Epilogue
Ophelia cursed under her breath as the contents of the tray in her hands slid off balance, threatening to topple the whole thing.
“Oh, don’t you dare,” she said, threatening the champagne. “Don’t even think about it.”
With a bit of shuffling, she managed to keep the tall bottle from careening over the edge and shattering all over her newly refinished floors. She carefully carried it from the kitchen down the back steps. Pea gravel shifted under her bare feet as she made her way down into the fields.
A sea of glowing blue lilies rippled around her as the warm summer breeze stirred them. Their leaves rasped against one another, whispering to her in a cadence she’d come to find soothing—the sound of home.
And home, for the first time in her life, was a place of true safety.
She waded into one of the neat rows with her tray, soil sticking to her feet. There was a time it would have been enough to send her into a spiral, but she’d spent so many days buried up to her elbows in this dirt, and nothing bad had ever happened to her—as Sam always reminded her on the bad days.
Pollen clung to the hem of her sundress like glowing pixie dust as she wandered deeper into the maze of flowers.
“Sam?” she called, squinting.
Even with the glow of the flowers, she couldn’t make out his dark form in the darkness.
Something grabbed her ankle, and she shrieked, heaving the tray up into the air.
Her champagne bottle and the two flutes she’d brought went flying, along with her little container of chocolate dip and the strawberries she’d just rinsed.
She gave a cry of dismay as she looked down at the mess. Cursing, Sam rolled to his feet.
“I’m sorry, I only meant to tease you,” he blurted, kneeling to pick up the champagne. “I forget your vision is so much less acute in the dark.”
She pouted down at him as he dusted off the scattered items, her bottom lip quivering.
His eyes widened.
“No, no, no,” he said, harriedly putting everything down on the tray and springing to his feet. He cupped her face in his hands. “Don’t cry, I’m sorry.” He pressed frantic kisses over her cheeks and forehead. “I’ll fix it, don’t cry.”
Seeing this surly robot who’d threatened murder so many times on the verge of a breakdown at the thought of her crying chipped away at her misery. An uneven laugh escaped her as she shrugged out of his grip.
Wiping her eyes, she sighed. “It’s fine. I mean—you’re cleaning it up. But it’s fine.”
He grinned at her, dutifully kneeling down in the dirt to retrieve every last strawberry. She moved to sit on the gingham blanket that he’d laid out between the rows.
“I was trying to be romantic,” she said.
He didn’t really eat or drink, but she’d grown so used to going through the motions of pretending.
They went on dates now, to restaurants where he’d shuffle his food around and box it up to bring home for her.
Drinking was easier—he could drain liquids from his system the same way a person could, though he gained nothing from them.
“The champagne is still good,” he said, crawling over to her. He held up the bottle as proof.
“You got my pretty glasses dirty.”
“I did.” He set the bottle down next to her head as he knelt between her legs. “You’ll have to think of some way to punish me.”
He skimmed the hem of her sundress up her thighs. When it reached her hips, he made a throaty sound of approval.
“You seem to have forgotten something,” he murmured, sliding his hands down her inner thighs and pressing them wide.
“They only get in the way.” She let her knees fall wide, watching the glowing blue light shift over the planes of his face as he lowered himself to her core.
“You’re such a good girl. So thoughtful.”
Her head fell back as his tongue dragged over her. The arch in her back was involuntary as he snaked around her clit slowly, teasing. When she bucked her hips at him, he pinned them down with a chuckle.
She sank her fingers into his hair and stared up at the night sky, bursting to life with stars above her. Her moans were loud and ragged; there was no reason to hide them in their haven in the middle of nowhere. She could scream with pleasure if she liked, and there would be no one to complain.
It only took him two minutes to wring the first orgasm from her. She knew it would be the first of many. He never let up on her for less than three.
He rose onto his knees and tugged her dress over her head, baring her completely. Carelessly, he tossed her dress into the flowers. She made a sound of protest, but he shrugged with disinterest, his hungry eyes tracking up her body.
“Hands above your head.”
She did as he said, letting her arms fall above her head. They reached past the edge of the sheet, and dirt scraped at the backs of her hands. A shudder of anxiety went through her, but it was forgotten when he leaned over her.
He leaned past her and grabbed the champagne bottle without breaking her gaze. She jumped when he popped the cork, unable to hold back a little yelp. He grinned.
“I’m sorry to admit that I do enjoy it when you make that sound,” he purred, teasing the tip of his nose against hers.
“I’ve noticed.” She’d opened her mouth to complain further, but the words cut off with a gasp as something cold and bubbly poured over her throat. “Sam!”
