Chapter Eight #3
And then the priest pronounced them husband and wife. At last.
Dominic was giggling with Cinzia, who was murmuring to him in a low voice, but all that Antonluca could focus on was pulling Hannah closer to him. She had shed her coat when they’d entered the chapel and she wore the same simple white gown she had been wearing all day.
But to him, there was no more beautiful wedding gown in existence. Because no other gown would have her in it, and that was really the beginning and the end of all of this for him.
She tipped her head back. He cupped her jaw with his hand and leaned in.
And he remembered then, when they had stepped outside onto a busy New York street but neither of them had noticed all the cars and people. Instead he had done something very much like this, his palm against the side of her face.
He thought that she was remembering it, too, given the way her eyes darkened.
Just like that, he fit his mouth to hers.
Carefully. Deliberately.
And it was the restraint that almost killed him. The restraint that became something like reverence, because their child was here and there was a priest beside them and this was no time to give in to all that flame and fury that he could feel blazing all around them.
There was only this claiming. Only this surge of certainty that he could feel his bones, his flesh, his greedy cock.
When they separated, her eyes seemed to brighten and her lips trembled, and when she looked away, he let her.
Because he felt as shaken as she looked.
They trooped back into the castle then. There was a celebratory drink and a small meal with the grinning priest, and then Cinzia toted Dominic off for what she called a sleepover party at her house.
The little boy was thrilled. He told his mother all about it, in his high-pitched, excited, not entirely comprehensible way and then told Antonluca about it, too.
When Cinzia left, the priest followed, and he found himself alone at last with his wife.
Antonluca could feel a wild hungering within him, unlike any he had ever known.
But he held it in check. He let the quiet of the castle settle in him. Then he turned to look at Hannah, who was standing there by the fire. Gazing into the flames as if they were sharing their secrets with her.
“I know I have known Dominic only a short while,” he said in a low voice. “But it feels…”
“Yes,” she agreed. “The minute I laid eyes on him it was as if I had always known him. As if I had been waiting for all my life to meet him, and there he was.”
He would not have found the words to say it in that way. Yet now that she had, it was as if she had unlocked that in him. That sense of recognition that he felt inside him, having only very little to do with how the boy looked.
“I want to thank you,” Antonluca said, stiff and formal and strange, but there was no helping it. “You could have made me fight for this. I am honored.”
She tipped her head slightly to one side, her gaze still on the flames that danced in the grate. “I hope I can always be counted on to do what is best for Dominic.”
At another time, he decided, he would dig into why he found that so…wrong. Why it made his skin seem to shrink against his bones while something dark settled in his chest.
But not tonight.
“Welcome to my castle,” he said instead. “The old men in the village call me their run-down king. I suppose that makes you their queen.”
And it was clear that this was the exact right note to hit, because she smiled.
It even seemed like a real smile. When he extended his hand, she came to him and took it immediately, and that was good.
He could feel her heat, her grip as he led her out of the living room, and guided her all around the castle itself.
The grand tour, such as it was.
“I’m not trying to sound disparaging,” she said as they climbed the stairs, after walking around the main level, which was mostly the room they’d already been and the kitchens that had been the only thing he’d insisted upon renovating before moving in.
And, of course, a handful of rooms that stood empty, all stone and starlight tonight.
“But I will say that I was expecting lavish corridors of marble. Galleries filled with priceless works of art. Statues leaping out of every alcove, that sort of thing.”
“I forget you are American,” he said, though he smiled when he said it and she smiled back.
“You are thinking of a palace, I think. There are many parts of history in which a stout stone wall could only be the province of self-proclaimed kings and they were used for the express purpose of holding off attackers and would-be replacements. A palace is much prettier, and usually less functional.”
She wrinkled her nose, still smiling. “Marble can be perfectly functional, Antonluca. If you want it badly enough.”
Antonluca found himself gazing at her, as close to a wide grin as he thought he’d ever come. He led her into the tower, climbing up the spiral stair and stopping just before the top, on a gated landing. He opened the door to show her what he’d had his staff do while she was in Florence today.
Hannah peered inside, her eyes wide. “Oh. This is Dominic’s room.” Her voice was laced with wonder. It made him feel like flying. “You’ve replicated it almost exactly.”
