He tugged a lock of hair gently. “What do you mean ‘so far’?”
She rubbed herself over him, every cell bursting with the delicious soreness of satiation. “I feel I might get pregnant again after what you just did to me.”
He guffawed, turned her to her back, luxuriated in feeling his unborn son under his hands. “And you might well be. Our lovemaking did feel…supernatural this time. I’m amazed how much pleasure I can endure. But I don’t think this was a one-off, because of the urgency of almost losing each other. I think this is going to be the norm from now on. It’s the…certainty.”
She hummed in agreement. Yes. Certainty. It was indeed a super power. A magical one.
Suddenly he rose above her. Her heart gave that clutched pause it always did whenever she realized again how much she loved him, just how beautiful he was. Which was so often her heart was developing a new rhythm.
“I shouldn’t ask, but I don’t ever again want to have anything on my mind that I don’t resolve with you. You mentioned that you thought you’d never love again. Does that mean you…didn’t?”
“Are you going to be very disappointed or hurt if I…did?”
“I won’t lie. It will hurt like hell. But it wouldn’t change a thing. In any way. And I didn’t deserve your fidelity. It would even be fitting punishment for all the pain I put you through if you…did when I…didn’t.”
“Oh, you’re more deserving than you think. Eight years of pining that would’ve become a lifetime of such. But then, one time with you is worth a lifetime…” She stopped, gaped at him. “Are—are you telling me you…abstained?”
He shrugged. “Why so surprised? You did.”
“I didn’t know men could do that,” she blurted out.
“Do you know just how sexist you sound?” He nipped her nipple. Wonderful chastisement. “And I’m not ‘men.’ I’m me. I had sex until I found you, then I had passion. I couldn’t go back to sex and I knew I’d never find passion again. As I don’t have any say in being Castaldinian, no matter what, I’m a one-woman man.”
She collapsed under the enormity of his revelations. “Leandro, oh, God…you mean you didn’t even try…”
“Try how? Besides the handicaps I told you about, those accompanying the one-woman-man syndrome, I’d sustained a crippling injury, remember? That tiny matter of a smashed heart?”
Tears flowed again. “I was the one you fell for all the way.”
“Did you even have a doubt?”
“Oh, I had nothing but. Oh, God, Leandro…it’s so hard to imagine…you’re such a sexual being…”
“Look who’s talking.”
“Oh, God, don’t look. Not now. I think my eyes are dissolving.” She hiccupped. “Oh, Leandro, all that time? No sex?”
“You talk as if I’m some sort of sex maniac. Okay, so I am. But it’s only with you. Aren’t you the same with me?”
“It’s just you’re so…incredible at it…”
“And you thought I had plenty of practice? You still don’t realize I’m just a superior talent?” She charged him in a ferocious kiss. He took it all, let her have her fill before he drawled, “All it takes to be a great lover is to love you so much that giving you pleasure is the only way I can find pleasure myself. And then, you were a virgin, and as soon as you dropped your inhibitions with me, you became a lover I hadn’t known could exist. All it takes to find perfection is to give it your all. As I give you. As you give me.”
She tackled him on his back, rained tears of love and gratitude all over him.
He wiped them away, teased, “But I had sexual relief, if this is what you’re wondering. You do know the concept of self-help in this area, don’t you?” She poked him, collapsed on his chest in another fit of weeping giggles. “I became quite the guru. And I have to thank you for my expertise in the field. The memory of you—and your photos—were quite the inspiration.”
She rained kisses and bites all over him, igniting again at imagining him pleasuring himself to her image. She just had to watch him do that. A lot. “Any time. And then you know how eager I always am to give you…a helping hand. Or tongue. Or body. Or whole life, you unbelievable man, you.” She came up on her elbows. “Say, can we stay on Castaldini longer than you did before? Or at least return more frequently?”
“We’ll do anything that ever crosses your mind. Though I don’t have to stay on Castaldini to be regent, I will so you can be with your sister as often as you please.” Then he muttered, “Maybe the wretch will stop wanting to carve me open and eat my heart.”
“Oh, my love, it’s all a misunderstanding. She thought you were hurting me. She turns vicious at times like that.”
“Si, I got that impression. That woman could wrestle an alligator with just a stare. But since that ferocity is on your behalf, she’s my new best friend. We’ll form a league, with Ernesto and Paolo, call ourselves Phoebe’s Fabulous Fearsome Four.”
“Mmm, I’ll supply the superhero names and costumes.” She chuckled, wriggled deeper into his embrace. “But really, Leandro, Julia outgrew her need for my nearness long ago, and though I’ll always want to see her and the kids as much as possible, that isn’t why I wish we could go to Castaldini more often. I want to spend the rest of my pregnancy in your home, have our baby there. I want his first breath to be of the sea air, want him to bond with the magic of the land from his first moment.”
Leandro’s arms convulsed around her. “So bursting with pride and emotion isn’t such a far-fetched notion, after all. Whatever you wish for, amore, always consider it done. And it’s our home.”
Her sigh had to be what bliss sounded like. “Our home. So, how about going back there at once? I have countless fantasies that are unfulfilled yet, each and every one in your…our paradise.”
Leandro jumped up at her demand, streaked to fulfill her wish. He arranged a journey home in record time and bounded back to fill her waiting arms.
“In eight hours we’ll be there,” he said against her lips, luxuriating in her, in everything they were together. Then he groaned, “This is too long. I will have to get that teleportation enterprise underway.”