Whatever will be, will be.
“Mariposa,” he growled out my name, and a second later, his head tilted back, his mouth parted, and his eyes shut tight. All of his muscles seizedand then he spilled himself inside of me. I felt the combination of my want, my blood, and his seed mixing together.
He didn’t pull out of me. Not right away. He looked down at me. I looked up at him. He kissed me between the eyes, making me close mine.
The ache between my legs became real, not from want but from what we’d just done, and every part of me seemed to hurt. I was instantly sore. When he pulled out, I winced, as if he’d pulled a knife out of sensitive flesh, suddenly feeling alone and cold.
Bleeding out.
Instead of two, I felt like we were one.
The connection made me feel… What had the priest said?And the two shall become one flesh.So they are no longer two, but one.There was no way to ask for it again, either. I wasn’t sure if I could move. Or how I would handle it again later, or tonight if he wanted to. It had been so…penetrating, and not just physically.
“Mariposa.” He studied me. “It’s normal to hurt the first time. To bleed.”
“I know.” The sheets beneath me were soaked with blood. When I asked my doctor what to expect the first time, she told me that blood was normal. No blood was normal. Everyone was different. She had given me the lowdown on every circumstance so I wouldn’t be surprised.
He kissed my lips. “Use all of the words.”
I didn’t expect to feel closer to youI wanted to say.I didn’t expect for this… connection to grow even deeper inside of me so fast.
All of the fear I felt at the grape arbor was not because I was afraid of sex, but of the emotional strings it came with. Stringsscared the shit out of me because I was married to a man who had a severe aversion to love. Even if I wanted that, which I didn’t, it could never happen that way.
“Was it…good for you?” I bit my lip, not really wanting to share my deeper fears. I chose a surface one instead.
Maybe it was stupid, but I wanted him to enjoy me, too. Even though we never discussed his history in detail, a man like him probably had a lot of women. Women like Gigi, and Rocco’s pretty secretary, Giada.
“So innocent,” I thought he said in Italian, and then he answered me in English. “I said fire. You brought it. The kind that consumes water.”
“Not yet.” I smiled, kind of shyly, and I wasn’t sure why. “I wasn’t sure what to expect…tonight. Now that I do…”
“You’ll kill me.”
“Me?” I rose up on my elbows, getting closer to his face. “Killyou?”
“You have no idea,” he whispered. “What you do to me.” His eyes lowered and he caressed my thigh, coated in dry blood. “Vieni.”Come. “I’ll wash you clean in the shower,la mia farfalla. Then we’ll take a bath. It’ll help ease your muscles.”
Without asking, he scooped me up from the bed, both of us still naked, and brought me into the bathroom. After showering together, I fell asleep with my head against his chest, his fingers caressing my back in that delicious ‘C’ pattern, in the warmth of the bathtub.
I heard nothing but the sound of his heart beating against my ear. I smelled nothing but his skin. I felt nothing buthim.
* * *
I never learnedhow to swim (and I couldn't remember how to ride a bike), but I knew what it sounded like to be submerged underwater in a tub. Sounds came in echoes, so close yet so far away. The closer to the surface, though, the clearer the sounds became.
Cars zooming. Background music.Mouth of truth. Legend is, if you’re givin’ to lying, you put your hand in there, it’ll get bitten off.More music. Laughter.Let’s see you do it.Higher voice. Feminine.Sure.Deeper voice. Male.More music.Dun. Dun. Dun.Screaming.Hello. You BEAST!
My eyes slowly came open. Where was I?
Same sights. Same smells.
Still at the hidden villa.
I yawned and stretched, consciousness snapping awake, and the sounds in the background took form in my mind. A movie.Roman Holidaywith Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck. We had started watching it and I must’ve fallen asleep.
It had been two days since our wedding and I was blissfully sore and tired all of the time. I took naps whenever I could. Then I’d wake up, he’d kiss me, or touch me, and we’d be at it again.
“You make bubbles with your mouth when you sleep.”
