King of Italy (Fausti Family Royal)

31. We Must First Experience hell To Fully Appreciate the Relief of Heaven

Chapter 31

We Must First Experience hell To Fully Appreciate the Relief of Heaven

M y wife was insatiable. Her verve and hunger for life and all it entailed were infectious.

Especially to the life in my veins.

She turned me upside down and spun me around. I did not recognize my life any longer.

I had never wished my life away, yet I found myself in an almost constant state of yearning. I craved to see her in new seasons, in new outfits, her hair done the same or differently, wondering what new magic she would spin from her mouth or her fingertips, whether her digits played across my skin or flew across a keyboard.

In the same breath, I held onto the moments for what they were, fleeting, as if I could somehow stop them with the tight grip of my fist—a fist that had killed men, fatally crushing their windpipes.

Yet, I was coming to understand this was her magia : her love and the way it had the power to stir my life around. I did not feel lost if she was next to me.

I studied my wife and her magia as if she were the test of my life, and I would take my last breath passing the test of our time. In the bedroom, the magic was created from the two of us, and out in the wild, I still could not take my eyes away from her.

From the way she sang, sometimes to herself and sometimes so the entire island could hear, to the adventurous spirit she had when it came to food. The night the asino (donkey) doctor had sat at her table, and I stepped up behind her, watching as the asino and ratti ragazzi (boy rats) had fled, she had been eating a squid-ink pasta dish. If the menu offered foods that were not always palatable to most of the public, she dared to eat them.

She tried fried sheep brains at the trattoria on the water during our lunch date. Date. The idea of it was fucking thrilling. I’d never dated, and this wild creature would be my lifelong date.

She shrugged, not even reaching for her birra after trying it. “I don’t think it’s all that bad, but—” she held a finger up, as if she was making a point “—I don’t like the idea of eating anything’s brains. I feel bad about that. Now. Fisheyes?” She shrugged. “I’d try those and not feel bad at all.”

Captivated by her mind, I sat back, studying her. “Tell me more.”

“Okay,” she said. “Not that fish aren’t living things, but…I couldn’t get attached to one like I could a cat, or dog, or sheep—warm-blooded creatures with legs, you know what I mean?”

I did not react. I had never thought in those terms before. If it was meant to eat, I would eat it, and not consider why I would not.

She sighed. “Plenty of times over the years, I considered becoming a vegetarian.” She reached for her birra , leaving me hanging on a cliff with a direct drop to boredom by not continuing her story.

My life—the life of Fausti royalty—paled in comparison to my wife. Her colors were vivid and bold, but not harsh, and without lines. Her life was abstract. Mine was a portrait. I wanted deep inside of her life’s picture. I did not want even what we shared to be painted inside of lines. When the world looked at our art, our secret would be safe—let them guess and speculate. It did my brother and the sister of my heart no good when the world looked upon them and attempted to steal what not everyone could fully understand or have.

“More,” I said.

She leaned over and fed me a red prawn ( gamberetto ), and I fed her one before she continued. “Well…I’d walk into a restaurant and smell a hamburger and decide to try another day.”

As if she had reached across the table and run her fingertips wildly over my ribs, like an out-of-control hand-sized spider, I exploded with laughter. She had been so innocent when she had made that statement. So fucking cute.

She elbowed me. “Don’t make me feel even worse by laughing, Rocco!” She couldn’t help the grin on her face, and neither could I help the laughter tearing out of my chest. I pulled her close, kissing her all over her face, my heart not able to decide on one term of endearment to call her.

After lunch, one of the boats that belonged to the trattoria took us out to one of the island’s yachts for a sunset cruise, but we did not make it out of the suite to watch as the sun set. She wore a dress that moved me.

We did not make it off the yacht before I had to have her again—she wore nothing this time.

My wife was my own fatal fantasy.

Before her, I would fuck whenever the mood struck. I was like an animal, searching for my one true mate, never truly finding the love that could satisfy me and continue to keep me hungry. I was not accustomed to feeling anything beyond the surface. Pure physical need.

With my Amora, she pulled emotions from the deepest, darkest part of me, and it was not the act that felt as if it would almost kill me, but the emotional drain. It was even stronger than when I emptied myself inside of her—feeling as if my heart would stop, my lungs would collapse, my muscles would seize, and all that would be left of me would be what was inside of her to hold and protect .

