Epilogue
Maximillian
Two Years Later
Elle catches me watching her from the sitting-room doorway and lifts one eyebrow.
“Were you planning to come in?”
“I hadn’t decided. The view is good from here.”
She is standing beside the open terrace doors, holding the shoes she has just taken off.
Music plays quietly from her phone on the table.
We finished dinner an hour ago, but neither of us has made any serious effort to go upstairs.
I went to close the kitchen windows and returned to find her singing along under her breath.
“You’ve seen me before.” She sets the shoes beneath a chair. “Several times, I believe.”
“I keep finding reasons to look again.”
“That was almost charming.”
“I’ll try to recover.”
She laughs, and I cross the room before she can turn away. I take her hand and put my other arm around her waist. She comes easily, her free hand settling on my shoulder as I draw her into the space between the chairs.
“We’re dancing?”
“Keep up, princess.”
“You never learn.”
“You keep giving me opportunities.”
For half a minute, we manage quite well. Then she decides I am taking too much credit for our success and changes direction just as I move. I catch her against me, both of us laughing, and she tips her head back to look at my face.
“That was your fault.”
“Entirely. I’d be happy to make the same mistake again.”
“You probably will.”
I kiss her before she can develop that argument. Her hand moves from my shoulder to the back of my neck, and when I lift my head, she follows me for another. The song continues without us. I have stopped pretending to know where my feet are supposed to go.
“We were dancing,” she murmurs.
“Were we any good?”
“You were improving.”
“High praise.”
She smiles, then takes my face in both hands and kisses me in a way that makes me forget the reply I was about to give her. I draw her close, feeling her fingers slip into my hair. When she finally leans away, I am still holding her as though the music might require us to move again.
“Come upstairs,” she says.
I glance toward the phone. “What about your song?”
“It’ll manage without us.”
She turns it off and takes my hand. I follow her through the quiet house, catching her at the foot of the stairs to kiss her once more. She laughs against my mouth, then rests her forehead against mine.
“Max. There are actual rooms upstairs.”
“I’ve heard good things about one of them.”
“Then perhaps you should let me take you there.”
I let her lead. Halfway up, she looks back at me, and the expression on her face makes me hurry enough that she laughs again. I love being able to do that. To show her exactly how much I want to be with her and know she’ll meet me with that pleased, slightly wicked smile.
At our bedroom door, she turns and catches the front of my shirt. I put my hands at her waist, waiting while she looks up at me.
“You can kiss me now.”
“Generous of you.”
“Don’t waste it.”
I don’t. She draws me into the room with her, and I close the door behind us. There is laughter still in her kiss, but it grows quieter as she slides her arms around my neck. I hold her close and take my time, until she pulls back just far enough to touch my cheek.
“There you are,” she says softly.
I know what she means.
The teasing is familiar, the pleasure of making each other laugh so much a part of our days now that sometimes I forget how carefully we once found our way back to it. But I never tire of the moment when she lets the joke go and looks at me like this.
I kiss her palm and follow her farther into our room.
She turns in my arms before we make it three steps.
The kiss stops being soft. I back her into the dresser and something wooden clatters off the top to the floor. Neither of us looks down. Her laugh breaks against my mouth, then turns into a moan when I shove the bedroom door shut hard enough that the frame shudders.
“Max…”
“I know.” I kiss her like I’ve been starving through dinner, tongue sliding against hers, hand already under her blouse. “Clothes. Off. Don’t stop kissing me.”
We don’t.
Her blouse goes first, buttons skittering somewhere under the bed. My shirt follows, yanked between kisses. She works my belt while I shove her trousers down her hips.
We stumble, crash into the chair, knock a book from the nightstand. She laughs again, breathless and wicked, and I swallow the sound with my mouth open on hers.
“Look at you,” I murmur against her lips. “Laughing while you strip me. My wife. My fucking ruin.”
“Then ruin me properly.”
I lift her onto the dresser. Cool wood against bare thighs. I drag her underwear down her legs, drop to my knees between them, and for a second I only look: flushed, wet, open for me.
Then I put my mouth on her without teasing.
She cries out. One hand fists in my hair hard enough to sting. I groan into her and lick a long, filthy stripe from her entrance to her clit, then seal my mouth there and suck. She jerks. I hold her thighs open wider and do it again, slower, tasting how ready she already is.
