And that was more than enough.
Chapter 53
Stella
Against my husband’s dark tux, my gown twinkled like a star in the night sky. It was strapless, form fitting, landing just above my ankles, and the heels I wore were champagne embellished with crystal stars.
It wasn’t the dress or the shoes that made me shine, though.
It was my reflection in my husband’s dark eyes.
It had been six months since our Luca was born, and he was a plump ball of Fausti handsomeness, with all his dark features and hair, but my stormy eyes. Henri had given me something beautiful to pass on to my son. But if I thought my husband looked at me with the intensity of a star gazer looking at the sky before Luca was born, after, he became…double somehow.
Double the man he was.
Double the husband.
And double the father. It was like he couldn’t wait to get home to us, and he rushed to get there—this from a man who never increased the tempo of his steps for anyone.
“You ready, baby?” he breathed in my ear, his hot palms burning me through the sparkling fabric. His hands were almost bigger than my waist.
But I wasn’t ready. Not for what we were about to do tonight: attend the premier ofBella Stella,the movie I’d done with Noemi.
The buzz around it was intense. Some critics claimed I was a natural and could give a David di Donatello-worthy performance. (David di Donatello was the equivalent of an Oscar in America.) Others claimed I got the role, and such high praise, because of my last name.
It didn’t matter to me. Like my husband said to me before the movie was even done, “Fuck the critics. You’re a Fausti. You have my skin around you. Nothing touches you, not even opinions.”
I lived by his words.
And my life was much better for it.
I wasn’t acting for the money or the fame. I was acting because something about slipping into another role in life was therapeutic to me. I did it when I became a star on that stage for that awful woman, and it had helped me through the time I served with her. Then it became something I could do to escape, and then I found it brought me joy.
But the reason I wasn’t ready wasn’t because I was nervous. I wasn’t ready because the look in my husband’s eyes was making me have heart palpitations and keeping my feet planted to the floor.
He ran his hand over my hair, being so careful not to mess it up. It was parted on the side and done in long waves. I had thought about doing it in a style that would have given a nod to Matteo’s great grandmother, the film legend, Grazia Angeli, but I didn’t want my husband to compare and think our footsteps were too in line.
My husband’s hand ventured further down, to my neck, and a shiver stole over me. His hand seemed to produce a warmth that was like magic against my skin.
A trembling breath left my mouth, and his hand snaked around my throat, turning me around. He kept his hold there. Not to stop my breath, but to bring our mouths together, like he was directing our air. I wasn’t sure if I was breathing mine or his. Our tongues touched, swirled, and then went even deeper, until I had practically melted in his hands.
“I smell you already,” he breathed out. “So sweet and so fucking ready for me.”
I couldn’t even answer.
Somehow, he’d turned me around, and I hadn’t even realized it. All I could do was feel—feel the way the dress rubbed against my aching nipples, the way his palm ran up my legs, lifting the dress, the warmth of his hand and the cool bite in the air making me shiver, and the tug of a strand of hair when the man behind me wanted me to meet his eyes in the mirror. My thighs were already trembling, and when he slid his finger between my folds, I moaned. He stuck a different finger in my mouth, and when he entered me, I bit down, then started to suck.
Our eyes were lowered but focused on each other through the mirror.
“Fuck,” he ground out, stilling his hips, the tip of his cock pressed against something inside of me that was ultra-sensitive and reacted to the pressure, his eyes almost closing. “Fuck.”
As he increased his tempo, I took his finger deeper into my mouth, sucking hard and fast. I was drenched, and he easily thrust in and out of me, stretching me, touching every sensitive nerve with his hard cock. And when I came around him, he exploded inside of me.
I finally closed my eyes, letting my head hang, trying to catch my breath. I burned all over. When he slid out slowly, I trembled, so sensitive, I orgasmed again. The aftershock of the first one was still thrumming through me, and this one made me quietly cry out—like my body couldn’t even manage a louderscream because it felt so good. I was lucky I didn’t purr like a tired kitten.
My husband kissed me on the shoulder, then turning me around, cleaned me up. He fixed my hair, and then fixed himself. He grabbed the lipstick from the counter and held it up to my mouth. I wrapped my hand around his wrist and glanced at myself in the mirror. My lipstick had smeared.
We stared at each other.
