“Yes!” Her legs pressed tighter against his waist. Sophia picked up the rhythm, riding him as he spread little kisses on her face. His tongue traced her lips over and over again, before he took her mouth in a long, sensuous kiss.
A more powerful orgasm was taking her to a new height, and she was going to bring him with her. She started working her inner muscles around his arousal. He was so hard, she could feel every single inch of him. “Now! With me.”
Moving his hips in a frenzy, he rasped, “Open your eyes.”
He was watching her heatedly, panting, looking so unusually uncontrolled.
Sophia’s yellow-diamond gaze landed on him and that was his undoing, while looking at him, was hers.
“You’re mine; my everything. I breathe you, I live you, I love you,” he whispered fiercely.
Sophia felt as if a pagan invocation had cast its spell over her body, heart, and soul. She welcomed it. With her, Alistair was untamed, undisciplined. He was savage. He was also brutally sweet. As much as he took, he gave back even more.
She loved him and was ready to give him all of herself and receive his true self.
Moving together, their moans filled the bathroom, their wet bodies rubbing against each other sensuously, all the sensations tightening and consuming as the warm water beat around them, spinning quicker, a whirlpool of delight, spiraling them both into a bright vortex of pleasure and love.
He sat down on the warm marble floor, leaning against the wall, with a boneless Sophia in his arms.
He smiled, happy, sated, and tired. With contentment, he breathed in her partially wet hair, pushing a lock away from her face. “You’re wearing me out.”
“Oh,” she whispered lazily, and yawned against his neck, sending goosebumps running down to his nipples. “Lord Mighty-Alistair-Connor is tired after a single bout of sex.”
This was not sex. “Nae, Sophia. Never. Sex is uneventful and boring.”
She was feeling so safe and warm in his arms, she felt like sleeping right there in the shower. But his heavy accent made her crane her neck to search his face. “Sex is boring?!”
His broad hand framed her entire face and his thumb caressed her lips. The heat of his eyes was intense and he was serious when he answered, “Sex is just for the sake of lust. I can make love to you. I can fuck you. All night long, or just once. But I’ll never just have sex with you.”
“No?” she asked, baffled at his sudden change of moods. Hello, Lord Mercurial. Spurring him further, she asked, “Not even if I asked you to have sex with me? Just for the sake of lust?”
He grunted, not knowing if he was displeased or tempted. But in the next second, he shook his head. Even if I tried, I wouldn’t be able to. “Nae. You, Wife, you’re too important to me.” In a rumble that came from deep within, he tightened his arms around her like iron bands and rasped, “Sex doesn’t involve feelings. When one loves like I love you, the bond is so deep that it overwrites everything with deep emotions. Even lust.”
Thursday, February 24, 2011
6:39 a.m.
Sophia got into bed again and snuggled onto Alistair’s warm body, kissing his lips, “Happy birthday.”
“Mmm…” He licked his lips, tasting her fresh mint toothpaste. She’s planning something. Blinking awake, he smiled sleepily at her, “‘Morning. It’s early.”
“Yep. But it’s your birthday.” Sophia’s fingers wandered into his hair, tugging at the silky lengths, and pulled him close for a deeper kiss. Happy birthday, my beloved husband. I have many surprises for you.
His smile grew when she broke the kiss and flexed herself onto him.
He inhaled deeply and closed his eyes in pleasure. White roses, orange blossoms, and vanilla. Sophia.
She dragged her lips across his jaw line until she could whisper in his ear, “Carpe diem.”
“I will,” he said, rolling her beneath him and pushing himself down the covers. The words came out muffled. “There’s a ripe fruit I’d rather pluck right now.”
She smiled, amused at his readiness.
At his tongue’s first touch, a rush of desire swept her entire being and the smile was replaced by parted lips, from which a loud moan came out.
He laughed. “I just started.”
“So, go on,” she breathed, back. Sophia’s arms crossed over her head, under the supple pillow, gripping it, ready to enjoy the torment and rapture she knew would come.
It was his birthday and she was the one who was going to receive the gift.
