by Lacey Legend
The chalet was empty except for just the two of us, and Fed had told me several times that my moans and other sounds of sexual pleasure greatly turned him on. So, now with both hands tangled in his hair, trying to direct his mouth exactly where I wanted it to go, I began to lose myself in the passion that I’d been fantasizing about all day.
However, Fed apparently wasn’t quite ready to allow me to lose myself fully just yet. With agonizing slowness, he raked his tongue up and down my pussy lips several times, making me arch my back, becoming desperate for him to move his tongue inward.
“Please, Fed. Don’t tease me anymore. I can’t handle much more of it.”
Seeming to be in a real mood to be cruel, he again gave slow, deliberate attention to my outer lips, although without bringing the tip of his tongue anywhere near my throbbing clit.
Thoroughly frustrated, I heaved a sigh. “I’ll pay you back for this later, Fed. I don’t know exactly when, and I don’t know exactly how, but I do know that I will. I’ll tease you until you’re just begging me to…oh!”
Making me grind my head back into the pillows, hips jerking, he’d finally, and rather suddenly, begun raking his tongue over my clit with a prolonged, low growl.
“Oh, God, Fed. Right there. Don’t stop. Please don’t stop.”
He didn’t, and instead progressively quickened the pace of his deliciously firm, warm, stroking tongue. Several minutes later, I cried out loudly, involuntarily squeezing my eyes shut, as a powerful climax crashed over me in waves. By the end of it, I was actually seeing stars behind my eyelids, little pinpricks of white light that disappeared and reappeared, twinkling, with each surge of my ecstasy.
Once Fed had pulled his body up alongside mine, though, I found that I still wanted more and didn’t even want to wait.
“I want to feel you inside me now. I just want all of you…every inch of you.”
Seeming incredibly eager to give me every inch of himself, he rolled me on my side, facing away from him, hiked a leg up over my hips, and then quickly entered me from behind with one powerful thrust. Moaning, I found the sensation of having my pussy filled with my legs closed to be one of almost unbearable pleasure, slightly uncomfortable in some way but completely rapturous at the same time. When Fed began thrusting, this sensation only intensified, bringing me close to the brink of another powerful climax within minutes.
Seeming to sense this, and possibly wanting to stave it off for a while, he slowed the pace of his thrusting considerably, then soon pulled himself out of me, rolled me over to face him, and hiked my leg up on his hip before sliding his rock-hard cock into my pussy again.
“I want to watch your beautiful face when you cum.”
This was fine with me because I wanted to watch his.
In the glow of the candles, we looked into each other’s eyes deeply many times over the next several minutes, until finally, when Fed increased the pace of his thrusting, I couldn’t hold back any longer. With a loud, prolonged cry of passion, I gave into my cresting pleasure and just let it take me, meeting Fed’s every thrust with my own bucking hips while I saw stars for the second time. Almost at the same time, he growled out his own release, kneading the soft curve of my hip with one strong, long-fingered hand.
A short while later, we rested in embrace without speaking while a stiff breeze blew in through the curtains, cooling our slightly-sweaty skin. Candlelight danced along the cream-colored walls of the spacious bedroom.
Eventually turning my face to look at Fed, I was the first to speak. “This is what I want in my life, you know. This is all I want. I just want this. Just us, together and happy. I just want to know if you want it, too.”
The candlelight revealed Fed’s expression to be one of unmistakable sincerity.
“I do want this…more than anything, Jasmine. I love you so very much.”
Smiling, I reached for his hand and twined my fingers with his. “I love you, too…and I’m starting to think that maybe a happily-ever-after is in our future.”
Fed attempted a smile, but I could see that it was only that. Just an attempt. The smile didn’t reach all the way up to his eyes.
Instantly, I realized that I’d probably made some kind of a mistake by mentioning the words “future” and “happily-ever-after.” This was because even though our relationship and love had deepened, Fed still didn’t like talking about the possibility of a long-term future. He certainly was reluctant to talk about marriage, changing the subject when I’d brought it up during dinner one night, asking if he thought he might ever change his mind about it.
