Epilogue
Three Years Later
Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic
“You know, most men tire of their wives eventually,” Aurora told her husband, as he rid her of her nightshirt in two decisive tugs.
“Most men are idiotic sods,” the Duke of Annan informed her as he gripped her waist. She was sitting astride his narrow hips, a position she was quite fond of, as it allowed her a perfect view of that impossibly sculpted chest and shoulders.
“Are they now?” she teased, cocking an eyebrow, while she ran her hands possessively over his pectorals, letting her nails press into the skin.
“They are indeed.” He bucked into her at the touch, and she pressed her heat into his skin, making him suck in a breath. “And I’ll be happy to offer further evidence of this later.” His hands descended to her rump, another part of her body he had not grown tired of celebrating yet, she hoped he never did. “But for now, be a good girl and sit this luscious culo on my face and allow me to properly worship you, wife.”
“This culo?” she asked, circling her hips invitingly. He groaned at the friction, then swatted one cheek.
“The very one,” he answered and licked his lips. “Ven amor,” he coaxed her. Those brown eyes hot with desire. “Dejame probarte.”
It was hard to resist that request, and she loved mornings like this.
They were in a new bed, canopied under a mosquito net, which made this early morning lovemaking feel almost dreamlike. As she moved up his body, she lifted her eyes to the still dark predawn waters of the Caribbean Sea. But even it did not take her breath away like the sight of her husband, when he looked at her like he was now. As if every one of his prayers had been answered in her.
“Mi amor,” he crooned, as she settled over him. Her thighs on either side of his head as he pressed his nose to her heat.
“Apollo,” she sighed his name as his fingers parted her folds.
“I love your smell, Fiera,” he growled, inhaling her. Her body responded to that sound with a familiar intensity. She held on to the bedpost as he worked, his tongue lapping at her slowly, cat licks, little nips which sent delicious shivers down her spine. But this morning she craved that bone-shattering intensity only he could give her.
“I thought you said you were hungry, Your Grace,” she teased, and then his mouth was on her. His lips latching to her clitoris, making her see stars. By now, he knew her body better than his own. She was not an easy woman to love, she was prone to dark moods, and some days it seemed like the shroud of the past would suffocate her, but he never stopped loving her.
With his words, his actions, his body, he showed her that there was nothing in her he could not love.
“Muevete, mi cielo,” he urged, as he mouthed her folds. “Come me gustas,” he growled as he sucked on her labia and entered her with two fingers. “Is this good, mi Fiera?”
“So good,” she answered, gripping the bedpost as his mouth took her to heaven. He let his teeth graze her engorged flesh and the contact sent sparks of pleasure through her limbs. Her duke, her man, her husband. “Te amo, Apollo,” she gasped as her climax began its frantic swirl inside her. He tongued her heat and spread her for his hand until she was shouting out in pleasure, her body arching in exquisite agony.
“I need you inside,” she whispered, frantically scrambling down his body.
“You need this, wife?” he asked, taking himself in hand. With frantic nods she lifted herself and plunged onto that impossible, unrelenting hardness that filled her so perfectly. She planted her hands on his chest and bent down to kiss him as they worked together until he was fully seated inside. “Muevete, Fiera.”
“Like this?” she asked, grinding her hips into him, until she saw his eyes roll in his head.
“Just like that,” he grunted, thrusting hard into her. “Ride me, amor.” She did, moved like the tide, with this man in her body, in her heart, her blood. He bit his lip as she rocked with him, his eyes half-lidded and that caramel skin glowing with perspiration.
God, he was beautiful and all hers.
“Vamos, mi vida,” he said, with a swat, making her laugh. She tightened her muscles, making him cry out. He pumped his hips into her with a force that made her teeth chatter. A few more thrusts and he was spilling inside her. He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her down for a kiss.
“I love you,” she whispered, lifting her head to see the sun rise over the horizon to reveal impossibly turquoise waters.
“Te amo, Fiera.” That was the only thing she needed.
There was much to do that day, but for now, she had nowhere else to be, but in her husband’s arms.
* * *
“Are you ready for today?” Apollo asked, some time later as he joined her on the veranda of the new midwife training center she’d built on the site of her mother’s old home.
“Better, now that you’ve roused from your slumber to join me,” she said, reaching a hand up to cup his cheek. After they made love, he’d dozed off, but she’d been much too excited to fall back asleep.
He turned her around and kissed her. “My wife wore me out, using me for her pleasure,” he teased, nipping at her lip.
