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EPILOGUE
MAREN, THREE YEARS LATER
Carnival is here again.
One of the festival organizers has rented an empty warehouse near our villa, and from my desk at the window I can see the dance practices of one of the young people’s groups. The parades will begin tonight.
I don’t miss teaching. Instead, I am very satisfied with my work life as a published fiction writer. My fourth romance was traditionally published two months ago, and I am hard at work outlining the details of the next one.
My whole life is like a romance now.
My parents are making plans to retire to Malta, although it will still be several years before that’s possible for them. I’m looking forward to it.
I feel very welcome in Alessio’s family. His mother Marija is still trying to feed me everything in the world and teach me how to cook it Maltese-style, but since that’s also how she treats her own daughter, I’ll gladly take it. His grandmother is still around, still giving us verbal nudges on giving her great-grandchildren as soon as possible—but again, she’s still begging Alessio’s sister to have more children and nagging Alessio’s brothers to get married, and, as she tells them, “soon, because you aren’t getting smarter, you know,” so I am certain I have Nunna’s approval as well.
It must be clear to all of them how much I love Alessio.
And how much he loves me.
I am blessed.
Downstairs, I hear the heavy wooden door creak open and close. “Ghasel, jien id-dar,” Alessio calls. He means, “Honey, I’m home,” which isn’t so much a traditional saying in Maltese, but it’s something we always say to each other. Luckily, it’s not as difficult to say as it looks written down.
Oh yeah. I’m learning to speak Maltese. The endearments I learned quickly, and some basic conversation and shopping terms like, “how much is this?” and “when is the next bus to Marsalforn?” and “where are the fresh melons?”
Alessio comes up the stairs with a small bag in his hand. “Dinner at Ommi’s before we go to Nadur?” he suggests. “She wanted me to bring you.”
I bite my lip. What I want and what’s wise might be two different things. “Well,” I say, “I don’t mind dinner at your mother’s. But maybe not Nadur tonight.”
He raises his eyebrows. “Why not?”
My heart speeds up, because I know what he’s thinking. The Nadur festival has become our one risky, naughty-in-public date each year. Every year we’ve gone and at least done something that we could possibly get arrested for, in the middle of that heaving, drunken crowd of people on their worst behavior, trusting to the general madness to keep us anonymous and not unusual. But this year, things have changed. I don’t want to go.
All the same, the memories of Alessio’s clever fingers between my thighs in times past are making me want him.
I haven’t answered, and he’s still waiting. “I know it’s been our tradition…” I say, and then take a deep breath.
“Are you tired?” he asks, coming to lift my hair off my neck and massage the back of it where it gets tense. “Would you rather the Victoria parade tonight, after dinner? Or we could just snack at the festival, if you like.”
“I thought we could just come home tonight,” I offer, gesturing toward the bed. “I’m just not feeling the wild public party this evening.”
Alessio turns me to face him. He looks grave. “Are you tired of me already, mara?”
I can feel my face flush, as hot blood rushes to my face—and elsewhere. “Not in the least. It’s just…” I take another deep breath. “Things have changed, and…Alessio, I’m pregnant.”
My husband goes to his knees to look into my face, his expression radiant. “Truly? There’s a baby?”
I touch my stomach, and my mouth curves into a wobbly smile as happy tears come to my eyes. “Our baby’s in here.”
The glowing look in his eyes gets hotter, somehow. He stands, and lifts me to my feet as well, before picking me up and carrying me to the nearby bed. Without a word spoken, he begins to undress me. When I try to help, he moves my hands away with a kiss. When I’m naked, he strips off his own clothes and joins me on the bed, his cock long and hard for me. He begins with kisses—sweet ones that bring more tears to my eyes, they’re so gentle—and caresses of my newly-sensitive breasts. He kisses and strokes me from my eyelids down to my feet, and before long I’m so wet that the sheet has become damp under me. When he finally comes back to the juncture of my thighs and parts my folds with his stroking fingers, I am desperately ready for him, my skin so hot I feel as if I have a fever.
“Please, Alessio,” I murmur. “No more waiting. I need you.”
He grips his shaft just behind the head and teases my little nub with it, making me moan. “Please.”
The sensation of his cock entering my eager channel is so good that tears come to my eyes. We groan in unison, and he begins to move on me. I lock my ankles around his knees and look into his dark eyes while his long hair falls around us, and I feel myself opening like a flower in the sunlight, opening and growing and swelling until I am ready to burst with pleasure. And then I do reach that high place where I splinter into shards of happiness, and he bursts deep inside me, and I can’t stop the tears of delight.
“I didn’t know,” he whispers against my breast, when we can breathe again. “I didn’t know it would feel like this.”
“No wonder your nunna keeps pushing us to have a baby,” I whisper back, running my hands over his hair. “It’s so good.”
“You and me together,” my love tells me.
“Forever,” I echo.