Now, in bed with him, I felt like this was maybe the time to ask him for more of an explanation about his anti-marriage stance when it came to him personally. After all, the previous six weeks in France had taught me that although Fed was often very busy with the company, he wasn’t so busy that the idea of marriage and family someday should be completely out of the question.
However, before I could say anything further to him or ask him any questions, he abruptly gave me a kiss and closed his eyes. “Goodnight, Jas. I’m very tired.”
With some kind of a little ache in my chest, I soon closed my eyes myself, although it was a long while before sleep finally came to me.
Chapter11
On our last day in Paris, Fed asked me if I wanted to come along with him to Rome for the next month. “We could stay at my home there, just the two of us, or if you’re a little homesick, I could fly you back to Detroit and come visit you every weekend.”
I wasn’t homesick for Detroit at all. Or, if I was, it was just a tiny bit. However, I was starting to feel like wherever Fed was, that was my real home.
In response to his question, I fought a little eyeroll and a smile at the same time. “Do you really need to ask me this question? Of course, I want to go to Rome with you. But….”
Thinking, I paused for a long moment. “Do you want me to come to Rome with you?”
With a quiet sigh and a little smile, Fed came over to me from where he’d been putting some clothes in a suitcase, and he pulled me into his arms. “Do you really need to ask me this question?”
Starting to smile again, I lifted my shoulders in a slight shrug. “I don’t know. I guess I just wanted to make sure.”
Tightening his arms around me, Fed gave me a tender, lingering kiss on my lips before pulling away to look deeply into my eyes. “I’m beginning to think that I never want to spend a single day apart from you, Jasmine. I love you with all of my heart.”
I told him that the feeling was very mutual; we began kissing again; and soon, our packing for the move to Rome was all but forgotten.
Our first week in Rome, I actually felt a little homesick for Paris and the friends I’d made there, even though Fed had promised that we could go back to the chalet for extended trips at least twice a year. And soon, I made new friends in Rome and began to love the city just as much as I did Paris.
A few weeks into our stay, I sent my grandparents and aunt and uncle a package filled with Italian clothing, lines, and souvenir-type items I’d bought for them all, including numerous postcards for my grandpa to add to his collection. I also sent my friend Carla a package containing a top and two scarves I’d bought for her in Rome. I sent Sheila a similar package with a few scarves and a bracelet I thought she’d like.
I didn’t, however, send anything to my mom, or Abbey. Neither of them had called or contacted me in any way since the night I’d called them both to tell them about my trip to Paris. I hadn’t contacted them in any way, either, instead preferring weekly phone chats with my grandparents and my aunt and uncle.
I had the feeling that I might not ever talk to Abbey again, and I felt a little sad about this but mostly okay, thinking that maybe it was best that we both just moved on and eventually each found new best friends. My mom, though, was of course a different story. I wanted to talk to her again at some point, and I wanted to have a relationship with her. I just didn’t want to argue all the time and
have to be subjected to what felt like her perpetual judgment.
While we stayed in Rome, Fed and I became even closer. One evening, he presented me with a gorgeous diamond-and-ruby necklace that I’d been admiring in an extremely high-end jewelry store the day before. Waiting to get his watch fixed, Fed had been on the phone with a business associate at the time, and I hadn’t thought that he’d even noticed me admiring the necklace. He had, though, and had gotten the idea to surprise me with it over dinner at what was quickly becoming my favorite restaurant in Rome.
A few days later, I was wearing the necklace when his parents came to meet me and stay with us for the weekend. Immediately, his mom and I hit it off, even though her English wasn’t exactly the greatest, nor was my Italian. Despite this, we became fast friends while spending nearly half a day in the kitchen, cooking a multicourse meal plus dessert for Fed and his dad.
