“Twenty,” I tell him. “And you’re…”
“Forty-two,” he says. “Which means half the world is going to think we’re fucking crazy.”
“Because of the age gap?”
He nods somberly. “But I don’t give a damn what they say. A connection like ours is a rare thing. Let them be jealous because they didn’t find what we did in each other.”
His words rush through me, husky and intense, making me reach up and cradle his face. “I feel exactly the same.”
“Good. So you’re twenty, which means I can probably get twenty children out of you, but if we account for twins and triplets and quadruplets…”
“Quadruplets?” I giggle, intoxicated by the animated way he’s speaking, no longer the ultra-serious mob boss.
This is a part of himself he only shows to a select few people, I sense.
“That’s right.” He smirks. “Then I could even shoot for sixty.”
“Shoot for?” I laugh. “Jeez, I was thinking more like…”
“Wait. On the count of three, we both say our real number.”
“Of how many children we want?”
He stops walking, tilting his head down at me, smirking playfully. “Ready?”
“Definitely.”
His arms feel like pieces of nature like I’m being carried by a tree. I can’t believe how solid every part of him is, every muscle finely honed, making the boys my age look like puny things compared to him.
“One,” he says.
“Two,” I whimper.
“Three…”
We say our answer at the same time.
“Four.”
I laugh in delight as his smirk twitches and almost becomes a full blown smile, but Luca has some animal in him and its impossible for him to smile broadly. Or at least I haven’t seen it yet.
“We’re made for each other,” he whispers passionately as he keeps walking, carrying me down the gravel path.
I could probably walk in this, but he doesn’t seem even close to tired and I’d be crazy to turn down a ride this perfect.
“Have you thought about this then?” I ask.
“When I was a younger man and still thought I might find the woman who would make me feel, who would mean something to me… when I thought I still might find you, Lucy. I thought about it. Four seems like the perfect number…”
“Two each, right?” I say breathlessly, my excitement making it hard to get my words out.
“Exactly. We can give them all the attention they deserve, but they’ll still have siblings to grow and develop with.”
I cuddle closer to him, digging my fingernails through his jacket and into his shoulders. Passion flares in my belly, willing me to moan out that I’m ready right now.
I’d bend over and stick my ass against his manhood, grinding it up and down, smearing him with my wetness as he groaned out in uncontrollable lust. I’d reach back and guide him slickly inside of me, pushing back against him, freaking twerking on his dick, moaning hard like he can’t believe I’m a virgin.
Oh, imagine…
Imagine if I could do something so forward.
Instead, I hug him harder, content to be carried down the path. I feel like I’m floating.
He kicks the gate to the pond open and we both laugh caught up in the warmth of each other’s closeness. I don’t even know why we’re laughing so hard. It’s as though the sheer delight of discovering how right for each other we are is bubbling out of us.
I love you, I almost say, but I bite down on the words at the last moment.
If he knew how badly I wanted to throw out those words, he’d probably drop me on the grass in shock. Then maybe he’d say sorry and lift me up, and cradle my hands by the moonlight, and tell me he feels the same way. He loves me as achingly, as desperately, as hungrily as I love him.
Or maybe he’d stare down at me, his dark eyes glimmering, his lips twisted into a vicious smirk like I’ve never seen.
“Love?” he’d snarl. “Are you fucking deranged? We’ve known each other for a day and you love me, you silly girl?”
“Are you okay?” real Luca asks me, not fake Luca who exists only in my tormented anxiety-fueled imagination.
“Yes,” I tell him. “I guess I’m just overwhelmed by it all. But this is amazing, Luca. Where are we going?”
“To have dinner,” he says.
“In a pond?”
“Not in a pond.”
He puts me down slowly, and I lower my feet to the ground and grip onto him to stay upright. We’re standing on a smooth concrete platform, the stars having fallen to earth all around us.
All around the pond bright white lights twinkle, and in the center, a platform sits, raised above the pond and covered in rose petals. Red light glimmers around the edges of the platform, making it look like the inside of a love-filled snow globe. A table and chairs sit in the center, with a single red candle flickering in the middle.
“On a pond,” I whisper.