“I want him to feel at home,” Antonluca told her. Gruffly.
Then he led her up the last few steps to the expansive suite that took up the top of the tower. There was a sitting area with a separate room on that same level and a stair that led up even farther above. Unlike the rest of the castle, it was modernized and furnished and more, comfortable.
Hannah breathed out audibly when she saw it. “This is where you live,” she said softly.
“You can take the room down here, if you wish it,” he told her, because they hadn’t discussed these things. It had seemed too fraught with peril, to Antonluca’s mind. As if talking about what their marriage might look like would make certain it never came to be.
But now they were good and truly married.
He still had hold of her hand, so he led her across the round space, and up the last spiral stair.
There, at the very top of the tower, there were windows all around, and a modern sort of floating wall behind the bed that concealed a bathroom suite.
And even at night, it was clear that there were views in every direction.
As if all of Tuscany was theirs for the taking.
“Or,” he said, not entirely sure why he couldn’t seem to stop sounding so formal and strange, “we can share—”
But then it didn’t matter, because Hannah catapulted herself into his arms.
The force of it surprised him, but he caught her in midair anyway. He held her there against his body as she kissed his face and wrapped her arms around his neck. He held her securely, so that finally—finally—he could really kiss her.
Not the way they had kissed in the chapel. This kiss was carnal. It was seeking, and filled with all of that wildfire that had always been theirs.
It was as hot as New York and as wild as the cottage and better than both.
He swung her up higher in his arms, and this was better than carrying her over some threshold. Because it was only a few steps across the room, and then he was laying her down on the bed and following her there.
Where, for the first time, he let himself settle in beside her and make certain to thoroughly kiss his wife.
Which was all he did.
Over and over and over again, until she began to beg. First softly. Then louder.
Then louder still, at which point, Antonluca laughed.
And started over.
This time, he decided to slow down and enjoy every moment, every last second, because he’d spent entirely too long reliving the moments they’d already had.
It was better live. He wanted to revel in this, in her.
In his wife.
He moved from the bed and pulled her to the very edge, then helped her pull her gown up over her head. He tossed it aside and made a deep, approving noise as he gazed at her. Without the gown, she was wearing nothing but one of those bustiers and only a scrap of lace between her legs.
“Sei bellissima,” he managed to get out. “So damned beautiful.”
He knelt down before her and without preamble, leaned in and pressed his open mouth to that V between her thighs. He sucked on her, hard, and she made a strangled noise in her throat, then bucked against him.
So he moved closer, settling her legs over his shoulders, and letting his teeth share this pleasure.
He ate at her until she was riding against him, pressing that softest part of her into his mouth. Then he used his hands to pull those panties away and lick his way into all that soft heat beneath.
Antonluca growled in approval as she broke apart, arching up into him with her arms thrown back over her head.
And as she sobbed out her pleasure, he moved back and shrugged his way out of his own clothes. Then he stretched out on the bed beside her, turned her over, and felt something in him kick, hard, when she wrapped herself around him and pulled him to her so he was on top.
“Please,” she whispered.
And Antonluca was nothing if not obliging, so he reached between them to run his fingers through her dampness and then work his way deep inside of all that searing, molten heat.
She wrapped her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck, and there was something fierce and stark on her face as she began to move—undulating her hips and forcing him to sink in a little deeper.
He braced himself over her and sank as deep inside her as he could, and only then—only when they were both gasping at that thick, slick fit—did he begin to hammer in and out.
Over and over again at that same smooth, hard pace until he wasn’t sure if either one of them was clinging to anything resembling sanity—because God help them both, this was almost too good. This was almost too intense.
This is Hannah, he reminded himself, my wife.
And he only realized that he’d said that out loud when she whispered back, “My husband.”
That was when he lost control. Completely.
He clasped her close and she sobbed against his neck, even biting him as she began to shake all over again.
And he let himself go. He let himself pound into her, recklessly and heedlessly, and it felt so good that he heard himself shout out his pleasure as the flames consumed him.
Even better, he held her close as they both spun off into oblivion.
Because only here, skin to skin, was he entirely sure of her.
Only here, tangled together like this, did he feel connected to her—a part of her—at last.