My Amora kept the lion in my heart blood thirsty and roaring to protect her, while also keeping the passionate blood of the man pumping through my veins. Balancing the two sides was as easy as killing and lighting candles for a romantic tryst.

I had never felt as powerful physically, and much deeper, in my chest, even in the prime of my life. That time of my life paled in comparison to how I felt in this season, even if I had never been as vulnerable. My Amora was the first soul I had ever shared with what had happened in Trapani. I had not been sure how she was going to react to my confession. I should have known. She took the memory and spun it into something else entirely—a situation that meant she was made for me, and I was made for her.

However, she was feeling the effects of the last few weeks. My body was putting a strain on hers. She was insatiable, but she was a delicate woman who needed to relax her sore muscles after attending to all my physical needs. I would caress her fica , give her deep tissue massages, hold crystal to her lips to drink cranberry juice and wine, feed her nuts, protein, and fruits, but that only led to more love making. We could not stop.

The slightest touch—we would go mad if we could not be connected.

She was the silk to my steel.

When I carried her to the bathroom the morning after the yacht, she groaned a little when she sat but attempted to hide it. She did the same when she stood and went to the sink to wash her hands and brush her teeth. I studied her body, knowing every line, dimple, curve by heart, catching sight of every bruise and love mark.

She met my eyes through the mirror. “I was just as rough as you were,” she whispered, “so get that look out of your eyes.”

“The look in my eyes,” I repeated.

She finished brushing her teeth, and after shutting the water off, turned to face me, her arms crossing. My wife’s temper was not far below the surface. I sensed that about her from the start.

“Yes, Rocco Fausti, the look in your eyes. Like you’re taking complete responsibility for this.” She made a motion from the top of her head to feet, as if she were scanning herself. She touched a bruise on her thigh. “That one is mine. I jumped on you .”

“You are my responsibility. You are my wife.” I took her hand.

“Where are we going?” she hissed a little as she stepped forward with me.

Turning, I picked her up, carrying her into the closet. My eyes scanned it.

“What are you looking for?” she asked.

“Bathing suit.”

“Tell you what,” she said. “If I pick out our clothes for swimming, will you grab breakfast? That requires the least amount of walking. This place is huge.”

We made the deal.

By the time I made it back to our bedroom, she was already dressed and had chosen clothes for me as well. I had never had a woman choose my clothes before. It did something to my heart. Made it overreact as if she had run a finger down my chest, even deeper, in a sensual way. She had set out a t-shirt and swim trunks on the bed for me.

We enjoyed breakfast out on the terrace after I dressed, then I picked her up and started to carry her out of the bedroom.

“Bag!” She pointed at the bed.

She had packed us a few things. She always insisted on slathering me in sunscreen.

I went back for it, and she took it from me, keeping it pressed to her stomach as we stepped out of the castello . My men did not make eye contact with me as I entered the garage that housed all the vehicles. I did not go for the Ducati bikes, but the car she enjoyed when we were not on the bike. She enjoyed flying down the narrow streets, exhilarated by hugging the tight turns. The day she had found my lion’s heart dangling from the handle of her Vespa, she had sped down the street, allowing gravity to pull her down, smiling and laughing.

I mentioned this to her .

“You were following me the entire time?”

“ Sì .”

She backed up against the door, her eyes narrowing from underneath her sunglasses. I could tell by the set of her eyebrows. “Don’t leave me hanging, Rocco Fausti. Tell me more.”

I recited to her all the places she had been on the island after she had arrived. And every moment of what she had done. I reminded her that I had mentioned this to her before, after she was released from the hospital.

“You did, but those are… very specific details.”

“I know all.” I leaned over her legs, brushing them on purpose, and she sucked in a breath. I opened the storage box and removed the scarf I’d been saving from all those years ago in the witch’s tower.

“My scarf.” She went to take it from me, but I pulled it back too quickly.

“Mine,” I said, tying it around the rearview mirror, keeping my knees to the wheel so the car kept straight on the road. The fabric fluttered in the wind as a butterfly would. I could still scent her shampoo and perfume on it. “You gave it to me.”

