I heard it, felt it, the tension, the increased rhythm, the shorter strokes.
My climax began to fade and I opened my eyes just in time to see the beauty of Noc’s head slanting back sharply, the veins in his corded neck popping, the quick succession of grunts that led to a low rumble. I watched, fascinated, feeling him pour this beauty inside me, wishing there was no barrier to keep me from absorbing it, until his head fell and he buried his face in my neck.
I held his weight and stroked him while the tension in his body released, and finally I felt the workings of his mouth at my neck as he rested himself on a forearm in the bed, his other arm curved under me, around me, the fingers idly caressing the skin of my hip.
I turned my lips to his ear. “I want you.”
For a brief second, Noc grew still then he lifted his head and looked down at me, smiling.
“Babe, still deep inside you, on top of you, not sure how much more of me you can get,” he teased.
I moved a hand to his face, mine, I knew, was serious.
“I hope you feel it as little as me, but even so, I don’t like it there. I don’t like it between us. When you give me your seed, I want it. Even if it doesn’t take root, I want it in my womb. I want it to be a part of me. Thus I need to ask Valentine to return to my world and acquire some pennyrium for me.”
Noc said nothing.
But he no longer looked teasing. He was staring at me in a way I could not decipher but it warmed me to my toes.
“Noc,” I called when his silence lengthened.
“I wanna go the distance with you.”
My body around his tightened and I opened my mouth to speak.
He was not done.
“I wanna make a baby with you.”
I clamped my mouth shut.
Noc did not.
“I wanna make as many as we can as long as they know we love each of them with everything we are. I don’t give a fuck if you’ve got my baby growing in you year after year until your body won’t do it anymore.” He drew his attention to our continued connection by flexing his hips. “If I could, I’d fuck you for hours, days, goddamned years, nonstop. I want part of me in you every breath you take. I can’t do that so I want it that any time your mind wanders, you think of me inside you however that can be. My cock taking you. My cum buried deep. My kid growing in your belly. What that means. What we got. What we made. What we built between us. The fact that I love you so fuckin’ much, I’d commit treason for you. I’d perpetrate crimes for you. I’d go to prison for you. I’d break my back to give you everything you wanted from cutting the damned tomatoes in your salad and pouring you a glass of wine to wrestling the world into my arms and laying it at your feet.”
I lay under him, frozen.
Then I burst into tears.
Loud, obnoxious tears.
Noc pulled out (alas) and rolled us to our sides, gathering me into his arms, holding me close, his hand stroking deep at my back, his other arm tight around my waist as I sobbed against his chest, my body shaking uncontrollably with the power of emotion sweeping through me.
And with deep regret, this happened for a long time.
And with even deeper regret, when it began to subside, I started hiccoughing with the wealth of emotion still needing to be expressed.
I loathed crying.
And worse, hiccoughing.
Ulk.
The mortification.
“So, to end,” Noc said, and I kept my face buried in his chest, feeling his voice rumble even as I heard it, “I don’t know what this pennyrium stuff is but an easier fix is to get your ass on the Pill so I can be inside you without a condom. In other words, I’m down with that until we decide no birth control is needed and whenever that happens, I’m down with that too.”
I tipped my head back and gazed upon him with watery eyes.
“I love you,” I whispered.
“Thank fuck,” he whispered back.
“I’ll cut tomatoes for you,” I shared.
I watched his wavy mouth smile as he stopped stroking my back and tightened both his arms around me.
“No need to make that great a sacrifice, sweetheart,” he muttered.
“I have a golden soul,” I told him softly.
His arms flexed so powerfully they pushed all the air out of me before it seemed he forced them to relax.
“Yeah you do,” he finally replied.
“I have a golden soul,” I repeated.
“I know, baby.”
“I have a golden soul,” I said again, and he opened his mouth to speak but I carried on. “I know this because the gods in my world and the God in yours would never tether a soul that was anything less than golden to the perfection that is you.”
“Fuck,” he growled, rolling me again to my back with him on me.
“I love you, Noc,” I breathed as his weight pressed it out of me.
“Fuck,” he growled again.
And then he kissed me.
We had need of several condoms that night for our avowals commenced the belated sexual marathon Noc had promised days before.
And dawn was kissing the sky when, exhausted, sated and deliriously happy, I let all my weight settle into the man who lay under me, holding me close, taking my weight, my worries, my demons, my dreams.
The man who showed me my golden soul in a way I knew truly I carried it inside me.
The man who loved me.
* * * * *
The next evening, I stood at the back of Valentine’s foyer, arms crossed on my chest, giving my best forbidding stare to the intensely handsome (I had to admit) Glover as he put a hand to the small of Josette’s back to start to lead her out the door.
He smiled at me and shared, “She’ll be in good hands.”