Page 40 of Light

My gaze grows heavy as I slide close to her, savoring how the sexy spice of her new nighttime perfume blends perfectly with the tropical scents of her hair products. Like ’Dia, she’s got artful curls that tumble from the jeweled band around her forehead, with a spray of sparkly feathers attached to one side of the band. The adornment features the same turquoise and black color scheme of her whole costume, with her sparkly sheath designed to resemble peacock feathers. The dress hugs all the best curves of her figure, which has gotten a little more voluptuous since Lux’s birth—in all the best fucking ways.

“Were you saying something, doll?” I growl back, nuzzling my lips to her ear. “Sorry. I was busy being distracted by the most beautiful person on this planet.”

She hums with obvious skepticism. “The most? More than your son?”

“All right,” I concede. “The most beautiful person who’s old enough to drive.”

Her hum trickles into a giggle. “Wait ten minutes. That might change.”

I almost yank back to again channel my inner Masterson. She’s struck a subject that really does need our sober attention. If Lux continues to develop at his current rate, it’ll only be seven and a half years until we start worrying about his driver’s license. Less than five years after that, he’ll be wanting to drink. Then date. By the time he’s chronologically twenty, he’ll be talking about long-term care insurance and addressing items on his bucket list.

“Okay, the kid has already detonated my brain once tonight, thank you very much.”

She grabs the wide lapels of my vintage suit, warming my chest with her next laugh. Out in the living room, Lydia’s cheer coincides with a defined crank of the sound system. The penthouse is flooded with Dua Lipa’s soulful voice. A second later, Lux’s scream joins his auntie’s joy. At once, we know what’s going on. The two of them are like Rogers and Astaire reincarnated when it comes to music and dancing.

As Emma raises her head, her smirk reconfirming that our son’s shriek was one of joy and not distress, I take a second to soak up her beauty all over again.

“So,” she ventures, centering her stare on me, “detonating your brain, hmmm? Now I do need to hear all about it.”

“In a second.” All right, maybe longer than that. “I need to just…drink you in. Like this. Right here. With the lights in your hair and your face looking all va-va-voom…” Not even her full laugh deters my intent. “Just a little while longer,” I persist, skimming her creamy arm with my fingertips.

“Oh, hell.” She rocks her head back. “Was the conversation that serious?”

I press tighter in, not visiting the real answer to that. “Maybe you’re just that gorgeous, my sheba bunny.”

My use of the twenties slang, referencing the classic film theme in which she chose to outfit the terrace and the bathrooms, spreads her lips into an adoring smile. “You are definitely slick tonight, my dashing sheikh.”

“Only tonight?”

“Says the guy who swept me off my feet in the very next room, nearly two years ago?”

I’m the one with the exultant grin now. “You remembered.”

“How could I ever forget?”

And just like that, the world falls away.

Not completely, but just enough that every sound and vibration in the air—the thuds of the dance music, the honks and sirens of the city traffic, the gentle rushes of night winds against the window pane next to us—fade away, making the room silent but for a single buzz of sound.

The sizzle of our connection.

The call of our heartbeats, crashing together.

The energy of our bloodstreams, fusing together.

The force of our attraction, screaming out together.

Without hesitation, I obey that urgent insistence. In one second, I wrap an arm around her smooth, firm waist. At the same moment, I clutch her other hand within mine and then curl it against the center of my sternum. Neither of us says a word as our bodies give up to our heated pull, swaying and rolling in time to the newest track that’s come on in the next room. Dua sings about a lot of perfect things, like floating and bending and breaking and dying. The main line of the song is another ideal affirmation of everything we have been and everything we are.

Getting lost in the light.

And yeah…everything we will be, as well.

Everything so vivid…vivid…

As our lips touch and then smash, and our tongues stretch and then twirl.

Everything reckless, tangled, suspended…