Page 95 of Clinically Bewitched
“I don’t know. But apparently, we’re going to find out.”
“The universe approves.”
“I’m sure it does.”
She lifted her head, looking at me with those dark eyes full of love and trust and absolute certainty. “I love you, Julien Darcy.”
“I love you too.”
“Even though I’m chaos?”
“Becauseyou’re chaos.”
She smiled and kissed me softly.
And then we started again.
We had sex four more times that night.
Once with her bent over the side of the bed, my hands gripping her hips, taking her from behind while she gasped my name into the mattress. Once in the shower, her back against the tile, her legs wrapped around my waist, water streaming over us while I thrust into her with desperate, uncoordinated movements. Once on the couch in the living room, because we had gotten hungry, gone to find food, and ended up with her straddling me while I sat there, still half-dressed, too desperate to make it back to the bedroom. And once more in bed, slow and gentle and tender, face to face, her eyes locked on mine while we moved together, while I told her I loved her over and over until the words lost meaning and became just sound, just feeling, justus.
By the time the sun rose, we were both exhausted, sore, and completely satisfied.
Athena was asleep in my arms, her hair a wild tangle across my chest, her breathing deep and even. I should have slept too. I should have let my body recover from the most physically demanding night of my life, but I couldn’t stop looking at her. I couldn’t stop marveling at the fact that this woman, this beautiful, chaotic, impossible woman was mine.
My wife.
My love.
My destiny.
The universe knows what it’s doing.
The thought should have terrified me. It should have sent me spiraling into panic about the loss of control, about the unpredictability of life, about all the ways this could go wrong.
Instead, I just felt peace.
For the first time in my carefully controlled, precisely ordered life, I felt completely at peace.
I kissed the top of Athena’s head, pulled the blanket over us both, and finally let myself sleep.
The universe could wait.
Right now, I had everything I needed.
Chapter Nineteen
Julien
I was late.
Seventeen minutes late, to be precise.
To the Monday morning meeting that I had personally instituted three years ago. The meeting that started at exactly 7:00 AM every Monday without fail. The meeting where I had once given Nathan a fifteen-minute lecture about the importance of punctuality when he arrived at 7:03.
Seventeen minutes.
The old Julien, the one who existed before Las Vegas, before Athena, before I spent an entire night having sex with my wife until we were both delirious with exhaustion, would have been having a panic attack.
