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“I am in love with you.”
Your husband looked up, his beautiful brown eyes blinking owlishly behind his glasses. You hadn’t meant to say it out loud, but when you’d looked up at him across the room, it was like all the air had rushed from your lungs.
Steven blinked again, his smile a little bewildered and soft as he said, “Well, that’s good, love. What with us being married and all.”
It was a Wednesday afternoon and you were both doing your own thing. It wasn’t a particularly spectacular Wednesday afternoon—it wasn’t your anniversary or anyone’s birthday. You were spread out across the floor working on your novel and Steven was at his desk going over his notes for the new museum exhibit.
But when you’d looked up to ask him about—hell, you couldn’t even remember what—you were hit with such a powerful wave of ‘Oh gods I am so in love with you’ that you could barely breathe.
It had been thirty-two years since you’d said “I do” and you were still so much in love with him. And some days it would just hit you like that. Like a cannonball to the face that you were in love with these men, and they loved you back . It was the giddiest feeling in the world.
You stood up, stepping over the papers that had seemingly exploded around you, and headed to Steven. His arms were already open to you as you scrambled awkwardly into his lap. It wasn’t nearly as easy as it had been in your twenties, but it made him chuckle slightly and you got there eventually.
“No. You don’t understand,” you whispered solemnly, cupping his cheeks in your palms. “I am madly in love with you.”
His face burst into a beautiful smile as his arms came around your waist. “I am madly in love with you too,” he whispered, leaning up to kiss you.
Kissing Steven was like fireworks and slow dancing. The decades since you’d met hadn’t diminished the fire his touch sent racing through you. Every brush of his lips against yours had your heart racing and your soul singing. You tipped his head back to deepen the kiss, suddenly desperate for more, and his moan sent shivers through you. Your hands slipped into his hair and his slipped under your shirt.
Gods, I could do this all day.
You pulled back a fraction, just enough to rest your forehead on his as you both caught your breath.
“If that was your proof, love, I may need some more evidence,” he teased. His thumbs drew circles on the skin under your shirt.
You grinned, closing your eyes at his touch and he pressed a soft kiss to the corner of your lips. He lit a fire along your skin as he grazed his lips along your jaw to your pulse point.
“Thirty-two years and you still make me feel like every kiss is our first kiss,” you whispered as he traced circles into your skin with reverential tenderness. You pulled one of his hands from your waist to over your heart where you could both feel it pounding away. “You make my heart race every time you look at me.” You brought his hand up to cup your cheek. “I feel like my face is going to break with how much I smile just thinking about you.” You move his hand to our stomach. “And I still get butterflies every time I wake up next to you in the morning.”
Steven looked up at you like you were his reason for living. He looked at you like you’d taken all the air from his lungs and were filling them with pure oxygen.
You leaned forward to trace his lips with yours. “Kissing you is like I’m learning to breathe all over again.” You couldn’t help your smile as you pulled back slightly. “It’s like I’m back at the start, falling for you all over again. And it is as easy as it was back then.”
There was a shine to his eyes and he held you close as you placed soft kisses along the backs of his eyelids.
“Except it’s better,” he said when he could finally speak. “It’s so much better than the beginning.” He cupped your cheek with a holy reverence like he still couldn’t believe you were real. “I don’t have to pretend like I don’t want to spend every second of my life kissing you. I don’t have to live with my imagination of what a future with you would be like.” His kiss was so unbearably soft you wanted to stay there forever. “I get to wake up every morning knowing you’re beside me. I get to tell you every day how much I love you. I get to be your husband .”
Even after all these years the word still made butterflies erupt in your soul, and you could tell in the way his heart fluttered underneath your hand that it was the same for him.
“Falling in love with you for the first time was breathtaking, but being married to you —it’s a dream come true.”
You just had to kiss him again for that.
You pulled back and settled into his arms, content to never move again. Steven shifted you slightly so he was comfortable and returned to his work on the exhibit.
But eventually, your body made its complaints known and you had to move. You weren’t a spring chicken anymore and as delightful as it was to sit on your husband’s lap all day, you needed to move to a comfier spot for that to work. You tugged him after you, determined not to do anymore work, and headed to the couch. Today was officially now a cuddle day.
