He kept us in the sudden storm, and I held onto him.
“Tell me, are you afraid of storms now, my wife,” he said in Italian.
“No.” I shook my head. “Also, yes. Only if you are not beside me during them.”
He nodded, and ever so softly, he kissed my lips. He kissed me while he carried me inside, both of us soaked to the skin. His thin shirt stuck to his powerful form. My dress clung to me. My nipples were hard and pressing against the thin fabric.
He let my hair down, watching as it cascaded over my shoulders in wild waves.
“Fuck me sideways,” he said. “You are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
The solar lights had turned on, and theburehad a glow about it, almost as if candles had been lit. Shadows rose and climbed the walls, waving and shimmering as water would.
He pulled my body into his, his hand slipping underneath my hair. I gasped when his mouth came on mine, as starved as he had been for dinner.
We raged all night long, longer than the storm.
Chapter 47
Mariano
Morning was near. My wife was asleep in the bed. The room glowed gold from the solar lights, highlighting her sleeping form. She was naked, on her stomach, her hand fanned out. The cool white sheet only covered her ass and part of her leg. Her skin glistened with sweat. Her hair was plump, almost like a halo on top, wavy as it cascaded over her pillow. Her tropical-scented perfume drifted in the air, her usual scent underneath it.
She almost buzzed as she slept.
She was knocked out.
Not enough to make me anxious, where I’d stick my finger underneath her nose to feel her—my—breath against my skin, but enough that I knew she was numb to the world. Maybe I was with her in dreams. We were racing together, she the mare to my stallion. The lioness to my lion.
A sigh escaped my lips.
I leaned over my legs, studying my hands, the band around my left finger, left hand, engraved with our first wedding date on it. A never-ending circle. A circular field that was my home—a place to race home to over and over.
The special phones we used on the island lit up. The call I’d been waiting for. I slipped out of bed and took a seat in the kitchen at the table—in complete darkness.
“What’s up, Rio,” I answered.
“Brother,” he said. “What’s up? I’ll fucking tell you. Nothing but a bunch of holus-bolus.”
“That’s not how you fucking use that word in a sentence,” Marciano’s voice echoed in the background. The voice from the fucking pit.
Rio laughed. He was fucking with my brother.
Rio sighed. “I’m not going to fuck around and string you along. I have a few things to tell you. Yeah, Lev was in Fiji. He’s responsible for the prints in the sand. From what your old man told me, Lev has a habit of crashing beach vacations this way. Apparently, years ago, he tried to recruit your old man and mamma to join his band of merry Russian assassins while Brando and Scarlett were in Fiji for the first time.
“My educated guess? Your wife’s ability to shoot has made its rounds in our world. Iggy for sure knows this, since he was the recipient of your wife’sfuck around and find out approachwith the gun. Lev knows your reputation in our world. You’re the fastest shooter we have, not to mention one of the best swordsmen, especially on a horse. Even more…notorious, famous…than your great-grandfather, Marzio.”
“Put one and one together.”
“Yeah,” Rio said. “You have a mighty dangerous duo.”
“You tell Spicy Sissy about all your dangerous attributes yet, brother?”
I pulled the phone away from my ear and looked at it. Then I put it back to my ear. “Get off the fucking line, Marci.”
He grumbled and Rio got back on.
“Lev left the island,” I said.
