Anew: The Epilogue Read online

  But far beyond that, I love him.

  Heedless of the intimate moment, my stomach growls.

  My husband rises, drawing me upward with him. Holding me, my back against his front, he licks the shell of my ear and murmurs, “Food, wife, and then--”

  A long finger eases into my pussy, unerringly finding the spot where I am so ultrasensitive. Fire licks through my veins as he strokes me. His voice is low and deep, the hard edge of carnal anticipation softened by wonder, as he says, “You’ll truly be mine.”

  Chapter Three

  “More?” Ian asks as he feeds me a sliver of beef from between his fingers. It’s so tender that it all but melts on my tongue.

  I swallow, lick the taste from my lips, and smile at my husband. “I think I’m full.”

  “You’re sure?” His eyes glitter, moving over me. Beneath the white silk robe I put on before leaving the bedroom, my body stirs. I’m having trouble looking anywhere other than at him. Bare-chested above low-slung drawstring pants, he is quite simply magnificent.

  We are seated in one of the twin columned galleries that frame the garden. Nearby, water splashes in the stone fountain. A soft breeze blows from the south, fragrant with the heavy, sultry scent of the far-off tropics.

  The light from hanging lanterns ripples in the deep red cabernet we are drinking. I take a sip, savoring the full, ripe taste, and gaze at Ian over the rim of my glass.

  “It was all delicious,” I say. The invisible, ultra-discreet staff outdid itself. The supper that awaited us was perfect, one exquisite delicacy after another, a feast of sensual temptations. I’m pleasantly replete but nervous anticipation still flutters in my belly.

  Anything he wants .Anyway he wants it.

  My anxiousness increases as a contemplate the secret that I’ve kept from Ian. It trembles on my lips, begging to be shared. I’m on the verge of blurting it out when he says, “Then if you’re done--” He rises and holds out his hand.

  I take it, of course, but he must feel the tension in me. A slight frown mars his brow. “Amelia, you must know, we will never, ever do anything that you don’t want.”

  “I know--” Even to my own ears, my voice sounds unnaturally high and breathy.

  Anxious to leave no doubt in his mind, I move closer and lay the palm of my hand on his bare chest, just above where his heart beats.

  “I trust you completely, Ian. It’s just that what you make me want can be quite overwhelming.”

  My candor is rewarded when he smiles. “I feel the same way, sweetheart. I lose myself in you.”

  His simple honesty is just the reassurance I need. Obeying an irresistible impulse, I touch my lips to his, surprised as I always am by how hard his mouth can look yet how tender it can be. The tip of my tongue slips past the ridge of his teeth and tangles with his. The taste of him fills me--the tart flavor of the wine that we’ve enjoyed mingling with a hint of herbs and citrus, all surpassed by the intrinsic, intimate flavor of Ian himself.

  Shivers of pleasure ripple through me. Breath to breath, I drink him in. He makes a low sound in his throat and wraps a steely arm around me. His hand cups my chin, his fingers stroking and claiming all at once. The kiss deepens until nothing else exists for me, only his taste and touch, and the pulsing need to have more of him, all of him, everything he has to give.

  When we finally break apart, the raging fire in his eyes matches mine. Swiftly, I take his hand and ask, “The bedroom then, husband? Or did you have somewhere else in mind?”

  He laughs--a sound of such pure enjoyment that I wish I could hear it forever--and once again lifts me effortlessly in his arms. I twine mine around his neck, relishing his strength.

  “Turns out that I’m a traditionalist,” he says as he carries me from the gallery. “At least I am when it comes to wedding nights. The bedroom it is.”

  By the time we reach there, I am quivering with the potent combination of anticipation and desire that he is so very good at igniting. My nipples are so hard that even the light silk of the robe covering them feels heavy and rough. I stifle a moan as I imagine Ian sucking me through the fabric, drawing me into his mouth, biting--

  He sets me down near the bed and undoes the belt of my robe, pulling it free of the loops. My eyes widen as he grasps both ends of the narrow length of white silk and winds them around his hands before yanking the fabric taut.

