He gazes at me when he says this, and the rapture is unmistakable. I can almost swoon, as no doubt many women around the world are swooning now. Imagine, the most handsome and eligible bachelor in the world . . . openly declaring his love for me on live television.
Somewhere along the line, I must have done something good. Maybe I saved people in a past life. Maybe I healed old folks and performed many good deeds. How else would I be blessed with a man like Alex now? It’s almost too good to be true.
“So you are officially engaged?” Yvette’s voice is a little husky, as though the emotion has gotten to her.
Alex replies, “Not yet. But that video you saw – ”
“Which appeared on TMZ and tabloids the world over.”
“Yes. It was taken six months ago, right before my father passed away. You can even see the date on the recording. We had to wait for six months to announce our engagement to the world because it wouldn’t be appropriate in our mourning period. Liz has been very patient with me.”
Alex grabs my hand – my cold, clammy, fish-like hand – which rapidly warms to his touch. We smile at each other, and there is nothing fake about it.
*
That night, we embrace each other with a hunger I can’t remember having for a long time. It isn’t merely lust or desire. We lust after each other all the time.
But tonight, everything that we do is layered with unquenchable love. I’m speaking about the deep, deep love of a man and woman who have known each other for a while, peered into each other’s imperfections, and decide that they love each other more than ever – in spite of everything.
Alex enters me in missionary position. I hiss softly as his c**k thrusts into my wet, wet core.
“I want to look into your eyes as I f**k you,” he whispers.
His own eyes are dark with desire. Our gazes hold each other’s as he acclimatizes his penis into my tunnel’s girth. It’s amazing how perfectly we fit each other, as though I am the mold and he is the piece that has been torn from me at creation.
He moves within me. His eyes are green and gold and brown and stardust and flecked with every emotion known to mankind. I part my lips.
“Kiss me,” I say.
His mouth lowers to mine. His lips lock against mine in a kiss that goes on and on – until we both let our tongues flow onto each other’s in a searing tangle of flesh. He sucks at my tongue, sucks it as though it is a nipple. At the same time, his hips grind against and into mine. His c**k churns and oscillates within me, caressing all the right spots, pushing all my erotic triggers. Little flashes of color explode inside my skull.
I moan and writhe, letting the pleasure wash over me. His mouth refuses to leave mine. We are joined at both orifices – long and wet and prolonged. When he isn’t licking my tongue and mouth, he is murmuring, “I love you, I love you” over and over, as though he can’t assure me enough.
I have never loved anyone so truly and deeply before. My love for him is bone deep, soul deep. It permeates my every cell, right down to the atoms. I love him with every fiber of will in me – my conscious and subconscious. I have never wanted to melt into anyone as much as I want to melt into him right now.
If only we can be together like this forever.
If only.
He drives and drives into me . . . seeming to go on and on. The minutes stretch, and I don’t know how long he has tarried, but with this slow stoking of my intimate senses, it seems infinite. Even my orgasm is slow to build. Pleasure brims just beneath its threshold like little peaks of froth below a glass ceiling.
He is in no hurry and neither am I.
“Turn over,” he says.
He withdraws his wet c**k from me – dripping with pr**cum – as I eagerly flip upon my belly. I raise my bu**ocks as he impales me easily once again from behind. It’s a slippery insertion that needs no effort because I’m so ready for him.
He begins his thrusting again. In, out, in out – a sensuous, joyous rhythm older than time. My hair falls over my face. He lovingly lifts it.
He leans over and puts his lips against the back of my neck. He grazes his teeth gently upon my skin. His rocking amps up a notch. He’s upping the rhythm and the force of his thrusts.
“Come for me, baby,” he whispers.
I am already so overwrought and ready. He cores against my G-spot (oh, he knows my body and its secret passages so well), groaning, and I have no choice but to surrender. My muscles are already weak from the prolonged pleasure. I let them embrace their much awaited spasms, and I flow over the edge myself. Tripping, spiraling out of control. Falling into the vortex of ecstasy and physical heaven, with clouded walls wrapped with so much pulsing red love.
Even in my climax, his love envelops me in an all-consuming hug.
“Oh, Alex, Alex, Alex.” I can’t stop saying his name.
His se**n geysers into me.
“I love you,” he says against my skin. “I want to have babies with you.”
As we lie beside each other, spent and awash in sweat, I thank my lucky stars once again for allowing me to love and be loved by this splendid, wonderful man.
We are happy.
Almost too happy.
*
I counted my blessings too soon.
The interview played like a dream in every news channel in the world. It went viral on YouTube, just as Madame Fournier predicted. Moldavia is suddenly on the world map. Tour bookings shoot to the roof. Hotels are overbooked.
Things have never been better.
Exactly two weeks after our announcement to the press, the Archbishop of Moldavia – the very one who conducted the old King’s funeral service – declared on front page headlines:
“I WILL NOT SANCTION KING ALEXANDER’S MARRIAGE.”
8
“He will not sanction our marriage? What does it mean?” I say anxiously.
I expect Alex to laugh it off. To say, “Oh, it means nothing. Just an old man having his usual indigestion.”
But he doesn’t.
His brow is furrowed. He hesitates for a while, and then he says slowly, “There is an old Moldavian law that harkens back to the sixteenth century.”
I have been reading up on Moldavian history but I am in no way as adept in it as Alex.
I say, “Back to King Philip II?”
“Yes. The Philanderer King. He wanted to cast aside his first wife, Celeste, to marry the daughter of a count. But Celeste was a princess of Spain, and the Spanish King was furious that his daughter was to be treated such.”
My heart sinks. I believe I know where this story is heading.
Alex’s features are pained. “Because Spain was rooted in the Inquisition and such, they wielded great power over the Moldavian church. The Archbishop was swayed to the Spanish cause. If King Phillip had cast Celeste aside, Spain would have gone to war with Moldavia, and there would have been no Moldavia.