Fed’s mom, whose name was Maria, showed me how to make a thick tomato-basil sauce that she called “gravy,” telling me that I was doing “so much very perfect” while I stirred it at the stove. Smiling, I told her that she was doing a perfect job, too, while she kneaded dough for garlic-herb rolls from one of my grandma’s recipes.
Over the course of the weekend, I got to know Fed’s dad a little, too, liking him just as much as his mom. Fed’s dad, whose name was Fabriccio, was a bit of a joker, frequently teasing me, Maria, and Fed with such a straight face that I couldn’t tell if he was being serious or not until he would inevitably break his straight face with a chuckle.
This was why, as he and Maria prepared to leave on Sunday afternoon, I couldn’t tell if he was being serious or just teasing when we took me aside in the marble-floored foyer and abruptly told me that Fed was going to marry me someday. Uncertain, I asked Fabriccio to repeat himself, and he did. Because he spoke perfect English with only the faintest trace of an accent, like Fed, I knew I hadn’t misheard him, but still, I just couldn’t fully comprehend what he’d said, or why he’d said it.
After a quick glance toward the hallway, as if to make sure that Fed and his mom weren’t coming down it with her luggage, Fabriccio clarified a little. “Look. I know my son well. I’ve never seen him look at another woman the way he looks at you. I can just tell that he’s going to marry you someday. I just wanted to tell you, and reassure you, because I can see in your eyes when you look at him that you love him, but that you have some funny doubt or something, like you don’t really think that you and my son are going to be a forever kind of thing.”
Astounded by Fabriccio’s powers of perception, I couldn’t even speak, and he continued.
“I just wanted to tell you all this, Jasmine, because I think you’re a wonderful girl who’ll make a wonderful addition to our family someday.”
Touched but also somewhat at a loss at the same time, I sighed. “Well, thank you for that, and thank you for telling me what you did about Fed, but…you’ve only known me for a few days. How are you even so sure that I’ll make a ‘wonderful addition’ to your family?”
“Because I know and trust my son, and I understand what he’s thinking when he looks at you. There’s something very profound in his eyes that I’ve never seen before. It’s something that makes me sure that he’s going to ask you to marry him someday.”
I sighed again. “Look. I appreciate all this. I really do. And I’m not saying that you don’t know your own son or anything like that, but…Fed has told me that he has no intention of ever getting married or having kids. He won’t even talk about it anymore. He just says that his career will never make it possible.”
“And do you think that’s the real reason?”
A bit surprised by this question, I said I didn’t know. “What is the real reason? Do you know something I don’t?”
Fabriccio shrugged. “My son can be a tough nut to crack sometimes. He doesn’t always like to talk. All I know is that he’s had some trust issues with women in the past. That’s the only thing I can think of that might be holding him back from asking you to marry him. Because of this, maybe he just needs a little more time until he can come to trust you fully.”
Right then, preventing me from saying anything in response, Fed and his mom came down the hallway pulling her rolling suitcases behind them.
For days, I contemplated what Fabriccio had told me, eventually coming to the conclusion that maybe he was right. Maybe Fed just simply needed more time before he could come to trust me fully. After that, I figured, maybe he’d be more willing to at least entertain the idea of marriage someday. He’d have to be at some point, really, if our relationship was going to survive in the long run, because I was becoming increasingly certain that I wanted to become a wife and mother, and sooner rather than later. I was thinking that ideally, I wanted to be married a good while before my thirtieth birthday. Which meant that I had just a little over a year-and-a-half to make that happen.
Once his work in Rome was finished, Fed and I continued our international globe-trotting by spending four weeks in New York City, where he spent his days working with Testera executives, engineers, and marketing people, and his evenings showing me the city and then making love to me until I was so completely satisfied that I usually fell asleep within a minute afterward. While he was gone during the daytime, I enjoyed a life something like the one I’d had in Paris, making friends with the wives of Testera executives. One of them, a woman named Whitney, that I hit it off with right away. We quickly became close friends, shopping together, taking yoga classes, and just simply hanging out nearly every day.