  His eyes are shards of burning amber as they rake over me. “Take off the rest,” he says.

  I obey, letting the garment slither down my body to pool on the floor. The air feels suddenly cool against my overheated skin. The shadows in the room accentuate the hard planes of his face. He looks as he did the first time I saw him--powerful, indomitable, determined.

  “Get on the bed, on your back.”

  The mattress is high enough that I have to climb onto it. As I do so, Ian sucks in his breath. I glance over my shoulder and flush. In my naked state, he’s getting quite a view.

  Trying my best to put aside all vestiges of self-consciousness, I do as he says and stretch out on the bed. A moment later, he joins me there.

  “Fold your legs up,” he instructs. “Bent at the knee.”

  I take a breath and do so. In this position, my knees are level with my ears and my heels touch my buttocks.

  “I want you to stay like this,” Ian says. “And to assure that you do--”

  Swiftly, he ties the silk belt into a loop, slips it over one of my legs to the knee, around the back of my neck, and over to my other knee. My hands fall away as I realize that trussed up as I suddenly am, I can’t straighten my legs.

  Instinctively, I try to draw them together but Ian stops me. With a palm to each of my inner thighs, he pushes them apart until I am fully exposed.

  “I want to see you,” he says gruffly.

  Aside from the narrow strip of dark hair at the apex of my thighs, I’m completely bare. There is nothing to conceal the lips of my sex, my clit, my opening and more.

  Ian’s breath is becoming harsher. “You have such a gorgeous cunt,” he says. “Pink, smooth, glistening. I can’t wait to taste you.”

  The blunt sensuality of his words makes me clench. I stare at him as he reaches over to the small table beside the bed and opens a drawer. My eyes widen at the sight of a black silk blindfold.

  He pauses before slipping it over my head. “All right?” he asks.

  Silently, I nod. As the world goes dark, Ian says, “Relax, baby. I’m going to make this so good for you.”

  Everything in me clenches at that promise. I don’t doubt for a moment that he’ll keep it.

  His fingers close around one of my ankles, holding me in place. Something that feels like a small metal wheel with prongs runs along the sole of my foot. The sensation--poised between pain and pleasure--makes my toes curl tightly. I fall back against the pillows with a groan as I realize that there was more in the drawer than just the blindfold.

  He applies the wheel to the bottoms of both my feet, up the insides of my legs, and over the curves of my buttocks. Drawn up as I am, my skin pulled taut, I’m especially sensitive. Very quickly, I’m panting.

  Ian chuckles softly. “You like that. We’ll have to use it again but for now--” I hear the faint clink of the metal as he sets the devilish little wheel back on the table. My body braces as I wonder what he will do next.

  His fingers skim lightly over the path the wheel took. They come to rest between the opening of my sex and my anus. As he presses gently, I gasp. I’m even more sensitive there than I realized.

  “Easy,” Ian murmurs. The tip of his thumb circles my opening. At the same time, his index finger traces the outer band of muscle around my anus. Slowly, he presses into both, stroking, caressing. The sensation is exquisite. Pleasure burns through me but I’m still not prepared when suddenly he pinches his finger and thumb together lightly inside me. Nerve endings I didn’t know I had flare wildly.

  My back bows as I cry out. The edges of a powerful orgasm are closing in on
me. I can feel it building…building…

  He pulls back suddenly, leaving me empty and unfulfilled. I whimper in protest. “Noooo!”

  “Patience.” His voice is teasing but low and rough enough to tell me that he’s far from unaffected.

  I gasp as I feel the touch of cool, wet lube against my ass. It’s followed by something metallic, hard, and smooth with a tapered point. The realization of what he intends makes me groan. As I squirm to accept the butt plug, I wonder if it’s the same one he used at Carnival, set with an aquamarine stone that matches my eyes.

  “Beautiful,” Ian says when the plug is fully seated inside me. He twists it slowly.

  I whimper at the exquisite feeling and gasp. “Please!”