“Also, it’s been thirty-two years, four months and seventeen days.” He shrugged when your eyebrows shot up. “Jake’s been counting.”
“Well,” you leaned in for another kiss. “Here’s to another twenty-two years, four months, seventeen days. And forever.”
“Forever,” Steven breathed, wrapping you in his arms.
~~~
He looked so soft in the mornings. Like he’d never worried about anything in his life.
You’d both been awake for a few hours now, but it was Saturday and you didn’t need to get out of bed at all if you didn’t want to. And lying next to your husband, you never wanted to move again.
“You’re staring,” Marc murmured, eyes still closed.
You reached out to trace his nose, softly following the path to his cheeks, his jaw, his eyelids. He kissed the tip of your finger when it passed his lips, and you died at the cuteness.
“I can’t help it,” you said, biting your lip at how damn cute he was. “I am so in love with you.”
Under your finger his lips curled into that gorgeous smile you adored so dearly. “I love you too, baby.”
You huffed out an exasperated sigh and shuffled closer. “ No ,” you said like he was being deliberately obtuse. You rolled both of you so you were on top of him, straddling him. Marc snorted, still grinning as his hands came up to hold you in place. He didn’t open his eyes. “I am in love with you.”
“Ah.” He nodded like he finally understood. You poked him in the chest and he pressed his lips together to keep back a laugh. “Of course. My mistake.”
He still hadn’t opened his eyes and you knew he was doing it just to be stubborn, so you leaned forward to kiss his eyelids. When that didn’t work, you pressed a line of soft kisses down his nose, mouth, chin, along his jaw and to his ear—right where you knew he was ticklish.
He huffed a laugh and finally opened his eyes. “What are you doing?” he asked, his eyes crinkling in the corners.
Your heart fluttered. Gods, you loved those eye crinkles. Your boys hadn’t had them when you’d met them. They hadn’t had much to laugh about back then, but over the years their laugh lines had deepened. And boy did you adore them. They were a sign of your darlings growing as people, and letting themselves be comfortable again.
They were no longer ‘Moon Knight’ anymore, and it was mornings like these that were a reminder of that. They were all yours. You didn’t have to worry about losing them, nor did they ever have to worry about you getting hurt because of them.
You were safe. All of you.
And it was because of that safety your darlings could have laugh lines and lazy Saturday mornings with you.
It was like Steven had said. Falling in love with them had been amazing, but being married was a million times better. You wouldn’t trade this for anything in the world.
You shrugged helplessly, almost too overcome for words. “I really am just so in love with you.”
Marc melted at that. His grin softened into an adoring smile, and his hands came up to cradle your face. His thumb traced your cheek and you melted into his touch. The look in his eyes reminded you of the day he said “I do”, and of that night, and every day since.
“I am absolutely in love with you too.” He pulled you closer to brush his lips against yours. “Every day I think I can’t possibly be more in love with you. But then the sun rises and I can’t breathe with how much more I love you.”
You started at the unexpected poetry from your normally close-lipped husband. It wasn’t the first time he’d blown you away with his words, but just like always, you never expected it. You buried your face in his neck, cheeks aflame and heart racing. “You are impossible !”
His laugh rumbled through his chest as he wrapped his arms around you and pulled you tighter against him. “I learnt from the best,” he agreed, planting an adoring kiss on the side of your head.
~~~
Jake was pouting. Every time you’d look over at him, he’d poke his bottom lip out and turn away, arms crossed. And every time you asked him what was wrong he’d just pout harder. He’d been like this all day and you were starting to wonder if this was a prank. Or if maybe you really had upset him.
So finally you cornered him in the bathroom when he was hunched over cleaning out the cupboards. You stood in front of the door and raised an eyebrow at his back. He couldn’t escape now.
He stood slowly, eyeing you and his blocked escape before he eyed the window too. But when he looked back at your narrowed eyes he knew he was pushing his luck so he just pouted. Again. With those damn puppy dog eyes.
Gods, he’s killing me. And he knew it too. He knew what that look did to you. He’d seen you cave to Steven with it enough that he knew it was your weakness. All your darlings knew how to use it on you, but Jake wasn’t getting away with it today.
