This far north, the sky doesn’t fully darken in summer. Aquamarine edges circle an indigo zenith, the inkiness punctured by stars.

My breath fogs on the window and I swipe absently to clear it again. The house sits dark and quiet around me. The baby sleeps, for now. I cup my tender breasts and smile. She should be down for the night now after her recent nursing. Her eyes were watchful on mine as she fed. I could gaze at her for hours. She has her father’s eyes. More my colour, but his shape and it warms my heart.

He’ll be home soon, my husband. I ache for him. Ache to feel his strong arms around me, wrapping me in love. He’ll want to wake the babe up, and even though I’ll scold and say no, I know I’ll cave. To see them together is my miracle.

Out front, the lawn is a dark square bordered by a waist-high craggy wall separating grass from the deserted street. Across the way, boats fill the marina and the sound of their soft, discordant clanging wafts in through the open bedroom window along with the scent of sweet honeysuckle.

The noise the back door makes opening, then clicking shut, has my heart racing with anticipation. He’s early tonight. Usually I’ve a good hour after nursing the babe. I let him find me, lulled by the yachts as I hear his footsteps treading the stairs, avoiding the loose one with practiced ease.

He veers off to peek into the baby’s room and I hear whispered words of love. I’m still smiling when he slides his arms around me and nuzzles my neck from behind. Stubble scrapes my skin and I tilt to give him access.

“I thought you’d be later yet.” My voice is quiet as I trace his forearms.

“Couldn’t wait any longer.” He nuzzles some more and I sigh, head tipping back to rest on his shoulder. His hands slide up my belly to cup my swollen breasts.

“Careful with those.” My tone is amused, but god, they’re still so sensitive, six months on.

My amusement changes to a throaty moan as he thumbs my nipples, his voice urgent in my ear.

“I need you, now.”

The patience he displays in unzipping my long summer skirt belies the urgency in his words, my arousal ratcheting up with each liberated tine. Soon the material pools at my feet, kicked to the side as I step out.

Hands tug at my t-shirt hem, cotton following the ascent of my arms until I’m clad only in panties and the night's glow. He turns me to face him, eyes dark and wild on mine. My heart beats a little faster, sensing his mood. His hands skim into my hair, twisting silken lengths around one fist until he tugs and my head tips upwards.

His lips are soft on mine. A teasing brush, a skim then gone, a promise of much more to come. I strain for more but he holds my hair firm, keeps his eyes on mine as his other hand wanders. He finds a nipple again and pinches, his lips pursing in reflected sympathy as I groan.

“You like that.”

It’s not a question but I answer anyway.

“God, yes.”

His eyes are fierce with possession as his fingers skim south, stravaiging across my sensitive flesh. He drinks in each change in my expression, fingertips circling when he senses a weakness to exploit. I’m alight with need by the time he reaches the shallow cleft between my legs.

He pauses. Traces a digit over the material, damp with arousal.

“Take them off.”

There’s no give in his grip as I fumble lace over my hips until they fall. His finger rests at the very peak of my valley. His breath is hot on my face as he slides his fingers down, scraping my clit, unrelenting until they’re curled inside me.

“So wet.” His soft words are triumphant.

I flush. I can never hide the effect he has on me. My velvety walls clamp around him. His fingers beckon, just once, and I groan and when I do he crushes his lips to mine, swallowing my cries and his fingers curl into my front wall again and again until I’m sobbing with need against his lips.

He stops, abruptly.

Waits.

Pulls back and watches as he thumbs my clit.

I shudder, arching toward him.

“Please...”

“Please what?” He leans in to nibble on my ear.

I don’t even know. I need everything.

He continues. “You want more? Want to cum?” And even softer, “Want to get fucked?”

I nod to all three. His voice is in my head. Taking over. I’m shockingly close to orgasm and he’s only been in the door five minutes. His fingers move lazily inside me as he pulls back and watches me again. My legs tremble as he walks me to the wall next to the open door and presses me against it.

His grip moves from my hair to my breast, fingers squeezing as his head lowers to lick around a hard nipple. Eyes look up, catching mine, the shape so achingly familiar as he closes his lips to suckle. I feel the milk flow as he tastes me and then my head is tilting back against the wall and I’m moaning quietly as his teeth graze me.

He looks up once more. Smirks.

“Don’t wake the babe, now.”

It’s a challenge. I know it is, even as my fingers splay against the wall. But knowing doesn’t help, not when my nipple stings so fucking beautifully with every bite.

He’s all contrast. When his teeth release one, he kisses his way gently across to the other and as he delicately laps at this one, he crooks his fingers once more inside my soaked channel, forcing the air from my lungs as I gasp at the fullness.

And then his teeth are on me again. First at my breast and then up to my neck, nipping in a way that lets me know I’ll have marks in the morning, and then back to my lobe. His whisper in my ear is hot and urgent and inescapable.

“Don’t cum.”

I groan with frustration. It’s the opposite of what I want to hear, but I’ll try because he’s asked me to and because I trust him with my body. He doesn’t make it easy, fingers playing inside of me as his teeth nip. He avoids my clit, he knows me well, but every time his clever digits massage my front wall I think I’m going to fall.

