"You're awake!" she says, getting up and walking over to me. Her eyes fill with tears, but she blinks them away. "You're really awake?" She rubs my face with her hand.
The nurse pushes Marissa aside to take my vitals, making her glare at the nurse. I laugh, but the pain just makes me groan. The nurse looks over at Marissa. "If you get in my way again, I'm going to have to ask you to wait outside."
Marissa rolls her eyes at her, stepping back. The nurse leaves my side to write on the chart.
"Is it okay if I hug my fiancé now?" she asks the nurse, and the nurse looks up, glaring as she walks out of the room.
"Fiancé?" I ask her.
"You've been asleep for a week and that is the only thing you have to say to me?" she says. "We had to lie to them to have me sleep here," she says, walking close to me.
"Is that so?" I hold my breath because of the burning that is now going on. "Fuck, this hurts."
"It should hurt, you almost died." She leans down, her face coming closer to me.
I move one hand to her face, touching her softness. Her lips find mine, and her scent invades me everywhere. Softly, she kisses my lips, till my hand finds the back of her head, bringing her deeper into me. When I let her go she doesn't move far from me, this time sitting on my bed, trying not to hurt or move me. "I missed you." She grabs my hand and places it in her small one.
I don't have a chance to respond to her because Jackson comes through the door.
"About fucking time you got off your ass," he says with a smile. "Who knew you'd be a slacker!"
I smile and don't even try to laugh, but I point at him. "Wait till I'm better. I'll show you slacker."
He walks over to the chair, sitting down, crossing his legs. "You waking up is going to kill Chris. He was gunning to be my partner. Guess that is put on hold also."
Marissa starts laughing with him.
I glare at both of them. "Is everyone else okay?" I ask him, wondering how my team is.
Jackson nods his head. "Only you were hit. It was touch and go there for a second. Fucking bullets flying everywhere."
I look over to Marissa to see if it's too much for her. But she sits there. Shoulders square, head high.
"What the fuck happened?" I ask, trying to piece shit together.
"You walked into a trap of sorts. You heard Tim fall and busted in the door. What you didn't know was that Daniel was loaded and waiting in the corner. Gun drawn."
I look at both of them. "Daniel? The guy that was Lori's 'mentor'?"
"The one and only. Not only was he Lori's mentor, he was also Tim's father," Jackson tells me.
"Shut the fuck up," I say, shaking my head. "How do we know all this? How the fuck do they have anything to do with my father?" I wait for the answer.
"Daniel. The minute we took him in, he sang like a fucking canary. He was on your father's payroll. Seems like daddy dearest was trying to get rid of you."
I look at him. "Why? I don't get it."
"Seems your mother was blackmailing him even from the grave. She has a lawyer send him letters once a month. So every month he had to put ten thousand dollars into a trust in your name. Now, unless you weren't around to collect it..." Jackson looks at Marissa, who nods her head. "They were framing you. The goal was for Daniel and Tim to drug Marissa and Lori, fill them with drugs until they overdosed, and they planted shit around her house with your fingerprints all over it. Like a smoking gun."
The thought of my father hurting them is like a punch to the stomach. "What the fuck?"
"Everything was going according to plan till Sandie came in and took you away from them, fucked it up. You weren't around anymore so then they were going to get Daniel to start dosing them, but then you fucked up there by coming around again. But then Tim thought he could get them to go away with him. The guy was on so much coke I'm surprised he had insides."
"Where is my father now?"
"He's dead," Marissa says. "Killed himself at the scene."
"Bastard," I growl. "Fucking worthless piece of shit."
"Pretty much. We also found Flakka in Daniel's apartment, so we have him on intent to sell, attempted murder, and a whole shitload of charges. Basically, he's going to die inside," Jackson says and then gets up. "I think you've had enough for one day."
I nod at him while he reaches for my shoulder and squeezes it.
"Good to have you back, partner," he says before walking out.
"Tell Chris to get off my fucking desk," I tell him, and he smiles at me.
