Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 100561 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 503(@200wpm)___ 402(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100561 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 503(@200wpm)___ 402(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
Heat floods me when he exhales a gusting breath and whispers, “Feels so good.” His warm skin, steel-hard length, the praise given in his deep, pleasure-soaked voice… it’s everything I need in this world. It’s the intimacy and comfort and pleasure that have always tied us to each other, no matter what life and responsibilities and daylight… and my addiction to work… did to separate us. I was lucky to love him a first time; I’ll never take for granted this chance to love him again.
Emotion claws its way up my chest, and I moan around him, wanting him to feel my love and apology and desire any way I can. He’s so close, right at the edge against my lips and tongue that with an almost impatient gasp he pulls me up and over him. Sweat glistens on his chest; his hair is messy and damp at the temples from the exertion of resisting release. Between my thighs, he’s hard and urgent and wet.
“Show me,” he says through kiss-swollen lips. “Show me how we were.”
“You’re not getting the idea?” I ask, looking down at him, lightly scratching my nails over his abdomen.
“I mean,” he says, smiling up at me as he tucks a fallen strand of hair behind my ear, “I want to watch how you get off on me.”
And as I sink down onto him, I kick my thoughts back to the surface—away from the intensity of sensation, the obliterating relief of being filled with him again—so I can watch the wonder and lust and adoration play across his features.
And this, this is instinct, the way our synchrony in lovemaking comes so naturally, so immediately. But as we move together and chase the shattering relief of pleasure; as he watches where we’re joined; as his hands explore and grab and tease and please; as we whisper love and praise and begging into the diffuse light of our hotel room, I become aware of something much more profound: Our bodies have long known each other in a way that our minds haven’t, at least not until recently. They were simply holding this secret for us, keeping it safe and sacred, waiting for our minds to catch up to the depth of what we have.
Just like before, Luca seems to know I’m going to come before I do.
“Oh, fuck yes, Em. Yes. Like that.” He reaches up to press one hand against the headboard and grips my hip with the other. The feeling builds low in my belly, and I brace both of my hands on his chest, shifting where I need to until I’m moving over him in just… the right…
There…
There…
Luca sits up, tilts my mouth toward him, and at the taste of my name on his lips, the feel of his body tensing beneath me, I come apart.
“I love you,” he says into my mouth, and I am obliterated and put back together again in the familiar embrace of my husband’s arms.
* * *
In the car the next morning, I’m not sure who’s more excited about our hike: Honey, who is practically vibrating in the back seat; Luca, who has his head out the window taking everything in; or me, wanting to catalog his every reaction. I have the benefit of my memories, but Luca is seeing one of his favorite places again for the first time. I would never dream of saying that what happened to him was a good thing, but there’s something undeniably magical about it. How many people get a second chance?
Our hike starts in a quiet forest corridor. I’d been happily surprised when I checked online and saw that a bunch of the trails had been updated, and Luca barely limps as we move from raised boardwalks and paved paths to dirt trails cut into the brush by the footfalls of hundreds of people before us. The hike to the bottom of the falls is about a mile. Honey is pretty much walking us as she tugs on her leash and leads the way, sniffing everything we pass, including trees, people, and one very large bumblebee with whom she has a close encounter.
As we walk deeper, the sky is swallowed by shade, only fingertips of sunlight threading through pines and managing to reach the forest floor. Luca holds my hand the entire way. He points out wildflowers and whitebark pine. He rattles off facts about the different lichens covering a cliff wall or a tree. This one is used as an indicator of pollution levels. Don’t touch the black one, it’s poisonous. This one needs water to live, but that yellow one thrives in the heat of an exposed rock face.
“Where did you learn all this?” When I’m stable again, my feet on higher ground, our faces level, I tap his forehead. “Just hardwired in there?” Luca is one of the smartest, most knowledgeable people I know. I paid a fortune for my degrees. That Luca learned so much without sitting in a classroom will never not impress me.