Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 80572 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80572 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
It’s late August and Starla’s managed to convince us to take her to Maine.
“I’ve dreamt of going,” she said, her eyes not unlike Daisy’s puppy dog eyes gives me when I’m cooking. “Pretty please?”
I can’t say no. And Sergio would buy her an island if she asked him to.
“Starla! Hey! That’s too far!” My sister’s gone out so far she’s little more than a bright splash of purple in the blue-green sea. “Starla!”
The heavy weight of Sergio’s arm around my shoulders brings me some comfort. “Let it go, baby. She’s an excellent swimmer.”
I purse my lips. “Even good swimmers can get caught up in the undertow, or attacked by sharks, or have their muscles cramp up.”
“She isn’t alone, Eden. She’s got three competitive swimmers with her, and lifeguards everywhere.”
I look around the beach and notice he’s right. There are lifeguards everywhere. “Sergio,” I say thoughtfully. “There are a lot more lifeguards here than usual, I would say. Did you have something to do about this?”
Not meeting my eyes, he only shrugs, but I note the little hint of a crinkle around his eyes that tells me I’m onto something. A-ha. He’s only pretending to be a calmer pseudo-parent than I am.
“Well, let’s see if you keep this chill when she starts dating,” I mutter, my gaze still tracking her every move.
Sergio blows out a breath and shakes his head. “She’ll never date,” he says, so seriously I’m not quite sure if he’s joking or if he means it. “I’ll arrange for her to be married and we can skip the hair-raising, nail-biting drama of the whole dating thing.”
Okay so that’s another story for another day.
Starla begins to swim back to us, and I breathe a little more easily. He’s right, she’s not alone. Quinn and Timeo, Mario and Gloria are swimming alongside them like a little pack of dolphins, diving up and down below the surface of the churning waves. They’ll be sunburnt, thirsty, and starving when they finally come back to the shore, but it’ll be worth it.
“You sure you don’t want to join them?”
I shake my head. Though I’m wearing a swimsuit for the first time in my adult life — a modest one-piece sporty thing — I’m still not used to wearing something so fitted and revealing. I have to, though. I’ve begun the long, necessary process of healing, and one part of that journey means realizing that my body is beautiful. My body is miraculous. My body isn’t something to be ashamed of or hidden or taken for granted. My body helps me love. Helps me live. It’s time.
“Not today,” I say, sitting on a towel and opening the picnic basket. I look up to him from beneath lowered lashes. “I need some alone time with my husband, a gift that’s been in woefully short supply lately, you know.”
Sergio joins me on the towel and pulls out sandwiches from home wrapped in paper.
Home.
We still reside at The Castle, for lots of reasons, but mostly because it’s good for my sister to be with extended family, she thrives by the ocean, and I like her being apart from Belle Notte. Soon, Sergio and I will begin a family of our own. I know most people might like having a place to settle, but I like that we don’t have to, that we can stay here with family at The Castle, or have a home of our own when we’re ready.
I like the endless promise of possibilities. The knowledge that our love and commitment to one another have more to do with what we do and nothing to do with where we live.
After Sergio’s polished off two sandwiches to my one, we’ve eaten juicy wedges of ripe watermelon and finished an entire quart of fresh lemonade, he wipes the back of his mouth and sighs.
“Forget dinner in Paris or champagne in Tuscany,” he mutters. “That beat anything I’ve eaten.”
“That’s just because you ran like twelve miles and swam like you were training for a triathlon,” I say, shaking my head.
“Maybe,” he says with a smirk. “Maybe it’s the nighttime workout that’s stoked my appetite.”
Despite all the work I’ve done to accept who I am as a fully sexual human being, the innuendo still makes my cheek flush pink.
“Sergio,” I say in a little voice. “Not in front of the others.”
“Oh, the others, who you couldn’t even see they were so far out a few minutes ago?”
But my heart’s already begun to beat a little faster, and I can’t help but reach for him.
“Anyway,” I say teasingly, my voice tinted with flirtation, one of my favorite new pastimes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Did we do something fun last night?”
“You little brat,” he says with a grin. I squeal and try to protect myself, but I’m way too slow. In seconds, he’s got me pinned beneath his weight, sprawled beneath him in gloriously helpless submission. In one swift move, he pins my wrists in one hand and cracks his palm against my ass with the other. “As if you forgot. I should’ve spanked you harder.”