I feel myself drip around his fingers, my uncontained arousal flowing as freely as the whispered pleas from my lips. I’m not even begging him now. I’m begging my body to hold on. I’m begging as an outlet, to have something, anything escape this pressure cooker he’s set to boil. Regardless I feel my body rise. My pleas turn to a stifled mewl as I brace against the wall and right before I hit that point of no return, he stops.

“Good girl.”

His voice cuts through the madness, the warm whisper laced with humour an anchor to cling to. I let out the breath I didn’t know I was holding as my body fizzes with need. He steps back and dimly I’m aware of the clank of his belt as he undresses slowly. My eyes trace his lines in the moonlight; rough where I’m smooth, angled where I’m curved. Hard where I’m soft.

My eyes linger on his cock as he straightens and steps to me, his hardness pressing up against my belly as he leans in and takes my lips again. I slip a hand between us and stroke him with my fingertips, marvelling at the power contained by soft, smooth skin.

My thumb skims over his flared head, smearing the arousal that’s bubbled up over the tip. He’s hot and hard beneath my grip and my fingers wrap around him and squeeze gently, stroking and smearing silky pre-cum along his shaft.

He breaks the kiss, forehead on mine, breath puffing against my cheek as he groans.

“All fucking day all I could think about was you.”

My eyes gleam as I press his hard shaft between my legs and tease it through my wet folds. He presses forward, engulfing himself between them, skimming across my entrance and grazing my clit with every pass. I try to press him inside of me, desperate to feel him fill me, but he takes my hands in his and presses them to the wall.

“Not yet.”

He thrusts again, angling his hips so that the pressure against my clit is maximised. He uses the full length of his shaft to tease me slowly, my arousal ensuring the friction is frustratingly minimal. The sensation is maddening, a smooth scraping, hinting at fullness, but never fulfilling its promise.

Before long, I’m begging again. I’d never begged for anyone to fuck me before him. It was never something I thought I needed. And now I know it’s not something I can live without.

My eyes are squeezed shut, whispered pleas falling from my lips when I realise he’s stopped moving. When I open them, the look of possession on his face, inches from mine, twists my insides with need.

He rests his forehead on mine.

“Tell me what you want.”

It still reddens my cheeks, but my whisper is clear.

“Fuck me.”

His hardness twitches and I feel his fingers angle him into position. Feel the hard intent of him so nearly where I need him.

His whisper is almost desperate.

“Again. Say it again.”

Want and need combine in startling clarity as I take his cheeks in my hands and lift his head from mine. I know what it does to him to hear me beg.

“Fuck me, my love. Please. I need you to fuck me.”

There’s a heartbeat shared between us, a loaded silence filled with the sound of my blood roaring in my head, my breath exhaling on a whimper as desire peaks. The whimper turns to a full-throated moan as he slides slowly inside me, eyes fast on mine as he does. To watch someone’s eyes as they penetrate your body is a kind of intimacy I never knew before him. The need, the want, the pleasure, they arrow straight to my core and I drip around him.

He fills me, almost to the point of pain and I’m not sure I can take any more when he lifts my leg, pins me against the wall, slides out then thrusts back in. His hand covers my mouth, stifling the cries we both know would wake the babe, as he unleashes that tightly-held control and fucks me like I’ve needed him to since he walked in the door. His body slams into mine over and over until that dull ache deep inside me is a raging inferno, desperate for release.

His eyes are wild on mine, his breath hot and urgent on my face as he slides his thumb between us to graze over my clit, just once. It’s all I need to beg for more, the pleas emerging as whimpered mewls behind his palm. He skims it again, then again and I’m losing control, lost in a whirlwind of need and sensation as he toys with my body.

I sense his rhythm breaking down and then all I can do is cling to him as he relentlessly thumbs my clit until everything in me tightens around him and I fly over the precipice.

Waves of pleasure wrack my body as he stiffens and releases inside of me, his lips replacing the hand on my mouth. He takes the kiss deeper, tongues warring until the last drops of his pleasure spill into me.

Our breathing steadies. Breaking the kiss, he again rests his head on mine, both of us laughing softly as I feel him soften and slide from me, chased by his warm creamy cum which slithers down my thigh.

I push him back a little to look down at the mess and right on cue the babe gurgles for attention. He shoos me towards the shower as he pulls on his jeans and rolls his eyes.

“The women in this family are so demanding.”

I’m still chuckling as I run the shower, hearing him sing softly to the babe as he settles her. This little bubble I exist in right now feels surreal, although it is the most precious thing in the world to me. To be needed and to need. To be loved and to love. To want, so badly, and to be wanted in turn. I will capture all these moments as they occur and cherish them, pass that joy onto the life we have created.

I step into the shower and rinse off, my fingers trailing through the creamy mess we made. Need rises again as I wash myself, recalling his hands on my body. When he slides into the shower behind me and cups my breasts once more, I know we’ll not be sleeping any time soon.

I turn to him, grinning and lean in, lips grazing his ear.

“I’m about to be demanding again.”