The door to the shower came open, a surge of cool air connecting with warm flesh, and he stood, staring at me. His eyes were intense, his jaw clenched, but there was something about him—something buried deep—that made my heart break. Tears drifted down my cheeks without me being consciously aware that they were.
Leave it to Brando Piero Fausti to make me cry without saying a word. He was the only man who ever could. Make me cry—in good times and in bad.
I lifted my hand toward his face, and he seized my wrist, pulling me against him with such intensity that I gasped and lost my towel. He separated us for a moment to remove his shirt, and then he pressed me up against him again so our skin could touch.
His skin against mine made me think of lightning trapped in a fleshy, vulnerable bottle, the currents of his electric touch ricocheting from bone to bone. Our hearts seemed to beat in tandem. A perfect band made from the two of us.
Our lips seemed magnetized.
We kissed as though we had been separated for years and years and years, all those years we had spent away from this house. My hands were frantic, his were hard enough to bruise me, maybe even hot enough to scald me, both of us trying to melt into one another. To go beyond flesh, blood, and bone.
It has to be a sin—greed, gluttony—to love someone so much.
I can’t…I need to be close to you. So close. I want to feel you in my blood, in my marrow, in my soul.
Tell me. Tell me you won’t ever leave me. That you’ll always want this life with me. That we’ll give the dreams we created here air to breathe.
You and me. Our beautiful years.
Which words belonged to him or me, I couldn’t even say. We seemed to exist as one being, not even the restraints of our bodies enough to keep our most vital parts from interlacing to create one life.
As cliche and dramatic as it made me seem, I wanted to die with him one day, at the same time, just so we wouldn’t have to spend a second apart, just so our flesh and bone could turn into ashes and scatter as one. I wanted to die with my lips pressed against his, while the rest of the world faded around us.
A woman burned at the stake with her great love, and not an ounce of regret in her heart.
I didn’t understand it. Never could. The comprehension of it made me cower in fear of the enigma, at what it would mean if I could understand it. It was like questioning the greatest mysteries instead of appreciating them as is. So, I didn’t. I gave over to whatever existed between us. A willing sacrifice.
“Take me some place,” I cried against him, kissing his chest. “Take me...please.”
“Tell me where.” His voice came out ragged before he sucked the skin on my neck, over my pulse. His teeth grazed, sharp in contrast to the softness of his lips and tongue.
“Anywhere. Anywhere with you.”
“Do you need a dress?” He nodded toward the pile he had accumulated on the floor.
“I could go naked, and I wouldn’t—Ah!” He bit me so hard that I almost pulled away. The sting of it followed by the warmth of his mouth made a hard shiver rattle me. “I don’t need anything is what I meant. Nothing. I only need you. You and the kids. Our life together.”
He made a guttural noise in his throat, somewhere between a growl and a moan. His hands squeezed my hips, hard enough to pull me against him, our bodies colliding, soft breasts against hard muscle. “I love you, my baby,” he said. “So fucking much. Words seem—”
“Inadequate?”
“Yeah. So much that—” He couldn’t go on. He didn’t have to. And he knew it. I understood. I was the other half to this whole that we claimed as ours.
Running his hands through my hair, slowing our pace down a bit, he closed his eyes and kissed me once more before he muttered against my lips, “Marciano forgot his owl. We can bring it to him.”
“Then?”
He pulled away, not much, but enough to look me in the eye. The absence of an answer screamed louder than he ever could.
“Brando,” I whispered, running my hands along his sides. “Please. Don’t. I mean…” I growled deep in my throat at the frustration of needing to choose the next words carefully. “You’re a man. Dammit! I know you are. I knowwhatyou are. You’re an effing beast…”
After a few moments had slipped past and I didn’t finish, he said, “Tell me.”
“…but you’remine,” I said softly. “Stay with me. Here in our house. Don’t go. Please. The Stones—”
He kissed me again, affectively shutting me up.
“Because you asked it of me,” he whispered against my lips after I’d broken the kiss to keep up the conversation. “I’ll stay with you.”