Sophia had already left, so beautifully dressed in a red-wine wool dress, with long fitted sleeves and bodice, the wide sexy skirt swirling around her legs, that he almost asked her to forgo whatever hellish contract she had to sign and spend the day with him and Gabriela.
Despite waiting to be awakened by Gabriela with a cake, no one had knocked on the bedroom door.
He was straining to hear, but the walls of their house were too thick.
It also seemed too quiet and empty.
He got up, put on a sweater and washed jeans, and went downstairs barefooted.
When he entered the kitchen, there were no employees in sight.
“Gabriela!” Alistair shouted for the second time. His lips curled when he heard giggles and whispers on the other side of the door that lead to the hall. In the dining room. A surprise!
He knew Gabriela was planning something. She’d been talking behind doors with Sophia for days. He smiled, wondering what she had done. Our favorite chocolate cake, for sure! Maybe double layered with lots of moist and tender butter cake, with satiny chocolate frosting and garnished with fresh berries. He licked his lips and opened the door, expecting to see Gabriela and Maria waiting for him with the cake.
But he should have known better. It’s never going to be simple with Sophia. Or Gabriela.
The ceiling was decorated with green balloons, glittering white stars and pink magic wands. On the center table, the flower arrangement was fresh, more masculine, made up of green foliage and white narcissus.
Alistair stopped, listening. A crystal twinkled twice in the big and beautiful dining room where the little girl loved to play. Pushing open its door, he said, “I was wondering where you were.”
But she was not there. There was only stern Steven, clinking a knife to a crystal glass, smiling, “Happy birthday, Mr. MacCraig.”
At last. A smile. He grinned, thanking him and eyed the room to where the decorations carried on. The table, extended to its fullest, was covered with a white linen tablecloth with little, delicate embroidered golden stars. Over it, a Brazilian breakfast mixed with an English tea and Cordon Bleu delicacies for a full party of thirty was laid.
He shook his head. “They are mad, aren’t they?”
“Erm…” Steven looked embarrassed at having to answer.
Alistair grinned again. “Where is Gabriela?”
Steven put a finger on his lips and jutted his chin to the reception room.
I see. So, I’m supposed to seek. “Gabriela!” he bellowed leaving the dining room, his shout echoing in the tall ceilings of the hall.
Alistair heard not only her giggles, but a cacophony of muffled feminine laughter, and masculine chortles and whispered words. He frowned. What the hell?
He stomped playfully through the marble hall and threw the reception room double doors wide open, stopping dead in his tracks as astonishment gripped him.
Their elegant reception room was equally decorated.
In the middle of the room, on a special pushing-tray, there was a huge chocolate cake of Airgead Caisteal, with little figures of Gabriela as a fairy flying over it, Sophia as a witch, in a red-wine dress, stirring a cauldron standing next to him as a Highland warrior, in his tartan colors, with a huge scabbard, reading from a potions book as if a wizard.
It wasn’t just the elaborate cake that stunned him. No.
Around it, Sophia, in a hooded velvet cape, Gabriela, dressed exactly as she was in the cake, and almost all of their famil
ies, donning different magical accessories, were there singing happy birthday.
“Surprise!!” Gabriela shouted, running to him and jumping up into his arms. Her grin was infectious and she hugged his neck. “Happy birthday, Daddy.”
“Happy birthday, my love.” Sophia was right behind Gabriela, carrying a scroll tied with a large red ribbon. “Your gift.”
Sophia’s sheets of paper!! He looked at her, puzzled, and settled Gabriela on one arm to see what she was planning now, as Sophia untied the ribbon for him and unrolled the sheet of paper, holding it up for him to read it.
As Alistair’s eyes scanned the paper, they filled with tears, blurring his vision. He blinked as he pulled his wife onto his chest, pressing his lips firmly on her forehead. In a choked voice, he whispered, “Thank you.”
Now he was legally Gabriela’s father. Alberto would not be able to take her away from him anymore. Never more.
