Epilogue #2
It’s cold. My breath puffs silver in the air, but the sky above is a masterpiece. Stars crowd together like diamonds flung across velvet. Somewhere inside, voices are rising, glasses clinking, someone calling out that there are five minutes left.
Footsteps crunch softly behind me. Then a coat drapes around my shoulders, and two arms slide around my waist.
“Couldn’t let you ring in the new year alone,” Brody murmurs into my ear.
I lean back into him. “I knew you’d follow me.”
We stand like that for a beat. Silent. The house glows behind us, windows spilling golden light over patio.
It snowed lightly earlier, and white powder glistens like fairy dust on the leaves of trees and reflects moonlight off the grass.
The air is cold enough that the lights of the city in the distance seem to shimmer.
I draw in a breath laced with cedar and pine, and the darker scent of my husband. "It’s beautiful."
I stretch my spine and luxuriate in the cut edges of his chest which rise and fall in sync with my breathing.
"You’re beautiful." He has his arm about my waist, the other over my shoulders.
"You’re biased." I chuckle.
"Always, when it comes to you."
I melt into him more. And as if hearing a distant melody, when he begins to sway slightly, I slide my fingers around his wrist and allow myself to be carried away.
The soft rush of his breath raises the hair on my head. The crunch of the snow underneath our feet as we dance, is like having our own private orchestra accompany us.
Surely, this is what life should be about?
Happiness. Contentment. Poetry in motion. It’s a different world. One where time slows. One where it’s just us.
"Do you hear that?" he murmurs.
For a few seconds, I listen, then I do. The music in the rustle of the trees, in the occasional burst of laughter from inside.
I turn in his arms and press my palm to his chest. His heartbeat pounds steadily beneath my hand. It’s a strong, certain, rhythm that anchors me. The sound of it calms me, each thud a reminder that I’m safe right here, with him.
“I don’t want this year to end.”
“It’s the beginning of the best time of our lives.” He brushes his lips across my temple. "I’ll do everything in my power to keep you happy. And whatever life throws at us, I promise, we'll face it together." He twirls me out, then draws me in, before turning me over his arm.
I gasp, then laugh when he straightens me up and brings me close.
"I promise, I’ll never allow you to want for anything. I promise to always love you. Protect you. To ensure you want for nothing. And when we have children"—he frowns—"you do want children, right?"
"I do." My heart melts.
We’ve touched on the topic before but never had a chance to discuss it until now.
Unlike couples who had such conversations before they got married, we’ve done so much backward. But then, our union was not exactly a conventional one. Look how far we’ve come. There’s nowhere else I’d rather be than here in his arms, dancing under the stars.
"Good." He cups my cheek. "I want to make sure you’re settled in your career and have fulfilled your ambitions, and feel ready to be a mother, before we go down that route."
I gaze up at him, certain adoration is written in every dip and valley of my features. He gazes deeply into my eyes, a softness tugging at those stern lips, and turning his eyes into pools of fierce need.
"How did I think you were unfeeling, when you’re such a softie at heart?"
One side of his lips quirks in a comma, and it’s both sheepish and wicked and helpless. "Only for you, baby."
Our steps slow.
"I’d burn down the world, if it meant keeping you safe."
There’s a fervent note to his voice that leaves me in no doubt of the seriousness of his intent. A thrill runs through me. "You always know how to say the right things." I wrap my arms around his neck.
"You make it easy."
We stare deeply into each other’s eyes. I love it when he fucks me.
Relish feeling him throb inside me. Adore it when he holds my gaze as he sinks inside of me.
And yet, this is more romantic. This, when he’s holding me close enough for our bodies to touch from torso to thigh, and his arms are a steel band around me, promising me that he’ll never let me go.
When the expression on his face is one of reverence, and devotion, and also, captivation.
When every line of his body, every angle of his face insists that I’m his. And he’s mine.
Only mine
I melt into him further. "I love you."
"I love you." His reply is instant. The moonlight illuminates his glittering eyes, picks out the hollows under his cheekbones, and turns him into a dashing god. Equal parts angel and devil. Who can make me orgasm until I’m faint.
Who can make me feel so special, until it feels my heart is going to burst.
"Only you. My entire life has led up to this moment. Has led to you. It was always you, Lark. Always."
People begin to trickle out of the house.
“Ready to welcome in the new year?” Nathan calls out to us.
“You bet.” My husband nods back.