“I did?”

“ Sì. You did not go after it. You came after me.”

“Oh.” She laughed. “Is that how it works?”

I took her hand, kissing her knuckles, breathing her in. “I make the rules for this situation.”

“Yes, my king.” She bowed and made some type of rolling motion with her free hand at me.

My cock instantly hardened, and I had to control the impulse to pull the car over and make love to her. Her face, the pure ecstasy on it, how wet and sweet her fica would be for me…I could already smell her in the air, taste her desire on my tongue, her nails clawing to go deeper than skin, her soft breasts bouncing, her raspberry-colored nipples hardening at a whispered breath…

“Rocco?” she whispered.

I looked at her .

She blinked at me.

I seemed to be blinking back.

“I would give you every one of my scarves and bows...” she touched her hair, though she did not wear either in it “…as a romantic gesture. Knights would collect them from their ladies before battles and competitions.”

“ Sì. This was a time when romance was not an endangered animal.”

“So romantic,” she breathed out, staring at me. “And so true.”

Her time alone on the island came back to me with a vengeance. I squeezed her hand and pulled it to my heart. My voice was as serious as it was rough. “On this island, you walked alone. Without even knowing I was behind you. This made my heart uneasy—testy. No more shall you walk alone, luce dei miei cuore .”

“No more shall I walk alone,” she repeated, whispering after in the softest voice I had ever heard, “light of my heart.”

She ran her fingers over the delicate fabric of the scarf, waving in the wind just as it had done all those years ago. Her eyes narrowed.

“Wait,” she breathed. “This isn’t mine. I mean, I have one that’s so similar, that’s why I thought it was, but…it’s not.” She crossed her arms over her chest, giving me a narrow look again.

I wanted to laugh, but I thought it best if I did not. I sighed instead and told her a story, a story of a much younger man who climbed the witch’s tower on the eve of the day he had to decide on who to marry, since his father had ordered him to, and how a delicate piece of fabric, with a woman’s scent and hair on it, caused him to go back for it and bring it home. How the man kept it close all those years, and how the woman who was created from his rib, his , had finally made her way to him to retrieve it.

“How…” She shook her head. “How is this possible?”

I shrugged. “I do not care how. I only care that it is.”

She leaned her head against my shoulder, touching the scarf again, almost reverently, and then sighed .

Her mood turned as quickly as an island storm, dark, as we slowed in front of what she referred to, and plenty of the island’s inhabitants as well, as the “haunted” castello . Another of my men had been hospitalized for the idea that he had been possessed by the spirit who inhabited the castello. My father ordered only the strong of spirit to enter. This left Mac, Vincenzo, Saverio, two soldiers, and the two caretakers, who were still perplexed by the “new” ghost, who neither believed was a ghost at all.

In total, we had an army of five, who Romeo called “the ghostbusters.”

My father had cursed, growled, and said it was a good thing we were not at war with the afterlife. Our soldiers loitered outside of the castello at all entrance and exit points.

I slowed in front of the castello , and Mac nodded to me. He checked his watch, then said something to one of the men.

“What?” Amora asked, crossing her arms, narrowing her eyes at me again. “What’s going on?”

Amora was not obtuse, and neither was I. She had caught the acknowledging look Mac had sent to me—a look reinforcing that the situation was not settling. Another macabre love letter in blood had been left.

Remember my voice.

She dies.

Whoever had done it had painted the warning on another wall further in the secret area of the castello . Blood ran from the message and dripped onto the floor. It was the blood of an animal. Mac had it tested. Vincenzo, who seemed to have set his hopes on a real ghost, spoke to the asino doctor, who the island trusted. He tended to the needs of all the flocks. None of the animals had gone missing, but it was animal blood. From pork.

My hands squeezed the wheel, the veins underneath my skin feeling as if they may pop. If this was the ghost of Rosaria, this was something she would have done in life. To be symbolic, she would have used the blood of a pig, as if Amora was one and would understand the note written in its blood .

“Rocco.” Amora squeezed my arm to get my attention.

It had never left her.

It would never leave her.

She was mine. As vital to me as my heart.

