Epilogue #2
“It’s a small part.”
“It’s a part you want.”
I turn to look at him. “How do you know I want it?”
“Because you keep bringing it up. You’ve mentioned it three times this week. If you didn’t want it, you’d have said no already.”
He’s right. I’ve been circling the decision for days, trying to decide whether I wanted to step in front of the camera again while developing something of my own. Saying it aloud makes the answer feel simple.
“Summer’s school schedule works,” I say. “And you’ll be in LA anyway for most of that time.”
“I will.”
“So it makes sense.”
“It makes sense.”
“I’m going to say yes.”
“Good.”
He reaches over and takes my hand, lacing his fingers through mine. Such a simple gesture. Such an ordinary afternoon. The boat rocks gently beneath us, and the sun is warm, and somewhere below deck our daughter is sleeping off a morning of learning to coil rope.
“Come sit with me,” I say.
“I am sitting with you.”
“Closer.”
He moves to my chair, which is really too narrow for two people, and we make it work anyway. His arm goes around my shoulders. I lean into his chest.
“This is better,” I say.
“This is better.”
I tilt my face up, and he kisses me.
I taste the almond pastry on his mouth. He smiles against mine when I move closer, and whatever I was about to say dissolves into the soft press of his lips.
It starts sweet but it does not stay that way for long.
His hand slides to the back of my neck, tipping me deeper. I make a small sound and he answers with a quieter one, playful, like he’s won something.
When we break for air his eyes are dark and fond.
“Below,” he murmurs against my mouth. “Before I forget we’re supposed to be respectable parents on a boat.”
“Summer…”
“Is asleep. Skipper’s in his cabin.” He kisses the corner of my smile. “Come with me. Quietly.”
We go down the steps linked by our fingers.
The master cabin smells of salt and clean linen. He closes the door like it’s a secret, then backs me to the berth and kisses me properly: deep, playful, filthy around the edges. His tongue strokes mine. His thigh presses between my legs until I rock against him without meaning to.
“You look breathtaking,” he murmurs. “My wife, grinding on me on our boat. Fuck, Solenne. Take this off. Slow. Let me watch.”
I peel my top up. He helps with the bra, mouth finding my breast the second it’s bare, sucking until my nipple peaks and I fist his shirt to keep quiet. He switches sides, teeth grazing just enough to make me whine, palm sliding into my shorts to cup me through my underwear.
“Soaked already.” Praise, low and filthy. “All that talk about relaxation and you’re dripping for me. Shorts off, underwear too and sit on the edge, baby. I want your legs open.”
I obey. He kneels on the cabin floor between my thighs like the boat belongs to him and so do I. He kisses my knee, my inner thigh, then drags his tongue through my cunt in one long, deliberate lick that pulls a broken sound out of me.
“Quiet,” he reminds me, smiling against my wetness. “Be good. I’ll make it worth it.”
He does. He eats me like he has nowhere else to be: tongue flat on my clit, then pointed, then two thick fingers sliding inside and curling until my hips lift. He holds me open with his free hand and praises every twitch.
“Shit, Valentin… wait, I’m co…”
When I start to shake he doesn’t tease; he sucks hard and fucks me with his fingers until I come silent and shaking, thigh clamped around his ear, wrist between my teeth.
He rises looking wrecked and pleased, mouth shiny, eyes dark.
“On your back. Pillow under your hips. Want your eyes while I fuck you.”
I scramble up the berth. He shoves his shorts down. His cock is heavy, flushed, a bead of precum at the tip. He strokes himself once, watching me watch him, then notches against my entrance and pushes in slow.
The stretch is thick and deep. I gasp; he swallows it with a kiss and keeps going until he’s buried to the root, hips flush to mine.
“Fuck. Solenne.” His forehead finds mine. “So tight. Taking me like you were made for my cock.”
“Move. Please, Valentin…”
He starts rolling his hips, long strokes timed to the boat’s rock, then harder when I dig my heels into his back.
The berth creaks. We freeze, both laughing under our breath, and he clamps a hand gently over my mouth and fucks me quieter for it, meaner for it, whispering praise against my ear.
That’s my girl. Taking every inch. Whining into my hand. Sei mia. Look at you.
“Yours,” I moan when he lets me breathe. “Fuck! Don’t stop…”
“Not stopping.” He hooks one of my knees higher and drives deeper until pleasure sparks white behind my eyes. “Come on my cock. Quietly. Give it to me.”
I shatter again, clenching hard, muffled against his palm. He swears, pulls out while I’m still fluttering, and rolls beneath me so I’m straddling his lap on the narrow bunk.
“Ride me,” he orders, hands spanning my waist. “Show me how much you want this. Slow first. Then take what you need.”
I sink down onto him in one wet slide and set a rhythm: playful rolls, then greedier, hands braced on his chest. He thrusts up to meet me, praising every bounce of my breasts, every soft broken sound.
When my thighs tremble he sits up, chest to chest, arms banded around my back, and kisses me through the next climb until I come again with my face buried in his neck.
“One more way,” he rasps. “On your side. Want to hold you while I finish.”
We settle facing each other. He hooks my thigh over his hip and slides back into me, deep and steady, forehead to forehead.
No rush now. Just heat and eye contact and the quiet slap of skin.
His hand slips between us to rub my oversensitive clit; I whine and cling and he shushes me with kisses, dominant and tender at once.
“Last one. With me. Come on, love. Come.”
I do, softer and deeper, and he follows with a broken curse of my name, burying himself to the hilt as he spills into me in long pulses, arm locked around my waist like the ordinary forever we already chose.
We stay joined while our breathing settles. His hand rests warm on my stomach. For a second the secret presses against my tongue. Not yet. With Summer. The way it should be.
“Okay?” he whispers, kissing my temple, still playful under the ruin.
“Warm. Thoroughly relaxed. Slightly ruined.” I smile against his jaw. “You were right about the pages.”
“I was right about the jaw.”
I flick his chest. He catches my fingers and kisses them, laughing quietly, still half inside me as the hull rocks us.
We clean up in the tiny head with stolen towels and shared grins, dress in wrinkled clothes, and climb back to the deck like we only went below for a sweater. Wine and soda wait where we left them. He tucks my scarf over my shoulder without asking.
When we pull apart from one last lingering kiss in the chair, he doesn’t move away. He adjusts so we’re both more comfortable, my head on his shoulder, his hand resting on my arm. The sun is lower now, casting long shadows across the deck.
I close my eyes as the boat sways. The afternoon stretches out, warm and quiet.
There’s something I need to tell him. Something I’ve been carrying since this morning, waiting for the right moment. It can wait a little longer. Until Summer wakes up. Until we’re all together.
Below deck, I hear the creak of a bunk. Then a sleepy voice calls up to ask where we put her shoes.
“She’s up,” Valentin says.
I shift in the chair, making room.
A few minutes later, Summer appears at the top of the steps, her hair tangled from sleep, her life jacket already fastened because she knows the rules. She blinks at the sky, then breaks into a grin.
“I didn’t miss it!”
“You didn’t miss it.”
She crosses the deck and wedges herself between us, leaning against my shoulder while looking out at the water.
“The sun is melting,” she says.
“It looks that way.”
“I know it’s not really melting. It’s the atmos-phere.” She pronounces the word carefully, the way her teacher must have taught her. “But it looks like melting.”