“I have to go, my friend.” Affectionately, Leonard gripped Alistair’s shoulder, over the full plaid Gabriela had put on him. “That was one of the best birthday breakfasts I’ve had in my life. Only Alice knows how to do it better.”
“Oh, aye? When she does, call me over,” Alistair joked and laughed at Alice’s humph.
“Your sister is a wonderful wife, a gentle, and exceptional mother.” Leonard smiled angelically, first at his wife then at Alistair. “But, thank God, she’s not this crazy!”
“Ah! I heard that!” Sophia exclaimed, from her place beside Alistair.
“Isn’t that what you are?” Leonard raised a blond eyebrow and made a point, looking around at the small party she had planned and organized with so much love.
“She is crazy, Leo,” Alistair grinned at her, pushing a lock of her hair behind her ear.
“Boys!” Lachlann admonished. “Stop teasing Sophia.”
Sophia smiled at her protective and dear father-in-law, who had fully dressed as Merlin to please Gabriela. She whispered loudly to him, “To you, I confess. I’m crazy. Definitively. Crazy in love with your son.”
Ells Halls
Saturday, February 26, 2011
2:59 p.m.
There was no sunshine passing through the clouds and the snow of the previous days still covered the path in a thin layer. Still, the morning had dawned in tranquil hues of pink, tingeing the thin clouds that smudged the pale gray sky at the outlying edge of the grove. The green foliage and woodland creatures foraging in the bramble made a completely different scene from the dark one on the anniversary of Nathalie’s death.
Alistair had his arm over Sophia’s shoulders while they walked through the grove. Without realizing it, he had started squeezing it around her neck as they approached the crypt and the catacombs entrance.
She was almost certain he would have been suffocating her if her daughter hadn’t suddenly halted as she saw the large and tall old white limestone crypt, making them almost stumble on her.
“Are you sure it is here?” Gabriela looked up confused at Alistair. “It’s a house!”
While the crypt was smaller, reserved for the Marquises and their wives, the wide, tall, underground catacombs held tombs of miscellaneous relatives.
“Here is the crypt,” said Sophia gently. “Down below are the catacombs.”
“These are not ca-ta-tombs,” Gabriela replied, slowly testing the difficult word, looking at her mother. “I know real ca-ta-bom—” And just like her mother, the little girl stomped her little foot on the ground. “Cata pente, cata caveira, search qualquer coisa.”
Despite herself, Sophia burst out laughing.
“Cata caveira?” Alistair raised an eyebrow at his wife. What the hell is that?
Without explaining the mix of languages Gabriela did, Sophia dropped to her haunches, smiling. “All right, little girl. You don’t pick up or search for combs, skulls or whatever in catacombs. Not every cata-combs is the same. Catacombs is an underground cemetery.”
“But, Mamãe, in Rome there were skulls. I thought you said they were tombs for the skulls. Skulls have hair that needs combing.”
Oh, my! Stifling another laugh, she replied, “Hmm…yes. I guess you’re partially right. But I also explained how the word changed to catacombs and stayed like this.”
Sophia saw her daughter tilt her head to the side trying to remember the lesson in the Roman catacombs and chided herself. She was only three, Sophia. Come on. Her smile grew tender. “Seems I forgot to. I’ll tell you later, okay?”
“Okay.” Gabriela ran to the entrance but stopped when Alistair shouted for her to wait for them. To kill time, she started looking for four-leaf clovers.
Alistair turned to Sophia, horrified. His ink-black eyebrows were high on his forehead. “Tell me you didn’t take Gabriela to the Roman catacombs.”
“I did. Don’t ask me why. I was crazy in the head.” She flicked an elegant hand in the air, dismissing the issue. More than you can ever know.
You certainly were. He was shocked. “What did she think of it?”
Sophia grinned. “She thought it was funny, she was only three. I was depressed and alone. I took a week off in Rome with the girls. Of course, Valentina invented something weird and we went along with it. They made Gabriela and I laugh with their boos and explanations of skulls needing combing and other odd things.”
Those crazy twins. “Spare me these sisters of yours.” He rolled his eyes heavenward and motioned with his head to the entrance beside the crypt. “Shall we?”
