“I love you, my wife,” I said in Italian.
The words that followed were honeyed, and I couldn’t stop them from flowing out of my mouth and onto her skin. Even when I entered her, her tight, hot slickness stealing my blood and making me lightheaded, the words refused to quit.
Some words were incoherent, whispered in the high of ecstasy; others were said with such sharp clarity, they made her eyes close, absorbing the blood-soaked confessions into her soul.
What had she called it once?Amore ubriaco.Drunk on love.
My words and the guttural noises coming from my throat seemed out of my control—she had released me from my chains and set me free to be feral in the darkness.
Hours passed, and though the craving for her had abated, the hunger couldn’t be satisfied. There was always some desire on the tip of my tongue, something I never had from her before, or something I had and couldn’t get enough of.
As we lay with my front to her back, her wrapped in my arms, the darkness had worn thin, had become nothing but a membrane between night and the birth of a new day.
“Brando?”
“Mm?” I kissed a trail along her shoulder, breathing her in.
“We’re good at this?” She squeezed my arm, pulling our entwined hands to her mouth, placing a soft kiss on my knuckles. “Holding on to each other no matter what life throws at us?”
“Yeah, baby,” I said. “We are. Damn good at it.”
“You—”
She stopped, and I rose on my arm, looking down at her. Her hair was a wild halo around her head, framed by the glow of the fire, the thin pieces highlighted against the pillow.
I placed a kiss behind her ear. “Dimmi.”
She looked down, rubbing her hand up and down my arm in slow, soft strokes. “You’ve told me things before, in the heat of the night—”
I leaned in even closer, whispering things that made her cheeks rush with blood.
“Oh.” She sucked in a breath and then sighed it out. It took her a second to speak. “It’s—you had a lot to say tonight.”
“You think I’m drunk.”
Her mouth twitched. “No, I know when you’re drunk. You’ve had a lot, but I don’t think that’s it.”
“Tell me, my wife,”I said in Italian.
“My wife.” She sighed, then her direction changed. “This sudden verbal spill has nothing to do with the leggy blonde at the karaoke bar?”
It was posed as a casual comment, as causal as asking about the weather, but it wasn’t. It was something I would have done to her. She’d learned from the master—me.
“She said one word to me.” Then I narrowed my eyes at her—she was spying on me without leaving the house. I knew where she was always.
“I have lookouts too.” She grinned, but it didn’t touch her eyes. “By the way, she wanted you to dance with her. After you stood, Nino took your spot by the fireplace. He tried to get friendly with her, wanting her to dance with him, but she wasn’t having it. She called him something rude. I’m so glad he doesn’t have any German. She would’ve hurt his feelings. I—Dr. Musa, she likes him. Have you noticed?”
Dr. Musa was the resident pediatrician Luca had hired. Scarlett and I liked her more than the one we had in Italy. We decided to keep Dr. Musa even after this situation was over.
Her first name was Musa, her last name Rizzo, but she refused to allow anyone to call her that. Compared to Tweetle Fucking Dee and Tweetle Fucking Dum—the other two doctors Luca had sent over—Dr. Musa was all right in my book.
“You think you’re so clever.” I pinched her ass and she squirmed. “You told me that because you wanted me to know that you were keeping an eye onme—Violet’s eye.”
My hand caressed from her sweet spot over the slope of her behind, up and down, making her squirm even more, but not wanting her to move too far, I slipped my hand over her hip, to her belly, feeling the swelling even more than I had a week ago.
Was it that her body was relaxing into a state that it recognized? Or was he going to be that big?
I held her tighter. Tight enough that awhooshof air escaped her lips from the pressure. She was so small, and the thought of him being that big made me anxious.
