Bonus Epilogue
The scent of vanilla and crisp apples teases through the lacy sun-dappled shade of the chateau. The summer scents of the herb garden are lush and ripe, and the soft grass is sun-warmed under my bare feet. I tilt my face toward the blue sky, indigo and perfect, and smile at the gentle flecking of the afternoon sun over my skin. A gentle breeze trips across the chateau’s side garden, and the sunny chamomile and yellow yarrow bend in the wind, while the cucumbers glisten under the sunlight.
It’s perfect, isn’t it?
I nearly spin in a joyous circle, arms flung wide at the sudden bubbling of happiness in my chest—I’m Maria in The Sound of Music, singing the hills are alive.
Or maybe not.
Instead, I smile up at Noah and lean into his side. When he sees the look in my eyes, he blinks, distracted for a moment. His eyes flicker, and a careful consideration crosses over his features.
Aha.
I know exactly what he’s thinking.
Somedays, when I wake up, clinging to Noah like the ivy covering the eastern tower, I take just a moment to breathe in the warmth of him, the feel of my lips against the hollow of his neck, and the morning stubble lining his jaw. I take just a few waking moments to be grateful that I’m curled into him, warm and comfortable and loved.
Then, within a few minutes of my waking, Noah stretches, turns his face toward me, and opens his eyes. I’ve found that I can accurately predict whether or not we’ll be making love by the shade of his eyes.
If they’re stormy blue gray, the color of Lac d’Annecy before a thunderstorm—well, I’ll be tossed to my stomach, and taken from behind, rough and hard.
If his eyes are clear, summer day blue—I’ll be kissed leisurely, as if we’re on a gentle walk down the sloping hills of a vineyard, and then, he’ll trail down my breasts, down my ribs, down my abdomen, until he finds the center of me with his mouth.
If his eyes are electric, indigo blue, like they are now, it means that he’s considering whether or not we have time for a lightning round. A quick, hard, mouths-pressed, back-against-the-stone-wall, hands-tearing, clothes-shedding, desperation of touch-me-now, love-me-now, I-need-you-this-second kind of loving.
“We don’t have time,” I say, fighting a smile.
I press a hand to his dark buttoned shirt. His heart beats hard and firm beneath my palm.
“We might have time,” he says, glancing at the empty stretch of the driveway. He reaches up and drags the back of his fingers over my cheek, the smooth scrape of his warmth over my skin sends a shimmer through me. I lean into his touch and his smile widens.
Hmm.
In five minutes, our friends and family will start trickling in. Pierre, Camille, their baby Noémie. Noah’s dad and his nurse. Angela and Leo. Jupiter. Our neighbors. New friends. Old.
We’ve transformed the side garden for a party. There’s a white silk tent with white lace covered tables piled high with vanilla tea cakes, apple tarts, beautiful macarons. There are perfectly julienned cucumbers from the garden, fresh herb dips, crusty breads, crystal bowls full of iced plums, pears, and tart grapes. There are local cheeses, sheep, goat, cow. There are wafer crackers, olives, and a table full of local wines. All the food is covered in crystal glass domes, protected from hungry birds and bees. Clear wine glasses glint in the sun and catch the light like prisms, throwing rainbows across white lace tablecloths.
Colorful streamers flutter in the breeze, fanning and snapping in the wind. The noise is a gentle butterfly wing hum over the lapping of the waves against the rocky lakeshore below.
“You think we have time?” I ask, and I note that my heart picks up speed and knocks against my chest.
Noah glances at the russet-colored rock at the edge of the garden. It’s where we were married. It’s where, sometimes, when the sunlight has warmed the sand-rough surface of the rock, we make love for hours. Sometimes, we take out a bottle of wine or a picnic basket, and watch the stars wink to life, and then we make love into the night.
We definitely don’t have time for the rock.
But…we might have time for…
“The back garden?” Noah asks, nodding toward the eastern tower, covered in ivy. It’s shaded by the old leaf-rich trees that line the edge of the property, and around the curving tower there’s a flat wall that’s perfectly hidden from view.
However, “Louis is there,” I point out.
He’s stationed in the shade, in his large tank, the guest of honor at our party.
Because…this isn’t just any party.
It’s the year anniversary of Noah and I…adopting Louis.
Yes, we’re throwing a party for our pet lobster.
It may be strange. Okay. It is strange.
But! I wanted an excuse to bring all our friends and family together. We haven’t seen many of them since the wedding. And so, I dreamed up a party, and an excuse. Louis.
Noah grabs my hand, he’s tugging me through the grass, and my pink lacy dress ripples in the breeze as we hurry through the garden. I laugh as the sunlight and shade flickers over us.
He’s determined.
We round the edge of the tower and Noah captures me between the rough stone wall and the press of his body. He rests his hands on the wall on either side of me.
“I’m not making love in front of a lobster,” I say, nodding over at Louis glaring at us from his tank.
Noah presses his lips to my jaw, his mouth feathers over my skin, warm and wet. “He doesn’t know.”
I scoff, then Noah runs his thumbs over the sides of my breasts, and my scoff turns into a shiver as my nipples harden.
“Noah,” I smack his hand. “He knows. He knows everything.”
I nod my head toward Louis. He’s staring at us from his tank, and when Noah turns his head toward him, Louis waves his claw in the air, as if to say, ‘Are you kidding me? I’m right here.’
His beady black eyes narrow on us, his antennae wiggle, and then he whacks his claw against the surface of his tank. As if he’s making a point.
Noah laughs, and dips his mouth back to my jaw, kissing. “Okay. Fine. We won’t make love in front of Louis.”
“I told you,” I say, distracted by what Noah’s mouth is doing, “you have to realize, lobsters have a sense of dignity. Of decorum. They’re actually quite prudish when you get down to it.”
