We drag off the rest of our clothing, and then we stop laughing, because as soon as our bare skin connects I am just sensation and heat.
My scalp tingles as we stare deeply into each other’s eyes. And then he sinks into me, and I’m wrapped up in love, wrapped up in hope, wrapped up in Ash.
It’s the way I want to live for the rest of my life.
Part Four
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
‘I can’t sleep,’ Ash whispers into the darkness.
I’ve been lying on my side, my face turned towards the sky, staring through the huge skylight at the full moon, but now I look towards Ash and see his eyes glinting back at me.
‘Are you excited?’ I ask, and his teeth catch the moonlight as he smiles and nods. ‘Me too,’ I tell him.
He lifts his head from the pillow and leans across to press a kiss to my lips, slipping his hand inside my pyjama top to rest on the soft curve of my belly as he does so.
‘Don’t wake them,’ I chide, teasing.
‘I still haven’t felt them kicking,’ he replies wistfully.
‘You will,’ I promise.
Every time our babies remind me of their presence, he seems to be somewhere else.
I touch my hand to his clean-shaven jaw. He looks like Ashton Berkeley these days, but he still sounds like Ash 3.0. Sometimes his Welsh accent rings through more strongly than his English – and I love it when that happens.
Ash has been busy this year, trying to get this place ready for our arrival. Celyn and Catrin relocated to cottage number one last autumn, soon after their baby, Rhys, was born. They missed the social aspect of living amongst the other workers,so Ash took over the ranger’s cabin again and set about renovating it, keen to bring it in line with the stylish interior of his tiny dark-skies cabin near Knighton.
At first there wasn’t any rush to do the work and he enjoyed spending his days up here toiling away while I did the same in the gardens at Berkeley Hall – we’d both return to off-grid living in the evenings. But when, back in January, we found out I was pregnant, we realised our long motorcycle journeys had a limited lifespan.
As of two nights ago, this cabin became our primary home, but we plan to escape to our tiny cabin at weekends and Ash will build an extension there too in a year or so. We want our children to grow up connected to nature, and I dream of them dipping their feet in the river, running through the grass in the rain and watching the starlings take flight in the autumn. I couldn’t imagine a happier childhood for our little ones.
I didn’t fall pregnant that first week in Ash’s cabin. Our not-quite accident happened two and a half months later; we’d been playing a game of chicken with each other for weeks. We actually got quite competitive, seeing how far we could go before one of us called time – on a few too many occasions neither of us did – but then we did once admit to each other over a game of pool in Lisbon that we were competitive when it came to playing games.
I know that I will always look back on those early days in the woods with fondness – the books we read, the stars we watched, the games of cards we each won and lost.
Ash persuaded me to go wild swimming in the river withhim before the weather got too cold, and for weeks we walked out to the edge of the forest to watch the starling murmurations in the sky.
We kept each other warm when winter came, and made the most of his telescope to study the planets on the long clear nights.
When we found out I was pregnant, we both cried tears of joy. To discover at our twelve-week scan that we were expecting twins took a little more getting used to, but now we couldn’t be happier or more excited to meet our children.
‘Is it even worth trying to get back to sleep?’ I ask.
‘Probably not. We can sleep later, after we’ve consummated our nuptials,’ he replies playfully.
‘Twice in one day?’ I ask innocently, dipping my fingertips beneath the waistband of his boxers.
‘Oh yeah?’ he asks in a low voice, catching my hand as he turns towards me.
‘Got to kill the time somehow.’
He draws me as close as my bump will allow, catching my mouth in the sweetest of kisses.
His hand is on my waist when it happens.
Ash and I both gasp, but his is louder as he moves his hand to my belly to feel our son or daughter slowly change position.
