Epilogue #2
She shrugged out of her dress, letting it pool at her waist, revealing her breasts fully. My mouth watered at the sight but I didn’t move, I let her take her time.
With desperate eyes she looked down at me. “I can’t…”
“Come here.” I pulled her down to me, her body felt heavenly against mine. I kissed her, slowly rocking up into her. Her breasts hung beneath her, so much more sensitive as the blood pooled in the tips. I made a meal of them, tugging and sucking as her core opened up for me.
She was an endless stream of sighs and breathless moans as she tried not to cry out in case another wandering guard should hear us.
I moved my hands to her hips, tracing the line of her spine up to her shoulders. I held her in place as I moved, filling her up until she trembled, her body tensing at the invasion.
“Easy, baby. I haven’t forgotten how to fuck you.”
“Oh god…” she moaned as her hips met mine and she was fully seated.
“That’s it.” I eased my grip and let her go. She straightened, testing out her new throne. Her swollen clit pressed against me and I smiled at the mischief in her face as she realised how she could pleasure herself.
With her hands on my chest she picked up the pace until she found her rhythm and then she rode me. Hard.
She was a flame-headed goddess, her phoenix wings her backdrop, the moon her spotlight. Time ceased to mean anything as I watched her, awestruck as she took me to a level of pleasure I’d never known before. This was better than the edge of insanity. This was love. She was making love to me.
For the first time, I understood her frustrated moans when I took her from behind…
she was too far away from me. When I took her like that she would arch into me, turning her face to be kissed, to be closer.
I found myself sitting up just to be nearer, sinking my hands into her hair, gripping her neck, holding her close as she worshipped me and took us over the edge.
“Tell me…” she panted.
“I love you.” I didn’t hesitate, didn’t think twice. “Lo, I love you.”
She came with a cry, a needy sound, her hips shaking. I gripped them and took over, keeping up the momentum as she fell and took me with her. She slumped onto my shoulder, exhausted. I held her close, her spine damp with exertion.
“I’m yours…I’m yours…Alfie, I’m yours…”
Time stood still, the moon moving over us as I held her in my lap, my dick warm inside her. Every now and again she moved her hips, taking lazy pleasure from me as she wanted.
She kissed me, sweet, loving kisses on my mouth, my cheeks, my jaw. She coated me with her love and I revelled in it. Once I would have resisted this, punished myself for it afterwards. Now, I welcomed it. I deserved it.
She shifted in my lap, mouth pouting.
“Am I hurting you?”
“No, something is digging into my leg.” She reached down, moving my jacket. “It’s something in your pocket.”
My heart dropped into my stomach as I realised what she was about to find.
The silence was deafening as she pulled out the velvet box, the one I’d tried to give her in the Evergarden three years ago, the one I’d found in my time capsule tonight and put in my pocket because I didn’t know what else to do with it.
“Why do you have this? You haven’t been carrying it around all this time, have you?
” She was clearly concerned that I hadn’t moved on at all, that I’d actually spent the last five months mourning her from a distance.
My heart warmed at the worry in her eyes.
Instead of snatching the stone and shoving it onto a greedy finger, her first thought had been of me.
“No, I found it in my time capsule tonight. I didn’t want to sell it but I didn’t want to keep it either. Maybe I was going to throw it in the Thames, I don’t know.” I shrugged. “It was bought by a man I don’t want to remember.”
She nodded. She understood. Of course she did but I could see her mind spinning, wondering if maybe I didn’t want her wearing my ring at all. The thought was so ridiculous I nearly burst out laughing.
“You’ll marry me, Lola.”
She let out a laugh. “That’s how you ask me after all this time?”
“I’m not asking and I’m not waiting another three years.”
“This is the part where you drive me crazy.” With a sigh, she rose, wincing as I slipped out of her. She knelt next to me, staring at the box as I fastened my trousers. She didn’t pull up her dress, she left her breasts free which was a relief. She wasn't that mad at me.
I watched as she fixed her thoughts and eventually, after a moment that felt like forever, she offered the box back to me. I took it, accepting that now wasn’t the time.
“Ask me. Ask me right.”
I froze. This couldn’t be real. I stared at her, her hair a tangled mess, her dress a pink cloud at her waist, her eyes deep and searching, unconscious of the fact she was half-naked. She was my own tantalising angel…but this couldn’t be real.
An hour ago I’d been alone. Now she was back, she loved me and she wanted to be my wife. Was this really happening?
“This isn’t how I planned to propose.”
“How did you plan it?”
“Not with this.” I tossed the box away from me, not wanting to hold it anymore. It was beautiful and there had been a time where I wanted nothing more than to see it on her finger but now it felt tainted to me. “Lola, are you sure?”
She smiled, the dimple in her left cheek begging to be kissed. “This is at the end of our path. It’s inevitable. I don’t want to get married tomorrow but I want no question that I’m yours. If you want me.”
‘If.’ She’d said ‘if’. ‘If’ was a stupid fucking word when it came to how I felt about her. But this wasn’t right, she deserved a proper proposal.
“Let me do this another time, I’ll plan it properly. It’ll be perfect.”
“If it’s you and it’s me, it’s perfect.”
I held out my hands, showing her their emptiness. “I don’t have anything to give you.”
Her eyes softened, warming with tears. She reached for me and filled my empty hands with her own. “Just ask me.”
My heart beat like an anvil in my chest. My palms were sweating.
I, Alfie Tell, was nervous.
An idea occurred to me and I released her hands. She let out a sweet gasp of surprise as I pulled a long strand of honeysuckle grass from the earth and tied it into a loop as best as I could.
She bit her lip, her eyes welling up with tears and she was beautiful. So beautiful. I could count her lashes, the curves of her hair, the milk of her skin.
I took a deep breath, determined not to let my voice shake. I was terrified but I knew without doubt that when I jumped, she would hold my hand on the way down. “Lola O’Connell, will you marry me?”
She broke into a smile. She looked scared, she looked happy but she nodded her acceptance. She leaned in to kiss me but I pulled back.
“Say it, Lo.”
She gave me that look again, the one that told me I was being silly, the one I was sure I was going to see everyday for the rest of our lives. “Yes, Alfie. I’ll marry you.”
Just like that, the world came alive and yet it settled too. A calm rested deep inside me, a knowing . We were forever.
I placed the fragile, earth ring on her finger and wiped the tears from her cheeks. I kissed her, her mouth hot, her lips soft. She pulled me to her, down to the earth and I fell into her again.
The flame she’d lit inside of me years ago burned a bright bonfire now, heating me all on its own without needing to use her anymore.
As our bodies joined, the world fell away until all that was left were her kisses on my lips and my ring on her finger.
It was a perfect kind of insanity, a blissful madness, one that we could finally control.
We’d got it right, finally and I was home.
She was mine, ever mine. Perennial.
My love. My life. My Lo.
Finish Alfie and Lola’s story in Never Tell Vows, coming 2026.