Selena’s frenetic unloading of their laundry basket of beach paraphernalia convinced Oliver she was on the brink of implosion. One minute she threw herself into an activity, the next she dropped so deep into her thoughts he feared she’d never surface. How long had she been like this?
The thing was, he felt the same way…and he didn’t like it one damn bit. He was used to action, but there wasn’t a damn thing to do right now but wait. The waiting he did as a SEAL was long and boring, sometimes fraught with danger, but at least they saw an end to it. He couldn’t see an end this time. There were too many unknowns. The tight band around his chest was suddenly unbearable.
There were only a few clusters of people on the beach, and the tide would be in soon. He decided to let Selena finish unloading and led Lucia by the hand to a tide pool tucked in an outcropping of rock at one end of the cove. The water was rising, and he was surprised when the toddler ignored the splash of the breakers and concentrated on settling her small feet on the slick rocks.
She squatted down eagerly when they arrived at the pool. Starfish and sea anemones of a variety of colors clung to the pitted surface, and small fish wove their way between them in the shallow water. A hermit crab scuttled between two submerged rocks and paused to feed on the brown algae coating the shallow pools.
“Peach,” Lucia declared, squatting and pointing at a sea star.
Oliver shook his head. “It’s a starfish, baby.”
“Peach.”
“Peach is a character in her current favorite cartoon,” Selena explained from behind them.
“I’m relieved.” He was also relieved she’d decided to join them. “I was trying to figure out how to set her straight.”
“The story also has a shrimp in it. I fixed shrimp one night for supper and she cried for an hour. It took me half an hour to figure out what she was upset about. I explained that Jacque, the shrimp character, was not on her plate, and then she was fine.”
Oliver chuckled.
They tiptoed around a mussel bed and spied a small octopus clinging to the rocks.
“Look at this little guy, Lucia. Isn’t he something? He’s an octopus.” He spent several moments getting her to say the word and finally settled for ocpus. “Our girl is really smart,” he said over his shoulder.
“Yes, she is.”
After a few more minutes of exploration, he lifted Lucia on his shoulders and carried her back to the strip of beach where her toys waited. Lucia ran to her bulldozer and began making motor noises while she pushed sand around with the vehicle’s toy scoop.
Selena said, “I can’t make up my mind whether she’s going to be a construction worker or an engineer.” She sat on the blanket, stretched out her legs, and crossed her ankles.
“Let’s hope an engineer.” Oliver sat beside her. “She’ll be doing something creative and earning good money.”
Selena smiled. “You know you’d have just as much pride in her no matter what she does.”
He would. His baby girl was his angel. “As long as she’s happy. Speaking of happy, how are plans going for Brett and Tess’s wedding?”
“Tess gets together with me and the other wives once every couple of weeks for dinner. We talk about the progress and brainstorm for places she can call to get things done. She’s pretty much arranged most of the wedding, since Brett went wheels up right after he’d popped the question. We even went along while she shopped for her wedding gown. It’s beautiful. She’s beautiful.”
“Not as beautiful as you, cara mia. I still remember how you looked on our wedding day.” He caught the flash of doubt in her eyes. “I do. You had tiny pink roses in your bouquet and in your hair. And your dress had a rose pattern in the lace. I kept thinking you’d decide at the last minute you didn’t want to take a chance on a guy who wasn’t even out of college. Especially one who had plans to go into the Navy as soon as he graduated.”
“I can’t believe you remember the lace on my dress. We were so young and fearless back then.” She smiled, and for once no melancholy lurked beneath her expression. “Do you think Brett will make it back in time?”
Oliver shrugged. “There’s no guarantee. He had to fill out the paperwork to notify HQ and his commanding officer of his intent to marry. If he’s not in the thick of things, he’ll make it.”
“I don’t know what she’ll do if he doesn’t get back.”
“They can always Skype the ceremony and have a private one once he’s home.”
Her eyes rounded in amazement. “Ohmygod! Skype the ceremony? Would it even be a legal marriage?”
“Well, not if he isn’t here to sign the marriage license. I think in the state of California you both have to be present during the ceremony. But he’d be there to say his vows and the I do’s, so she wouldn’t have to cancel the whole thing.
“Oliver, you have no romance in your soul. Skype the ceremony!” She shot him an exasperated men! look.
He grinned at her. “We’ll see how much romance I have once we get back home tonight.”
Her eyes widened.
He covered her hand with his. “You have to live each moment as it comes, cara. You can’t let this take you out of the fight.”
Selena remained silent for a moment. “Is that how you think, feel, when you’re—doing what you do?”
“Yeah. And I do whatever I have to so I can come home to you and Lucia.”
Her fingers tightened around his. Her eyes glazed with tears.
“My job is my job, Selena and it’s important. But you and Lucia are my world.”
She looked out to sea. “Do you think it’s any different for me?”
He frowned, his throat tight with emotion. “No. I know it’s the same.”
The continued to hold hands while their daughter played.
Meantime, the tide crept closer to the blanket and to Lucia’s small section of beach.
Selena seemed calmer now. “Is Lucia hungry yet?” Oliver asked, loud enough for his daughter to hear.
“Yes!” She struggled to her feet, covered in sand with the bulldozer in hand.
Oliver grimaced. “We need a built-in shower for the van. I picked the only beach in Laguna without a bathroom.”
“No worries. I brought fresh clothing. We never leave home without at least three outfits.”
Selena did so many things he’d never noticed. He needed to start paying attention in case he had to help out later.