She sat up straighter, her backbone stiffening. Her chin settled into a position of defiance. “I’m your wife, which means I’m married to the next king of Italy, and it takes more than balls to fight to where you are, regarding your family’s hierarchy. I understand what it takes to reach that highest point. So, for me to be married to you, that must mean I have balls, so to speak, too. Whatever is going on, I need to know. And you’re about to break the steering wheel.”

I released the pressure, but not by much. I took a turn, and the motion caused her to set her hand on the dash, as if she was preparing for the twist of this all. It was not my driving but what I was going to say next. I told her of the newest message, my jaw clenching, a vein in my head pulsating.

She was quiet for a moment. Then she cleared her throat.

“I have to tell you something. I should have told you before, but I didn’t think it mattered now that I was on the island. The reason I came here.”

Taking another turn, I pulled along the rough dirt path, stopping in a cloud of dust. We’d walk to our ending destination from here.

After the dust settled, she sighed, turning in her seat, staring in the distance.

“The book I wrote? The criminal thriller. My dad was going to write it before he died. His death was unexpected, and the mysterious disease took him fast. But he had told me about it. Planted the seed for the idea. We were struggling at the time—Nonna started to get sick right after my dad died, and it was an escape for me to write. I wrote the story and before I knew it—my dad’s agent took me on and found a publisher for the manuscript right away.

“The system moves with the hunger of readers, and at the time, thrillers were meaty mental meals. I know, not the best or most appealing metaphor, but it works. Thrillers stick to the bone is what I’m meaning to say. After the book had been published and had some acclaim, meaning, it sold well—I have a knack for descriptions like my dad did, and moving at a pace that fits the tempo of the book—I started getting threatening letters.”

My entire body froze, but the blood in my veins steadily heated.

“I’m not the enemy,” she whispered.

What she meant to say was— stop looking at me that way, as if I am the enemy. It was not her I was envisioning, but a man in the grip of my fist, fighting for his life as it drained at my touch. I purposely relaxed my features, not wanting to cause her to run from me. I was her safety. I would protect her from all worlds.

“Tell me,” I said.

She nodded. “The author of these letters claimed that I wrote this book knowing it was him. I’m using that pronoun because the killer in the book is a man—John Doe, he calls himself, until you learn his real name at the end of the book.”

“I am aware.” I had read the book—seven times. She was skilled, and correct when she said she was a master at descriptions and pacing. However, the cold side of the world did not suit her. She had it in her to be ruthless, but only if someone she loved was in trouble. A person who cares about the brains of a four-legged animal was not a ruthless killer. Even if she had attachment issues to hamburger and commitment issues with vegetarianism.

“The killer said that if the cops ever took me seriously, I would point them straight to him. The letters started to come more frequently when I ignored them. Then I felt like someone was following me. After Nonna died, someone broke into our house. The place was ransacked.”

I rolled my shoulders. “Letters in blood on the wall,” I said.

“No.” She shook her head. “I think it was just a scare tactic—how violent it was. He’d stepped on a framed picture of me in high school, cracking the frame and shattering the glass. It had the print of a boot on it. It had been raining, which was why I stopped and grabbed a bite to eat at the Port of Call, a hamburger place not far from the house, before going home. He’d left the door and windows open, almost flooding the place. But I don’t know how he found me. I write under a different name, and my agent allows me to use an empty building he owns as a business address, which is connected to the PO box the letters are delivered to. That’s why I ran from home.”

“Straight to me,” I said.

“Straight to your arms—even if I didn’t know it at the time. You probably know this, but my Nonna worked for the Poésy family. Evangeline, or Eva, who lives across the street, befriended us since Nonna first started working for the family. Eva suggested I needed a change of pace. A new start. She’s…touched.” She touched her heart, then her temple.

As she was. And it seemed as if she wanted to add more but was stopping herself.

“Tell me,” I said.

She sighed. “I assumed…after meeting you…that the killer was symbolic. A metaphor. I was running from him, straight to you, because, for whatever reason, this is when you needed me the most. The actual standoff…that night, Rosaria coming for me and me going for her. Who would give you up first… It seemed almost…symbolic too. This entire situation does.”