She realized she was stalling because she was scared. Of what he might do and of how she would behave. She was also in love with the dead little girl and she would have to control herself too.
Sophia knew that in the soft sunlight that slanted in through small glass windows above, the catacombs were a completely different place from the one she found Alistair in on Nathalie’s anniversary. They were tall and wide, all done in white-washed limestone. Even its rushed daily echo had a serenity that was incompatible with grief.
They had been there together for the whole two previous weekends, making their way to the very end of it; each time passing the iron fence which separated the adult tombs area from where the children were buried, working together until Nathalie’s grave was a beautiful, gentle resting place appropriate for a sweet little girl.
Alistair had been silent for the first hours and then he started to talk. Small details at first until the dam broke. He told her all about Nathalie’s preferences; laughed remembering funny stories; worked with her in a companionable silence; cried for long hours with his head burrowed on her stomach; cursed when she cut her hand gluing an angel over a sharp point, and fought with her when she continued working with a mere shrug.
And they bonded even more.
The day before, when they arrived, they went there to glue the plaque.
That had been the hardest part to do.
He wrote and re-wrote his words until he thought he was finally done.
Just to start it all over again.
He wrote long letters and beautiful poems. But in the end, he convinced himself it was best to keep it simple.
Those last days had been exhausting. Draining. And renewing.
But yet, there was his ever-lasting ache.
“You’ll not be alone,” she assured him quietly. “You don’t have to feel it all alone.”
“It still hurts so much.”
“I think it will always,” she whispered, winding her arms around him, trying to understand the sorrow and ache and feeling unable. One thing she was sure about, he needed her help. “I will be here for you.”
Her love, caresses, and fierce whisper made their way through his body, settling his nerves. He inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly. “I’m okay, Sophia. I’ve cried enough these last few days.” His healing hand framed her face and she leaned on it, closing her eyes, in that gesture of trust that moved him so much. “I’ve been feeling so many emotions lately that I’m sure I’ve been on a high-speed roller-coaster. You, you’ve been
my security belt. You have no idea how much I love you, Beauty. I think you’ve found a way to dry my tears. At least, the torrential ones.”
All right. She gripped his hand in hers, squeezing. “Gabriela, Angel, let’s go.”
“‘So young and gone to Heaven, my angel called Nathalie rests here in peace. Sleep well, my sweet one, sleep well. Alive in my heart, your light is. I will always love you. Your father, Alistair Connor.’”
“She was an angel?” Gabriela asked her mother as she eyed the little angels and camellias.
As you are. Sophia blinked to whisk away the tears and cleared her throat. “She’s your Daddy’s angel, as Gabriel is yours. So, from now on, you have two guardian angels in Heaven, Gabriela. Your father and your older sister.”
Oh, Sophia. Another silent tear rolled down Alistair’s face as he stood beside Gabriela.
“That’s nice…two guardian angels,” Gabriela whispered softly, as if she understood the seriousness of the whole moment. She put her hand in Alistair’s and offered, “I can share my father with you so you’ll also have two.”
He clamped down his lips to stifle a sob. How I love you all.
Suddenly, an epiphany hit Alistair, leaving him dizzy with an explosion of inner light and warmth.
He could hear the wise souls recite Shakespeare’s Macbeth for him: ‘Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak whispers the o’er-fraught heart and bids it break.’
He closed his eyes as an incredible peace took hold of his soul.
Here. Here lies my invincible summer.
In my overt love for Mother, Nathalie, Gabriela, and Sophia. For my whole family.
In my ever-lasting capacity to love and respect for the ones that really loved me, and the ones that still do, not letting my heart break, not leaving me alone. Not letting me down.
For you all, my invincible summer will always shine.
Atwood House
11:41 p.m.
The full moon made the shadow of the tall and broad man even longer and thinner as he crossed the back garden. The warm breath from his mouth formed clouds in the air. Before anyone could see, he located the device on the house wi-fi system and unplugged it, shoving it in his pocket.