Giving in, I gave her all of me, knowing that she’d keep us both safe, hiding us away in the secrets parts that only I knew how to find.
6
Scarlett
“Incandescent.”
“Hm?” I ran my fingers along his smooth chest, tracing over the darker brown spots the sun had left behind, his collarbone, and the lifted veins along his muscled arm.
In the drunk post-coitus haze, I wondered…would he always be this gorgeous? The years seemed to touch him in a way that only enhanced his beauty, not detracted from it.
His father was still gorgeous. His mother too, for that matter. All his uncles, even if I didn’t care for their personalities, were all commanding men. Even his grandfather, Marzio, had been striking—not even the angel of death could steal the beauty from him.
My chin moved with his maneuvering, and so did my gaze. With the moon behind him, his hair in disarray, and the scent of him in the air, he was…
The answer came to me as easy as the breeze that swept in and out of the murmuring olive trees surrounding us.
He was a truly wild animal.
The perfect predator.
Those hands could kill without a second’s hesitation. Then turn around and make me beg for them to touch my body.
“Sono geloso,” he whispered, coming in for a soft, slow, deep kiss.
I placed a hand between us, feeling both of our heartbeats at once. One rhythm seemed to follow the other in perfect tempo.
“You’re jealous?” I croaked. I cleared my throat to free the strain, but it still came out as a whisper. “Of what?”
He stroked my forehead, staring at a piece of my hair, and then twirled the piece around his finger. “Whatever you’re thinking of.”
“Oh.” I smiled. “You’re jealous of yourself then.”
“I hate myself,” he said. “I should kill the bastard.”
We laughed quietly.
The olive branches overhead rustled, and he lifted the second blanket higher around me, shielding me from the chill. Both of us were naked, exposed to the elements, but together, warm enough. Just his waist was covered, the rest of him bare. I half expected steam to rise around him from his heat clashing with the cold.
Perhaps it had; the fields were illuminated by the moon, and a thin layer of mist had settled over the Tuscan countryside, hovering around the golden bales of hay and the natural rolling shape of the land. In the far distance, they were nothing but shadows catching light. The trees’ branches were black shapes imprinted on the face of a bright moon.
I placed a soft kiss on his sharp nose, running my hands through his hair, as soft as silk. It was the same texture as our daughter’s hair. Hers was just lighter in color, closer to deep chestnut.
He stared at me, unblinking for a moment, before he closed his eyes and kissed me. “Incandescente.”
“Hm?” I looked up at him, just remembering that he had said the same word before. I had been too lost in his beauty to acknowledge it. Or had I? “Incandescent. What about it?”
“You,” he said simply. “Incandescente.Give me your secret word.”
I stared at him. “My secret word?” We usually asked for one word, because sometimes they were hard for him to get out, but this was the first time he called it that.
“What I’d call you in my thoughts if I had no idea what words were. I’d know that one. It’s you. Before, when I had said it, you answered—hm?Like I had called your name. Though your mind was miles away. It’s the color of your soul. I’d recognize it in any language, in any time or place, in another world. That’s how I’d know it was you. The half to my whole.”
“I’d burn for you?”
“Yeah,” he said, his voice gruff. “You’re brighter than the moon.”
“All right,” I barely got out. “Caliginous. That’s you,mio marito. It means obscure, dark. So when I burn in the darkness for you, you’ll come straight to me.”