“I don’t think so.” You took a step closer. “You’ve been pouting at me all day.” You closed the door. “And every time I ask you what’s wrong, you pout even more.” You stalked towards him until his back was against the wall and you were toe-to-toe. “So tell me. What. Is. Wrong?”
Jake looked away, his chin tipped up so he was staring at the ceiling and resolutely avoiding your eyes.
“Jake Lockley,” you warned.
Your patience was wearing thin. You’d already ruled out this being a joke or a prank, and now you were left with him being upset over something you’d done. And it was exactly like Jake to avoid an issue upsetting him until it went away. If Marc or Steven were upset, all hell broke loose, but Jake? No, he’d let that simmer until he had an ulcer.
And even after all these years, that was something you hadn’t helped him work through entirely. Hence today’s issue.
You raised an eyebrow when he still hadn’t said anything.
“You haven’t said it to me,” he finally muttered, pouting harder.
You reached out to put your fingers to his chin, tilting his face back down to yours. “Haven’t said what, baby?”
He avoided your eyes so you stepped even closer so you were all he could see, and finally he blurted, “You haven’t said you’re in love with me.”
You frowned a little. “What do you mean? I say it all the time.”
And you did. Every chance you could you’d tell your boys how much you loved them. You’d both gone through points in your lives where you thought no one loved you, so all four of you had made it a point to say it every chance you could.
Hell, you had even instituted a system where three taps meant ‘I love you’ so you could all say it whenever you felt it, all without saying it.
But Jake was shaking his head, pouting even harder as he forced himself to look away. “No, not like that. Not like you said to Steven and Marc. Not like that .”
Oh. He was talking about yesterday with Marc and last week with Steven, where you’d been so in love with your husbands you couldn’t help but tell them.
Oh, baby. Your other hand came up to cup his face, ducking your head so he could look at you and your heart skipped at the emotion in his eyes.
He was jealous.
You bit your lip to keep from grinning at how cute he looked. You hadn’t seen it before because you’d been focused on other things, but when Jake pouted…
Gods, you loved that look. You wanted to make him pout like that all the time. Maybe you could get him to look like that next time you were in bed. Make him beg a little…
You shivered at the delight that brought, and his eyes lit up a little at the movement.
Stop it. Now’s not the time.
You reached up to cup his cheeks and you knew there would never be a moment in your life where you weren’t in love with this gorgeous man. “Falling in love with you was inevitable,” you whispered, echoing the words of your vow all those years ago. “There has never been a moment where I haven’t been absolutely head over heels in love with you, Jake Lockley.”
“Yeah?” He gave you a small smile, and you knew he was lapping up your words, just like he did every time.
It had broken your heart when you’d learned that of all of them, Jake had been loved the least. That not once in his life had anyone told him that they loved him. From then on you’d made it your mission to tell him so often that he would never doubt his worth ever again.
“Yeah, baby.” A smile escaped your lips and your eyes creased with how much you adored him. “Sometimes it just hits me how much I love you. Before I met you I didn’t realise I could love someone this much, and then I fell in love with you and—” you shrugged helplessly. “I’ve never been happier than when I’m with you.”
Jake’s smile bloomed into a grin that had his eyes crinkling and his cheeks blushing. “Good.”
Before you could react, he wrapped his arms around your waist and lifted up into the air. You shrieked, laughing, and clutched his shoulders to keep from falling. Even as old age crept into the bones of your darlings, they still surprised you with how much they could still do .
He spun you around before setting you back on your feet, your back against the wall. He leaned in, trapping you against him as he curled a hand against your cheek. His nose brushed against yours and he was grinning so hard you knew his cheeks were aching. Just like yours.
You arched into him, biting your lip as his thumb traced your cheekbone.
“Tell me again,” he murmured, brushing his nose against yours in just the way he knew drove you crazy.
Your heart pounded, and you wanted to bury your face into his chest to hide the blush burning across your cheeks, but you knew nothing but the truth would save you. So, you took a handful of his shirt and pulled him even closer. Then, with a brush of your lips against his, you said, “I am madly, deeply, inevitably and hopelessly in love with you, Jake Lockley.”
He snickered. “Gross,” like he wasn’t entirely head over heels for you too, and pulled you in for a searing kiss. “But me too.”