“Are they?” Noah asks, and I don’t fail to notice that his hands have slipped down my waist, and are trailing gently over my hips.
“Yes. Louis is like the Queen Victoria of lobsters.”
“Mhmm,” Noah says.
I shove at his chest. Noah still has his hands settled on the stone wall of the chateau, and my back is still pressed to the wall. The stone is cool and scrapes over the bare skin of my arms and legs.
“Noah.”
“You realize,” Noah says reasonably, “Queen Victoria had nine kids.”
Hmm.
No. I didn’t realize that. That puts a whole different spin on the idea of prudishness.
Noah smiles at the change in my expression. Quick as a flash, he unbuttons his dark dress shirt, leaving only his bare chest, golden in the sun. He winks at me, then turns and drapes it over the side of Louis’s tank that faces us.
“To preserve his modesty,” Noah says dryly.
I laugh and Noah checks his watch. “Three minutes, Merry.”
Oh.
As Noah’s eyes flash to electric blue, the color of lightning, I start to laugh. “I can’t! Not in front of Louis. Even with the shirt. It’s indecent!”
So, I grab Noah’s shirt, then I grab his hand, grip him tight, and run through the garden, back to the chateau’s front door, and up the spiraling stone steps to land in a tangle of arms and legs in our sun-gilt bed.
In seconds my thong is on the stone floor, my dress is shoved high, and I yank Noah’s zipper down and pull him free. His eyes turn wild, and then his mouth crushes mine. He bites my bottom lip, drags his teeth over me, and makes love to my mouth. His kiss is forceful, his tongue glides over mine, and his searching hands and hot mouth are passionately, wonderful, wildly indecent.
Then the heat of him hits me. He tilts his hips, grabs my thighs, and thrusts into me. I’m filled with a shimmery, summer-day heat that tears through me bright and glowing hot. Noah’s breath catches and he growls deep and low as he catches my cries.
He slides slow, careful, easing in, as gently as sliding into a pool, then when he’s buried deep and my thighs are wrapped around him, he breaks, gasps my name, and all slow, all careful, all quiet is shattered.
I cling to his shoulders, bite his lips, scrape the sweat-slicked muscles of his back as he desperately fills me with electric, shimmering lightning.
“Merry,” he says, “Merry,” until my name becomes a plea, and I’m whispering, “yes, yes, yes,” and he grips my thighs, his fingers pressing bruising kisses into me, as he tilts me, buries himself deep, and hits me exactly—there—and I light from within, a streak of lightning so bright that I explode in a bright, brilliant light.
Noah grabs my cries with his mouth, greedily, hungrily. He strokes me, catches the shivering glow of me, and then I clench around him and he’s pulled into me, under, until he’s buried in me, and pulled under again and again. He grabs my hands, catches my mouth, and then loses himself in me.
He whispers my name, rocks against me, and the heat and the sweat and the smooth velvet feel of him brings me back to our sun-gilded bedroom and the crumpled sheets of our bed and the sound of gravel under the tires of an arriving car.
Noah collapses on top of me, his weight pressing me into the soft welcome of the mattress.
“Happy anniversary,” he says, pressing a kiss to my jaw, to my cheek, to the tip of my ear.
I wrap my arms around his back and hold him close. It’s only then that I realize I’m still in my dress, it’s pulled half-way up my stomach. And Noah, he’s still in his jeans, they’re shoved to his ankles.
I laugh, burying my face in his warmth, the space where his shoulders and neck meet.
He’s wrecked me. He wrecks me every time. Luckily, he always puts me back together.
When I open my eyes again and look up at him he’s smiling down at me.
“Are you saying that bout was for Louis’s one year anniversary?” I ask.
He scoffs, shifting onto his forearms and lifting off me. A quiet, cool breeze licks my bare skin.
“That’s not what this anniversary is,” he says.
I tilt my head. The car that’s arrived pulls into the circle drive below our window. The sound of another car arriving rattles down the drive.
“Of course that’s what today is. What else would it be?” I ask.
Noah smiles at me, and the way he looks at me, it makes a warm happiness spread through my chest. I’m in afterglow, floaty and happy and content. Not even the sharp bang of a closing car door, and a trio of happy voices floating up from the driveway below can break the spell.
“It’s the anniversary,” Noah says happily, “of the day you first realized you were going to spend the rest of your life with me.”
I blink up at him.
He gives me a confident, happy smile.
Noah thinks the day we adopted Louis was the day I realized…
I tilt my head, shift on the bed beneath him. Then I smile up at Noah. “Is that what you think?”
“It’s what I know.”
“So, this isn’t a party for Louis?” I press my fingers to Noah’s mouth, dragging my thumb over his bottom lip.
“Well, he played a part. We can give him his due.”
I grin, then roll out from under Noah.
He laughs.
In seconds, we’ve put ourselves back to rights. We’re a little rumpled, mildly flushed, and quite a bit mussed. But, we’re also a whole lot happy. And in love.
Down below, drifting up on the wind, I hear Jupiter say, “Where could Merry be?”
“And Noah. Noah? Where are you?” Camille calls.
“Perhaps we should look inside,” Pierre says, his voice drifting up to us.
Noah and I grin at each other. Another car is rumbling over the gravel, bringing family and friends to celebrate Louis, love, and…the day I realized I’d spend the rest of my life with Noah.
Noah grabs my hand, I squeeze him tight, then, I lean from our tower room window, out into the sunshine and the perfume of a perfect summer day, and call down waving to our friends, “Be right there!”
And then Noah pulls me back from the spill of sunlight, and twirls me into a final toe-curling kiss, before we run, hand-in-hand down the spiral stairs of our castle, to celebrate life, love, lobsters, and happily ever afters.
