He fucks like he does everything else—intentionally, flawlessly. He also fucks the way I’ve always wanted, deep and long, hard and slow at first. His tattooed arm wraps around my middle, pulling me up until my back is flush with his chest. I brace myself with one hand on his thick thigh, the one that made me come the first time, while the other finds his hair.
“Why do you call me goldie?” Maybe it’s the wrong time to ask, but it feels like we’re running out of it, and I need to know.
“Your eyes,” he says into my skin, thrusting into me in a rhythm that’s our own.
“And the other one?” I pant, trying to memorize the way he feels inside me. “What does it mean?” The question I’ve been wanting to ask since day one finally makes itself known.
“What, baby?” He moans as his hand finds my breast. I love that sound. I love that just touching my body makes him do that.
“Tesouro,” I clarify.
“Tesouro,” he repeats. “Você é o meu tesouro. A coisa—não, a pessoa—mais preciosa, mais linda na minhavida.” He peppers my neck with kisses, bringing his other hand to my hip and squeezing.
“Arthur, please,” I beg, needing to know what those words mean. Needing to hear him say them again, even if I never understand them.
“It means treasure.” He takes my hand in his, moving them both until they’re at my core, feeling the place we’re most intimately connected. “You’re my treasure. The most precious, most beautiful thing—no, person—in my life.” With the admission on his lips and his finger on my clit, I come around him, squeezing and pulsing until nothing else exists but this.
Us.
As his arms tighten around me, he whispers my name into my neck, finding his own release.
I hope I never forget how it feels to be held by him, to be loved by him. Because even if he’s never said he loves me, he makes me feel loved and cherished, and that’s a priceless gift I’ll never take for granted.
As we catch our breaths, his hold on me never loosens, as if he’s scared to let me go. I’m scared, too. Scared he’ll let me leave when the time comes, even though I know if he asked me to stay, I’m not sure I could deny him. I’m not sure I want to anymore.
Finally, we pry our bodies apart, and Arthur picks me up, carrying me out to the hallway and into the bathroom. “I told you, you don’t have to ca?—”
He silences me with a kiss before setting me on the vanity. “And I told you I’ll carry you anywhere. I’d carry you everywhere. Then you’d never be far away from me.”
He cleans us both up as he’s done before, then moves away from me to turn on the water in the tub, checking the temperature and then pouring in salts I didn’t realize hehad stashed away. In seconds, the whole room smells like lavender.
He struts back to where I’m sitting, stunned, watching as his muscles move and his hair falls over his forehead, entranced by the magic and beauty that is Arthur Machado.
He reaches behind me then begins to pull my hair delicately to the top of my head, gathering the strands and tying the scrunchie I left on the countertop around it until it’s in a messy knot. I watch his face tense in concentration, brows furrowed and his tongue sticking out between his lips.
My gosh, I want to kiss him. Hug him. Hold on to him and never let him go. I want to be with him every moment until forever.
Before my feelings get away from me, his face softens, and he chuckles at his own handiwork. And then he picks me up again, making me giggle.
“You know what’s better than the sound of your laugh?” he asks, my favorite smile tugging at his stubbled cheeks. I shake my head as he lowers me into the tub first, then climbs in himself, pulling me back until I’m resting against his chest with his legs on either side of me. “Nothing,” he whispers into my hair.
We sit like that, all gentle touches and stolen kisses wherever we can reach—arms and hands for me, head, neck and shoulders for him.
The first night we met, when Arthur held me like this on the bathroom floor, I never could have imagined we’d end up here.
Now I can’t imagine being anywhere else.
THIRTY-THREE
when everything goes black, that’s all there is
Alice
It feels like Arthur has been trying to tell me something since I dumped all my childhood trauma on him the other day, but I either haven’t had the energy for whatever that conversation will bring, or I’ve been with Gran. Her health’s taken a major nosedive, and while Arthur has offered to come keep me company or help me, there’s not much he can do. There’s barely anythingIcan do, other than be there, so I’ve spared him the unnecessary additional stress.
Between the challenges at work with preparing for the horses starting to arrive soon and his final testing coming up, we’ve been preoccupied. In the evenings, we pretty much fall into bed, seeking comfort in one another’s warmth. The elephant in the room remains, being ignored. Every time I kiss him feels like it could be the last, and I think he knows.
As I step into the quiet farmhouse, absolutely exhausted, I’m reminded of those first few days here, whenI felt so out of place, when I thought I’d live here for a few days and then find somewhere else to live close by. I never could have seen this coming.
