Page 61 of The Southern Thirst Trap

“Thank you, baby. That means everything to me.”

She turns her face into my hand and kisses my palm before she pulls away and smiles. “He wants to have a sleepover now and thinks if I make you chocolate chip pancakes you’ll never leave.”

I feel a smile taking over my face and bet it looks cocky as hell. “He’s right. You feed me and I’m sticking around for good.” I pull her back into his arms and kiss her hard, taking a handful of her delicious ass in the exchange for good measure before I set her back on her feet and turn toward the living room. “Hey, Boss, I heard you were asking about me.”

“Zan man!” Hendricks shouts, leaping up from his toys and sprinting across the room.

He launches his little body into my outstretched arms. I catch him, bringing him close, and hug him tight like this is our normal greeting, not the second time we have seen each other. I close my eyes and bury my nose in Hendricks’s curls, breathing in the smell of my son and cataloging it away for later. This is the same greeting Harlowe received the last time I was here, the one I was so jealous of. Fuck, it feels good to have the boy in my arms, welcoming me in the same way, and I feel the unfamiliar sting of tears hit me. Am I going to break down over this?

“I missed you, buddy,” I say as I sit down with Hendricks still in my arms, not ready to let him go. “I’m sorry I couldn’t come to play earlier; I was busy at work. I changed my schedule so that won’t happen too much anymore, and I’ll have lots of time to play now. Sound good?”

Hendricks nods, his eyes sparkling. “Mama says our eyes match and I’m smart like you because you’re my daddy.” He holds his hand up to his mouth and leans toward my ear. “Can you tell me if you have powers like a superhero? I’ll keep your secrets, I promise.”

Hearing him call me daddy does something stupid to me inside that I have to laugh to cover as I look at his eager face. “My only power is negotiating business deals, and while that’s super handy for work, I can’t fight crime, and I don’t have any special abilities like Thor or Iron Man. But maybe I have the power to make your mama fall in love with me. Do you think I can do that?”

I look over my shoulder toward the kitchen and catch Harlowe looking away from us quickly, pretending to be busy with the vegetable dish she’s preparing. Hendricks sits up taller and looks with me.

“I can help. Mama loves me, so it’ll be easy. Is that your bag? Are we having a sleepover tonight?”

He bounces on my knees in excitement and my chest goes molten, my pulse surging in a way that feels better than anything I’ve felt in a long time. This kid can take me higher than skydiving, just like his mama can. I may give up chasing the adrenaline rush with these two permanently in my life now.

“Yeah, buddy, I’m staying forever. Now, why don't we put some work in on these tracks and towers before dinner so we can get a run in?”

Hendricks insists on sitting on my lap to eat, wanting Harlowe next to us. It’s not exactly easy to eat around a squirming four-year-old, but I can’t deny him. While I wait for him to finish eating before I begin, I hold Harlowe’s hand on the table, and when Hendricks places his little hand on top of the pile, Harlowe snaps a photo with her phone. When I give her a questioning look, she turns her phone around and shows me an Instagram post on her Foulmouthed Foodie page of all three of our hands together in focus with the lasagna in the background that she captionedFamily Dinner feels good, even if it took five years to get it on the table.

My chest expands with pride that she would claim me so publicly, and I want to pull out my own phone and share that everywhere, as well. I want to delete every photo I have and make that the only one on my feed, my profile picture, my everything. I’ve already closed my DMs to anyone I’m not following, scrubbed out all the thots and models and women who had dropped into them over the years, and removed the temptations that don’t even get a rise out of me anymore. Not when I can look over at Harlowe and see my whole world in her eyes.

After dinner, Harlowe lets me help with bath and bedtime, bringing me into their nightly routine and showing me what I’ve been missing all these years. My heart aches with a fierceness at each new piece I get to experience, and when Hendricks looks up at me from his bed, his eyes that do indeed match mine, already looking sleepy, and tells me he loves me, I fucking shatter. I kiss his forehead and walk out of the room to wait for Harlowe to finish up with him.

I know he’s four and doesn’t understand the magnitude of the words that are just a part of his normal nightly routine that ends with saying he loves his mom, and tonight he loves me because I helped put him to bed. But it breaks down any last vestige of the man I was before I knew he existed. That person is decimated. Struck by lightning and burned to cinders and ash, scattered away on the wind, leaving someone new behind.

“Oh, Zander,” Harlowe says when she softly closes the door and finds me leaning against the wall in the hall. I let Harlowe lead me into her bedroom with silent tears sliding unchecked down my face. She closes the door and turns back to me, concern etching her gorgeous features.

I grip her face with an urgency in my shaking hands, making her look at me, at the raw emotion that is gripping my soul, forcing her to be in this place of newness with me.

“I don't want to live another day without you in it. I fucking love you, Lowe, and I love that little boy we made, and I can’t get enough of either of you.”

She makes a choked sound and her eyes shine with tears. “That’s a lot to commit to so quickly. You don't have to jump in this fast. You can feel it out. I’m okay with that.” She rubs her hands up my arms, letting me have an out, giving me space to work up to the man she needs me to be.

“When have you ever known me to work up to anything? I go hard and fast after anything I want. I happen to be looking at what I want more than anything in the whole world.”

I let go of her face and reach into my pocket to pull out the ring that’s been burning against my skin since I put it there before I got out of the car earlier. I drop to my knees because she deserves me worshiping at her feet, and she gasps, leaning down over me, starting to shake when she realizes the direction this is taking.

“Marry me, Lowe. I’ll wait for whenever you’re ready, but please, be my forever. Be my wife, the mother of my babies, the love of my fucking life. I’m serious. I can’t live another day without you by my side, making me the happiest man in the world.”

Harlowe collapses into my lap, letting me hold her close as she sobs on my shoulder, her arms around me just as tightly. She is nodding against me and I feel my chest swell with a feeling of utter elation. I stand and spin her around in my arms once, kissing her tear-stained face when she’s on her feet again. I slide my hand along her arm until I get to her fingers and bring them down between us, sliding the flawless, five-carat emerald-cut diamond set in platinum onto the third finger of her left hand. The main stone is set off with a diamond halo, the split band studded with even more diamonds, so everything sparkles almost as much as Harlowe does as she smiles up at me now.

“You do move fast,” she says wetly, but there is humor in her tone. I brush tears off her cheeks with my thumbs, letting one trail down over her bottom lip, pushing it into her mouth and over her tongue. I let her suck her tears off before I remove my thumb with a pop and drag it down her throat as she shivers under my touch.

“I should have done this five years ago, so no, it’s the slowest damn thing I’ve done in my life. Take everything off but my ring and let me fill you with my cum. We’ll see just how fast we can make another baby,” I say, my hands sliding down her back until I cup her ass and pull her against me so she can feel how I’m hardening for her.

Her eyes narrow with feline coyness. “If you want me naked, you’re going to have to undress me yourself.”

“There’s my little Wildcat coming out to play. How quiet do we have to be with our kid down the hall? Because you’re fucking loud when you come and if I have to stuff your panties in your mouth to keep you quiet, I need to keep those close by.” I slip my fingers under the hem of her shirt and lift it up and over her head as she raises her arms.

“I turned his white noise machine on and he’s a sound sleeper, plus we’re on the other side of the house. Fuck me as hard as you want,” she says, her fingers making quick work of the buttons on my shirt and tugging it off my shoulders.

I push the cups of the lace bra away from her incredible tits and get my hands onto the supple flesh below, rolling her dusky nipples in my fingers. “What if I wanted to make love to you instead? You’re still going to scream either way. Would you like that as much as me ruining your pretty little pussy?”

---