Then he twines his fingers through mine, moving us away from the house and into the shadows.
We reach the tree line that borders the property.
“Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.” He leads me down a path between the trees, and away from the house.
A few minutes later, we enter a clearing. We’re shielded from being seen by those at the house and in the garden. There’s a bench in the center, facing the slope of Primrose Hill. Beyond that, the city lights shimmer in the distance.
He leads me toward the bench.
We sink down, and he wraps his arm around me and pulls me close. For a few seconds, we enjoy the view.
Then, as one, we turn to each other. He lowers his head as I raise mine. His jacket slides off my shoulders. Our mouths meet. Our lips cling. Our tongues marry.
The kiss is soft and deep. Sweet and sexy. Arrogant and affectionate. It’s everything I’ve ever wanted. It’s my sun and moon, and the stars. It’s him. I’m surrounded by him, and it feels right. Like I’ve come home. Like this is the start of my life.
All the heartaches and uncertainty, and the woman I was, so very different from who I’m going to be. With him. There’s a completeness. A rightness. A springboard to where I want to go. Our future stretching out before us.
Him and me. And our love. And the life we’ll build together.
I feel so happy, I think I’m going to burst.
And when he finally ends the kiss and presses his forehead into mine, his breath brushes my cheek, and I can feel his heart thudding as fast as mine.
"Wow," I whisper.
"Wow, indeed." He chuckles.
Then I chuckle too, and we hold each other, laughing.
If our joy had a color, it would be a fuchsia pink.
The air between us sparks, heat simmering between the molecules. This…shift from love to joy to lust. It’s the complete spectrum of feelings that characterizes our relationship.
“It’s almost midnight.” His eyes gleam.
“It is.” I swallow.
“Remember what I promised you?”
I nod. “My orgasm.”
“Indeed.” He urges me to stand then step between his thighs. “Lift your dress.”
“What?” My gaze widens.
“Don't you want your orgasm?”
Of course, I do. What kind of question is that? It no longer surprises me that the question spikes my lust and tightens a knot of desire in my lower belly.
His touch sparks a raw ache behind my pussy and turns me into a mass of molten need.
“Answer me, wife.”
Well, hell, when he calls me that, it touches something deep inside of me. No way, can I resist him.
“Yes.” My voice emerges strong and sure.
He nods as if it’s confirmed something to him. “Then do as I say.”
The edge of dominance to his tone is sharper than the lash of a whip.
It spurs me on to take handfuls of the silky material of my dress and pull it up.
Slowly. Slowly. The whisper of the fabric against my thighs sends goosebumps trembling over my skin.
I pause when the hem brushes against my upper thighs.
He’s at eye level with my cunt. He leans in and nuzzles the shadowed place between my legs. Oh God. Liquid heat licks up my veins. My knees threaten to buckle from under me.
He steadies me with a hand on my hip. When he’s confident I can stand on my own, he lowers his arm and leans back as if settling in for a show.
“Keep going,” he orders.
I lift my dress up, then further up. Until my pussy is bare.
He makes a noise at the back of his throat. “No panties.”
I allow myself a small smile of triumph. The dress wouldn’t allow for it.
“Of course, not.” I hear the smirk in his voice.
He urges me to take a step back. “Widen your legs.”
The dark desire in his words, the sin which drips from his tone, lights a fuse in my blood.
I shuffle my feet apart as much as my position will allow.
The red-soled heels I wear lend extra height to my legs. It makes me feel strong and proud and powerful. That, and the fact that my husband is staring at my cunt, and his elevated breathing, as well as the growing tent between his legs, tell me he’s very aroused.
He snakes out his arm and slaps my pussy.
I cry out. I should have expected him to do this. It’s his favorite way to greet that intimate part of me. Yet it takes me by surprise.
Shock waves pulse out from my clit to my nipples, which tighten, and to my brain cells, which turn into oscillating pendulums of desire.
“Keep it down, we don’t want to alert my family,” he drawls.
Oh my God. That’s so forbidden, not to mention, embarrassing. And of course, that ratchets up my desire.
Still, I put up a token resistance. “If anyone walks in on us, they’ll see me like this.”
“In which case, you’d better come quickly.”
Brody
I pry her pussy lips apart like they’re two halves of a peach.
But when I lick up her slit, she tastes so much sweeter.
“Brody,” she groans.
My name from her lips drains the blood to my groin.