I laugh. He eats.
When the wine is mostly gone, and the sun has finished its particular business with the sky and the first stars are coming in, I put down my fork and look at him. “I want another baby.”
He doesn’t look surprised. He looks at me with the candle doing something warm to the lines of his face—the salt-and-pepper hair, the dark eyes that would be perfect in a little one’s face.
“I’ve been thinking about it seriously. Not just the idea—the actual thing. What it means, what it costs, what Opal would make of it.” I pause. “She’s already named it.”
“She’s named a hypothetical baby?”
“Neptune or Gerald, depending on the day.”
He considers this. “Neptune, I think. Gender neutral. And how does she know you want a baby?”
“She brought it up, actually. Having a sibling. And that got me thinking, and now here we are.”
“And what do you want?” he asks. Not the baby. What do I want overall? I hear the difference in his tone.
“I want our family to be bigger. I want Opal to have someone. I was an only child, and it was rough. I don’t want that for her. And more than all of that, I want a baby in our lives. I want to see you experience that miracle for yourself.”
He’s quiet for a moment. The candle moves in a small breeze from the valley. “I want that too.”
“Okay.”
We look at each other across the table in Tuscany. He says, “Making a baby can take time. Especially at my age.”
I look at him. “You’re not that old?—”
The corner of his mouth moves. “We should probably start right now.”
“Now, now? As in here, now?”
“Yes.”
“We’re on a terrace. There are olive farmers in that valley.”
“It’s dark,” he says. “And they have their own problems.”
I look at the valley. I look at him. I look at the table, which is solid stone and has been here since approximately the Renaissance.
I sigh the sigh of a put-upon wife. “The things I do for family planning.”
“Your sacrifice is noted for the record,” he agrees, and reaches for me.
The table is, in fact, sturdy enough to take my full weight after he clears the dishes in one sweep of his arm. He sets me on the edge, lifts my dress over my knees, and decides that I am dessert.
The things he can do with his tongue still make my eyes roll back. I hope that never stops.
When his fingers slip into me, my whole body jolts. “Right there?—”
“I know, pet. I know where all your spots are. Even in the dark.”
His fingertips charge my G-spot with every stroke, and he sucks my clit into his mouth, pulsing his lips on me there. My heels dig into his shoulders, but I don’t think he cares about anything else in the world right now.
“Sir, I’m so close?—”
“Mm-hmm.” He doesn’t stop. He never stops unless I beg him to.
Sometimes, not even then.
