Niello and I turned our heads to watch as Peppin and Lina, Paul and Ginevra, along with their son, sat with Angelia as she told them stories. She enjoyed being told wild stories, but she enjoyed telling them even more.
She looked up at us, and even from where we stood, I could tell her deep blue eyes shimmered from the light. Her hair, which bordered on black, seemed to pull the color from her irises as the sun pulled the color from the ocean.
She was as fierce as the man holding me close.
She waved to us, we waved back, and then we started to laugh because she went right back to talking before her hand even fell.
“She’s too beautiful,” Aniello said. “We should have named her something plain.” When he said “plain,” it came out heavily accented. His comment made me laugh so hard that he pulled me even closer.
“What would a plain name have changed?”
He was quiet for so long that I looked up at him again. He looked down and kissed me on the forehead before answering.
“Gave her a little balance, I suppose.”
“Oh, you mean likeyou,” I said. “You have no balance. It goes to show how nature likes to show off occasionally.”
“MyRosalia,” he said, his accent growing even heavier, kissing me on the lips this time, letting them linger before we separated. “Our daughter is the spitting image of you. All I could have asked for.”
As the years passed, she did look more like me, but there was no doubt that she was the daughter of Aniello Assanti. It was written all over her, from the faces she pulled to her attitude.
Except we had no idea where she got her chattiness from. Neither of us were what anyone would have called verbose. That was the part of the life that had stuck to our bones. Never use seven words when five will do.
The world was still the world—and we still only trusted each other to the full extent.
His nose skimmed my neck, breathing me in, and I closed my eyes, holding on to him even tighter. “You smell so fucking good.” His voice was rough, and goosebumps rose on my skin, though the weather was tepid. “You take my breath away in this dress,” he said in Sicilian.
I could tell the difference between the different dialects after years of listening to him and learning.
“You really like it?” For our night out, I had decided to wear a nude-colored, sequined dress that caught the light and shimmered. It would look even more spectacular under the moonlit beach.
“Whatever you wear, I love and hate. I love it because it’s on the body of the woman I love. I hate it because I want to fuck every part of your body that I can.Il mio.” He pulled me into him so hard that I gasped, feeling his want for me pressed against my ass. “Clothes only get in the way.”
“They don’t have to…” My voice came out soft and was picked up by the wind.
“You tempt me to stay home, Mrs. Assanti,” he said, his hands on my hips making the pulse between my legs throb, “and enjoy our anniversary in our bedroom.”
“That would be perfect,” I barely got out, closing my eyes. “I love being your temptation.”
He chuckled softly in my ear. “You always have been. You always will be. Everything to me.”
Then he repeated the same words he’d said to me on our wedding day:
“Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm; for love is as strong as death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave. It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame.”
A whimper left my mouth at the conviction behind the words.
He turned me around so fast that a breath escaped my lips, one he caught when his lips pressed against mine and I opened to him. My body melted into his, and he seemed to absorb me into his skin. When I was able to open my eyes, I looked up into his hooded ones.
“I love you, Aniello Assanti.” I stood on my toes and kissed him once on his forehead, his chin, each cheek, and then sealed it when my lips softly pressed against his. “Ineedyou more than the air that I breathe.”
“That is my prayer,” he said in Neapolitan, probably just as his mamma had said it to him. His knuckles skimmed the side of my face, so soft that I wasn’t entirely sure if it was his touch or the wind. “I would kill, I would die, to see you and Angelia safe,” was his response, and it was everything.
He was my everything too.
I grinned up at him, running my hands up his chest and over his shoulders. His Italian linen shirt was the color of my eyes, and his pants were made from the same material in a color that reminded me of sand. In such a bright place, he was a mysterious contrast. Dark hair, tan skin, and dark eyes that burned just for me.
He was so good-looking that it was almost dangerous.
