"Ohholyfuck," she panted. I gripped the backs of her legs, angling her body to take me deeper, deep enough that she'd remember me there for days after we parted. "Don't stop, Nick. Don't stop."
I didn't know whether she wanted me to keep talking about the babies we were going to make or keep fucking her like I hated her, and I went with a little of both.
"You're coming home with me, once and for all," I snarled. The headboard was snapping against the wall now, and I was vaguely aware of the plaster cracking. Small bits of it were breaking off and falling to the ground, tinkling as they hit the terracotta tile floor. "There's no fucking argument about it, Erin. You're mine, and you belong with me."
A damp gust blew the patio door open with a bang, but it didn't stop me. I was overheated and blind with hot, angry need. Erin was humming and murmuring as I drove into her, eyes closed and lips parted. There was a bright flush climbing up her chest and neck, and I dipped down to taste her there.
"We're fixing that ring, and your name, too," I continued. I was on a fucking roll, and I wasn't stopping until all the desires I'd locked away were out in the open. "I'm changing that last name of yours, lovely. No wife of mine walks around with a maiden name and a wedding band on the wrong finger. You just don't understand who you belong to, do you?"
"Make me understand, love," Erin whispered into my neck. Her fingers were digging into my back and sides, and her nails were scoring my skin. Those small bites of pain were the only things keeping me from blowing apart right there.
"You belong to me," I said, each word groaned into the sweet slope of her breast. Outside, the winds were screeching around our tiny casita and shaking the walls. Inside, we were creating a storm of our own. "Just tell me you're mine."
And that was when she came, all incoherent cries and sharp wails, and she brought me along with her. Wrapped in each other's arms, we shook and panted and kissed like we'd never get another moment together.
But she never said the words I wanted to hear.
* * *
I should've beenable to shake my awful mood after sex like that, but I couldn't and I let that mood take over when we snagged seats at the airport bar before Erin's flight early the next morning. The airport was nearly empty, and it was clear we were among the last to take the storm's threat seriously enough to leave.
"I meant what I said last night," I announced, interrupting her musings about the rise of catastrophic hurricanes in recent years.
"You saida lotof things last night." She grinned, offering me chance to qualify my possessive demands. But I wasn't walking any of it back, not today, not tomorrow, not any day.
"I want everyone to know," I continued. "We've been waiting for a perfect moment to appear, and we need to stop waiting."
"Oh," she said, frowning. "Okay…"
"Don't you want to tell your family?"
"Yes," she replied with all the defensiveness a single syllable could contain.
"We could send them an email," I suggested, gesturing to her phone. "You're quite proficient at that."
"Yeah, sure," she snapped. "I don't think you really want that, but go right ahead."
"If we put it off much longer, we'll never tell them," I said. "At this point, the method doesn't matter."
Erin tapped her fingertip against her lips before responding. "Why don't you tell me what does matter?"
"What the fuck are we doing?" I asked. "Why are we even here?"
She leveled a cool glare in my direction. "I didn't think I needed to remind you that I rearranged everything just to spend this time with you. I did that because I wanted to be here. Withyou. I don't know what you think I'm attempting to do, Nick, but I'm not blowing you off."
"I know, I know," I said. I was being a fucking asshole. Time to rein it in. "I want to know what to expect, and when I can see you again. That's all."
That was not all.
"I'm busy the next few months," Erin said, pulling a few strands of hair between her fingers. "I'm trying to get onto a panel during a climate summit in Geneva after the new year, and then there's a renewable energy conference in Munich in February. There are some people trying to capture the energy generated from everyday tectonic shifts—not the shifts that cause eruptions or earthquakes, but the small stuff—much like wind or solar power. It's really cool, but it sold out about ten minutes after the event went live and—"
"Are you ever coming home?" I interrupted. I wasn't doing too well at reining it in.
"What?" she asked. "What do you mean? I think we can find some weekends in—"
"No," I interrupted. This wasn't the conversation for an airport bar. This had all the makings of an at-home argument that started somewhere innocuous, like the living room, but quickly moved to the kitchen where cabinets could be opened and closed, and dish towels repeatedly folded and replaced on the countertop. From there it would move to the bedroom where the bed could serve as the physical representation of the disagreement, and sides could be taken. Also, sex was great for ending these things, and beds were mighty helpful when it came to throwing my woman down and solving some shit.
"No, I'm not talking about weekends," I said. "I need to wake up in the same place for a few months, and I need more than weekends from you."
