Epilogue

EPILOGUE

Mila

Five years later

Ibury my toes in the sand and stare out at the Irish Sea. The water is wild and untamed, wind whipping off the surface to throw my hair into chaos. My hand rests on my newly swollen belly and nearby, my daughter and son build a castle with buckets and spades, giggling and telling secrets. I close my eyes and breathe in the salt air through my nose, my mouth curling into a smile when I feel a gentle kick against my palm.

Joseph approaches me from behind and I don’t need to turn to confirm that. I always know when he’s coming, because my skin flushes and my heart accelerates. There’s a click inside me, our souls locking back together after a short absence while he’s been at work and peace settles over me like a silk net.

My husband’s arms slide around my waist and he groans into my neck. “Mila. Goddamn, you look beautiful standing here.” He plants slow, lingering kisses along my shoulder. “Being away from you drives me crazy, baby girl. By the end of the day, I’m in pain. I can’t stand it.”

“Me either,” I admit, leaning back into his strength, absorbing it greedily. “But we were safe here. I…think this might be it, Joseph.”

His mouth pauses in its journey up the side of my neck. “Really?”

I press my lips together and stare out at the horizon. Across this expanse of blue are a dozen places me and Joseph have traveled over the last five years, building our family as we went. California, Belize, Australia. He always takes me somewhere with an ocean. Every time, I fall in love with a new body of water, but none except the Irish Sea have made me want to stay. To never leave.

We left Mississippi with nothing but the clothes on our backs five years ago, but Joseph had enough money hidden away to keep us living comfortably for a lifetime. My husband is not the type to rest on his laurels, however, and has made good money working as a builder at each of our stops.

He specializes in churches.

Every evening, Joseph returns to me covered in dust and starved for my body. Almost feral in his need, he finds somewhere we can be alone and he licks between my thighs, moaning and fisting his manhood until I’m damp enough to be taken. And then he does. Until I’m limp.

Our first stop after leaving Mississippi was California and there we met a former Vegas go-go dancer named Marilyn—a woman in her late sixties with a knowing smile and a tender heart who lived in the house next door. When I found out I was pregnant, she became my surrogate mother, guiding me on what to do to have a healthy pregnancy and what to do when the time came to give birth. I don’t know what I would have done without her. And when our daughter came along, Marilyn fell for her, the same way me and Joseph did. Marilyn is our nanny now and we’ve brought her all over the world with us.

Lord knows we need her around. My husband’s appetite for me has not cooled in the last five years, but grown increasingly stronger, along with mine. Sometimes I wonder if we’ll both combust due to the power of our lust. Most nights, we retreat to the beach and rut like animals in the moonlight, my knees digging into wet sand as Joseph slams into me from behind, his hoarse voice in my ear.

Did my little girl miss me?

Or those other, dirtier nights.

You’ve tempted me for the last time, brat.

My skin tingles with awareness and my husband’s hand slips to my breast, lightly pinching my distended nipple between his knuckles. I move my backside in his lap, slowly writhing against the thickness of his erection. Joseph owns me. Heart, body and soul. And for the first time, I’ve found a place on this earth that speaks to those same parts of me, caressing them with intuition.

We’ve finally found a place that’s worthy of our love.

“Yes, this is it, Joseph,” I say. “I want us to stay here forever.”

He nods into my neck. “Then I will build you and our children a house right here on the water.” His tone is fierce. “This is where I’ll love you until the end of time, Mila.”

Tears sting my eyelids. “I love you, Joseph.”

“I love you, too.” He presses his mouth to my ear, his voice in a rasp. “I’m obsessed with you. I lust for you. I take every fucking breath for you.” His hand grows more insistent on my breast. “Now call for the nanny.”

Moisture gathers between my thighs and I’m vibrating head to toe, but I manage to turn and gesture weakly to Marilyn where she stands on the porch of our rental cottage. She knows that gesture. It’s a nightly occurrence.

Without letting a moment pass, she calls to my children, promising them cookies. No sooner have they run squealing toward the house than Joseph spins me around, yanking down the bodice of my dress to free my breasts.

“Ah Jesus, little girl,” he growls, pulling me up against him and dipping his head to suck my nipples one by one into his mouth. “I’ll never get enough. It’s never enough. What you do to me. I think of nothing else. Just Mila. My Mila.”

I reach under my dress and tug down my panties, goose bumps flying up my skin at Joseph’s starved expression, the way he groans when my panties hit the sand, that huge part of him bulging behind his fly. Wide eyed, I bite my lip and hitch my legs up around his waist. “Is it playtime, Daddy?”

Joseph fumbles with his zipper and finds my entrance with his erection, bouncing me five, six, seven times until I’m fully impaled and we’re both moaning. “It’s always playtime when we’re alone, little girl.”

And with the sea roaring behind us, we play fiercely, we love obsessively.

We begin our forever.

THE END