Chapter Eight #2
And for the first time I’m not even sure I want to run.
Ashon
She reaches for me barely an hour after we’ve collapsed in a tangle of sheets and sighs. Fingertips skim my ribs, slow and searching, then slip lower to cup the back of my thigh and pull. Between my legs to grip and caress. A silent invitation.
I’m weak and oh so damn ready enough to need no second one.
Maybe the pregnancy plays its part—some article I devoured once I heard I was to be a father, about hormones and heightened desire—but it’s too soon for that, surely?
Whatever. The truth is, I want my temptress whether there’s science behind it or not. And who am I to refuse my wife when she threads her leg over my hip and whispers my name like it’s the only word she knows.
I fall on her, already savage and ravenous.
We kiss, mouths still swollen, still tasting of the papaya I fed her earlier. Her nails rake lightly along my shoulder blades. The sound she makes when our bodies fit again is a soft, desperate hum that undoes me. Recalibrates new goals I’m more eager than ever to pursue.
I hold her hips, guiding the slow press of heat and friction until her breath catches. Until my own control frays and we’re moving together in an unhurried rhythm.
She clings to me, lips brushing my jaw, shuddering as release finds her first—quiet, but intense enough to arch her spine and drag me right after. We stay locked that way, every muscle trembling, until the wave ebbs and we return to the softness of the mattress and each other’s skin.
Cilla drifts back to sleep almost on a sigh, lashes damp, mouth parted. I watch her breathe with my fingertips idle on the curve of her waist. Somewhere outside, night creatures sing and the delta air smells of rain building on the horizon.
I should let the contentment carry me under with her, but my mind spins.
We’ve spent a week in Cap Ferrat and haven’t killed each other. Yet. Her laugh was bright and unguarded. Evidence, maybe, of a foundation I never expected.
Hell, we enjoyed pockets of harmony, which worked on and expanded could sustain…something. Isn’t that what marriage is expounded to be about? Heady highs to be celebrated and inevitable lows which, if successfully battled through, makes it all worth it?
A pang of guilt pricks under my ribs. Highs and lows out in the open are all well and good, but… I’m not even sure why I haven’t told her yet about the deeds. Nana’s lawyers will have probably finalised them by now.
It’s the last box to tick, the final victory and I’m hiding from my inbox and keeping it from Cilla.
It isn’t a lie, exactly, just timing. I convince myself she deserves this honeymoon unburdened. I push the guilt aside, stroke her hair off her forehead and breathe her in.
She stirs, dark hazel eyes blinking open. ‘You’re awake,’ she murmurs, voice husky.
‘Couldn’t sleep. Was busy admiring my wife,’ I say, letting my knuckles trace her arm. ‘Come scouting with me tomorrow? There’s a river village our Botswana team wants me to see.’
A flicker of disappointment darkens her gaze but she masks it fast. ‘So this isn’t just a honeymoon, it’s a work trip for you too?’ she asks, trying for lightness and nearly succeeding.
My first impulse is a sharp retort—Legacy-building doesn’t sleep, Cilla, and neither do I—but I bite it back and force the tightness in my chest to ease.
‘It’s one meeting,’ I say instead, brushing my thumb over her cheek. ‘An hour to keep the dream alive, then the rest of the day is ours—canoes, elephants and whatever wildlife decides to photobomb us.’
She arches a brow. ‘You’re saying you won’t answer emails from the boat?’
‘I promise to ignore every buzzing device until the hippos start judging me.’
Her smile returns, slow and genuine, and the air between us lightens, warms something deep in my chest. I stroke a braid behind her ear and add, ‘Tomorrow I’m your tour guide first, studio mogul second.
Hold me to it.’ Why is my breath imprisoned in my chest, waiting for her to do just that when I’m my own man?
She gives a small, satisfied nod and snuggles closer, the potential for barbs diffused—for tonight, at least—by the warmth curling around us both.
I settle her against me, feeling awe ripple through the guilt and ambition.
Maybe the plot twist isn’t manipulating a performance or gaining the upper hand with sex and seduction.
Maybe it’s lavishing her with the care I never saw modelled for long enough, building a family I didn’t know I yearned for until I placed my hand on her belly and everything in me refused to let go.
For the first time, I’m not thinking about land or legacy. I’m thinking about tomorrow. Her laughter echoing across the delta, our child growing in her belly and how to keep this feeling long after the ink is dry.
Cilla
We glide upriver in a flat-bottom skiff, papyrus brushing the hull, sunlight fractured into gold shards across the water.
Hippos grunt somewhere downstream and a heron lifts off on slow, deliberate wingbeats.
Ashon stands at the bow beside the local fixer named Mpho, a quick-smiling woman in khaki, and an assistant director flown in from Jo’burg, a lanky guy named Nico who fidgets with his camera like it’s an extra limb.
Ashon turns, and the shiver over my skin tells me he’s looking at me even though his eyes are covered by designer shades.
‘What do you think?’ He doesn’t need to shout, his deep voice carries over the engine’s soft whine. ‘Could you picture a colonial-era trading post here? Opening sequence, 1880s—dusty dock, smugglers, forbidden cargo?’