“No.” But a rise of her eyebrows calls me out on the half-truth. “All right, maybe a little. But only because I was trying to keep my promise to give you time.”
She goes to speak, but I place one finger over her lips to silence her for a moment.
“I’ve been a neglectful husband, but that changes now. For these next five days, we’re going to have the best honeymoon Capri can offer.” It’s a lighthearted promise filled with a heavy dose of hope.
Instead of smiling, Lucia stares at me with a look in her eye I’m not used to seeing from her. It floors me, but with one blink of her long lashes, it’s gone, and I think I imagined it. I’ve been trying to keep my hands off her since our wedding night, and the only way that was possible was to stay late in the office.
She huffs out a breath. “I never asked you to give me time. Or to go slow.” She drops a kiss on my finger, which remainsin place. All kinds of possibilities flow through my imagination, and I probably need to shut them down while I’m lying here on a rock in nothing more than my board shorts. There’s definitely not enough fabric to hide my thickening cock.
“Are you ready to take a leap?” she asks, interrupting my thoughts as I run the last quarter’s financial figures through my head, trying to think of something—anything—that doesn’t involve getting my beautiful wife naked.
“What do you mean?” I ask, needing to be really clear on what she’s offering, because I’m so ready to consummate this marriage that it’s a constant ache, and not just in my cock. There’s a lot at stake, and I don’t want to screw this up.
“That,” she says, pointing up at the rocky outcrop we jumped off as kids.
I choke out a laugh as my gaze travels up the line of the cliff face to the spot about halfway up. I’ve seriously got to stop thinking with my dick.
“I’m always ready to jump with you,” I reply with growing enthusiasm.
It’s been years since we leapt from the spot the local cliff divers like to practice their jumps. A high ledge where the sea at the bottom is deep and protected from the rough waves that crash against other parts of the coastline.
“Let’s do this,” I yell, jumping up. Adrenaline and a heavy dose of fear coursing through my veins. It feels good to be alive today, and even better to have Lucia by my side.
We scramble up the stony path, climbing on all fours in the steeper areas. The track has only ever been used by goats and the locals who’ve dared to jump from the cliffside into the turquoise waters.
“This was a lot easier as children,” Luce pants out behind me. She’s right; the bravery—or perhaps foolishness—of youth didn’t have my heart trying to race out of my chest.
I stop a few steps from the edge. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
“No, but that never stopped me in the past.”
She always was brave, and adulting has only sharpened that trait.
I reach for her hand and take a step closer to the edge.
Fuck, it’s higher than I remember.Another step closer, and her hand grips mine tighter.
We line up our feet near the edge. Luce looks straight ahead to the horizon, something she’s done since the very first time we did this.
“I got you,” I say, looking down at her.
“I know,” she mutters, the wind whipping her words away.
My chest squeezes tight against my heart, her confidence in me making me braver too.
“On three. One. Two. Three.” And we’re soaring through the air. Free-falling together. It lasts no more than a second before we splash into the sea, sinking into the cool depths separately. Then kicking hard and swimming up toward the light on the surface. I break through it just behind her.
“That was amazing,” she shouts.
“Fucking brilliant,” I agree, laughing hysterically like I’m high on life.
We swim back to our rocky platform, and again, I offer Luce my hand. But this time, I pull her into my chest. Her arms wrap around my neck, and our lips meet in a crushing kiss. Everything I’ve been holding back is poured into this one moment when our mouths are sealed together. The kiss is more frenzied than the ones in Vegas, more passionate than the ones last night, and more all-consuming than any other kiss I’ve shared with a woman.
It shouldn’t shock me that she’s so much more, but it does, because I never imagined it could be like this.
I trail kisses along her jawline. “Let’s go,” I whisper against the shell of her ear.
“You don’t want to eat?” she asks as she tilts her head to the side, exposing the column of her neck to my mouth.
