I was so dizzy.
The world was spinning around this man, and he was the only solid foundation keeping me from being flung out. And the space between his body and mine kept shrinking, until I knew the moments were going to make us fade into each other. I was already there, just by the look in his eyes.
Like I was the consuming passion he’d always craved to be consumed by, just as I craved with my last breath to be consumed by his, but at the end of it, we’d only be fused to each other.
“Yes,” I breathed out. “Deeper. Go deeper.”
He adjusted his position and mine, and even that slight difference made me feel him deeper than anything I’d ever felt in my life. My legs locked around his waist, and when he started to truly move, I cried out.
“You missed me, my wife.”
“More than you’ll ever know—ah!”
His thrusts were perfect, stretching me, sliding against every sensitive nerve inside of me. I could barely catch my breath, but his mouth on mine gave me life. I pulled him closer, moving my hips with his.
“Tell me again.”
My eyes slowly opened to his when his hips slowed. What I found in there was vulnerability, longing, and ache I felt beyond my flesh. It hit bone.
“I missed you,” I whispered, feeling cool tears slide down my warm cheeks. “I missed you my entire life, my husband.”
He leaned in, his mouth claiming mine, but it wasn’t a punishing rhythm. It was slow, sensual, and it owned my entire body. He owned my entire body. My entire heart.
Our souls…those were tangled, secured together, one always a part of the other.
He made a strangled noise in his throat before we both started to move harder, faster, and he picked me up, set me against the wall, and pushed into me so hard, it felt like my eyes rolled behind my lids. He kept up this pace, and I could’ve sworn what I felt was the opposite of longing—it was finally finding what he had always been looking for buried deep inside of me.
“I am home,” he said in breathless Italian. “I am finally home. All that I am, all that I give to you, is safe within your walls.”
His words were my undoing.
My thighs started to tremble, and I grabbed his back, sliding my nails against his skin, my mouth panting for breath, before my entire body gave into his—or his entire body gave in to mine, and we came together in a crash that sent stars swirling behind my eyes.
We reveled in the quiet stillness between us, even though the outside world suddenly seemed so loud—the workers calling out to one another, the unmistakable snip of secateurs, the sound of grapes hitting the bottom ofsecchielli(small buckets), even my husband’s unsteady breaths. It wasn’t from Rocco’s physical status, either. It went far beyond that for both of us.
He tucked his face between my neck, breathing me in, his tongue tasting the salt on my skin. After a moment, he spoke to my frantic pulse, telling me that his heart had desired me even before I was created, and then I was created for him out of every desire of his heart. He continued to tell me things, long after the sun went down.
In the cloak of darkness, all his secrets were shared with me, all that his heart still desired, and as the fog moved across our windows, it protected his secrets as I would—for the rest of my life and beyond.
Chapter 15
La Vendemmia
Aria Amora
The Piemonte sun flowed like honey-infused light overNel Cielo. I’d only been in Piemonte a short while, so I had no other seasons to compare autumn with, but I had a feeling I was going to look forward to fall with a hunger squirrels have for chestnuts when the weather begins to turn toward cold.
WithVendemmia, there was something magical in the air I wanted to soak in, just like I did the sun. Which was why after Rocco and I had breakfast, and he went to join the workers with the grape harvest, I took my coffee to my office, walked outside, and watched as my husband worked just as hard as his workers, soaking up the sight of him and the warm sun. The days were a bit warmer than the nights, which was why I usually kept a light cardigan on. The light sweater helped me transition from day to night.
I’d never labeled myself as a morning or night person. It always depended on what was going on that day. And after I started writing for a living, it all depended on when my creativity was at its highest. Piemonte wasn’t changing all that, but I found myself looking forward to the quiet moments with my husband, when it felt the entire world was asleep except for us, then sharing dreams, then coffee and whatever we were having forbreakfast. I found myself craving the fog that cloaked our home at night, and then watching it disappear when the sun rose from its slumber.
It was truly a place where a king of a ruthless family could hide away with his soft queen, unless he was in trouble, and then she’d become even more ruthless than he was.
At the thought of anyone coming close to my heart, I salivated at the scent of their blood, if I couldn’t charm them into peace first.
Rocco smiled at something one of his workers was telling him, making me smile as well. The grapes of this land were his passion, and it did my heart good to see that side of him. A side that, it seemed, his grandfather had inspired. I met Marzio Fausti through some of my husband’s ways.
One day when he’d brought me out and showed me a bunch of beautiful purple grapes, he’d said, “My grandfather once told me that getting a man’s hands dirty in the soil of his home meant he would always be connected to it, down to the roots he stemmed from.” Then he repeated the words in Italian, or the translation of it. I’d wondered that day, for the umpteenth time, if I had seen anything as beautiful as the man before me.
