“Fuck, Scar—”
She made atsknoise. “What didyoucall me?”
She pulled her mouth away to say those words, and I called hermy wife, before flinging the jacket to the floor, the dress, salvaging her bra, but not the underwear. I’d ripped the material. She smiled at me, but something deeper had been stirred. I wasn’t sure if it was sadness or something else that reflected. I wasn’t used to seeing that look on her face.
Tito had once told me that a woman was like a butterfly—farfalla—and to truly appreciate the sweet creature, I had to appreciate her metamorphosis.All that she suffered to become one of the most beautiful living things.
That was what reflected on her face—change that required sacrifice, blood, before it could reach its own northern point and become a star.
The same with a rose and its thorns. Every beautiful thing has its sharp edges, its own brand of poison. Just as every fated love story must bleed for its happily ever after.
My hands grasped her hips harder. Solid, nothing ghostly about this gorgeous, warm-blooded creature on top of me.
“I liked those,” she muttered, and tears started to slip from her eyes.
I flipped her over, making her gasp, before I made a line with my tongue along her cheeks, taking her tears for my own, her saltwater healing the wounds inside of me.
“I’ll buy you more,” I said. “I’ll give you the world. Whatever you want.”
She nodded and reached up to touch my face. “You,” she whispered. “You’re all I’ve ever wanted.”
“You have me. You’ve always had me. It’s only ever been you. Scarlett Rose Fausti.” I brought her hand to my heart, pressing it hard against my skin.
“Yours.” The word sounded more like a question coming from her mouth, something she needed to hear and feel.
Her palm lay flat, but she might as well have held the beating organ in her hand, for as much as it was hers.
“All mine,” I said in Italian. “Or my life isn’t my own.”
She opened to me, and I slipped in again—the noise from my throat sounding like a dying beast. It could have been years or moments since the last time I had her. She smelled like me, but not enough. I wanted to infiltrate her pores, so the scent that wafted from her skin was me. All those boys or animals who looked too long or came too close would know.
Mine.
My hands slipped down her legs, to her ankles, bringing them up higher, feeling the initials she had tattooed on her heels. B on the left. F on the right. Brando Fausti.
I wanted an even deeper tattoo to be inked on her soul, my own blood, sweat, and tears. I wanted another baby to take root in her womb, to watch her flush and grow, so plump, like ripe fruit in summertime.
An everlasting bond between the two us that combined both bloods—hers and mine, like our lips had done the other night, like we’d done the first time she cut me open, and her blood ran inside of me.
The perfect eternity.
Her legs wrapped around my waist, her skin rubbing against mine, close to anxious, demanding instant gratification while begging for slow consumption.
“What have you done to me,” I said in Italian, hardly able to catch my breath. “You give me mercy; I’m saved. You keep it close to your heart; I suffocate. I’d die without you.”
She turned her face, a mask of pleasure and pain etched in her features.
I increased my pace and intensity, hitting all the spots that could make her hit all the high notes, the ones we were supposed to hit together.
Though this wasn’t about her or me or even us. We were both fighting for something—something that made me want to encase her in my skin and carry her around forever, protecting her from the world and all its sharp edges.
This was one of the ways we fought the limitations of the world.This.This could strip me down to the bone, exposing all that hid.
And she saw. Just like I saw her.
“Look at me,” I ordered.
She did, her eyes meeting mine. A warning growl came from my throat when she tightened, clenching around me.
