15. Amanda #2
He explores me like he’s never touched me before. Like every curve and dip is new territory to map. His mouth follows his hands - kissing, licking, nipping - until I’m squirming beneath him.
“Roman-”
“Shh.” He kisses my hip bone. “I’m enjoying myself.”
“I can tell.”
He spreads my thighs, settling between them, and looks up at me with eyes full of mischief. “Any objections?”
“None whatsoever.”
The first touch of his tongue makes me melt into the mattress. It’s slow, indulgent - like he’s savoring a fine wine rather than driving me toward release. He licks long stripes through my wetness, circles my clit with the tip of his tongue, hums against me like I’m delicious.
“You taste like mine,” he murmurs. “My wife. My love.”
I reach down, stroke his hair. “Yours.”
“Say it again.”
“I’m yours.” I lift my hips, pressing closer to his mouth. “I’ve always been yours.”
He rewards me with more pressure. More focus. His tongue works my clit in tight circles while two fingers slide inside me, curling up, finding that spot that makes me see stars.
“That’s it,” he coaxes. “That’s my good girl. Let me make you feel good.”
The pleasure builds lazily. No urgency. No rushing. Just the steady climb toward something bright and warm.
“I’m close,” I breathe.
“Come whenever you want. We have all night.”
When the orgasm washes over me, it’s soft and glowing - warmth spreading through my limbs, my back arching gently off the bed. I sigh his name, and he works me through it, gentling his touch as I come down.
“Beautiful,” he says, kissing his way back up my body. “So beautiful when you come.”
“Your turn.”
I push him onto his back. He goes willingly, grinning, his hands behind his head like he’s settling in for a show.
“Go ahead, wife. Have your way with me.”
I straddle his thighs, wrap my hand around him, stroke slowly. He’s hard and hot in my palm, and he groans when I twist my wrist.
“I love you,” I tell him, stroking faster.
“I love you too - fuck, Amanda-”
I lean down, press a kiss to the tip of him, and he bucks up into my hand.
I take him in my mouth. Just the head at first, swirling my tongue around him, tasting salt and desire. He groans, his hand finding my hair - not pushing, just resting there. Grounding himself.
“Jesus - you’re so-”
I take him deeper. As deep as I can. His hips twitch, and I can feel him fighting the urge to thrust up into my mouth.
“Amanda, I’m going to - if you don’t stop-”
I pull off with a wet sound. “Not yet.”
“Tease.”
“You love it.”
“I love you.”
I crawl up his body, straddle his hips. The length of him presses against my core, and we both shiver.
“Can I?” I ask.
“You can do anything you want.” He grips my hips. “I’m yours.”
I sink down onto him slowly.
Inch by inch.
Watching his face as I take him - the way his jaw goes slack, his eyes flutter, his fingers dig into my skin. When I’m fully seated, we both pause. Breathe.
“Hi,” I whisper.
“Hi, wife.”
I start to move. Rolling my hips, finding a rhythm that makes us both gasp. The candlelight flickers, casting shadows on the walls, and I feel like we’re the only two people in the world.
“God, you’re perfect.” He watches me ride him, his gaze hungry and reverent at once. “Look at you. My perfect wife. Taking me so well.”
“Touch me.”
His thumb finds my clit, rubbing in time with my movements, and I moan - loud and unashamed. We’re married. This is our home. I can make whatever sounds I want.
“That’s it.” He sits up, wrapping an arm around my waist, pulling me closer. “Let me hear you.”
We move together - his hips thrusting up to meet me, my arms around his neck, our foreheads pressed together. It’s slow and sweet and unbearably intimate.
“I can’t believe this is real,” I breathe. “I can’t believe I get to have this.”
“Believe it.” He kisses me. “Every day for the rest of our lives.”
The pleasure builds between us - not frantic, not desperate, just inevitable. Like the tide coming in.
“I’m close again,” I whisper.
“Me too.” He picks up the pace, his thumb working my clit faster. “Come with me. Amanda. Let me feel you.”
The second orgasm rolls through me like waves on a shore - long, slow, cresting and cresting. I feel myself clench around him, hear him groan my name, feel him pulse inside me as he follows me over.
We hold each other through it. Rocking gently. Breathing together. Coming down together.
My name.
Amanda.
Not Vance. Not the billionaire’s wife. Not the convicted killer. Not the victim or the survivor or the woman who came from nothing.
Just Amanda.
The woman who fought her way back from the dead.
The woman who chose love instead of revenge.
The woman who’s finally, finally free.
***
After, we lie tangled in the sheets.
The fire has burned low. The candles have guttered out. Outside the window, the stars are bright and the garden is quiet and the world keeps turning the way it always has.
“Roman?”
“Mm?”
“I need to tell you something.”
He shifts. Looks at me. “What?”
“When I married Julian, I took his name. I became Amanda Vance. And I hated it - not at first, but eventually. It felt like being erased. Like the person I was before didn’t matter anymore.”
“And now?”
“Now I get to choose.” I trace the line of his jaw. The scar I’ve memorized. “I’m keeping Reyes. My mother’s name. But I’m adding yours too. Amanda Reyes-Vance.”
He’s quiet for a moment.
“You’d still have his name. Part of it.”
“No.” I shake my head. “I’d have yours. Your grandmother’s ring. Your cabin. Your garden. Your name - the part of it that’s good, that’s real, that’s separate from everything he made it mean.” I meet his eyes. “I’m taking it back. I’m making it mine.”
He kisses me. Soft and fierce at once.
“I love you,” he says.
“I know.”
***
I wake before dawn.
Roman is still asleep, sprawled across the bed, one arm reaching for the space where I was. I slip out of the sheets, pull on a robe, and pad barefoot to the garden.
The sunrise is beautiful.
Pink and gold and orange, spreading across the sky like a promise. The flowers are still sleeping, dew-heavy and quiet. The arbor stands silhouetted against the light, draped with the remnants of yesterday’s celebration.
I stand in the middle of the garden - the garden Roman planted for me, in the life we built together - and I breathe.
In.
Out.
I think about everything I’ve lost. My marriage. My sister. My mother. Two years of my life. The woman I was before prison - naive, trusting, desperate to be loved.
She’s gone.
But someone else is here now.
Someone stronger. Someone harder. Someone who knows what it costs to survive and chose to survive anyway.
The sun clears the horizon.
Light spills across the garden, warm and golden, and I lift my face to it. Let it wash over me. Let it remind me that every day is a choice - to stay stuck in the past or to step into the future.
I choose the future.
***
Roman’s arms wrap around me from behind.
“There you are.”
“Here I am.”
He rests his chin on my shoulder. We watch the sunrise together.
“What are you thinking about?” he asks.
“How far I’ve come.” I lean back into him. “Two years ago, I was in a cell, dreaming about walls. Now I’m here. In a garden. With you.”
“Does it feel real?”
“It’s starting to.”
We stand there as the sun rises higher.
The garden comes alive around us - birds singing, flowers opening, the whole world waking up to a new day. I feel Roman’s heartbeat against my back, steady and strong. I feel the earth under my bare feet, solid and real. I feel the warmth of the sun on my face, promising more days like this one.
More mornings.
More chances.
More life.
“Roman?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m happy.”
He turns me in his arms. Looks at me with those dark eyes - the eyes that saw me when no one else did, that loved me when I couldn’t love myself.
“So am I.”
He kisses me.
And the woman who spent two years in a cage-
The woman who lost everything and clawed it back-
The woman who chose love over revenge, hope over despair, life over survival-
She lifts her face to the sun and lets herself be free.
THE END