She smiled at me, then her face turned serious. “There was a woman in the woods last night.”
I stood to my full height, looking down at her. “You did not tell me this.”
She bit her luscious lip, then shook her head. “No, it slipped my mind with the wild pig incident.” She looked down, away from me. “Stop looking at me that way,” she whispered. Then she met my eyes.
“Tell me, my wife, how am I looking at you.”
“Like you’re seeing something that pissed you off—it’s…unnerving.”
I could tell she hated to admit that to me, that the way I was looking at her made her uncomfortable. I blinked, attempting to clear the look off my face. What I was seeing was a dead woman in our woods if she meant my wife harm.
My wife shook her head. “Blinking isn’t helping, Rocco.”
“Tell me everything.”
She nodded and did. Then she snatched my hand. “Give me your word,” she said, “that the Shorties won’t get in any trouble, especially when Ermanno put his body in front of mine to protect me from the boar.”
“Tell me, what are these Shorties.” The word did not roll off my tongue as smoothly as most words.
“Oh, ah, the short Fausti men, the ones who haven’t grown into their potential Fausti-ness yet—the ones in the woods with me last night.” She stuck her chin up.
She was going to fight me on this. It was not worth it to me. I sighed. “You have my word, my queen.” An uncomfortable feeling hit me in the chest. Small man or not, Ermanno was there for her when I was not. I would have to tame the urge to rip his throat out.
“Bene.” She twirled her thumbs for a moment. “Do you know who it was by any chance? The woman in the woods?”
“No one at our celebration,” I said. “All guests were accounted for at the time.” My heart was pumping faster in my chest, although the rest of me was frozen. I would explode when it was time to defend mine.
“All right,” she whispered. “It was all just so odd…she sounded crazed. As crazed as the boar. Ermanno said she was astregaand had sent the boar at us because we were eavesdropping.”
I leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead. She closed her eyes, and I breathed in the scent of lingering fig and grape on her skin, along with a scent that was masculine and feral. Mine.
“Sleep, Amora,” I whispered. “You are safe in your castle.”
“I love you, Rocco,” she whispered. “I love you so much, I don’t think my heart can contain it sometimes. So, you know what that means?”
“Tell me what this means, Amora.”
“You’ll take care of yourself—no unnecessary risks. My heart is at stake.” Although her voice was tender, her eyes were unwavering. “Your word, my king.”
“You have more than my word, my queen,” I spoke in Italian. “You have all of me.” Then I repeated the words in English.
She sighed as she got comfortable in the bed, her eyes falling shut right after. I had worked her body to new heights the night before. Danger will do that to a man. I quietly shut the door behind me, knowing she needed her rest. If I did not go out and meet my family, she would not get any.
Guido waited at the bottom of the steps. Since he would oversee my wife’s safety while I explored the property with my father, uncles, brothers, and more men, I left him with a warning I had heard my brother express countless times, except I did not plagiarize, since I would be changing the threat.
“Your family’s life depends on my wife’s life.”
He seemed to stand straighter, and he nodded as a solider would. I nodded back, and this…this sealed the deal between us.
Guido did not take it personally. If anything, all I found in his eyes was a deeper respect for me, and for the love I shared with my wife. A love that went beyond life and death. A love that would live forever.
Uncle Tito had said to me that he had always been in awe at the way Brando loved Scarlett, and the first time he saw the way I looked at my wife, he was in awe of me as well.
“There are three things too wonderful for me, four that I cannot understand: the way of an eagle in the sky, the way of a snake on a rock, the way of a ship at sea, and the way a man loves a woman.”
“I do not understand these things either, uncle,” I had said to him. “However, I do not need to, not if the love is mine. Too wonderful to describe in mere words.”
He had grinned at me then, and then we toasted to love, our women, and the things we could not understand.