My Amora did not give me up. She would have fought to the death for me. Rosaria let go first. This was because she knew. Deep down, she could no longer hold me. In the light of my love, I would have released her. I had no say in the matter, even if the barbs of her voice still echoed in the most hollow parts of my chest.

“Does,” I repeated, the question implied if not stated. The word did not sound certain coming from her mouth.

“Or did. Maybe…maybe I’m just going mad.” She laughed like she was. “Maybe the writing on the wall couldn’t get any clearer. Someone is after me for no other reason than the obvious. My dad figured out who the killer was, the drug game he runs, and I wrote the story. The killer is pissed that his crime might not go unsolved. Even though, Lord knows, I tried to tell the police. They basically ignored me—well, not ignored me exactly?—”

She looked at me and cut her words off. She did not have to finish. They ignored her tale but did not ignore her—mine .

“What is happening on this island does not connect to what happened before you left New Orleans,” I said with certainty. “No one unknown to us is allowed access to this island. He would have been killed on a boat halfway here.”

I stepped out of the car, shutting the door without a sound, though the rage inside of me could have torn it off its flimsy hinges. Every instinct ordered me to kill for her, the lion pacing, drooling, ready for the blood in the battle. In her honor. The situation in New Orleans would be settled soon enough, however, how does one go about killing a ghost a man cannot touch?

On this island, she was the only threat.

Opening Amora’s door, I offered her my hand, and she took it. I took the bag, slinging it over my shoulder, then picked her up, carrying her in my arms.

“Perhaps it might have been symbolic,” I said as I walked the beaten down path to the grotto. I stepped over a dry rotted branch. “However, there was never a war. A war is only fought when something vital is at stake, even if this reason is greed. You have always been the victor of my heart, as I have always been the victor of yours. This is why no man was allowed to touch what is mine. You knew this.” My eyes went to hers, and she was gazing up at me as if I had created the sky for her.

She had created an entire world for me the moment my eyes found her. A world for only the two us—even my loyalty to the family was locked out. I would turn on them for this woman with only an accusing point of her finger. In her simple truth, I only found her love for me.

As we approached what looked like a cave set in the side of a mountain, cracked steps with wild ferns growing through the fissures on each side, her nose scrunched up and she tilted her head, looking at me. She stuck her fingers in the openings of her nose.

“What is that smell?” It sounded as if she were pinching her nose.

I exploded with laughter. “You will see.”

“I’ll see it.” She sounded nasally. “But I’m already smelling it. It smells like rotten eggs. Is this purgatory?”

“No.” I placed a chaste kiss on her lips. “But some do call it the opposite side of hell’s bath.”

“Oh, goodie, I can’t wait,” she said, sticking her nose into my chest, breathing me in, as I ducked underneath the rock and darkness swallowed us whole.

“This is not purgatory, at all,” she said, her eyes adjusting to the darkness, then the broken light filtering in through an opening in the ceiling, where a blue stream emptied into a deep, dark, blue pool. “Though it does smell like there are a bunch of boiling rotten eggs in that water.” She nodded toward it.

“Hot springs,” I said. “It is the scent of the sulphur you are smelling. Tell me what you are thinking.”

Her face was as expressive as water when the light shifts. When an idea came to her, it was reflected by the faces she would make.

She grinned a little. “I’m just thankful you didn’t bring us here after our time at Castello Burranea. I would have thought it was me who smelled like boiled eggs, and I would have died of embarrassment.”

“This cannot cause death.” I shifted her in my arms, pulling her even closer.

“I know, not literally. But. You are—” She stopped herself again.

“I am,” I prodded .

“ You ,” she said. “And…I’m me .”

“I am not following.”

She smiled, smoothing out my eyebrows. They had grown rigid with confusion. “You are…I’m not even going to lie, even though this is going to make me sound so pathetic…an Italian god. And I’m just a mortal woman trying to keep up.”

I exploded with laughter, and her eyes widened, then narrowed. Looking into her eyes was like looking at the gates of heaven. Her eyes were a spectacular color of sage green with a faint mixture of sky blue, and closer to her irises, streaks of golden honey oozed out. Her dark hair and tan skin seemed to make the color glow, as if a soft light emanated from behind them.

“Now I’m confused,” she muttered.

