“I…I wanted to protect you,” I whisper.“I didn’t know you heard me.”
“I did,” he says.Then, something like agony in his eyes.“And I heard the other thing you said.That if Alessandro killed me, you’d kill yourself.”
I don’t say anything.I feel no need to defend myself.I simply nod.
But that doesn’t appease him.His grip hardens at my jaw.
“Don’t ever make a threat like that again,” he says.“Don’t even fucking think it.My life will never be worth yours, Aurora.”He lowers his face, his words a breathy touch against my mouth.“I refuse to walk, crawl, or worm my way through any world that doesn’t have you in it.Do you hear me?I will not fucking do it.Don’t ever ask it of me.”
“I hear you.”
I understand.That’s precisely why I made that threat in the first place.
Because I didn’t understand how I could possibly live without him.
“I don’t want the divorce,” I say abruptly, only then realizing we’ve never discussed it.“I don’t want to leave you.I-”
Curse silences me with a bruising kiss.It tells me everything his voice can’t.
That he will never let me go.
His hands clamp on my waist, clutching tight.I gasp into his mouth, need racing through my bloodstream.He’s already panting, his breath ripping out of him, when he spins me by the hips so that my back is to him.By the time I’ve caught myself, leaning forward and steadying myself by placing my palms on the boulder, Curse has ripped down my leggings and panties.I whimper in time with his groan, when I feel him, already hot and hard against me.
“You’re not getting the fucking divorce,” he growls, one hand gripping my ass, the other dragging its fingers through my folds until he finds my clit, rubbing hard.“You’re not getting anything but me.For the rest of your goddamn life.”
I cry out, pleasure shaking me, like my bones are the rafters of a building in an earthquake.
But the earthquake is Curse, pressing his hard cock inside me, a glorious burn.
He grunts and thrusts hard, working himself deeper, further, forcing my torso and hipbones against the unyielding surface of the boulder.His body against and inside mine is just as unforgiving.Just as relentless, just as eternal as the rock.He fucks me fast now, and we both need it, both moan, both shudder with desperation, rocked by each other, by the past, by this moment that’s more perfect than either of us could deserve.This moment that’s more real than anything else has ever been in my life.
When climax comes, it comes for us both, a breaking wave.I clench on him, all around him, feel him explode, feel him behind me, in me, feel him loving me the best way that he knows how.
Ahead of us, the ocean moves to meet the sand.
Just as it always did before.
Epilogue
Aurora told me that she used to fantasize about marrying me on a beach.So that summer, we do.Of course, we’re already legally married.We have been for months.
But this is the wedding she wanted.This is the wedding she deserves.
It’s not on a beach in Taormina, but a beach in Toronto.And the dress Aurora wears – a simple silk sheath of white – is different than the one she described imagining as a child.The cake is vanilla, not lemon.
But when, with a bouquet of frangipani blooms in her hands and tears in her eyes, she tells me that it’s perfect, I believe her.
Part of that perfection came from Valentina, who planned most of this, and now beams from her place nearby on the sand.Darragh is with her, the sun glazing his coppery hair as he stands in a dark suit, his arm around Valentina’s waist.There’s some space between them and the next couple – Deirdre and Elio, the only other attendees – because there’s still the old scar of animosity between Elio and Darragh.But they’re playing nice for their wives, who both look so happy to be here.
And for Aurora.Who looks happiest of all.
To think that she could smile like that while marrying me still doesn’t quite make sense in my brain.There was a time when I used the threat of a wedding to make her hate me.A time when we both thought what was best was for her to be free of me.
But she says that she is free now that she is with me.At night, when I fuck her so hard it almost hurts us both when we come.In the morning, when we exist together in the silence.On random afternoons, when she kisses me just for the hell of it.“I love you,” she says.Over and over again.“And I’m free.”
There’s no minister today.We don’t need it.
But I do have rings this time.
