Dark Love (The Two Sides of Me Book 3) (40 page)

“Are you ready to swim some laps?” his sexy morning voice has me ready for something all right and it isn’t swimming laps but it only takes a minute for the nausea to squelch my ember of lust. My God, how long will this stage last? I feel like I’ve had the flu for weeks.

“Not exactly.”

“Nausea?”

“Yea.”

“I will go make you some tea.” He untangles himself from behind me and I instantly miss the comfort and warmth of his body when he’s gone. Today is going to suck, I wanted so much to do right by Cecelia but saying goodbye is never easy and I’m still worried about Evan’s state of mind. I stretch out on my back lengthening my achy muscles. Mistake. Being on my back intensifies the nausea and I roll back to my side and curl up into a ball where I’d be perfectly happy to stay for the next few weeks until this feeling passes.

My strangely optimistic husband strolls through the door a few minutes later with a tray in his hands. Without a word, he places it on the dresser. I watch as he approaches the bed with his navy blue pajamas hanging low on his trim hips and the muscles of his six, no make that eight pack of abdominal muscles flexing with every step. He is absolutely mouth-watering, even though I’m suffering morning sickness, he is irresistible. He knows the effect he has on me and from the looks of “it” I do the same for him. I smile up at him but he goes about sitting me up carefully, rearranging the pillows behind my back and tucking the duvet around my hips before he retrieves the tray and places it across my lap.

Then, and only then does he meet my eyes when he props his hip on the bed next to me. “I wish there were an adequate way to show you how intensely I love you, how you have nurtured my heart to grow to be ten times its original size, how…different I am inside because of you.” I was reaching for the ginger tea on my tray but I slowly lower my hand and blink several times to try and lift the haze of his loving words from around me. But it’s no use, he’s cast his spell and I’m hopelessly trapped inside of it. He kisses two fingers and leans across to press them against my lips before he heads down to the pool. Just like that, he blasts me with a love tornado and I’m left limp against my pillows wondering what the hell just happened.

Something is going on with him and I need to figure it out but for now I return to my breakfast of bland and boring, yet soothing food and notice he’s written something on my napkin.
Today I love you more than yesterday and tomorrow twice more. Stay with me always, you go, I go. E.

Shit that’s it, the water works are on. I grab the box of tissue from the night table and let it all go. The sadness of the day, my husband’s love and tenderness but most of all, I cry for his deep loss. I know now though, that he is grieving in his own way, silently, privately, distantly and this is his way of letting me in.

When I’ve decided my breakfast isn’t going to make an encore, I shower and while I’m fussing with my makeup and hair, Evan strides in with a towel wrapped around his waist droplets of water sliding in rivulets over his chiseled body. I freeze when I catch his reflection in the mirror, mascara wand half way to my eye I’m seriously at risk of blinding myself if I don’t snap out of it.

“Cat got your tongue, baby?” He snickers and I take the opportunity to play hard to get, why I have no fucking idea. I return to applying the black ink to my lashes and casually answer his question with a question.

“That reminds me, where are the kitties?” I finish the lashes I’m working on and look up, our eyes meet in the mirror. He knows my game and calls checkmate when he drops his towel revealing the rest of his unmatched magnificence. I’m nearly ready to get dressed but the switch has been hit and time stops capturing us in our alternate universe.

Knowing when I’m beat I close the mascara and turn leaning against the sink to watch him stalk me like the prey that I am. His cock leads the way standing ridged and thick while my brain turns to mush.

“Try something different for me today.” His words surprise me they aren’t a question. They are a statement, a command. My heart pounds in anticipation and my thoughts suddenly race in an attempt to figure out what he has in mind. He comes to stand so close I feel his energy radiating from his body but he doesn’t touch me so I push off of the counter and lean in only to have him step away. I cock my head in question and he answers without words reaching for my hand and placing it around his solid cock.

This I understand, this I know. I stroke him up and down, reaching back every other time to cup his balls but he stops me after a particularly deep growl emanates from his throat.

“Turn around.” I shudder and obey without hesitation gripping the edge of the counter and watch his hand reach around me to one of the drawers in the vanity. A tube of lubricant is in his hand when he closes the drawer and even though I trust him and know he would never put our babies at risk I shrink away from him and press my belly against the cold granite. My head snaps up to meet his eyes again in the mirror and they are met with disappointment.

“Trust me.” he says and my body listens while my mind is numb. His hand circles my waist pulling me against him while my hands remain on the counter.

“Relax…” He drags out the word so seductively that I have no choice but to do as he says, my body is a bundle of millions of tiny electrical outbursts all fighting for control and all losing. I drop my head forward chin to my chest as he pulls the tie holding the silk robe that covers my trembling body. It pools at my feet and I sway with desire.

His voice is in my ear but I can’t put meaning to the words he speaks. I allow him to lead and I blindly follow as he bends me further forward and kisses a trail down my back to the top of my ass. He spreads my legs with a nudge of his foot before kneeling behind me. I pant wildly and turn my head to lay my cheek against the cool stone for stability, draping my arms on either side of my head.

His mouth returns to the path he was on until he pauses at the pucker of my ass. Oh dear God, this is the ‘something different’ When his tongue makes contact with his forbidden target, I whimper with a combination of want and fear. I had given up on associating pleasure with sex before Evan and this particular act had been scratched so hard off the list of possibilities it left a hole on the page. My body is so responsive to him I couldn’t hold back now if I wanted to, there is no saying no to Evan. His fingers glide forward barely skimming the slick moisture at the outer surface of my core and work it over my clit before dragging it back to where his focus is. I open my eyes and see his hand working the cap off of the tube with one hand and skillfully squeezing a large amount into that same hand before discarding the container onto the tile. I inhale a shuddering breath when that hand disappears behind me and I feel the gel that’s been warmed by his hot hand smear down the length of my crack.

