Epilogue #3
He laughs once, low, and lifts me just enough to get his hands under my hips.
Two steps. The bench. He sits and pulls me into his lap facing him, knees bracketing his hips, the narrow cushions forcing us close.
The blanket ends up half over my shoulders like a cape.
We both laugh when it slips. Then I settle fully against him and the laugh breaks.
I can feel every hard inch of him through our clothes. I rock once experimentally. His hands clamp on my waist.
“That’s it.” He guides the next roll of my hips, slower, deeper. “Ride me just like that. Feel what you do to me. Perfect. So fucking eager for it.”
We grind like that under the blanket for a long stretch: kissing, breaking, kissing again, my hands in his hair, his mouth on my breasts once he pushes my top up.
He sucks until I’m shaking, then switches sides, then gets a hand between us and rubs me through my trousers until I’m whimpering into his shoulder.
“Lorenzo. Please.”
“Tell me what you want.”
“Your mouth. Then you inside me. Don’t make me wait through another speech.
“Good girl.”
He tips me back onto the cushions carefully, keeping me seated at the edge of the bench, and drops to his knees on the warm greenhouse floor between my open thighs.
The blanket stays draped over my lap. He undoes my trousers with deliberate fingers, drags them and my underwear down to my ankles, spreads my knees wider with his palms, and just looks for a second.
Then he puts his mouth on me.
No teasing. A long, greedy lick from entrance to clit, a groan like he’s starving, then he seals his mouth over me and sucks. I cry out and fist his hair. He works me with his tongue in tight circles, then flatter strokes, then pushes two fingers inside and curls them while he sucks harder.
“Fuck. Chiara.” He comes up for air, chin wet, eyes dark. “So sweet… That’s it. Grind on my face. Use me. I want every drop.”
I continue rolling against his mouth while he fucks me with his fingers and praises every broken sound. The heaters hum while my moans turn louder.
When the climax hits I clamp around his hand and sob his name, thighs shaking around his head while he licks me through every pulse.
He kisses my inner thigh, then my knee, then stands just long enough to turn me toward the glass. My hands find the cool pane.
He leaves the blanket half around my hips, covers me from behind, chest sealed to my back, and rubs the head of his cock through my soaked folds until I’m pushing back for him.
“Ask,” he murmurs against my ear.
“Fuck me. Please. Lorenzo. Now.”
“Perfect.”
He thrusts in to the hilt in one deep stroke.
The stretch punches a moan out of me that fogs the glass. He holds still, buried deep, kissing my shoulder, giving me a second, then starts to move: long strokes at first, then harder, one arm hugged around my waist, the other reaching around to rub my clit in time.
“Look at it.” His mouth stays at my ear. “Look at the dark out there while I fuck you in the place you built. Taking every inch. My brilliant, filthy wife. Listen to how wet you are.”
“Harder.” I’m panting. “Don’t you dare be careful.”
He gives me harder, skin on skin. The wet filthy sound of it, the bench creaking.
Somewhere beyond the screen a tray rattles and we both laugh once without stopping, then the laugh turns into another moan when he hits the exact angle that makes my vision blur.
“There?” He nails it again. “Yes. There. Come on. Come on my cock. Let me feel you break.”
I shatter with a cry muffled into my wrist, clenching hard around him.
He fucks me through it without mercy, praising every flutter, then pulls me down with him onto the bench before my knees give out.
We curl on our sides under the blanket, still joined. He hooks my top leg back over his hip and finishes in deep, slow thrusts, forehead pressed to my neck, groaning my name as he pulses hard inside me.
We stay like that while our breathing settles.
Lorenzo kisses my hair. I find his hand under the blanket and lace our fingers. Outside the glass, the estate is only stars and winter dark.
“Still want to stay a little longer?” he murmurs.
“Yes.” I’m smiling into the dark, wrecked and warm. “Then you can persuade me indoors with food.”
By the time we gather our coats, the estate is quiet beyond the glass.
We have stayed longer than we intended, and I am hungry enough to be persuaded indoors. Lorenzo folds the blanket while I check the door to the growing area. The lamps go off behind us, leaving the heating to do its work through the night.
The garden stretches before us, dormant but alive.
The herb beds I restored are visible in the starlight, their structure intact even in winter. Rosemary and thyme hold their green, stubborn against the cold. The paths I planned wind between them, leading toward the main house where lights are still burning in the windows.
“Let’s take the garden path.” I take his hand and turn toward the herb beds. “I’ve been inside most of the day.”
“Lead the way.” He follows me past the greenhouse, drawing up his collar against the cold.
We walk slowly, in no hurry to be anywhere but here. The vines on the hillside are bare, sleeping until spring. The stars are bright overhead, winter-clear and cold. Our breath makes small clouds in the air.
At the rosemary bed, I stop to brush a fallen twig from the path. The plants can wait until morning. For once, I don’t find another small task to keep me outside.
Lorenzo offers me his arm, and I take it for the last stretch toward the house. Through the window, I can see my gardening catalog on his chair, his glasses resting across the open pages.
“You’ve been reading my catalog.”
“You circled half of it.”
“I was narrowing down my choices.”
“Of course you were.”
I turn to answer him, but before I can, he bends and sweeps me into his arms.
“Lorenzo!”
My feet leave the ground, and I clutch his shoulders. He pauses until I’m settled securely against him, grinning at my startled face.
“What are you doing?”
“Taking my wife inside.”
“I was managing!”
“Very slowly.”
I laugh, and his grin softens. Instead of climbing the steps immediately, he kisses me, warm and unhurried in the cold.
My grip eases. I slide one hand to his cheek.
There were nights I lay beside him longing to be held, too tired of asking to reach across the bed. I remember them without wanting to pull away from him now.
“What?” he asks softly.
I hadn’t realized I was studying his face.
“I love you.”
His arms tighten around me. “I love you too.”
I kiss him again because I can, because he’s here, because we have finally learned how to enjoy the life we nearly lost.
“Now open the door,” he murmurs. “Before you decide to tell me about everything you circled.”
“You asked.”
“And I intend to hear the answer over dinner.”
I reach for the handle. The door swings inward, spilling light across his face, and he carries me into the warmth.
Over his shoulder, I catch one last glimpse of the garden I no longer have to tend in secret. Inside, my catalog lies open on his chair, and two places wait at the table.
I settle against him as he carries me through the doorway.
There is a place for me in his arms, and a life of my own beyond them.
This is now my home too.
THE END