I pound into her with a desperation that borders on madness, her nails digging into my back as she meets every thrust with a desperate moan. Her tits bounce with every movement, and I lean down, biting and sucking at her nipples as I drive deeper into her, her cries growing louder with every stroke.
“Come for me, Alessia,” I demand, and she does, her body shuddering as she clamps down on my cock, her pussy milking me like she’s trying to fucking drain me dry.
I can’t hold back anymore. My orgasm tears through me as I bury myself deep inside her, pumping her full of everything I’ve got.
We collapse together, her slick, trembling body pressed against mine, and I kiss her softly, my lips lingering on hers.
“You’re mine,” I whisper.
“Si.” Her eyes are heavy with satisfaction. “And you’re mine.”
“Yes, I am. Forever,dolcezza.”
This promise is so much more profound than those we made when we got married because we’re not who we used to be. We’re better people now, more accomplished at marriage and love.
We lie together, kissing softly, closemouthed, tenderly. We talk about random things that are inconsequential, and then, because we’re enamored, we make love again.
I join her silky wet heat, moving languorously, now thatthe heat of the first joining has passed. We explore and discover until we can’t wait anymore, and our movements become jerky, desperate as we chase our release.
After we have rested and caught our breath, she touches my cheek, her eyes filled with love. “I think I’m addicted to you,” she tells me with a contented smile.
“I know I am,” I confirm.
We fall asleep like that, close, comforted.
In the morning, we stay in our cabin instead of heading to the luxurious dining room. We breakfast on steaming croissants. She eats her pastry in a spiral, layers unfurling until the last perfect bite.
I don’t know what makes me say it. Maybe the way she looks at me just then, chin dusted with sugar, sweet as a child, or maybe the rattle of my own mortality, the fear that this will, inevitably, end—like all good things, like all things I can’t bear to lose.
“I want to start again.”
Alessia sets down her coffee. “Start what, precisely?”
“Us, at home. The life we left on pause.” I surprise myself. I’d imagined we’d take up where we left off, but I know now that there is no wholesale reinvention. I want more than what we had before.
She wipes her lip, considering. “What are you offering this time?”
She’s not playing. I already know I’ll never win with her by force or charm alone, because my wife respects bravery.
“I offer honesty,” I vow. “And a willingness to be the one who forgives first. To build something from more than just the leftovers.”
Her face softens. “Are you saying this because we’re on a fantasy train, or because you mean it?”
“I mean it on a fantasy train as well as in muddy vines,” I profess. “I don’t want to run the same laps around the past.”
She leans across the table and kisses me, slow and deliberate.
“Okay.”
And that’s how simple it is to find our way back—all I had to do was be honest with her.
Simple, yes, but not easy, because honesty and vulnerability have never been how I operate. But with Alessia, I’d give her anything and everything. My soul. My heart. And, most of all, my truth.
We spend an hour in the observation car, watching the land change.
At lunch, we share a bottle of cold white wine and watch the etiquette of strangers—an elderly couple playing cards, a boy with a hedgehog stuffed animal propped on his plate. The rhythm of train travel, I realize, is not dissimilar to marriage: a shared forward momentum, the rough patches smoothed by repetition, the pleasure of discovery hidden in the ordinary.
By the time we roll into Gare de Lyon, my phone is thick with unread emails. Alessia’s, too. We ignore them.
