He lifted me from the table, and as I wrapped my legs around him, he walked us to the wall and set my back against it. He positioned me perfectly to watch as he made love to me. He entered me in a slow stroke that made us both breathe out a sigh of release, then he started to move inside of me.
All I had the power to do was close my eyes and…feel. Feel all that this man was doing to me. How he worked my body to heights that were not only physical but emotional.
My hair was catching on the stone, and it felt like the stone had jagged nails that scratched my back.
It only enhanced the pleasure.
“What you do to me, my wife,” he barely got out. “What only you can do to me. I have the stamina of endless men, yet I canbarely hold back my seed, as if I was a young man on the cusp of discovering that this is what it is all about.”
My eyes rolled in pleasure, my hands reached out to his chest, to mimic the stone at my back, and my mouth was spewing incoherent words and making noises that were low and deep, as deep as he was reaching me. And with his command, “come to me, my wife,” I did. I allowed the pressure to be free, as I shook and cried out. He came to me right after, moving faster, harder, and with an animalistic noise, he emptied himself inside of me.
I was barely coherent when he began kissing me again, moving toward our small bedroom where we were stuck together, as close as two people could be.
One.
Chapter 8
Stories on the Bayou
Rocco
My wife was quiet, staring out the window, as I drove the SUV to Eva and Gabriel’s home along the bayou. Guido and his wife,Lourdes Maria Goretti, were speaking in hushed tones in the back seat. My wife grinned when she heard Lourdes mention that she did not particularly care for the size of the bugs on the bayou. Lourdes had gone to war with them each time she visited Eva and Gabriel. These solider-sized insects seemed bigger to her than hummingbirds.
Lourdes could deal with the mutant rats on the subway in New York, but she could not deal with “biting crawlies” with wings.
Lourdes waved a hand. “I’ll see if Scarlett has a bottle of bug spray when we get there.”
“No problem, Lou!” My wife dug in her sizable purse and pulled out a bottle. “I’m from the city. I don’t do the size of the bayou bugs either. I went on a field trip to Bayou Teche once. It was for Louisiana history in the eighth grade. My Nonno was one of the chaperones. He didn’t like them either. And I’m pretty sure he taught a bunch of kids how to curse in Italian that day.” She gave a quick laugh. “Yeah, we’re going to stink, but it’ll be worth it.”
“I love when a woman comes prepared!” Lourdes said, as serious as if she were taking an oath.
My wife turned around, and they slapped hands.
Guido grinned at me through the mirror. The men all seemed to accept my wife, accepted her for the queen she was.Bene.I did not have to decapitate any of them and bring the severed head to her on a silver platter.
Guido’s eyes turned serious when mine did.
Perhaps he was not thinking the exact same thought, but his thoughts were following mine to a certain degree: Francesco Fausti and his hunger to become the next leader of the Fausti family.
The letters we found in my wife’s grandmother’s belongings would perhaps start a war between his faction of the family and mine. Francesco had made a public display for my wife, while she was still my intended, on our private island in the Mediterranean. To the Fausti family, this place was considered neutral ground. No blood was allowed to be shed on it. One droplet of his, after I stuck a knife to his throat, and my life would have been over.
My back straightened even further, my grip on the wheel became even tighter, and my heart pumped faster, a rush of pride surging through my veins at the thought of bloodshed in her honor. My wife was anxious about the letters, but I was ready to prove to my family that the challenge my great-uncles had started over my wife’s great-aunt was going to end with my wife and I.
If Francesco wanted a war with me.
I welcomed it.
I would end him.
My wife glanced at me from the side of her eye. I lifted her hand to my mouth, and the cadence of her pulse thrummed as if she was a bird preparing for the hunter. It often shocked me howconnected we were. I was not accustomed to a woman knowing me as well as she did. I could not hide from her, and without a doubt, she could not hide from me. She knew my thoughts.
A surge of pride, or perhaps love, rushed through my chest once more, even more powerful than the thought of bloodshed, when I thought of this woman knowing me as well as she did already. If I moved, she moved, and when she moved, I moved. It was as if we were two bodies working as one.
My wife cleared her throat and asked Lourdes how long it had been since the last time she and Guido had visited Eva and Gabriel in St. Martinville. My wife and Lourdes discussed this until I turned the SUV into the driveway of the Roberts’ home. Numerous cars were parked in front, and I found a spot next to Brando and Scarlett’s vehicle. My brother gave me a nod when I stepped out, and I gave him a nod in return. He was removing all the food Scarlett had cooked to bring to the party. He grinned at me when I began doing the same. My wife had cooked enough for an army.
Scarlett grabbed Amora by the arms. “Ari! I had no idea you were cooking all of this!” Scarlett gave me a sly look from the side of her eye. It was almost stern.
My wife caught it. “What?” She looked between us.