“Ahhh God, Evan, please…” I moan, I don’t recognize my own voice so thick and full of need. He smooths his hands over my ass and stands quickly to glide a finger inside of me. I gasp again, this time in attempt to catch my breath. He’s relentless as he continues to penetrate with two fingers stretching and testing until I’m ready to explode.

When I’m sure I can’t take anymore he gives it all, sliding his cock slowly and carefully where his fingers have been paving the way to previously uncharted territory. I tense and he slows, gripping the flesh of my hips with a restraint not many men possess. When he senses that I’ve relaxed, he resumes a slow steady shallow pace never causing me pain, only bringing me pleasure. He moans with every gentle thrust knowing he has to be careful and gentle with every movement until we are both as fragile as thin glass about to shatter into a million shards. His hands stray from their original gripping point and he now lays his body flush with mine. He wraps his arms around to cup one breast and work the overflow of lube over my clit. I swear I’m going to die and the coroner will be forced to scrawl death by ecstasy on the line identifying the reason for my expiration.

“Fuck Mia are you ok, are you ready?” His cheek is smashed against my back as he pants the question, one hand has abandoned my breast to grip the counter along with both of mine.

“Yesss!” I whimper at the exact moment I come with a force I’ve never known before, my legs are no longer controlled by my mind, every part of me spasms and I come so hard every cell in my body individually screams fuck yes! Evan slips out and finishes off with his hand on my back sparing my body the trauma and possibly another episode of bleeding. I melt onto the floor when my legs give away, his arms guide me down and then cradle me once we are safely resting together with his back against the vanity.

“Holy shit,” I whisper still a little in shock from the whole experience but Evan automatically thinks something is wrong when nothing absofuckinglutely nothing is wrong. He sits up to look me over

“Are you all right, holy shit what?”

“No no I’m fine, holy shit that was…amazing.” He relaxes again and kisses my temple.

“Stick with me kid, this is going to be a very creative pregnancy.”

“Yea, like I said…holy shit.”

Stepping out of the Maybach in front of St. Johns Cathedral with my hand in Evan’s it feels like a completely different day, a sadder day, a heavier more depressing day. He shelters me from the wind and guides me up the stairs into the vestibule where I have arranged for two people to greet friends and family and take coats. Evan’s mind is elsewhere wandering wherever his grief is taking him and I have been trying to keep my mind focused on the details of the service and the gathering that will follow in the basement of the cathedral afterwards. Evan opens the door for me and when we step inside the smell of incense, the sense of peace. The hushed murmurs in the large space transports me back to Italy and the Basilica de San Giacomo.

The circumstances today are so strikingly opposite that I’m a little embarrassed to even be thinking of what happened in that chapel last year considering we haven’t set foot in a church since. It’s taken the death of someone we loved very much to bring us here. Evan takes a deep breath and searches out my hand blindly his eyes on the altar where Cecelia’s casket sits horizontal to the isle leading to the altar.

It’s a closed casket due to the damage to her body in the blast and I’m glad for that. I don’t care for viewing the bodies of people after their souls have moved on. The life that we knew and loved has long passed to another place. Personally I’d rather say goodbye imagining them alive and happy not cold and still in a box.

As we make our way down the long aisle, I begin to realize just how many people are in attendance. There are a lot, many more than I invited, she must have been known to more people than Evan imagined but that doesn’t surprise me, she was lovely kind and generous. I’m sure she left a piece of herself with everyone she met.

We move toward the front pew and I nod a hello to my Mom and Dad, Sage, Kevin and my niece and nephew Kylie and Tanner who I haven’t seen in months. A pang of guilt hits me in the chest when their faces light up and then suddenly dim when Sage whispers something to them. It’s a mournful occasion and I miss their smiles, I wish I could tell them Cecelia would have loved them, she would have wanted them to smile at her funeral. But I’m too far away and Evan is steering me robotically toward our saved spots next to Isaac and Mr. Saint.

Something about walking down this long isle makes me wonder what it would have been like to have a big church wedding, we aren’t practicing members of any denomination so it seems hypocritical to just choose a pretty church to have the ceremony in. Another of the many things I’ve crammed in the shit to think about later box since I’ve met Evan, that box is chuck full bursting at the seams now in desperate need of attention. I’ve unexpectedly added ‘what faith are we going to raise our children in’ to the long list of issues we need to work through.

I sit on the hard seat between Isaac and Evan until three o'clock when the priest appears on the altar to start the service. Everything is beautiful, at least a hundred people are here, more than a few stood to speak about Cecelia when the priest asked if anyone had a few words to say. I asked Evan to do her eulogy but he refused saying he didn’t want to cause a scene by distracting people’s focus away from Cecelia.

When photographers get a shred of information fact or fiction they relentlessly pursue him and there were plenty of cameras outside the church snapping pictures on our way in. I’m praying that his security team keeps them all at bay and everyone stays safe…for once. His silent contribution of the entire service and reception speaks volumes to those who matter. We sit and stand and sit again a few more times during the hour long service
. When it’s over, everyone files past the casket to lay a hand on it and say their last words. Evan, Isaac, Mr. Saint, Kevin, Simone and my dad have all agreed to be pallbearers and take their positions on either side of the casket lifting it with ease to carry it to the hearse waiting at the curb. I join Sage and the kids, my mom and Gabriella hanging back until the men have nearly made it to the exit.