Chapter 2 #2
We hadn’t had to worry about pregnancy before because my seed had been dormant, but now we could easily conceive. I should have asked her if she had something to use as a contraceptive, but in the heat of the moment, nothing else mattered.
And if she fell pregnant, I would be happy, but I wasn’t sure how she would feel about it.
Her hand glided over my body as she remained bent underneath me, my dick still hard inside her. “Make love to me again, Callum.”
I lay beside her in the bed with rumpled sheets, my hand cupped on her cheek and neck as I admired just how beautiful she was.
With emerald eyes that sparkled like a set of jewels and dark hair the color of earth after a heavy rain, she was a living painting.
With the definition of muscles in her arms, legs, and stomach, she was strong, and that turned me on like crazy.
The curve of her lower back was pronounced, and the muscles that hugged her spine were visible beneath the flesh.
A more beautiful woman had never lived.
She shared the same pillow with me, her eyes taking in mine with the same intensity. Her hand moved to my wrist as I continued to cup her face, her fingers gently wrapping around me like vines around a branch.
I could stare at her forever, and I hoped I would have that honor.
“I love you, Xivin.” I’d only had the chance to say it to her once before I was pulled away.
Now I wished I’d used that time more wisely to tell her how I felt every time I felt it.
I loved her in a way I’d never loved Anya.
In a way that was far more profound than every emotion I’d ever felt, altogether at once.
Her fingers lightly touched my wrist as her eyes lit up like stars. “I love you too, Callum.”
I pulled her into me, hooked her thigh high over my hip and pressed a kiss to her forehead when we were close together. We lay there as a single person on a single pillow, the heat of our bodies acting as our own fire.
I was tired, but no amount of fatigue would make me drift off tonight. I’d hoped for this moment ever since I’d laid eyes on her at the dead island, and I wouldn’t squander it by giving in to the exhaustion.
A light knock sounded on the front door across the house. I wasn’t sure if I heard it or if I imagined it, so I lay still and ignored it.
But Lily moved and turned her head as if she heard it too. “Someone’s at the door. What time is it?”
The curtains were closed over the windows, but nothing but darkness pressed behind them, so it must still be deep into the night. Too late for anyone to be awake.
I wordlessly left her on the bed and pulled on my trousers.
“You don’t have to answer it, Callum.”
I walked out of the bedroom and crossed the sitting room until I made it to the front door.
I opened it without checking the identity of the person on the other side, and no one was there.
On the doorstep was a large basket of food.
Wine bottles, fresh fruit, a couple of casseroles that someone had recently prepared because they were still warm.
I lifted it and brought it to the kitchen counter, and that was when I noticed the note.
The envelope had Lily’s name written in a woman’s handwriting.
I assumed it was her mother.
Lily eventually came out of the room, wearing the shirt I’d left behind. “What’s this?”
I handed her the envelope.
She looked at her name on the outside. “It’s from my mom.” She opened it and read the letter aloud. “Thought you might be hungry…Mom.” She returned the parchment to the envelope. “That was nice of her.”
“It was.”
She grabbed one of the packed casseroles and set it aside on the counter. “I’m starving too. Didn’t realize it until now.” She removed the lid to the dish, revealing a baked pasta in tomato sauce with cheese. “Want me to make you a plate?”
“Please.”
She grabbed two plates from the cabinet and served the pasta on both.
Then she picked up a bottle of wine at random and uncorked it before she poured two glasses.
She wordlessly set the table with linens and utensils and placed our food and wine on the surface.
There was also a basket of fresh bread, so she set that in the center before she took a seat.
I stared at her for a moment, aware that I hadn’t sat down for a meal in…hundreds of years. Unless I counted the times Leviathan forced me to eat souls in the castle, a thought I immediately pushed away the second it came to me.
Lily sliced her fork into the pasta and took a bite. “She must have just made this.” She looked at me when I didn’t join her. “Everything alright?”
“Yes.” I fed more logs onto the fire so the room would remain warm and bright before I took the seat across from her.
I stared at the feast before us and thought of the dinners I used to have with my family.
The last time we’d sat together was before the storm that had infected Anya’s lungs.
After that, she was too weak to sit at the table with us.
She continued to stare at me like she knew something was wrong.
“I haven’t sat down for dinner in a very long time.”
Her eyes softened once she understood how big this moment was for me.
“When I traveled with your father, we ate what the dragons hunted for us. That was the first time I ate something. But this is different.” I looked at her across from me, the two of us sharing a meal together like we were already a family, something so trivial for everyone else…
but intimate and special for me. “I’m grateful I get to do this with you. ”