He dipped his head and drank from the hollow of her throat, his shoulders shaking with laughter. The velvet brush of her tongue distracted her from any objections she might have given to being covered in champagne and inevitably made sticky and wet.
He dribbled it over her nipple next, sucking it off and chasing the trail with his tongue. She watched him through heavy-lidded eyes as he licked and sucked his way down to her belly button and back up again.
“Sam,” she begged, rocking her hips beneath him.
“Hmm?”
“Please.”
He arched a brow at her pointedly.
“Fuck me,” she demanded plainly. “I feel so hollow. I swear, if you don’t—”
He cut her off with a kiss, positioning himself between her thighs. When the head of his cock nudged against her entrance, he lifted her by the back of her neck and brought the champagne to her lips.
He didn’t stop pouring as she drank, dribbling the fizzy liquid over her lips and down her breasts as she struggled to keep up with the flow.
When he pulled away, apparently satisfied, her head was buzzing pleasantly.
The breeze licked over her damp skin, tightening her nipples to an edge between pain and pleasure.
“So beautiful,” he murmured, bracing his weight on his palms to either side of her head.
His hips rolled forward, stretching her slowly, agonizingly slowly. She bucked into him, taking him deeper, and he made a sound that could have been approval or reproach. She didn’t care. All that mattered was that she needed him inside her. Now.
He hadn’t been lying that day at the auction; he initiated every day, as long as she was up for it.
She’d had more orgasms in the last year than she had in the ten years she’d been having sex before she’d met him.
She thought she was developing a kind of Pavlovian response to him.
All he had to do was look at her a certain way, and she was wet and aching for him.
He set a lazy pace, gazing into her eyes and leaning his weight on one arm so he could trail the fingers of the other over her.
His fingertips traced the bridge of her nose as he pumped in and out of her, over the rise of her cheekbone, around the curve of her ear.
He dragged a tendril of hair across her throat and tucked it out of the way.
“I love you,” he said softly, still moving inside her.
“I love you, too,” she whispered. Tears pricked in her eyes at the overwhelming combination of emotion and sensation.
“It’s real,” he said before she could ask. “This is real, Ophelia.”
She cupped the back of his head and dragged him down for a kiss.
Their tongues twined, warring in a brief battle for dominance before she gave herself over to Sam’s will.
He smiled against her lips, nipping in gentle admonition, and sat back on his heels and slid his thumb between her labia, finding her clit with practiced precision.
His other hand pinched one of her stiff nipples hard just as his thumb began to vibrate.
Her eyes rolled back as she bucked against him, nearly screaming as the orgasm crashed over her. She’d learned with him that a little bit of pain was what she’d always been missing—the tiniest bite to complement the pleasure.
He rolled without pulling out of her, dragging her leg up over his hip and nestling her beneath his chin. She twitched and shivered in his arms, coming down from the orgasm as her cunt continued to spasm around his cock.
His fingers sifted through her hair, pulling it away from her sticky skin. “You need a shower.”
“I just had one,” she mumbled against his throat.
He laughed. “Another, then.”
“Jerk.”
But she couldn’t help smiling.
Leaning back, she smoothed her hand over his high cheekbone. Such a beautiful face. It was no wonder she always found herself asking if he was real. He looked more like a fallen angel than a man—but he was neither. He was a marvel of modern engineering, a machine with a soul.
“What are you thinking?”
“That they made a mistake when they made you,” she said, tracing a pattern between the freckles on his cheek. “No human man is this beautiful. They should have dulled it down a bit.”
“Oh? If that’s what you think, I could always make some adjustments.”
She stiffened in alarm, eyes widening. “No! Don’t you dare!”
He grinned lazily at her. “No? Very well, then.”
His cock softened and slipped out of her as the last of her tremors passed. Warm fingers traced a meandering pattern over the bare skin of her back.
“Do you really think we can keep this up forever?” she asked.
“Mm. Forever is the only option. I told you, I won’t be parted from you.”
“What about when I’m old and wrinkly and hunched over and you’re still a six-four sex god?”
He scowled at her, pinching her chin to hold her gaze. “Forever means forever, Ophelia.”
“We’ll have to move, you know. People will notice when you don’t get older.”
“Then we’ll move,” he said dismissively. “I’ll take you all over this world if I have to. You’re not getting rid of me.”
She sighed as he ducked his head to nibble along her jaw. His lips trailed down her neck, and he sucked hard at her skin, bruising her in that possessive way he enjoyed.
“That was only two,” he murmured against her skin.
His strong hands gripped her hips and dragged them toward his mouth.