“You are the most powerful between us,” I said. “You are almost killing me—the ah, Italian god . I am the one who craves love—you are love incarnate. You drain me.”

“Is that a compliment?” Her face scrunched up.

“ Sì .” I sighed, kissing her lips—over and over. “ Sì . You drain me of the nothingness while you also fill me up with life. It is impossible to sum the feeling up in words, however, that is it. You make me feel everything on a level that I have never experienced before.”

I set her on her feet, but before she could turn from me, somewhat dazed, I took her wrist in my hand. A little birdie landing on the head of a lion, making a nest in his hair. That was only her physical bones. Her heart. She was my mate. My lioness.

“I am your cure in this life. Nothing can kill you if I am with you, ah? Least of all what makes mine mine . Perfect as you are.”

“ Ah ,” she breathed in acknowledgment, then turned toward the hot springs.

I kept my hand on her. She could be easily dazed. I did not want her to slip. The rocks were slick from the constant streams of water and the trapped humidity. She breathed out, and it seemed like she was breathing out smoke.

“Even though the smell is hard to take at first, this is so beautiful, Rocco. The clear blue stream flowing through the rock into the dark pool. How the fractured light makes the droplets of water look like jiggling liquid crystals, but the pool is in darkness, smoking. It goes right to the opening, drifting out and disappearing. It makes sense why the island calls the pool the opposite side of hell’s bath.” She dipped her foot in. “It’s not hot enough to boil you alive, but it’s warm enough to soak in.”

“Sì,” I said, helping her out of the cover she wore over her suit. “It will help relax your sore muscles.”

I stared at her, my cock instantly hardening.

She looked down at herself and back up, meeting my eyes.

“Scarlett gave this one to me.”

The front made an x, covering her tette , but not much. The sides bulged with soft flesh. I turned her around and she gasped. A thin line of material flossed her juicy culo .

“This one will be for us only, ah?” I breathed in her ear.

She did not respond.

I pulled against her harder, plastering her back to my front, so she felt my cock pressing against her ass cheeks.

“Answer me, Amora.”

“Just for us,” she breathed out.

“ Bene .” I growled low in her ear, and she shivered. Then I nipped at her ear, and after I took my shirt off, we slipped in the water together.

She hissed as her legs submerged underneath the pool, then her tiny waist. She twisted her hair up behind her as she sat on a natural rock ledge below the surface.

She closed her eyes and sighed. “This is like nature’s own sauna. Health benefits included.” She continued with a story. A girl she knew in high school had a father who had suffered from a bad skin condition, and they would visit the hot springs in America twice a year for two years and the affliction disappeared. “It’s like a foul-smelling fountain of youth. It’s not that bad now, though, the longer I’m around it.”

In the stillness that had settled between us after she finished speaking, the only sound the trickling of fresh water falling behind her, her eyes slowly opened. Sweat slid down her face and her skin was turning pink, but she was making slow scissor motions with her legs, allowing the warmth of the water to caress her thighs.

“What?” she whispered

“You are so beautiful, Amora. So beautiful to me . The most beautiful woman in my eyes.” Apart from my sons, my eyes had never seen such a miracle before. Such beauty in one small body, though her depths were as deep as the Mediterranean, treasures not yet known for me to discover for the rest of my life.

She pushed over to me, wrapping her arms around my neck, and it felt as if we were melting into each other. My hands slid to her waist, taking the soft slopes of her curves.

“It is believed that certain areas of the world can make you speak the truth. The property my brother and the sister of my heart own in Tuscany is one of them. It has been claimed this is another.”

“Why?” She smiled. “Because if you’re in here too long, you’ll boil. A torture technique after the bliss fades.”

I shrugged.

“What do you want to know, Rocco Fausti?” Her fingertips dripped water slowly down my back, and my skin puckered as the warm droplets rolled. “Ask me anything.”

“Tell me you love me,” I said.

She shook her head. “Can’t do. Love just isn’t enough.”

I pushed away from the wall, swirling us around, bringing us to the center of the pool.

“But.” She kissed me, keeping her forehead pressed to mine. “I do love you, Rocco Fausti. Love you so much, the truth of my heart refuses the word between us.”

“Tell me, again, how all the other suitors who tried were not enough.”

