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Keeping my gaze on his, I rock my hips, driving him in and out of me, kissing him at the same time, and we move together as if we’re dancing, our bodies perfectly in sync. He lowers his mouth to my nipples and traces his tongue around them, then sucks them, and I feel an answering clench inside, and I know my climax isn’t far away.
“Marc…” I tug his hair to pull his head back so I can kiss him again, and our hot mouths clash, full of yearning, of hunger. I’ve never felt desire like this. I never knew the heat they portray in books and the movies was real. Ooh, that feels good, I’m so close, so close…
And then he holds me tightly around the waist and moves, and I’m falling backward, onto the carpet. I squeal, but he’s holding me, and he lowers me onto my back, still inside me.
“My turn to be in charge,” he says, and then he starts moving, really thrusting, driving inside me in a way he hasn’t done before. And oh God, that’s hot; my body is so aroused, and I’m so ready for him that it sends me tumbling toward the edge. He’s propped on his hands and I can tell he’s lost it, that his body is taking over, and he wants me, oh God he wants me, and I come, pulsing again and again, clenching around him as I cry out in ecstasy.
He rides me through it, his muscles tight, his body taut, and then he comes too. I hold him, knowing he’s spilling inside me, and I cry because it’s so beautiful and I love it so much, and I don’t ever want him to stop.
When he’s done, he kisses my face, my eyes, kisses away my tears.
“We’ve made a baby tonight,” he says, not questioning that I’m upset, kissing back to my mouth.
“You sound so certain,” I whisper, sniffing.
“I am. I know it, one hundred percent.”
It’s sentimental, because of course he can’t know, but I kinda hope he’s right. I want his baby. I want a little piece of him I can hang onto when he’s gone.
A piece of him I can love forever.
Chapter Twenty-One
Fitz
It’s late afternoon, a few days later, and we’re at the new Ark, working. The wind blows across the fields, bringing with it the smell of the sea, and all of a sudden I feel homesick.
It’s odd, because I wasn’t born in the Bay of Islands, and I haven’t spent that many years there, in terms of a percentage of my life. But it’s only now I realize how I’ve felt at home since moving there five years ago. I think maybe a small part of my soul had lingered in Hawke’s Bay, as if it had snagged on barbed wire, leaving behind little tufts of memory that meant I wasn’t completely whole. But now I’m back here, I feel as if I’ve finally pulled free. Seeing Mel was hard, but it has liberated me, too. She doesn’t have a claim on me anymore. She has her own family, and it’s time for me to move on.
I’m not quite sure what moving on is going to involve for me yet. But I have an idea.
I stand by the fence, half-listening to Ashton as he talks about where he’s thinking of placing the car park, my gaze drifting across to Poppy. She’s sitting in the plastic chairs with Sally and Hemi over by the office block, drinking coffee, shading her eyes from the bright sun. Her beautiful hair is loose, and it looks like fire in the sunlight. She’s so beautiful. And she’s completely captured my heart.
I half expected it to happen while we were away, and yet it feels so different from what I anticipated. I knew I’d enjoy sleeping with her, and I thought we’d fit together, that it would feel comfortable, because we have so much in common. We’re so similar—for example, we don’t feel the need to fill every gap in the conversation; we enjoy just being in each other’s company. One of my favorite things is lying in bed after we’ve made love, her lying half across me, tracing my fingers up and down her back, with our thoughts drifting. Mel always wanted to know what I was thinking and feeling, but Poppy’s not like that. She’s so easy to be with.
It’s been an idyllic few days. We’ve worked hard, spending a lot of hours with Ashton and the others, sharing knowledge that’s been really useful. We’ve also been out and about, including a trip to Hastings’ twin city, Napier, up the coast a little. The city was razed in an earthquake in 1931—still New Zealand’s deadliest natural disaster with 256 people killed—and much of the destroyed town center was rebuilt in the Art Deco tradition. Poppy loved the bold geometric forms, the sunbursts and fountains, and the skyscraper shapes, and she bought several pieces of art to take back home.
