“I don’t know what’s going on,” I whispered, my voice panicky, breathy, “but that was too far. You were too far. My heart can’t take it. This is going to sound…certifiable, but I can’t deny it’s how I’m feeling. It feels like we were together, in another time, maybe another place, and somehow, we were separated and now we’re close again, and my heart refuses even that short of a distance from you.”
He buried his hand into my hair and pulled my head back. We stared at each other, and in a breath, his mouth was on mine, and it felt like we were fighting to breathe each other’s air. If someone would have told me that longing had a taste, I would have called them a liar. But it had a taste. And it was in Rocco Fausti’s kiss. It was a bitter mix of starvation and the sweet taste of victory—that first taste of an elixir that came a moment before the world ended.
I had it too.
And, oh dear God, this man could kiss.
It felt like he was teasing the soul straight from my body.
When I knew I would pass out if I didn’t break it, I pulled back, but I didn’t move my head back far. I rested my forehead against his, still feeling his breath wash over me. I breathed him in.
“Stay with me?” I whispered, locking my hands behind his head. I was asking, but also refusing to let him ago.
After a few seconds, my eyes slowly opened to a reality that was far more beautiful than the place he’d taken me to in the kiss.
Him.
“I will stay forever,” he said, but there were things he was leaving unsaid.
I will stay forever, but perhaps this will be all of me. The man I am now.
I didn’t believe that. I refused to believe it. There was more to this man than he even saw. I wasn’t sure if his pain was because of Rosaria Caffi’s death, or if she had caused him pain in life. My feelings were telling me this wasn’t a man who would love in vain. If she was the great love of his life, he wouldn’t have me in his arms, trembling like he was. Like I was.
We’d found something in each other that only came once in a lifetime. It couldn’t be replicated or replaced.
“Good,” I whispered, “because I was just making you more bread. Hungry?”
He nipped at my lip before he carried me upstairs.
Chapter 18
Scars Not Yet Healed
Rocco watched as I pulled the first pan of focaccia from the oven and set it on the trivet on the counter. I pulled the second one out and set it next to the first. The entire apartment smelled like fresh bread, sea air, Rocco’s cologne, and my perfume. It was an addicting smell that put me at ease. Sort of like when fall is on the horizon and the air is perfumed with a smoky tinge. The scent is instantly recognizable for most of the world. But for me, this scent was custom-made for me. Something I wanted access to all year long, for the rest of my life.
“Write To Me From Naples” sung by Dean Martin started to play in the apartment from speakers I hadn’t even noticed before.
Rocco had hooked my phone up to a plug that went to the speakers and had found my music app. When our eyes met, his eyebrows went up in question and I shrugged, answering it.
“My Nonna loved Dino’s voice,” I said. “She imparted that love onto me. She said I was an old soul with the direction of a new heart.”
He made an agreeable noise at this.
It was a second too late, but I realized…when he had been watching my window as I wrote, he had heard the music. Some nights I had stuck my earbuds in my ears, but most times I just had the music playing in the background.
While I was writing the story in my heart, I wondered if he had been writing one, too, outside of my window.
Pisolino came sniffing in the kitchen, tail flicking, expecting a treat. I opened the fridge and pulled out a bag of shrimp I had gotten from the fishmonger. Every week I prepared a bag for him. I deveined them and removed the shell before I boiled them for just a few minutes. When I turned back with the bag in my hand, Rocco had already pulled a pan of bread toward him and was eating. He was eating the bread like it was the first meal of his life, and it was the best thing he’d ever tasted. All food would be compared to this meal from that moment on.
Smiling to myself, I threw Pisolino a shrimp and he caught it, inhaling his treat like Rocco was inhaling his.
“You spoil him,” he said around a bite. “You spoil me.”
I shrugged, flinging Pisolino another crustacean, before I tied the bag up and stuck it back in the fridge. “You’re both worth spoiling.”
It wasn’t meant to be an earth-stopping compliment, just the truth, but after I finished washing my hands and was drying them on a chili-pepper-themed dishtowel, I saw that he was staring at me, the bread close to his mouth but not all the way in. He blinked at me, like I was an apparition, and devoured that last bite, then met me in a few long strides. He pulled me into his arms, and just my body pressed to his sent a rush through me.
After our first kiss, my body had been anxious for another, but it seemed like we both were trying to pace ourselves. I wasn’t sure if we could. He leaned down and kissed me softly, so soft that, when he started moving us in tempo to “The Test Of Time,” I hadn’t even realized the change in song or that we had started to sway. I gazed up at him, and he gazed down at me. His eyes were so effing passionate. The way he was looking at me gave me a glimpse of who heused to be.
