He slowed and gazed into her eyes, not because he sensed she needed it, but because, like her, he sensed the magnitude of the moment wrapping around them. Their love would grow over time, but it was real and fixed and imprinted into their souls now. Irrevocable. Unshakable.
They moved in concert, sliding free of the rest of their clothes, losing her panties to a dark corner, drawing close again and there. He filled her in a smooth joining that set hot tears of joy to dampen her lashes.
“I love you,” she whispered, clinging her arms and legs around him. “I love when we’re like this. This is everything.”
“Mi amor,” he murmured. “You’re my heart. My life. Be mine, always.”
They moved in the muted struggle of soul mates trying to break the limits of the physical world and become one. For a time, as they moved with synchronicity, mouths sealed and hands chasing shivers across each other’s skin, they were nearly there. The rapture held them in a world where only the other existed, where the culmination was a small death to be eluded before the ecstasy of heaven swallowed them whole. Golden light bathed them as they held that delicious shudder of simultaneous orgasm.
Slowly it faded and they drifted back to the earthly world. Poppy came back to awareness of the hard surface where her backside was balanced, the leather of Rico’s belt chafing her inner thigh. One bared breast was pressed to his damp chest, his heart still knocking against the swell. His breathing was as unsteady as hers, his arms folded tightly across her back, securing her in her precarious position. She nuzzled her nose in his neck and licked lightly at the salty taste near his Adam’s apple.
Within her, he pulsed a final time. She clenched in response.
“I may have a small fetish for the scent of vinegar and sulfur for the rest of my life,” he teased, nuzzling her hair. “That was incredible.”
She suspected they might have a small something else after this, but she didn’t say it. It was only a feeling. An instinct. A premonition she didn’t want to jinx.
It proved true a few weeks later.
“Really?” Rico demanded with cautious joy. “It’s absolutely confirmed? Because—”
“I know,” she assured him, understanding why he was being so careful about getting attached to the idea. She had been wary to believe it, too, despite missing a cycle and having a home test show positive. “But the doctor said yes. I’m pregnant.”
He said something under his breath that might have been a curse or a murmur of thanks to a higher power. When he drew her into his embrace, she discove
red he was shaking. She felt his chest swell as he consciously took a slow, regulated breath and let it out.
“You’re happy?” she guessed, grinning ear to ear, eyes wet as she twined her arms around his waist.
“I want to tell the whole world.”
“Most people don’t tell anyone until after twelve weeks.”
“Can I tell Lily?”
That cracked her up. “Sure. Go ahead.”
After a frown of concentration, Lily grabbed a doll by the hair and offered it to Poppy. “Baby.”
“Pretty much how I expect my mother to react,” Rico drawled. “But at least you and I know what an important occasion this is. Where should we go on our babymoon?”
“I was thinking exotic Saskatchewan?”
“To see your Gran? Excellent idea. But first, come here.” He drew her into his lap and kissed her. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
They kissed again and might have let it get a lot steamier, but Lily stuck an arm into the cuddle and said, “Me.”
“Yes, I love you, too. Come on.” Rico scooped her onto Poppy’s lap and kissed the top of his daughter’s head. “I don’t know where we’ll put the new baby, but we’ll find room.”
EPILOGUE
One year later...
POPPY WATCHED RICO carefully set their infant son in her grandmother’s welcoming arms while Poppy’s heart swelled so big, she thought it would burst.
“Sé gentil,” Lily cautioned her great-grandmother with wide eyes.