I had never been so deep into the castle, never cared to wander that far in. I didn’t know where we were, nor did I care. All I cared for was some privacy and a warm bed. Edit. Just privacy. Brando was warm enough for the two of us.
His skin burned against the coolness of my hands, his warm mouth against the areas he kissed and sucked and bit. I hadn’t realized we made it into the room until a surge of heat washed over me. I was placed on the bed, and Brando stood in front of me, highlighted by the raging fire in the background. It cast us in romantic shadows, glowing as bright as a beacon, but further softening the night with its caress.
The room was truly medieval. Compared to the rose room, it was deeper, higher, and complete with two fireplaces instead of one. A massive four-poster bed was in its center. I lifted to my knees, wrapping my arms around his neck.
“Tell me again,” he whispered before his mouth became hard on mine.
When I could speak and he had moved lower, I breathed out, “What? Tell you what?” My mind was too hazed with want to comprehend what he wanted from me.
He gave me a moment to think about it, though my thoughts were in a crazed spiral, all circulating around one seed of thought. More. More. And. More of that, no, that, oh, and that.Please.
We had been here before, my husband and I, at a place where we had to reconnect this way to heal. To feel that surge of love rise up and wash through, leaving no trace of the outside world within us, in the spaces reserved for his soul and mine to coexist.
I smiled when I understood. “If I repeat it, your head is going to swell and not fit through the door.”
He stopped what he was doing to look up at me. Our eyes met. “I have two heads, baby. And only one of them is swollen, and I vow to you it’s not the one connected to my neck.” He put my hand against him, pressing hard. I sucked in a breath, allowing the shock of him to disrupt every settled shred of myself.
“You are my hero, Brando,” I breathed out. “Tu sei il mio eroe,” I repeated, even louder.
“Look at me,” he demanded, taking my face in his hands.
It took me a minute to settle, to see that he needed me to focus. The room felt bathed in warmth, us underneath the everlasting flow of it, a world of our own. Our arms made slow-moving shadows, stretching along the walls and floor. Some moments became one shadow instead of two.
“You are the most insane—the most hardheaded woman that I’ve ever met. You’re also the fucking bravest.” He ran his hands along my face, settling my wild hair. “I had the balls to thank a Russian assassin for saving my heart, but I didn’t have the courage to thank my wife for saving my soul and my body. Thank you, Scarlett Rose Fausti.” He took my hands, kissing each knuckle, until he came to the inside of my wrists, where my pulse beat strong and crazed against his mouth. “You belong to me in all the ways that count and even those that don’t.Il mio.Sempre. And if you even think you’re going anywhere without me, you can fucking think again.”
“Again,” I said, lifting his face to meet mine. “You savedmeagain. You were going to die for me.” My voice almost broke in two when I said those last words—die for me. He had surrendered his life for mine. Not a quiver in his voice or a backward glance at the life he had left behind.For me. All for me.His.“That is what a man is, Brando Fausti. You. You are the definition of bravery, of honor, of the heart that makes aman a man. But—” My nails dug into his skin. “Never do that to me again.”
“I don’t plan on it, Ballerina Girl.”
He kissed me hard when a sob broke free, taking all of my pain and mingling it with his. Somehow one healed the other; saltwater to a wound, even if it burned like hell at first.
“All night,” he barely got out when he entered me. I was so tight that he trembled with need, until my body was ready to let all of him inside. “You—all of you—all night.”
“I need all of you forever,” I whispered, and then allowed him to take me further under, where even the warmth of a wintry sun couldn’t touch us come morning.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Brando
“You would feel him before you saw him,” I said, glancing over at her. I leaned forward, narrowing my eyes against the Louisiana sun, turning the heater down. “He’s not that easy to spot.”
“I—I know,” she said, taking my hand in hers. “But I can’t stop looking.”
“Trust me.”
“Brando…”
“Answer the question, Scarlett.”
“It really wasn’t a question, but you know I do.”
“Then stop looking.”
“How do you know for sure?”
“Again. Rocco told me. He talked to Luca. Luca has invisible chains on Ettore. What Luca says goes, even behind bars.”
She sighed but stopped looking. Instead, she took in our small town, which almost felt foreign. Like two good friends reuniting after prolonged time apart, traveling her roads gave us the chance to reconnect with the place we called home. Natchitoches.