"How did you know?" He shakes his head, walking out.
I look at Marissa, who returns my gaze.
"Are you okay?" she asks.
"Marry me?" I ask her. I don't have a ring, I don't have a plan, but I know that I can't let another minute pass without knowing she will be mine. That she will be the one holding my hand forever. That she will be the one carrying my kids. That she will give me my piece of heaven.
Her lips curl up into a crooked smile. "I thought you'd never ask."
Epilogue
Mick
I pull up, parking on the street. Toys litter the grass along with three red cars, two tricycles, and a pink electric scooter all thrown in the driveway.
I make my way around them, jogging up the stairs. Opening the door and walking inside what I consider my very own personal daycare, the door doesn't even close behind me till my boy Liam runs to me.
"Daddy, Momma said I can't have dessert because I bad." He frowns at me.
I lean down and pick up my little monster, who just turned six.
He is my clone, just don't say that in front of Marissa. The whole time she carried him for nine months is a sore subject since he has nothing of hers.
"And why are you bad?" I ask him.
He shrugs his shoulders.
"I'll tell you why, because Liam thought it would be a good idea to get worms and put them in Sarah's doll carriage," my wife says, coming out of the kitchen holding one of my twin girls Sierra while Sarah hugs her legs. Where Liam is all me, my two-year-old twin girls are all their momma. Soft blond ringlets fall to their shoulders, but their eyes are all me. They are the bane of my existence, and they play me like a fiddle. All they have to do is smile at me and I'll do whatever they want. Fuck, throw tears in there and I'll fucking go to the ends of the earth just so they don't have those tears.
I look at my boy, who is trying to hide his smirk at this revelation. "Did you put worms in Sarah's stroller?"
He looks down, so I know he's lying.
"Did you clean them up?"
"No, Momma did," Sierra says. "She yell 'ahhhhhahahahah'," she says with her hands in the air.
I look at my wife, who looks just like she did nine years ago when I married her. The day she walked toward me wearing a white lace gown on Lori's arm, both of them walking toward me. To join me. To take my name. Both girls are now Moros. And I couldn't be any more fucking prouder. I walk over to her, bending to kiss her lips. Slipping my tongue into her mouth, my cock stirs.
"Hmmmm," she says to me, wiping my lower lip with her thumb.
"So gross," We hear coming downstairs. Our eight-year-old son Jackson walks down the stairs. "When does the kissing stop?" he asks, walking into the kitchen and opening the fridge.
"Never," I say, and he groans.
"I wish I had normal parents." He pours himself a glass of milk.
We both roll our eyes.
"Did you finish your homework?" Marissa asks him while she goes into the dining room to put Sarah in her booster seat while I put Liam down in his chair and buckle Sierra in hers.
Marissa walks away, and I watch her ass as she walks out. Her shape never changed. She is sexier today than before. The first time she told me she was pregnant I fucked her till we were both raw. The fact that she carried my kid in her was the hottest fucking thing ever.
Then I saw her stomach swell with my child. I fucked her anywhere I could.
I remember being at a restaurant and getting into the car and parking so she could ride my cock while I sucked her swollen tits. Her nipples getting darker and darker as the months passed. She took off the piercings when she fed our children but put them back in the minute she stopped nursing.
She must feel me thinking about it because she still has her back to me when she says, "Out of the gutter, Mick." It's like she feels me place my hands on her. Fuck. I need to sit down before my eight-year-old sees my boner.
It's never a dull moment in the Moro house, especially when their older sister comes to visit. Well, except the time that Jackson took her earring to try to put it in his pecker. That was an explanation I didn't ever want to have. Looking at my twenty-year-old daughter while my son explained he wanted one just like daddy is something I never ever want to do again. The fact that she looked at my junk after, pointed at me, and laughed wasn't great either. Or the fact she high fived her mother.
Marissa comes to the table with the lasagna. The meal goes as smooth as it could be with two toddlers, a boisterous son, and an almost hormonal boy.