Chapter Fifty-Four Larissa #3
His hands leave me as he grips the top of the mattress, eyes drilling into me as he rears back, thrusting so powerfully against me that my lips part in a desperate cry.
Torrents of pleasure roll through me with every slow drive against me.
His mouth possessing mine as we move in perfect synchronicity, wave after wave crashing through my walls, obliterating every barricade I created in his heartbreaking wake.
His tongue coaxing me back to him as each wave recedes, just as another powerful tide rolls in.
And another, and another, each leaving me more exposed and soaked in the feel of him until he’s stripped me fully of all armor.
With his next thrust, I shake in ecstasy as I sob into his mouth.
A cry he absorbs as he does the next, and the next.
Slowing, he breaks our kiss, gazing down at me as he cradles my face in his shaking palms, recognition in his eyes as he stares into the face of the woman who has loved him from the second she laid eyes on him.
Who has loved him the whole of her adult life.
In seeing her, recognizing her, he speaks directly to the heart he shattered, to the woman who gave him permission to break it. To the woman he broke.
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, his eyes glistening with regret, “I’m so sorry, baby.
” A tear glides down his chin, splashing onto my neck as he pulls me tightly to him as if to mend my pain.
Gripping him back, I break against him as the months of heartache pour out, and I lose myself in remembrance of every night I spent alone, of clutching the pillow to muffle my sobs the first time I felt our babies kick.
For every day I spent roaming that grove, hand on my belly, the other palming my heart as I cried so hard I had to fight for breath.
As I sat in the shower, terrified I wouldn’t be enough to protect them.
To the day their cries cracked for the first time as I delivered them without his eyes or hands to hold me.
Hating him in that moment because the sight of them only made me long for him more.
Long for the man who freed me only to imprison me in my love for him.
Because I loved him, I still love him, and can’t stop loving him.
It’s when my tears subside that I realize he’s pulled me fully atop him and is stroking me with both hands.
His pounding heart becoming clearer in my ears as my shudders start to recede until his steady beat lulls me into an exhausted sleep.
* * *
Sometime later, I wake alone on the mattress, face swollen as I palm the space next to me, heart heavy.
Turning my head toward his empty pillow, the light cascading in from the darkened window catches on something glittering atop it.
Lifting the chain, I bring the sparkling raven’s wing into view as my eyes fill.
Knowing the significance of the necklace, of the promise it holds, my heart aches to believe in it—in him—if only to free myself to love him again.
Anxious to get to him, to apologize, I quickly pull some pajamas from my drawer and dress.
Rushing to gather my boots in the living room, I’m stopped short by the sight of him.
Fully dressed, he stands with his hand braced on the side of the window, his face lit by the Christmas lights—a painful contrast to the image of Iggy earlier.
The difference in the man in front of me acts as a balm to the ache in my chest. I know he’s aware I’m standing there, and his brown eyes find mine before lowering to the necklace dangling from my hand.
“I didn’t know if you’d want it, but God, did you ever earn it, and that promise has never mattered more to me.”
Tears again blur my vision as guilt continues to fill me, forcing me to speak the words. “I’m sorr—”
“Don’t,” he whispers. “I just held you in my arms and felt every bit of the pain I caused you, and fuck me, did I ever feel it. I will never not feel it and will carry it with me for the rest of my life. And I want to. I want to, Larissa, because it will remind me that you’re”—he falters, lifting his red-rimmed eyes—“that you’re my miracle.
” He swallows. “What I realize now is that I can handle anything you toss my way—anything but your absence. That I’m certain of.
I don’t want to be without you anymore. I don’t want to deny what I feel for you anymore, even if it scares you. ”
He turns to me, his face fully lit.
“See, hypothetically, if I were a normal man, and I came home to the sight of you the night you cooked—looking like a fucking dream in that dress with the thigh-high slits, those matching emerald bracelets … the silk of your hair, your bare feet and light pink–polished toes, I wouldn’t have let you finish the flick of your wrist to stir that sauce before I bit into your shoulder to claim something I wanted so much I couldn’t fucking breathe. ”
My breath catches as he commands my eyes with his next declaration.
“Hypothetically, had I known that you had saved that heart beating in that chest for me—that you truly meant no harm to me—I would have fucking eaten every bite of that food, shared both those bottles of wine with you, kissed that crimson lipstick off before I spread you, licked every inch of you, and fucked you until my heart gave out. Only to hold you captive after, so I could wake up and do it all over again.”
His eyes fill with regret as my lips part at his confessions.
“A normal man could have admitted to himself that night that the sight of you gave him hope. That, in seeing you, he realized why he’d been so lonely, because what was feet away was everything he’d been missing and longing for.
