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The day had been long and hot. Lucien left early with the boat for supplies—at least that was what he told me, but I knew he was doing other things as well. Even sheltered in another country, on an unmarked island, he still schemed for his return to the city.
I gathered my skirt in my fist and climbed up the sand to the dirt path. The dust was worn soft by my sons. Every morning, before breakfast, I heard their feet pound down the stairs and burst into the garden. Their shouts of joy as they ran to the beach for a morning swim wafted into the kitchen.
This morning I’d made them a plate of cheese, olives, and sausages and put it on the porch. The twins weren’t toddlers anymore and they spent all their time tagging along with Marco and Hugo, happy to finally be old enough to be included.
They all ate on the stone porch. Cross-legged, dirty feet, suntanned faces. They thrived in exile.
The island was a goddess of protection. When we’d arrived in the early morning a year ago, I remembered blinking in the pale sunlight as we stepped off the plane. All around us were trees, dusty ground, pale white cliffs, and sandy beaches. The air smelled clean and salty.
The boys tumbled out of the plane behind me and stood, shocked into silence. They’d never experienced anything like the island before and I wasn’t sure how they’d take it.
I shouldn’t have worried. They loved it.
I could see that even Lucien felt safe. His shoulders loosened and his hand slid around my waist as we watched our sons take off running through the brushy field towards the shoreline. The sight brought sudden tears to my eyes. I’d never seen my sons run so freely before.
“Welcome home, Liv,” Lucien said quietly.
I leaned my head against his side. “It’s not so bad,” I said. “I can live here…I think I can like living here.”
My life on the island was nothing like my life in the city as Lucien’s wife, but somehow it became the refuge I’d always needed. Here, there were no distractions to keep me from Lucien and my sons. I was too busy with keeping the house and making sure there was fresh food on the table every night to overthink.
Everything was so much simpler. All my jewels were gone, sent to secret accounts, except for my wedding band and gold anklet. I no longer spent time straightening my hair, I just washed it and braided it wet down my back each morning. My skin tanned in the Mediterranean sun and none of my makeup matched anymore so I stopped wearing it.
I had a small wardrobe of simple dresses for the summertime and jeans and a few sweaters for when the weather grew cool. The winter was mild and the boys were amazed they could play outside without coats for most of the season. In the summer, they ran around in just their shorts while I shouted after them to wear sunscreen.
My sons thrived. They spent all day running wild on the island, waging war on each other and building forts in the cliffs. Lucien approved and rarely intervened unless they were doing something dangerous.
“Let them be, Liv,” he said, one day as we watched Hugo and Marco wrestling in the garden through the window. “They’re learning things they’ll need to know for the future.”
“Like what?” I’d asked.
“When to fight,” said Lucien, brows lowered. “And when to cut their losses.”
I stood at the kitchen table with my hands covered in bread dough and scowled. Maybe Lucien was happy to have undomesticated children, but I wasn’t. When we got back to the city, they were going to school to learn some manners.
He left the window and came up behind me. At that point, we’d only been on the island for a month, but I could already see changes in his body. He was doing hours of physical labor every day to get the island secure and to ensure we had an escape route if we needed. It was showing in his body—the forearms that slid around me were like iron.
His breath shifted closer to the back of my neck. His body rippled as he ground lazily against me. Before I could protest, his hand came up and he yanked the left side of my bodice down and my breast fell out.
His rough fingers squeezed it, pinching my nipple. Pleasure moved like a live wire down to my clit.
“Quick fuck?” he murmured.
I bit my lip hard. I’d run out of my birth control last month and Lucien hadn’t been able to make a trip to the mainland due to weather. This was the first time I’d ovulated in a while and it was driving him crazy. He could taste it between my legs when I was fertile and he wanted another baby—he’d been vocal about that for a while now.
“No,” I said weakly.
All I wanted to do was give in. I felt my head fall back on his chest and he gripped my throat. He did that thing I couldn’t resist where he ground his hips against me until I felt the hard V of muscle through his shirt.
We fucked in the pantry. Hard and fast, but at the last minute I came to my senses.
“Pull out,” I begged.
He obliged, shifting his hips and coming on the inside of my thigh. We stood there, panting and sweating in the heat of the pantry. Shocked by how close we’d come to recklessness.
“I want the shot or an IUD,” I said. “I’m not having a baby in exile.”
He didn’t like it, I could tell, but he brought me to the mainland with him and I had an IUD placed. It felt like a huge weight had lifted off my shoulders. Especially because Lucien in exile was somehow even hornier than he’d been in the city.
