“Truly.” I brushed the back of my hand against his face, loving the faint rasp of the stubble against my glove, loving the sharp excesses of his features. With a finger, I traced a spiral around the dimple that drove me crazy. “We are going to have a child.”
“God, I want to get you pregnant again just for saying that.”
I giggled, which made me tighten around him, and he groaned, his smile shifting into something more feral, more determined.
“Why don’t we give it a try anyway?” he said in my ear, and within moments, we were both gasping through our first orgasms as man and wife.
I do rather think I could get used to being married.
Ten Months Later
County Clare, Ireland
“I’m not an invalid, you know,” Molly said snappishly, refusing my hand as we picked our way down the jagged path to the seashore.
I grinned up at her, loving her like this, fiery and unbound, her hair blowing free around her face, her eyes squinting ahead toward the sea. Surrounded by the rolling green above and the slate gray rocks below, she seemed so at home here, so natural. So content.
Except of course, when she didn’t want me to help her.
“It’s only been six weeks since the baby,” I said. And then she stopped walking and planted her hands on her hips, looking dangerously close to launching into one of her rages, and I grinned even more because, fuck, she was so beautiful like this. Her hair more copper than scarlet in the bright sunlight, her eyes more summer sky than deep blue sea. Her Molly-ness wrapped around her like a selkie skin.
I put my own hands on my hips, pretending to toss my hair and glare just like her, and despite herself, she smiled.
“Fine. You can help me. But I’m not happy about it.”
“I’ll make it up to you later,” I told her in that voice and she shivered.
When we got to the beach, we found a flat section of rock that was sun-warmed and more or less secluded from view and spread out our blankets. This was meant to be a picnic, but it was also a bit more—the doctor had cleared Molly for resumption of marital affection and I planned on taking my sweet time with that resumption and rewarding my brave woman for every minute of agony she’d endured to bring forth little Tamsin Charlotte into the world.
After our honeymoon, I’d surprised Molly with a trip to County Clare, where we’d purchased a cozy but comfortable house along the coast. Unfortunately, my duties with Coke Manor—which was now officially Albert’s and that I ran as his manager until he came of age—and Molly’s business kept us permanently anchored in England. But every chance we got, we made the trip to County Clare, and Molly had known the instant we’d purchased the house that she wanted to give birth here in Ireland. So we’d installed ourselves here a few months before Molly’s expected due date, the children and Bertha and now a tutor and a governess.
Her pregnancy had gone smoothly, and though I would never say that the birth had also gone smoothly, knowing how much suffering went into it, both my wife and my daughter were healthy and alive at the end, a fact I thanked God for every day.
I loved my magical little Tamsin, her deep blue eyes and bright red hair, her little face, her little chirps and sighs at night as she laid in her cradle next to our bed. I loved my strong, intelligent wife. Together, with my nieces and nephews, we mad
e the best family a person could hope for.
I was the luckiest man alive.
“Lay back,” I told Molly, and she wriggled back onto her elbows, regarding me with interest and a little trepidation.
That was okay. I was going to ease her back into things at her pace. If she wanted slow, I’d give her slow. If she wanted rough, well then, I’d be more than happy to give her rough. Honestly, after six weeks, I would be happy just to last longer than a few minutes.
But first…
I settled myself between her legs, dragging the hem of her skirt up past her knees, past the line of her stockings, and up to her waist. I sucked in a breath when I saw that she had nothing else on—no drawers—and so her cunt was on full display for me.
“Fuck,” I groaned, my cock already throbbing for her. Start slow, start slow my mind chanted. My cock had other ideas.
Ignoring it, I lowered my face and began kissing the sensitive skin of her inner thighs. I could smell her, and unable to resist, I dragged the tip of my tongue through her folds. “God, you taste so good,” I mumbled into her thigh. “Want to fuck you so bad.”
“I want you to fuck me too,” she said. “But first I want you to lick me again. Please—oh. Yes. Like that.”
I looked up at her as I swirled my tongue around her entrance and then sucked her clit into my mouth. Her eyes locked on to my own as her lips parted and she started panting fevered pleas more and faster and make me come, please make me come. And then she fell onto her back, squirming so hard that I had to clamp a forearm around her hips to hold her still.
It didn’t take long, which I suppose is what you get after six weeks of enforced celibacy. Within a few moments, her back was arching off the blanket and her cries were echoing throughout the cove and I was so hard that I couldn’t think about anything else, except maybe also my wife’s wet pussy in front of my face.
She pulled me up and over her, snaking a hand around my neck and moving my face down to hers, not so much kissing me as licking her taste from my mouth, and it took all of my self-control not to shove into her right then and there.
