Page 79 of Unwanted Vows

When we return to the Bunker, Julia calls down from the schoolroom to ask if Paul can stay for a sleepover party. “We’ve got two rooms set up for sleeping, and chaperones and everything,” she says.

I go up, check in with Mrs. Hubbard, just to make sure that this is all right with the supervising adult, and agree to let my son stay and continue his visit.

Back in the apartment, Andrew has ordered sushi, champagne and ice cream. “I think we should have our own kind of sleepover,” he says.

“Lovely idea,” I say. “Just let me hang up my suit.”

We do not smear each other with ice cream. Sticky, cold, and sweet is not my idea of a good time. Instead, we feed it to each other, exchanging bites for kisses. Afterward, we cuddle on the big bed in the master bedroom and watch Princess Bride.

And the greatest kiss in the world inspires us to try for our own best kiss. Our clothing goes . . . somewhere. And Andrew slips inside me as naturally as if we’d been fitting ourselves together regularly for the last nine years. As he braces himself with one hand against the mattress, the flaming crown on his forearm seems to ripple, and the flames seem almost real.

We move as if we are one, tasting, touching, holding as sensations build. We float in a sea of delight where anything is possible, making our own little bit of heaven.

“I love you,” I say softly to him, squeaking a little as he plunges back inside my body. He dutifully matches the cadence of my hips, rising and falling within me in the perfect rhythm. I gasp as he draws slowly back out of me, tantalizing me with the change in cadence, followed by the abrupt jolt of pleasure that’s caused by him pressing fully inside of me. I am riding a wave of sensation, a harmony of joy that’s balanced right on the knife edge of pain. I feel his body slick with perspiration as he builds toward his own crescendo.

“Say you love me back,” I tell him.

“I love you with all my heart,” he whispers before sinking his teeth into my shoulder.

I curl toward him to bite his shoulder, pressing myself more closely against his body, feeling the contact of our slippery skin intensifying the twining, curling, heated pleasure at my core. I wish I could burrow inside of him, wrap myself around his heart, bite into it with my teeth the way I just nipped his shoulder.

He growls in response to the sharp scrape of my teeth, and angles his head to bite the side of my neck again where it meets my shoulder, holding onto me like a tiger who has captured its prey right before it devours the hapless creature. I twist and wrench with unspeakable, heated pleasure at the restraining strength of the bite, contrasted with the slow, languorous, deep thrusts of him at the core of my body.

“Get closer to me,” I plead.

“Like this?” he shoots right back, pressing even closer to me.

“Marry me,” I gasp out.

“Name the date,” he says back.

I am soaring so high, feeling every inch of our skin where it comes together. He doesn’t increase the pace of his thrusts, instead maintaining the same beat and tempo that I dictated to him when he first slipped inside of me. The ebb and flow of the sensations cresting and receding is like the ocean’s tide, inexorable, hypnotic, inescapable. We are pinned together at our core, carried away on the tide, then exploding in such a blaze of glory that neither of us knows who climaxed first.

We try to hold together, to make the moment last, but we are both exhausted, both short on sleep.

Andrew’s arms begin to tremble, and he collapses on his side next to me. He traces the side of my face with one finger. “I love you,” he says.

“I love you,” I say back to him.

Our lips meet, and if it is not the greatest kiss in the world, then it is a very close second.

“You know what?” I say.

“What?” he asks.

“You kiss even better than you did nine years, nine months ago. Are you sure you weren’t practicing?”

“Absolutely sure,” he says. “I didn’t have time. Remembering your kiss was my bedtime story. I have a good imagination, but your real kisses are way better.

We kiss again . . . just to make sure the last one wasn’t a fluke.