about honesty against my chest and drifted off to sleep as I held her in my arms. As I stroked her soft brown hair, I knew whatever the truth was of how we fell in love and who fell in love first, since that first night Nina had been the only person to ever make me want to take a chance on a life built on love.
I looked across the room to the portrait we’d had taken right after the kids’ fifth birthday and saw the family that love had given me. In front of Nina and me sat our beautiful children, each one with something special from both of us. Diana, with her dark brown hair and eyes but a smile just like her mother’s, leaned back against me with her tiny hand wrapped around my finger like she’d done since she was a baby. On the other side in front of Nina sat Tressa, her sister’s identical twin but as different as night to her day. Just as in my dream, Tressa was a Stone through and through. And in the center sat Ethan, the perfect melding of his mother and father with Nina’s light brown hair and my brown eyes. Quieter than his sisters, he was his father’s son in that way, but I hoped that one day years from now, he’d meet someone who made him want to say those words that could change his world like his mother had done for me.