  “In time, sweetheart,” he murmurs, his breath warm against the lips of my sex. “But first--”

  I hear a soft ‘click’ and suddenly the plug begins to vibrate. The sensation is so unexpected, not to say shocking that my first instinct is to struggle. But the moment I begin to do so, Ian soothes me.

  “It’s okay, baby. You can handle this. Just let yourself feel.”

  His finger eases inside me, circling the inner walls of my vagina. Stretched as I am by the vibrating plug, even that single digit seems to fill me. But he quickly adds another, bringing me up again…higher…so close--

  His fingers withdraw. I’m left hanging on the edge, gasping.

  “Ian!”

  I feel his smile against the tight skin of my abdomen where muscles ripple. “Frustrated, sweetheart? I promise, when you do come, it will be worth the wait.”

  A tremor of sensual apprehension courses through me. How long does he intend to keep up this exquisite torment?

  “Aahhhhh!”

  Without warning, the tip of his tongue flicks over my swollen clit. Once, again, and yet again before he draws the nub of nerve endings into his mouth and--

  “Ohmygod!”

  The nip of Ian’s teeth followed almost instantly by a long, soothing lick makes every muscle in my body clench. Long, powerful contractions rack my pussy. He stops, just long enough for me to come down a little, then begins again, flicking, sucking, licking, biting, over and over. My head thrashes against the pillows. Desperately, I try at once to press close to him and to escape. Trussed as I am, with my hips gripped between his hands, I can’t do either. I can only endure.

  When he withdraws again, a sob breaks from me. “Ian, please, I can’t bear this!”

  “You won’t have to, baby,” he says, his voice low and gruff. He comes over me and to my intense relief, I can feel that he’s removed the drawstring pants. At the touch of his big, hard body all along mine, I start to shiver and can’t stop.

  His erection lies long, hot, and heavy on my belly. Swiftly, he undoes the belt holding my legs in place. Just as quickly, I wrap them around his hips and arch my pelvis.

  He guides himself to me, rubbing the length of his cock all along my bare, swollen slit, coating it with my juices before sliding into me.

  A long groan of relief breaks from my throat. This is so right…so necessary. I should be afraid of how empty I feel without him but instead I glory in it. My hands grip his back and slide down, cupping his rock hard buttocks. His muscles flex powerfully in long, rippling strokes as he thrusts harder, deeper, faster.

  This time, there’s no stopping. We climb together, higher and higher, our bodies straining as one. Brilliant lights pulse behind my eyes. My chest is so tight that I can scarcely breathe. The heat of his skin burns me inside and out. I’m unraveling, breaking apart…

  My husband reaches behind me and pulls out the butt plug. A scream tears from me, rising to the golden dome above the bed. Another… My voice is raw. I’m teetering on the fine line between pain and pleasure. A red mist moves behind the darkness of the blindfold. Reality falls away and I go with it, soaring into a thick, feral ecstasy. The long, hard pulses of Ian’s orgasm extend my own. They are still reverberating in me when consciousness dissolves and I plummet into blissful oblivion.

  When I’m next aware, I’m stretched out on the bed under a light cover. The blindfold is gone but I don’t open my eyes, not yet. First, I try moving my limbs. They work well enough for all that I ache deliciously.

  “Welcome back,” a voice murmurs.

  I turn my head and meet my husband’s amber gaze, filled with love and tenderness.

  “Hey,” I manage.

  He props himself up on one elbow and studies me “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, very. I just don’t think I can move any time soon.”

  His smile speaks volumes about intense male satisfaction but it also hints at his relief. “Then don’t, babe,” he says and gathers me to him. His hand trails down my back, over my spine, in a light, feathery caress that is infinitely soothing. The steady rhythm of his breath follows me into my dreams.

  Chapter Four

  “I have a surprise for you,” Ian says.

  “Another?” At my exaggerated look of alarm, he grins. We’re having breakfast in the garden, just the two of us, enjoying a meal provided once again by the ultra-discreet staff. After the night we just shared, I’m especially glad of our privacy.

