I bring my hands on either side of my wife’s face and press a kiss to her forehead. She mewls from the warmth and brings her arms around my torso, nesting herself into me.
“Don’t worry about it,” I tell her. “Already talked with him.”
She leans back and narrows her eyes at me, not buying it, then yawns. I know the questions will come later when she’s more rested, but right now she’s too exhausted from organizing yet another fundraising event. Supporting the families whose men lost their lives in the Sylvestrian war has been her main priority since the state dinner three months ago. I don’t tell her to do any of this, but I know how much she cares about her work… about doing good in the world. I won’t be the one to stop her.
Whatever my wife wants, she gets, and that’s how things will always be.
But I will always keep secrets from her if I have to, and this hasn’t changed at all. Not because she’s not strong enough to handle them, but because she shouldn’t need to handle anything as long as I’m still breathing. Even in death, I’ve ensured she’s well taken care of. All that’s left to do is for us to get there—slowly, while we spend our days pouring life into each other until there’s no more left to give.
People confuse her kindness for weakness, but out of the two of us, she’s much stronger than I’ll ever be. In the midst of the chaos, she brought herself back together, stitched her own wounds, then put herself back in danger to save my life. All the while she was threatened with death not once, but every single day until I got that fucking cure in my hands. She’s a force, my wife, and I couldn’t be prouder she’s here by my side.
“So? What have you decided about the honeymoon? Japan?”
She shakes her head. “Nothing yet. I just want to do two more events before the year is over and then…” She blinks, taking a slow breath in. “To be honest, I wish I had time to do more for the veterans’ wives. I can’t even imagine…”
“Slow. Down,” I drawl, my hands now resting on her bare thighs. I was hard from the second I saw her walk into the living room in nothing but my white shirt—just like she did that morning after we first slept together. “You are doing more than anyone could’ve asked of you. Okay?”
“It’s not…” She sighs. “It’s not that easy. The press…”
I scowl, a gentle warning in my gaze. “I thought I told you not to read the papers.”
“I know. And I wish I’d listened.” She drops her hands from around my torso and looks to the side. “All they talk about is how I arrange the fucking cutlery or how I dress at these events. They don’t care about how much we raise, and they do nothing to help us promote the events so we can raise more. It’s frustrating.”
“They’ll never care. We have a few outlets that do, but the rest… That’s why I asked you not to read them. I’ve been in this game for so long, and they still get to me sometimes. I don’t want you to feel scrutinized.”
“I know. Yeah.” She nods. “But the honeymoon? I think maybe we should wait a bit more. You know, just until we make sure we’ve—” Her words come to a stop, and she huffs a laugh. “It will never be enough though, will it?”
No, it won’t. But that’s okay.
After our wedding got crashed three months ago, we organized it again, and she became my wife in front of the whole world. But I still can’t convince her to take a break so I can take us on our honeymoon. I get that. I never feel like my work is done. But if there’s one thing this year taught me… it’s that I’m never goingto feel like I’ve done enough. So I might as well do the best I can and force myself—and her—to slow down when we can.
I trail my hands upward until I reach the crease of her thighs, surprised to see that she isn’t wearing her panties. Surprised, and fucking hard as a rock. My wife likes to play now. Now that she knows me, really knows me, and trusts me with her pleasure and pain. She’s become more courageous too, in her own little ways in asking for my affection. This is one of those instances, and I intend to reward her generously for it.
“You bring me your soft pussy on a silver platter and ask me to postpone my honeymoon with you,” I say, feeling the wetness from her cunt with my fingertips, “thinking you could sway me?” I cock my head. “It’s the other way around, angel. Because right now, my answer is no. We’renotpostponing an entire month of fucking on tatami mats just so we can work more.”
She laughs. “Isthatwhere we’re going to fuck? On tatami mats? I thought those were for fighting and drinking tea.”
I unbutton my pants and take my cock out, pushing it against her clit. She gasps softly.
“I’ll fuck you everywhere and anywhere,” I tell her. “Until every corner of this world knows you’re mine.”
I wrap my hands around her thighs again, this time to angle her upper body against the window and her cunt toward me.
“Use your hands. Open your pussy for me.”
She does so without hesitation, and my eyes are now glued to the small, creamy slit and her engorged clit that’s visibly pulsing for me. I push my cock in slowly, savoring the sight and the feel of her around me. Her eyes flutter closed as she holds her pussy in offering and loses herself in the way our bodies move together.
“I’ll never…” She gasps, her brows drawing together as I ram myself inside her, all the way to the hilt and hiss. “I’ll never understand what you do to me. You…”
I rest my forehead against hers and start fucking her with hard, hungry strokes. Her tight cunt takes everything, which only makes me want to give her more. She whimpers and brings her hands around my arms, holding on and milking my cock like the good girl she is.
“I know, angel. I fucking know.”
Epilogue Two
Rowan
Five years later
