He leaned in closer, and I was already lost to him.
Lost to this moment.
His lips were tentative at first, seeking, and when he found me completely open to him, the kiss was soul-stealing, mixing, as if there would never be a time he could fully findhimself, I could fully findmyself, without the other close.
Theitthat connected us was still between us when we parted.
The glow was even more fiery than it had been before. The moment was so overwhelming, as the kiss was, and I closed my eyes to it, but a smile came to my face as I squeezed Mariano’s arms. His hands still cradled my face. He was staring at me. Although my eyes were closed to the rest of the world, they were never closed to him.
My world.
I could feel him. Feel what he was doing to me.
Already stirring the heat inside of me.
“I finally have a name for you,” I whispered. “Allmine. No one else is allowed to call you this.”
“Dimmi,” he said,tell me, as if this was the most important moment of his life. He was hanging on by a thread, and my answer would hand him a lifesaving rope.
If Mariano Fausti’s love and devotion could be summed up, that would be it. He treated me as though I was the most important moments of his life, and one day, they would be equal to our entire lives.
“Marito mio,” I breathed out. “Myhusband.”
“The only way,” he almost choked out. “The only way. You.” He kissed me again, sealing another vow, and applause and whistles went up around us, the breeze stirring the leaves at our feet, as though the entire world was marking and celebrating this moment in history with our hearts.
They were finally home—per sempre.
Chapter 23
Sistine
The song my husband sang to me after everyone left was stuck in my head. It kept replaying over and over, the beat of it translating from my mouth as a hum. My voice could not compare to my husband’s. The roughness and softness of his voice combined kept inflicting me with music frisson, as the differences in his touch, hard and smooth, did when he touched my skin and made goosebumps rise.
Although Mariano had not told me to pay attention to the lyrics, I had. I had paid attention to them as if I was hanging on by a thread and his message to me would throw me a lifesaving rope. A moment this important had meaning behind it, and the song he chose to sing to me on our wedding night was not going to be lost on me.
It was not.
It was taken to heart as a vow would be.
“Tell me, do you like that one,mywife.” He pulled my hips toward him, and they rammed into his hardness. I lost my breath, my arms instinctively tightening around his neck. I needed something to keep me up. No doubt he could send me falling and keep me stable.
“I do,” I whispered, our eyes gazing. “Sing me anotherplease.”
We swayed, the hundreds of candles and the firelight giving the room a grotto feel. Our shadows danced along with us on the walls, expanding and shrinking, shivering and steady.
He cleared his throat and sang another one for me.
I hummed along since I had never heard that one before. He spun me out, brought my back into his front, our hands and arms entwined, while he sang in my ear, before he turned me out and brought my front to his front with a smoothness that made me lose my breath again.
Dannazione.
The man could sing. His voice felt as if it were a physical thing, something that needed him to breathe but could live outside of him. It was warm, touching every sensitive nerve I seemed to have developed along my skin, and it was as rough as the pebbles beneath my feet in the creek. He did this raspy thing with his throat that made me weak in the knees.
“The way you’re looking at me,” he said when the song was over.
“How am I looking at you?” Probably as though he was the first man I had ever seen in my life—and he was calling to the woman inside of me.
“Like I hung the fucking moon.”