“What good is having a husband with the body of a god if one doesn’t use it?” she asked, then demanded another kiss.
It was almost three years since they’d married, and still, the thrill of calling him husband had not waned. He was still too brash, a little vain about his beauty, but there was no more perfect man for her than Apollo César Sinclair Robles.
“The rest of our numerous family members will be here any minute,” he informed her with a kiss to the cheek. She smiled at that too. It was the third time in the past year, they’d done this particular ceremony. Evan and Apollo with the help of the women in their lives had put to use the resources of the duchy to create a different kind of legacy. They’d started with the inauguration of a women’s sanatorium named after Evan’s mother, which would provide humane and holistic care for women suffering from psychological ailments. Just six months ago, they’d all made their way to Venezuela for the opening of the art school for women that Manuela and her lover, Cora, had installed in Puerto Cabello, honoring the dream Manu’s grandmother had not been able to accomplish in life.
And now it was her turn, a midwifery school where women from the Caribbean would be trained by other women and pre pare to go on to medical school if they desired. It was a dream that she had only been able to envision once Apollo encouraged her to think bigger.
And she had done so. The clinics with Virginia were now being reproduced at a larger scale in France, and expanding to the Americas. Virginia had launched two in Uruguay and Aurora’s former patient Sandra—who was now divorced and in Rio de Janeiro with her children and training herself to be a midwife—was using her family’s resources to open a clinic in her city. Their remedies were now being mass produced with the help of Mihn, which meant that those who needed it could access them at a reasonable cost. That was just the beginning of what she had in mind.
“Are you happy, Fiera?” he asked her quietly as they walked around the room that would be used for dining and rest. The large bay windows overlooked the turquoise waters of the Caribbean Sea.
“I am,” she told him, inspecting the art on the walls and the comfortable furnishings they’d selected as she looked inward and found that her heart, too, was fuller than she could ever imagine on her own. “And I’m proud of us,” she told him, putting her bare hands on his cheeks. Hands that were softer now, because her husband massaged them every night with Phuong’s salve. “Proud of the legacy that you’re building, my love.”
“That we’re building,” he corrected, and brought her closer to him. “You were the one who taught me purpose, mi vida.” She sighed at the casual manner in which he called her “his life” and kissed him.
Since that night in Nice three years ago, Apollo forged his own path as duke. Choosing her cost him his aspirations of rubbing his existence in the aristocracy’s face, but what he’d been able to do despite this still amazed her.
She was proud of him, she was proud of herself too. They had no desire for children and had no plans to leave a bloodline to perpetuate the riches of the duchy. They would build institutions that would give women means to foster a different future. The names of the mothers and grandmothers in their family would live on longer and further than any of the men who underestimated them ever would.
Their sons and daughters would make sure of that.
“My taste truly is immaculate.” Manuela’s booming voice broke their intimate moment, and in the next instant, her two best friends, their spouses and the rest of their brood were standing in the room with them. Her brothers—Sebastian and Octavio, as Ramón remained an utter comemierda—would arrive that evening, and in the morning, they’d open the doors to the Gloria y Violeta Midwifery Institute.
“I see that the Caribbean air has not affected your humility, Manu,” Aurora teased, as she reached for her friend while Cora looked on adoringly.
“No, it has not,” Manu exclaimed, waving a hand around the room. “If it were up to you, this room would be like a hospital.” Aurora rolled her eyes in jest, but her friend had been the one to help with the selection of furniture. Luz Alana had also contributed by finding local women to make all the curtains and bedding.
“You will have to help me soon, when my business laboratory is further along,” Luz Alana quipped as she kissed Apollo on the cheek before doing the same to Aurora.
“Mo Chride, we only broke ground last week,” Evan lovingly told his wife from where he sat with Luz Alana’s younger sister, Clarita, who at thirteen was as tall as Aurora.
“Your lady likes to be prepared, brother,” Apollo said as he took Aurora’s hands. “That is why they are such mighty lionesses.”
She felt like a lioness, one who formed her own pride with women she admired and loved. With a man she adored. A Leona who made a life that was in many ways like something her fifteen-year-old self would’ve been bold enough to aspire to, if she’d only known it was possible.
“I love you,” she told Apollo as she slid her arms around his waist and laid her cheek against his chest.
“And I love you, mi Fiera,” he whispered, kissing the top of her head. “What wild dream will we conquer next?”
She had a few in mind, and she knew with him at her side and the people in this room around them, the future truly would be what she made it.
* * * * *