Seeing my wife in this gown, in her nightgown, in any gown, clothed or not, when she looked at me with those eyes, those eyes that could see straight through me, shattered me all over again, yet she kept me together.
“You make me a man, Sistine Evita Fausti,” I whispered in her ear after I pulled her against my body, my marrow demanding to be as close to hers as possible.
Her eyes refused to leave mine. “You make me a woman,” she whispered, and she touched her stomach.
I ran my hands up and down her arms. This gown was lighter than the other one, airer, and her skin was chilled. “You’re fucking cold,” I said.
“No,” she breathed out. “Perhaps my skin, but the rest of me is warm. I’m next to you, and the fire inside of me is…hot. The…baby,” she whispered.
My stomach hit a fucking dip it could never recover from, and she gasped when I pulled her closer, my grip tighter, family and friends making their way toward us to congratulate us.
“Not far,” I said. “My heart can’t fucking take it again.”
She didn’t try, maybe because she knew it was no use. Even when the women of my family pulled her to the dance floor, or the men of my family asked her for a dance, I stayed close. My old man had that fucking grin on his face again, the one that said, “Yeah, ask me how I know what you’re fucking going through.”
I slammed back a couple of drinks, fueling the fire in my veins, and then took my wife from my greedy fucking brother, Marciano. He laughed at me, raspy and low, as he took her hand, kissed it, and went to join my family.
We danced to the slow song playing, the one I had sung to her in Wyoming, in our cabin. When the song was coming to an end, she pulled away from me some, looking into my eyes. The small lights strung from tree to tree, floating over our heads, brightened her eyes. She opened her mouth, closed it, then looked away from me. I turned her chin toward me, tipping it up, and refused to allow her to shy away from me.
“You can rip my heart out, my wife,” I said in Italian. Then I switched to English. “But fuck if I’ll allow you to be indifferent to me.” I swept her off her feet, and her arms went straight to my neck, her airy gown flowing over my arms.
Guests were starting to come at us with sparklers my sister insisted we have.
“Our reception!” my wife said when she realized I was taking her to the waiting Friesians, the extremely rare white one already saddled for my wife’s comfort. I had gotten the female as a gift to my wife. As a breed standard, white wasn’t the norm, but I knew my wife would love her. “I’m not riding a horse!”
“You’ll ride with me. Guerriero will follow on his own.”
“Mariano!”
I easily mounted the female Friesian, then took my wife by the arm and hauled her up, deftly setting her behind me. The female Friesian went to sniff the apple-scented beauty behind me, craning her neck as far as she could, and my wife stiffened, her breath catching.
“Mariano,” she said underneath her breath, like she didn’t want the horse to truly known she was on her back.
Iticked my mouth at the horse and turned her reins so she would know which direction to take. On the scale of how much horse the female was, she was in the negative compared to Guerriero. He followed behind us.
My wife held onto me like she was white-knuckling the wheel of a getaway car. After a minute or two, she relaxed, and I could tell she was enjoying the ride. When we arrived home, I dismounted first in the stable, then picked my wife up and set her on her feet.
She narrowed her eyes at me. “All those people at the reception.”
“Know where to fucking go,” I said. “Most of them are staying the night here, in the extra properties.”
Our eyes met, and then hers slowly turned when her horse started to sniff her hair. She had taken it down after the day, allowing the plump waves to cascade over her shoulders, the sides pulled up. When her hair was that way, she was somewhatsofter, more…pliable. When her hair was pulled back, because her features were a mix of sharp and soft, the style played on her sharper side.
In this way…I didn’t even have the fucking words. With the point of her finger, and an accusation on her tongue, she could send me into battle for fucking folly.
It was so fucking clear to me in that moment why a woman is called a queen.
My wife ruled me.
“Mariano,” she called again, reaching out for me.
I entwined our hands together. “It’s all right, Annie,” I whispered. “She’s just introducing herself to you. She’s curious.”
“Curious about how I taste. Have you ever truly looked at how big a horse’s teeth are?”
I laughed and showed her my teeth. “Mine might not be as big, but they’re fucking sharper.”
Her eyes grew wide, like she was hypnotized for a second, but recovered when the female Friesian tousled her hair. “Shh!” she shushed me.