She laughed, and the sound echoed inside of my heart. “ Cowards compared to my valiant knight with a lion of a heart. I have extremely high standards.”

“Only an Italian god will do, ah?”

“Only you’ll do, Rocco Fausti. More than do. Heaven will not be long enough with you.”

We swirled around for another minute or two, gazing at each other, my hands kneading her ass cheeks. She moaned, closing her eyes, so relaxed, she almost let go of me.

“Do I get to ask questions?” she whispered.

“I am yours,” I said.

“This is probably going to be hard on my heart, but…the pasta thing. Is the reason you won’t feed it to me because…that’s something you and…Rosaria did?” For a woman whose face was turning red from being exposed to the thermal springs, she turned a shade of green before it disappeared.

I had not planned on speaking on this, but since she asked, I could not lie to her.

“ Sì. It was the only intimacy between us.”

She swallowed hard. “No pasta then. Ever.” She looked away from me. “How did that work? An open marriage?”

“I took lovers, and so did she. She believed a man such as me needed more than one woman to prove his virility.”

“You were never…jealous…that she wanted to share?”

“No. Whatever causes a man to kill over his woman’s flesh did not exist between us, unless it was for reasons other than jealousy. Understanding of my family kept us together.”

“Even if you saw her with someone else? If she saw you with someone else?”

“That was not part of our arrangement. We were discreet. Unless she invited someone into our bedroom.”

Her eyes flew open and she stared at me as if she was processing what I had just said.

“Wait.” She almost gulped. “You were with her and…someone else? At the same time?”

“Women,” I said .

Her body shivered, and she tried to push away from me.

“You asked the truth of me.” I held onto to her tighter.

She shoved against my chest. “Let me go.”

“It is not in me to do so,” I said, my heart beating frantically in my chest at the mere thought.

“I’m not feeling so good. I feel…overheated. Weak. Faint. Like I might puke.”

I swam her to the side, picking her up, sitting her down, my hands on her legs. She shivered, though smoke purled from her body. Her arms came up, crossing over her chest, defensive in a childlike way.

“Tell me,” I said, “or I will not learn.”

She waved a hand at me. “How can a man who is so romantic with me allow her to make him believe that, to prove anything, he had to fuck a bunch of women at once?! Or did you want to? Was that your thing?”

My grip tightened on her knee, and she tried to slip it away from me. I refused to budge. She would never be free of me. She was mine. “If nothing else, my body was built to please a woman. This was the only vow between Rosaria and me. I would please her in this way.”

She made a gagging noise and attempted to turn away from me, as if I was suddenly thrust into garish light bursting through the dim cave, exposing the truth of my sex life with Rosaria Caffi and beyond. It seemed to make me ugly in her eyes, and if what I said next did not make her turn back to me, I could not live.

“Look at me,” I ordered, my voice low and rough. A command to her heart.

“Will I be enough for you?” She turned back to me, but she was trembling. “Or maybe we should invite a bunch of women and men into our bedroom? They can all watch as you pleasure me. Oh! You can watch as the men fuc?—”

She gasped when I emerged from the water like a monster, taking her shoulders in my arms, picking her up, setting her on her feet. She was trying to wriggle out of my hold, her voice commanding me to let her go, but it was nothing but empty anger from her mouth, as if it was the smoke in the air around us. The fire coming from her jealousy. My wife was made in heaven, but she had a temper that came straight from hell when it came to me and other women.

So did I when it came to her and anyone else.

We faced off.

“Finish that sentence,” I dared her.

She stuck her trembling chin up. “You can watch as…” Her voice had started out bold, but had died down to a whisper, and she would not finish the sentence. She would not even look me in the eyes.

I rammed my fist into the rock. Either my bones cracked, or the surface had.

She startled, her wide eyes coming to mine, before they rushed down to my hand, my knuckles busted and blood flowing freely. The air hitting my exposed flesh was nothing but an ember compared to the fire in my heart. The thought of her with another—I could not even think the word, or I would be going on a killing spree to locate these faceless shapes.

“See,” she barely got out. “That’s how I feel too. You’re mine ! And I hate that you were with all those women—I hate that you were with her!”