  Innocently, he adds, “I thought you might like to spend some time this morning exploring the grounds.”

  I’m torn between disappointment and thinking that our libidos might benefit from a little rest. After all, as I’ve learned thanks to Ian, restraint only heightens ultimate release.

  “What do you have in mind?” I ask.

  “I thought we’d go fishing.”

  All I can think of is chilly water, slimy bait, and snagging a finger on a hook. “Seriously?”

  “Yep.” He tilts his head toward the edge of the garden. “I’ve got our gear all ready to go.”

  When did he arrange that? While I was struggling to take down my hair--finally--and brush out the wild mass of tangles resulting from our hours of sensual debauchery?

  “You should know,” I say, “that I have no clue how to fish.”

  My husband appears not at all dissuaded. “You’re going to love it.”

  I can’t begin to tell him how sadly misplaced his confidence is so I don’t try.

  A black all-terrain vehicle is waiting for us just beyond the two-storied entrance of the palazzo. Ian stows the gear in the back, then hands me into the front passenger seat.

  “Buckle up,” he says with a grin,

  I do so while experiencing a quick sense of déjà vu. When we were last together like this, I had fled from him. Ian being Ian, he came after me. In what followed, I discovered that no matter how angry or provoked he might feel, he would never willingly cause me harm. Everything else, all that brought us to this day, flowed from that.

  “Where are we going?” I ask as we leave the grounds of the palazzo and drive into the surrounding wilderness. A single road cuts through the estate to the main highway but we avoid it. Instead, we follow a trail that curves around the thickest woodlands toward low-lying hills.

  “My favorite fishing spot,” Ian says. “A lake about a mile from here.”

  “Is that still on the estate?” I ask.

  My husband nods. Until now, I haven’t thought about how large the property is. That it is measured in miles astounds me.

  “How much land do you own here?” I ask.

  “About ten square miles and we own it. Remember, we talked about that.”

  I sigh and do my best to dismiss the memory of that particular conversation, not to mention all the documents that were presented for my signature before the wedding. Documents that took me from being a non-person hiding under a false identity to one of the wealthiest women in the world. No, I definitely don’t want to think about that.

  “Never mind,” I say. “Is it all nature preserve?”

  “Most of it. But there are several small towns, villages really, within the boundaries. They’re self-governing, I don’t have much to do with them. The people are hard-working and decent.
All they want is a fair deal.”

  I know without having to ask that he is doing everything he can to make sure they get that. If Ian and I, and others like us, have our way, our world will change for the better. Instead of wealth and power being ever more concentrated in the hands of a ruling elite, there will be a rebirth of freedom. Ordinary men and women will have a much greater say in the ordering of their own lives and in shaping the future for all of us.

  “You know what?” I say on a lighter note. “I’ll bet that in at least some of those towns, there are places where you can buy fish.”

  He laughs and turns onto a trail that crosses a meadow filled with wild flowers. Beyond it, I catch a glimpse of sunlight glittering on a ribbon of water.

  “Have faith, woman,” my husband says. “I promise you won’t go hungry.”

  “Really? If we’re depending on me to catch anything, I hope you brought a snack.”

  Ian laughs and pulls up in a clearing a few yards from the edge of a small, fast-moving river that sparkles in the sun.

  “You’re not squeamish about catching your own food, are you?” he asks as he helps me out of the vehicle.

  “I have no idea since I’ve never done it. But just as a possible clue, in my perfect world steak grows on bushes.”

  He grimaces. “Give me something that’s been on the hoof. Or swimming around in nice clear water. Come on, I’ll show you.”

  Hand-in-hand, we walk to the edge of the river over wild grass that emits a sweet, fragrant scent. The branches of tall willows lightly brush the earth. I take a deep breath and let it out slowly.

  “This is perfect,” I say.

  Ian squeezes my hand. “I thought you’d like it.” He gestures toward a patch of moss-strewn rocks in the river bed where the eddy of water has created a deep pool. “Look, right there.”

  I do and a moment later see a streak of dappled brown and green flash by.

  “A fish?” I ask.