They ate at Las Brisas as she’d suggested. The popular restaurant was crowded and noisy and made up for the quiet at their table. They shared a bit of the food from both their plates with Lucia, and she surprised them both by eating guacamole.
On the way home Lucia valiantly fought sleep as she watched a cartoon on the iPad Selena kept in her bag. As her eyes closed, it slid from her grasp to balance precariously on her lap. Selena caught it before it could hit the floor and unplugged the earphones.
Oliver’s words earlier at the beach replayed in her mind. He was right, she owed it to him, and to Lucia, to embrace her life the best she could. She was alive right now. Not dying. She tilted her head back and watched the light fade from the horizon and turn to a velvety purple. She had to find her way around the fear and move on.
When Oliver pulled into their driveway and parked, he said, “I’ll get Lucia if you can get the bag with her medicine. I’ll unload the other stuff in the morning.”
“Okay.” Selena got out and opened the side door to get the tote bag she’d stored behind the seat, then stepped back so Oliver could get Lucia. She lay limp against Oliver’s shoulder, deeply asleep. Selena eased the van door closed and hurried to open the front door, then lock it behind them. She followed Oliver down the hall to Lucia’s room and folded down the comforter and sheet so he could slide her into bed.
Selena eased Lucia’s sneakers off, then her socks, and brushed the sand from her feet before tucking them beneath the sheet. A bath and clean sheets would be the first order of business in the morning.
Oliver drew the sheet and comforter up over the sleeping toddler and leaned down to brush his lips against her cheek.
He straightened and breathed against Selena’s ear, “I’m going to take a shower. Want to join me?”
She turned to look up at him, and he kissed her. Warm and soft, his lips moved against hers, tempting her to lean into him and increase the pressure.
He was her light, her world, just as he said she and Lucia were his. She needed to be close to him. He made her feel stronger.
She ran her hands up under his T-shirt and caressed the flat planes of his shoulder blades as she nestled in close and felt the immediate response of his body to hers. Would he still react the same way if they took her breast?
Desperation took hold and she tugged her hands free of his shirt, encircled his neck with her arms. She needed to forget everything but them for a little while. She broke the kiss. “How about that shower?”
Oliver took her hand and pulled her toward their bedroom.
As the only child of an Irish American father with Native American roots and an Italian mother, Oliver had believed he knew all about love until he met Selena. She had been shy at first, but seductive at the same time. He’d wondered about those mixed signals until he figured out she was as inexperienced as he was about real passion, and neither of them had any idea how to handle the fact that they couldn’t keep their hands off of each other. All they had to do was be in the same room for it to combust. It had taken them by storm, and they married before either of them graduated.
She loved with the hot, passionate nature of her Mediterranean heritage. In the shower, the brush of her soapy hand along his rib cage, the sweet scrape of her teeth against his shoulder, made every nerve sing. His cock hardened, and when her hand encircled it, running up and down its length, he thought he might explode.
“My turn, cara mia.”
He turned so the shower spray would stream over his shoulder and down between them. He filled his hand with body wash and guided her to turn so she could lean back against him. He soaped her throat, her shoulders, careful not to put any pressure on her breasts. He wanted to give her pleasure, but to feel the lump himself would destroy him. Instead he cupped the underside of both and kneaded them, then toyed with her nipples.
Her bottom moved back against him, his erection sliding between the cheeks of her ass while her hands gripped the outside of his thighs. Looking down on her soapy, water-slick breasts, Oliver had to count backwards from twenty-five to keep from going off right then.
When he was certain of his control, he pumped more bath wash into his hand and continued down the slope of her ribs to her belly. He nipped the smooth skin of her shoulder and tasted the water and the lingering essence of the soap as he caressed her upper thighs, then moved inward till his fingers found the moist heat between her legs.
Selena braced a foot on the edge of the tub, giving him complete access as she moved beneath his touch. Her throaty groan echoed against tile and tub while he caressed the tiny, sensitive nub of flesh at the top of her nether lips, then slid a finger into her. Her channel felt hot, and the ripple of her body drew it in further.
It was his groan that bounced around the shower then. He needed to be inside her. Resting a hand against her belly he dragged her back beneath the spray and let the water run down their bodies and rinse the soap away.
He stepped out of the shower and, grabbing a towel, offered her a hand. He looped the towel around her hips and, walking backward, guided her toward the bed.
“We’ve left the water on,” she said, her voice breathy and soft.
“I’ll get it later.”
“We’re still wet.”
“So?”
They fell upon the bed together, and, for the first time since he’d arrived home, Selena laughed. The sound, throaty and hoarse, was the biggest seduction of all. He loved her laugh. He kissed her and she hooked a leg over his hip, urging him on. He rolled between her thighs and gave them both what they wanted. The sweet, moist heat of her welcomed him, and he stilled, savoring the sensation as their bodies meshed. “I love you, Selena.”
“Per l’eternità?” For all time?
“Per l’eternità,” he agreed.
“Then I am whole.”
Forever. He moved, filling her, then drawing almost free, and her hands gripped his hips. Her body tensed and pulsed, bearing down on him, then opening for his next thrust. This erotic dance they had performed for eight years together had never seemed more intense, more passionate. Her hand slid between them to cup his balls, and her thumb rested at the base of his erection, putting more upward pressure on his thrusts, giving them both more pleasure.
She murmured his name, her voice breaking with emotion. Her hips rolled and she contracted around him as she found what she sought, so he buried himself in her and welcomed his own release.
Though he’d never before been emotional during sex, tears clouded his vision now, and he turned his face into the strands of wet hair curling across her pillow. Per l’eternità.