“Dio mio, Max! Yes… yes, right there…”
“That’s it.” I pull back just enough to speak, chin slick, then dive back in. “Grind on my face. Use me. I want every drop.”
She does. Shameless. Rolling her hips against my tongue while I fuck into her with it, then replace tongue with two fingers and curl them exactly where she needs while I suck her clit. Her whimper turns continuous. Her other hand finds the edge of the dresser for balance.
“So wet. Dripping for me already.” I pump my fingers deeper and watch her face over the plane of her stomach. “Listen to that. Perfect. My princess, fucking herself on my hand. Come on. Soak me.”
I add a third finger when she can take it and flatten my tongue hard against her clit in tight circles.
She breaks with a broken moan, thighs clamping around my head, curls falling forward as she shakes.
I work her through every pulse, licking softly when she twitches from oversensitivity, until she tugs my hair to pull me up.
I stand and kiss her deep so she tastes herself. She moans into it, sucking on my tongue, still trembling.
We start toward the bed, still joined at the mouth.
We don’t make it.
Halfway there I spin her to face the tall window. Evening light spills gold over the estate hills. I bend her forward, palm flat between her shoulder blades, kick her feet wider, and rub the head of my cock through her soaked folds until she pushes back seeking me.
“Please,” she breathes against the glass.
“Ask properly.”
“Fuck me. Max… Please. I need you inside me.”
“Che brava, principessa.”
I thrust in to the hilt in one stroke. She moans loud enough to fog the pane. The heat of her clamps around me so tight I have to freeze a second or finish too soon.
“Fuck. Elle.” I grip her hips and start to move, deep and hard. “Look at it. Look at our home while I bury myself in you. Feel how deep you take me. Every inch.”
“Harder!” Her hands brace on the sill. “Don’t you dare be careful.”
I give her harder. Skin slapping. The wet filthy sound of it filling the quiet room. I wrap one arm around her waist to hold her against every thrust and reach around with the other to rub her clit in time. My mouth finds her neck, her shoulder, open and praising.
“So tight. So fucking good. Taking me like you were built for this cock. Hear how wet you are. Come again. I want to feel you squeeze me while you’re looking at those hills.”
She shatters a second time, crying out against the glass, clenching in waves that nearly drag me under. I fuck her through it until her knees buckle, then pull out, scoop her into my arms, and carry her the last steps to the bed.
“I’m not done,” I tell her, voice rough against her hair. “Not even close.”
I drop her onto the mattress. Pin both wrists above her head in one hand. Hook her legs up and fold her nearly in half, knees toward her shoulders, and sink back into her so deep she sobs my name.
From this angle I can see everything: where we join, the stretch of her around me, the flush climbing her chest. I kiss her while I fuck her like that, open-mouthed and relentless, swallowing every moan.
“Stay with me.” Dominant. Loving. Ruined. “Eyes on me, princess. Take every thrust. You’re mine. My wife. My everything.”
“Yes, yours…” She’s whimpering into every kiss now. “Max… Deeper, I’m… I can’t…”
“You can.” I tighten my grip on her wrists and drive harder, folding her tighter, forehead nearly on hers. “You will. Feel how deep I am. Feel how you open for me. Come on my cock while I’m kissing you. Together. Now.”
She breaks first, shaking hard under me, crying out into my mouth. The way she flutters and clamps pulls me over with her. I bury myself to the root and empty into her with a groan torn out of my chest, pulsing hard while I keep kissing her through every aftershock.
I ease her legs down carefully. Free her wrists. Kiss her knuckles where I held her. She turns into my chest, still breathing hard, and for a long moment neither of us speaks.
Later, she reaches across me for the sheet, and I lift it over us before she has to stretch.
She settles against my side with a contented sigh, her hair caught beneath my shoulder. I ease it free while she watches me through half-closed eyes.
“For the record,” she says, “you stepped on my foot.”
“During the dancing?”
“I thought you should know.”
“Will you give me another chance?”
She pretends to consider it. “With shoes.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Ask me tomorrow.” Her hand rests against my chest. “I might want to do something else with you.”
I kiss her forehead and settle beside her. “I’d like that, too.”
***
The following afternoon, the light falls golden across the stable yard, and I stop at the gate to watch Elle work with Luce.
Luce is four now, her chestnut coat gleaming, the white star between her eyes bright against the copper. She stands in the arena while Elle guides her through a simple exercise, walking between two parallel ground poles and halting midway along them.