Chapter 16 Where the Sea Kept Our Secrets #3
"Clothes," I manage. "Off. As much as we can without sand winning."
We shove and tug between kisses. Sweater up over my head.
Trousers shoved down my legs. His shirt half-open, then gone. Cool evening air on bare skin. Sand grit kissing the blanket edges.
He kneels between my legs when I am bare for him and goes still in a way that makes my throat tight, looking at me like the cove itself has offered him a miracle he does not deserve and will take anyway.
Then he starts at my ankles.
He lifts one foot and kisses the sand-dusted bone, soft, almost laughing at himself for how reverent it is.
My calf. The soft place behind my knee until I twitch and try to close my legs.
He holds me open gently and keeps going, open-mouthed along my inner thigh, slow enough that I whine and fist his hair again, guiding without words.
"Leon! Please, stop teasing…"
"I'm not teasing." He kisses closer, closer. Breath hot on the place I need him. "I'm learning you again. Let me taste you first, let me take my time with what's mine."
His mouth finds me.
Tongue flat along my folds in one long lick that makes my back arch off the blanket. Then pointed, parting me, dipping inside like he means to live there.
I grind down on his face without meaning to be polite about it, and he moans into me for it, the vibration sparking up my spine. My hands stay buried in his hair, pulling when he hits the right spot, shameless, using him.
"That's it," he praises against me, filthy and grateful, words wet. "Use my mouth. Fuck, you taste perfect. Give it to me, Ysabel."
"Don't stop… don't you dare, Leon…"
He doesn't. He sucks gently on my clit, then licks lower, fucking me with his tongue in short wet strokes while the waves keep time.
When my thighs shake around his head he only holds me open wider, one hand careful on my hip, the other splayed light over my lower belly as if he cannot stop remembering what we carry. I pull his hair hard enough to hurt and he groans like he wants the hurt.
Before I tip all the way over he crawls up my body and puts his mouth on my belly.
Soft. Reverent. A kiss just below my navel. Another beside it. Lingering on skin that does not show yet, on the early secret we already speak out loud between us. His palm stays warm beside his mouth, protective without pressing.
"Our baby," he whispers there, voice breaking. "Our future. You're carrying that and you still came back to me. Still chose me. Cazzo, Ysabel. You're incredible. Perfect. Mine."
The tenderness almost undoes me more than his mouth did.
Tears prick again and I blink them back, laughing once, wrecked.
Then he rises to my breasts, takes one nipple into his mouth and sucks, and I hug his head hard to my chest, arms locked around him, fingers still twisted in his hair while he laves and bites soft and praises into my skin like worship and filth are the same prayer.
"Sei perfetta. Soft, mine. Look at you holding me here like you never want me to leave. I won't. Not tonight. Not if you keep me."
"I don't want you to leave," I gasp. "Not tonight. Not… Leon, I need you in me. Please."
He lifts his head enough to kiss me, tasting of me, deep and claiming, then stands and pulls me up with him. My legs are unsteady as he steadies me. The yarn necklace bumps his chest when we press close.
"Water," he says, not a question. Dominant soft. "I want you standing. Face to face where the cove can see. Just us."
We go barefoot into the shallows.
Cold water climbs our calves and I gasp; he smiles against my mouth and kisses the gasp away. Goosebumps rise. He hooks my leg around his hip, braces an arm under me, and notches himself at my entrance while the sea rocks us gently off balance. Eyes locked with the necklace between us.
Sunset paints gold on his face.
He sinks in slowly.
The stretch punches a cry from me that the open air takes without judgment. He fills me inch by inch, then deeper, until he is buried and we are both shaking in the cold water and hot need.
"Leon… fuck! Lì, per favore… Shit, Leon!"
"You like that, huh? You like this, love?
Feel me." He holds still for one breath, forehead to mine, then thrusts up into me, standing, dominant rhythm tempered by the slippery sand underfoot.
Every snap sends water sloshing around our legs.
"Taking me so well. My wife... Say it again. Say you choose me."
"I choose you." It breaks on a moan as he hits deep. "I choose you… harder, please! Don't be careful with that part…"
"Good girl. I've got you." He fucks me in the shallows with wet skin and salt spray, one hand under my thigh, the other splayed careful over my lower belly, praising and cursing in the same ruined breath. "Ysabel… whine for me again. Just like that. Let the cove hear. Let me hear."
I do, shameless. Whining his name, scratching his shoulders, kissing him messy between thrusts. The water, the rocks, the fading light, all of it ours without anything to hide behind.
When my standing leg shakes too hard to trust, he curses soft and lifts me clearer against him, still buried, still moving, until even that is not enough and he carries me back through the shallows dripping.
He lays us on the blanket on our sides, face to face, sand cool beyond the cloth, sky gone rose. He hooks my top leg over his hip and slides back into me from that angle, slower, deeper, the shift making us both moan. Side-lying, intimate. Nowhere to look except each other's eyes.
"Stay with me," he murmurs, forehead to mine, thrusting in long claiming strokes. One hand cups my marked neck. The other stays gentle at my belly. "Come on my cock. Give it to me. I've got you. I've always… fuck, always wanted you like this."
"Leon… I'm, I'm going to…"
"Come, then love." Soft command but absolute. His hips snap and stay deep. "Now, Ysabel. Come for me."
I break first, clenching around him so hard my vision sparks, face buried against his throat where I can feel his pulse hammer.
He follows with a broken curse and my name, spilling deep while he holds me through every pulse, still kissing my mouth, my cheek, the uneven yarn knots at my neck like he cannot stop claiming what I already gave freely.
We stay joined until the light has gone soft and the cove is only sound and breath and the smell of salt on skin. His hand stays over our baby. My fingers stay in his hair. The marks on my neck throb in time with my heart.
When we finally pull apart, I feel different.
Lighter, as if something that was broken has begun to heal.
For a while, neither of us moves. The blanket is twisted beneath us, one corner caught under Leon's knee, and the sea keeps folding itself against the rocks as though nothing in the world has changed.
Eventually, practicality finds us.
Leon sits up first and reaches for my sweater where it was left in the sand beside the blanket. I shake it out and pull it on while he finds my trousers, then gathers the blanket, both of us quieter now, the sharpness between us gone.
By the time we walk back toward the car, our shoulders brush once, then again, and neither of us moves away.
We drive back inland as the stars come out, the familiar roads unwinding in the headlights. Leon keeps one hand on the wheel and the other in mine, and I watch the landscape pass and think about everything that's led to this moment.
"We should tell my parents," I say. "That we're going to the estate tonight. They'll worry if I don't come home."
"Of course," Leon says. I take my phone from my bag.
I type out a message: Going to the estate with Leon tonight. We've decided to try again. I'll call when we know what time we'll be back. Love you both.
My mother's response comes quickly: We're happy for you. Be safe. We love you.
I set down the phone and lean back against the seat. "They're happy for us."
"I'm glad they know. I don't want them worrying about you."
"They'll still worry."
"I know. They have reason to." He glances at me. "I want you. I want our baby. I want a marriage that looks the same in public as it does in private. And I'm going to fight for all of it."
The estate appears in the distance, its lights glowing against the darkening sky. I feel my heart rate pick up, a mix of nervousness and anticipation.
"Leon."
"Yes?"
"When we get there. When we walk in together. I need you to understand something."
"Anything."
"Private forgiveness isn't enough. What we shared today, at the cove, that matters. But it can't be the whole story. I need you to claim me where everyone can see. I need the world to know that I'm your wife, that you're proud to have me beside you, that there's no one else and never will be."