A connection so rare that it can’t be denied.
Even if he didn’t want to admit it to himself and purposely shifted his thinking to the offensive to keep himself from embracing it. ”
His eyes hold mine as he fuses his words into me.
“A normal man could admit to himself that fighting with you made him feel alive again for the first time since his wife died. And after, he’d acknowledge he was falling for you, instead of comparing you to the woman he had pledged his forever to.
Or pretending that when he drove inside you for the first time, it didn’t alter him in ways he couldn’t explain or reason his heart out of.
Or that he didn’t steal eyefuls of you on the nights you were sick.
Didn’t memorize every inch of your perfect face while wishing you were anyone other than who you were.
Tracing your curves with his palm while begging his heart to stop fixating on what couldn’t be his.
Keeping everything he felt—wanted—to himself.
Having already convinced himself that the love he felt for and from you couldn’t be real, because he believed you would destroy that hope.
Insisting that his forever could only be attached to one woman, one name.
Even if you were starting to become part of the beat inside the heart she mangled with her departure.
Denying it again and again, even as you started to unravel him, and after, to the point of no return.
Destroying himself in the process of denying that he was falling and falling.
Even past the day he hurt you, and during the months you carried his children, alone,” he croaks, eyes watering.
“To the minute the babies you made together were placed in his arms, which left him dying inside with the need to get back to you. Every minute of every day, including the one he’s in. ”
A rush of air leaves me as his expression fills with the look that had me following him all those years ago. My heart pounds in awareness as he speaks.
“You weren’t supposed to exist.” He shakes his head. “She told me you would come, and that I would use her as an excuse. She told me you would be worthy and give me children. She told me I wouldn’t be able to help myself, and God help me, I couldn’t then, and still can’t.”
He shakes his head ironically.
“The crazy part is, everyone knew it was you. Everyone—his friends, his mother, even she knew he was in love with her, but he refused to admit it. Refused to betray the woman he promised forever to, because he didn’t trust himself anymore.
Because you were never supposed to exist, but you came.
Exactly like she said you would. And I behaved exactly like she predicted I would.
That’s why you’re my miracle, Larissa, and I’m not ever going to take that or you for granted again. ”
He takes a tentative step toward me, eyes imploring.
“So, you can keep me at arm’s length for however long you need to.
You and those babies are the air I fucking breathe.
I didn’t expect things to change overnight, or at all, when I got here, but the truth is, they have.
You and I, we’re the same in so many respects.
We feel things so intensely that we demand satisfaction for any emotion then and there. I happen to love that about you.”
Chest beating wildly, I slowly begin to close the space between us.
“I want you, all of you—more than anything. But I’ve been standing here for hours, losing my fucking mind at the idea that you might wake up panicking that being with me will ruin your chances with another man.
So I can’t … won’t touch you again until you’re wholly mine.
I’m not sharing you. Not that way, fucking ever,” he declares vehemently.
“And I have no intention of making you do the same. So I’ll allow us to be broken for as long as you need us to be while doing everything I can to become the man worthy of you.
But I have to be your choice, because I can’t be your mistake.
” The word seems to pain him as his eyes drop.
Just as I reach him, the telling squeak of my mother’s wheelchair sounds, and we both look to see Tommaso pushing her for her two a.m. stroll.
As they pass, I’m reminded of my vow to myself.
My pounding heart stalling its rapid beat in fear as I sink where I stand.
I feel his watchful eyes on me, knowing that he’s already aware of my worst fear even as I speak it.
“Don’t you see? Loving you will make me her. ”
He cups my chin, turning me to face him, his eyes tenderly sweeping me. “No, loving me will make you mine.”
Fear-fueled tears glide down my cheek as his eyes dim in recognition.
“And that’s what I want from you,” he says.
“But no matter what you decide, know right now that I’ll be the one who’s coming for you.
Every. Single. Time. You’ll never have to ask that question again.
You’ll never have to wonder, because that man is me.
I’ll be the man who never fails you, takes you for granted, or hurts you ever again.
” His expression fills unmistakably as he bends, holding me captive as he speaks.
“Sei il mio miracolo. Ti amo, Larissa DiCicco, con tutto me stesso.” You’re my miracle.
I love you, Larissa DiCicco, with all that I am.
My breath catches, and something through the window grabs his attention before his eyes dart back to mine. “Fuck, I have to go … and I’ll explain everything as soon as I can, but know this.” With a shaking hand, he grips my palm before placing it over his pounding heart. “You fucking own me.”
Releasing me, he slips through the door before hesitantly ripping his eyes from mine. And for the second time, as he stalks through the courtyard, he leaves my pounding heart begging for me to follow.