‘Leave the shoes on. I’m going to do what I should have done to you the first day you wore this lingerie for me.’ He drops to his knees, parting my legs wide enough for his shoulders to slip between them. His mouth presses over the ivory silk, a hum of satisfaction vibrating through both of us. When his tongue dips beneath the material, a jolt of electricity sparks right the way to my soul.
My legs quake and tremble as his expert tongue swipes the length of me. I’m blinded by a dizzying desire for him to fill me up.
‘Archie, please.’
Watching him down there, doing that to me, is enough to get me off alone, but I need him inside me.
‘Tell me what you want and it’s yours,’ he murmurs against my clit.
‘You. You’re all I’ve ever wanted.’ Heaving him upwards, I undo his belt, freeing his glistening length.
He pushes me onto the bed, not bothering to remove his clothes or the soaked scrap of silk covering my sex. Instead, he yanks it to the side and slides himself into me, driving us both to an inevitably quick, simultaneous finish.
‘Just making up for lost time,’ he jokes, as his heart hammers against mine.
My orgasm has barely subsided, and I’m already greedy for the next one. ‘In that case, I’ll need you to do that again in about three minutes.’
‘I won’t even need two.’ His hips thrust against mine as he thickens inside me again.
‘I’m counting on it.’ The diamond glittering on my left hand reminds me we don’t only have all night to make up that lost time, but forever.
The next morning,I wake naturally in Archie’s arms, his heart thudding against mine in our own unique beat. For the first time in weeks, the night terrors didn’t come.
‘Morning, baby,’ he whispers, instinctively knowing I’m awake even though my back is pressed to his front.
‘Good morning.’ If there’s a heaven, I think I’ve found it. ‘What are we doing?’
His lips nuzzle into the sensitive skin below my earlobe. ‘Today? Or for the rest of our lives?’
‘Both,’ I smile, knowing the two are one and the same.
EPILOGUE
TWO YEARS LATER
Victoria
Chloe was right. I was offered all three placements for my postgraduate position. Obviously, I accepted the one in Oxford, at a small A&E department forty minutes from the farmhouse Archie built for us.
The bare soles of my feet pad across the marbled tiled flooring of the authentic country kitchen towards an enormous corner window. The expansive, picturesque view from our new home is like something from a glossy home-style magazine.
My heart skips a beat as my gaze roams the rural landscape. The setting sun renders it a warm shade of coral above the rustic horizon. Cattle and sheep graze in the neighbouring fields and we even have three horses in our brand-new stables.
There’s no traffic. No pollution. And what’s more, no paparazzi.
I never take the peace or freedom for granted. It’s all I’ve ever wanted, and I’ll never tire of it.
Our new house is nothing like the castle I was raised in, but it is complete with an indoor swimming pool and jacuzzi. Archie still loves getting wet with me, but the lake’s too cold for skinny-dipping this time of year.
Mind you, there’s nothing skinny about me at the minute.
My swollen stomach stretches the cream woollen dress that clings to my skin as I stir a pan of sumptuous-smelling gravy. While heat radiates from the Aga, the life growing within me warms my insides.
Lily-May bends over a huge cherry wood table working on her homework. She’s thrived over the past two years, slipping into a life with us more effortlessly than we could have hoped. She even says she wants to be a doctor when she grows up.
Her nostrils flare as the scent of rosemary wafts through the air. A leg of lamb roasts in the oven alongside some of our homegrown potatoes and carrots.
Tonight we’re celebrating the end of my postgraduate placement and the official start of my maternity leave. Andie and Roger are on their way over for dinner. Chloe and Jayden are currently somewhere over the Atlantic on a private jet, and Sasha and Ryan’s helicopter should be landing on our purpose-built helipad any minute now.