Whitney and her husband had a five-year-old daughter named Madison, and some days, Whitney would bring her along when we went shopping or just hung out. Absolutely adorable, with jet-black curly hair and big chocolate brown eyes, Madison was also extremely well-behaved.
“Too well-behaved, in a way,” Whitney said to me once.
I asked her what she meant, and she clarified.
“See, my friends who don’t have kids get used to her and start thinking that all kids are as well-behaved as she is. Then, encouraged, they have kids of their own and come back to me, like, ‘Why didn’t you tell me that most kids are absolute destructive little monsters?’”
This had made me laugh, and I told Whitney that I wouldn’t let Madison’s angelic-ness cloud my thinking. “See, I’ve done a lot of babysitting in my day. I know how most kids are. I think I could get used to it, though, as long as I could have a child of my own. I think I’m actually starting to get ‘baby rabies’ a little bit…or maybe just ‘child rabies,’ period.”
Wearing an amused expression, Whitney raised an eyebrow at me. “’Child rabies’ sounds like the most horrible disease I’ve ever heard of.”
Leaning back in a chair at our favorite café, I laughed again. “Yeah. It does. I guess my point is that I’m just starting to become really desperate to start having kids. I want to be married, though, first.”
“And what does Fed think about that?”
With that question, my heart sank like a stone, and I shrugged before proceeding to tell Whitney everything, from Fed’s resistance to marriage to what his dad had said to me. Whitney asked if I’d talked to Fed about marriage recently, and I said yes.
“I brought it up over dinner last night, actually. I was telling him about how I’d heard from my friend Carla earlier in the day, and she told me that she’s pregnant and is getting married. She asked if I might want to be one of her bridesmaids, and I said yes, so I said some joke to Fed, something about how I’d much rather be a bride.
Fed didn’t laugh, and instead just began staring down at his food, just picking at it. Then, after a minute or two, he suddenly looked up at me and said, ‘Jasmine, I just want you to be so happy in your life. I just want you to have what you want, even if it’s not with me.’”
“And what was your response to this?”
“Well, naturally, I kind of freaked out at first, because he made it sound like he was breaking up with me or something. But then
, when I asked him if he was, he said no, but that he just wanted me to know that he can never give me what I want, meaning marriage and kids. I was crying a little at this point, and I said I didn’t care. I said I just wanted to be with him, no matter what. And then, long story short, well…we ended up making a trip to the bedroom and soon went to bed. Then, this morning over breakfast, neither of us mentioned anything about marriage or kids.”
“Yet something just tells me that it’s a subject that it going to come up once again.”
Slowly twirling a straw in my iced coffee, I looked down into the cup feeling like I had a little headache coming on. “Yeah…unfortunately, I think you’re right.”
Fed and I finally returned to Detroit the first week of September. Fed was going to spend the next month working with a man named Barry, who was Ted’s replacement. I was going to go back to work at the Detroit office, too. After the month was over, I really didn’t know what was going to happen, or where Fed and I might go, because he wasn’t even sure himself yet. Once back in Detroit, I felt like our relationship was a little bit up in the air, along with our traveling plans.
On one level, I felt like Fed and I were happier and more in love than ever, and every day, I felt like my love for him grew even stronger. However, at the same time, my desire to get married and start a family was growing even stronger, seemingly by the day, too.
I’d been back to work for a week when there was an unexpected knock on my apartment door. Thinking that maybe Fed was home from his late meeting and had just forgotten his key, I went to the door and looked through the peephole. It wasn’t Fed standing on the other side, though. Instead, it was a person I thought I might never see again. It was Malcolm, and he was holding a bouquet of red roses.
Astonished and baffled, I opened the door, but I found that I couldn’t say anything. This was okay, though, because Malcolm definitely had something to say, and he seemed like he was in a hurry to say it.
