“Sì,” he had said, and then he set me on the counter in the bathroom and made love to me. There wasn’t a space in our home that we hadn’t made ours.
The times when they had come over, Scarlett and I had no privacy to bring up our last conversation, about the eerie feeling Luca gave me the night of the bayou party, Maggie Beautiful, andall the rest of the things I’d set in a dark area of my mind to pull into the light after Rocco and I had time just to be…newlyweds.
Sighing, I rolled up the sleeves of my long, mauve cardigan and adjusted the headband holding back my bangs. I tightened my ponytail and was about to get to work when I decided to walk to the double doors that led outside to the garden.
Rocco had prepared the soil for me, and together, we planted the butterfly garden I’d always wanted. Mari oversaw it, and she agreed that early fall was one of the prime times to plant. Though I couldn’t wait to watch it all grow, my feet took me to the edge of the garden. A little beyond it, the land opened, and I was looking down on our own private world from the clouds.
Sometimes it felt like I was taking a walk through them.
Other times I felt like I was floating in them.
This time, when my eyes connected on a vision speaking to another man about the grapes he was so passionate about, it felt like I was inside of one, so high in the sky, I was almost touching heaven.
My husband.
He was focused on one of the grape plants, his dirt-smeared hand touching a bunch, while he was listening to what the worker was saying to him. He lifted the grape, crushed it between his fingers, chewed the pulp, and then shook his head.
Theassaggio dell’acino.
Rocco was deciding if that particular grape was ready for the harvest.
My husband had ancient wisdom inside of him when he was making the decision of when to harvest. Too early or too late and the fruit wouldn’t yield its best product. Rocco instinctively knew, and from what I’d heard from the family, his grandfather was the same when it came to the bounty of the land. It was in their blood, especially something as romantic as wine.
I didn’t know how many times a heart could fall in love, but at that point, I had lost track. Couldn’t keep score. All I knew was that it continued to happen, and I prayed it would always happen. Just to see him was to love him. To fall even harder for him.
Even in small moments such as these.
No.
Especiallyin small moments such as these.
Nonna had always told me that, as the years go by and life shifts around us, what we have in the beginning looks a lot different in the end, and suddenly, you find yourself homesick for a time that no longer exists. This, she said, is why we must immerse ourselves in the good moments. The moments that continue to transport us back in time through reminiscing—make us, even for a second, remember the good times, and look forward to the good times ahead.
That was what this whole moment felt like to me. Like it was lodging itself in a place inside of me that couldn’t shift, even when the world around us did.
A drift of fog slow-danced in front of me, cloaking my husband before it revealed him to me. This time, he was looking straight at me, and my breath caught.
In a move that felt emergent, Rocco started for me, and rushing through our home, I met him at the door. He swept me off my feet and carried me into the office. In the center of the room was a small desk that I’d fallen in love with as soon as I walked into the room. It was vintage, made of dark wood that matched the beams above our heads, and it still had boxes stacked on it from the previous owner. With one swoop, all the boxes crashed to the floor. He set me down, and our lips met halfway.
He was breathing heavy.
So was I.
Our hands…our hands were as ravenous as our eyes.
I couldn’t close mine to his, and he couldn’t close his to mine.
My hands roamed up his strong back to his neck, then to his shoulders, and my engagement ring and wedding band caught the light and shimmered, along with the band on my right hand—emeralds, diamonds, and rubies, which stood for not only my husband’s roots, but mine too.
Even without a word spoken between us, our bodies together were telling a story. He was too far from me, and I was too far from him, and the distance felt like a killer between us.
He removed his dirtied shirt, flinging it to the floor, and then removed my cardigan, throwing it over his shirt. He ripped my jumpsuit like it was made of paper, and when my breasts were exposed to him, he growled low in his throat. Like the hunter he was, he went straight for my neck, sucking on my pulse, while my legs came up and pushed his pants down.
This wasn’t about taking things slow.
This was about pure instinct.
His nostrils flared, and without having to touch me between the legs, he instinctually knew—I was so wet, and so ready for him. I was almost begging him to take me, to fill me up, to never separate us again. He entered me in a stroke that had my nails sinking into his warm flesh. He stilled, his lids so low, he almost looked drunk, before we both closed our eyes to the immense pleasure that filled me up. It started in my toes and went straight to my head.
