10 years later
I still find nighttime a moment for indulgence.
I wake without a clear idea of why, and in the darkness, breathe in the sweet scent of my wife. She’s cuddled into me, her back to my chest. Mia bambola.
Kissing her hair, I consider waking her. Or just using her in the dark until she wakes, as we both love. My cock sleepily begins to get interested.
A sound abruptly cuts off that idea.
It’s a soft, plaintive cry. High-pitched, and sad. Our youngest son.
Dropping a kiss onto Taggie’s shoulder, I slide backwards, then roll out of bed. Taggie murmurs a complaint in her sleep, and I tuck the covers around her to keep her warm.
Pulling on a pair of grey sweatpants and a T-shirt, I make my way to Alessio’s room, next to ours, and look down at my wide-awake baby. In the glow of the nightlight, his dark eyes are the mirror of mine, and he waves his tiny fists up at me.
“Midnight treats, huh. It’s a Richmond thing,” I murmur, and reach down. Lifting him to lay on my chest. “You want some milk. Just as greedy as tuo Babbo.” His dad.
The rest of our kids are as fluent in Italian as they are English, and I like to ensure they hear plenty of their grandmother’s language.
Downstairs in the kitchen, I heat up his milk, holding him with one arm while doing everything with the other. After seven children, we have it down to a fine art, with a special milk warmer and bottles that turned out to be an excellent investment.
As we wait, I think through some of the mafia politics that have been bothering me, asking Alessio in Italian for his opinion. He cries a bit—getting fussy about waiting for his snack—when I mention Grant Lambeth, and I nod in agreement.
Yes. Entirely my feelings on the matter too.
I tell him he’ll see his great-grandmother tomorrow. Taggie’s grandmother still won’t move in with us—fiercely independent—but she comes to visit her family several times a week.
When it’s ready, I pull out his milk.
“You don’t mind, do you?” I wink at my infant son as I take a sip. The milk is obscenely sweet, just like the woman who made it. And it’s the perfect temperature. I screw on the teat and Alessio greedily sucks from the bottle. It’s not long before he has a full belly, and his eyes are closing.
I lay him down into his cot, and he blinks up at me and smiles.
Fucking hell, Taggie and these creatures she makes. They’re all destined to ruin me and cause my heart to explode. So cute. So loveable.
Thankfully he slips off to sleep quickly, and I pad back to the bedroom Taggie and I share. She still has her own suite of rooms one floor up, and the kids have rooms on the same floor as us. There are nine bedrooms on this level, so one more to fill.
I’m looking forward to our last baby. We’ve been holding off, savouring the final time I’ll breed her in truth.
I creep into bed and pull Taggie to me. She sleeps quite heavily, for a girl who stayed awake half the night when we first were together. She knows I have a taste for having her when she’s asleep though, and sometimes…
But not tonight, unfortunately.
“You’re awake,” I rumble.
“How do you always know?” she complains.
I just do. “Taggie, you’re my wife.” I nuzzle her neck. She’s warm and sweet and tempting. “I know, and love, everything about you.”