She would understand how the devil himself could not understand the hell I was in when she was not with me, only a figment of my imagination. Her missing love was a hunger so great, it almost starved my heart to death when I did not have it.

Her breath caught when I turned her to face the wall, using my knee to spread her legs. Her hands were splayed against the rock, her nails looking for something to claw, but her back arched for me, her culo in the air, nothing but a piece of flimsy material stopping me from getting to mine. Her hips rocked from side to side, and a low mewl came from her throat, raspy and wanton, and I had not even touched her yet .

When I popped the thin strip of fabric against her fica , she moaned and quaked.

“Tell me, who am I to you, Amora.”

She shook her head.

“Tell me.” I rolled my teeth over my lip, biting down, drawing blood. My wife’s fica had my cock under the most powerful fucking spell, and internally I raged with control—to keep the head of my cock poised at her entrance and not to bludgeon her with a wild thrust, hearing her cry out for more, begging for more.

She came back some, and when her opening touched my cock, she tried to come back all the way.

“Still,” I ordered.

Her culo was pointed up in the air, and her fica was swollen and pulsating for me already. The beat of my own pulse seemed to match the tempo of hers. Fuck. I spread her soft pink lips. She was wet. Her desire dripping and coating her thighs.

So fucking ready for my cock.

So fucking greedy for what belonged to her only.

I turned her to face me, and our eyes met through drifts of smoke.

“My,” she panted, “my husband.”

I lifted her in my arms, her arms around my neck, her legs locked around my waist, and when I entered her in a hard thrust, a garbled sound tore through her, and I stilled.

My head spun.

My lungs burned.

My heart pounded viciously against my ribs, as if it were fighting to break free of the prison. The bars that kept my heart from hers.

As the smoke cleared from my mind, I slid out of her slowly, thrusting back in, lifting her against the stone, her hair catching and attempting to hold on.

“You.”

Thrust .

“Are.”

Thrust.

“Every.”

Thrust.

“Woman to me .”

My mouth took hers in a punishing kiss before I thrust deep inside of her again, the noises she made all fucking mine. Her fica was milking my cock to fucking madness in the deepest parts of my sanity. It felt as if it would tear through my skin—my cock had never been so hard.

Our tongues swirled in the open air. I held her face in my hand, forcing her lowered eyes to meet mine. “You are my world. You are the only woman who has ever satisfied me. You are the only woman who can keep me hungry. You. You, Aria Amora Bella Fausti, are every desire, every satisfaction, everything to me .”

My pace and thrusts were punishing, to no one more than myself.

I would cut my heart out and bleed at this woman’s feet for her love.

Because it was mine.

Mine.

“Tell me,” I growled out, tearing open my chest to her, flooding her with the cold feeling of pleasing for duty and not for the act of love, “tell me, in truth , are you enough.”

She cried out, but that was not what I demanded of her. I demanded that she respond to all that I was allowing her to feel so she could spin it into her own feeling of it. I was purposely keeping myself from her, while flooding her system.

My hand came to her throat, but I did not exert pressure. Her body responded to the rough play, her fica saturating my cock with slick warmth, but it was not until she met my eyes that she whimpered.

“Tell me.” I thrust harder.

“Yes,” she whispered .

I thrust even harder, going even deeper, and she made a sound like she was giving in.

“Yes!” she shouted.

“Tell me.” My hips pulsed up, my cock buried so deep inside of her, she could not fade away from me or my truth. “You are enough for me for how long, my wife.”

“Forever! Oh God,” she cried out. “Forever! I’m enough for you for forever!”

“Tell me, who does this body belong to.” I stilled, breathing in her released breaths.

“ Me .” She groaned.

“And who does this body belong to.” I pumped my hips up, and she lost her breath, her nails clawing my skin, demanding I keep moving, freeing her from the intensity between us.

I stilled again.

“You. All. You. You …” The sound that ripped through her chest reflected the sound of my skin tearing apart from my chest when a knife had come close to nicking my heart.

My love.

My love had made a mark on her, down below marrow, and here it had burrowed inside of her soul. This was where my truth would live for all eternity. She was responding to it.

“ Please! I can’t… Oh God … I love you.” She kissed me, her tongue frantic in my mouth. “I love you. I love you so much. My heart’s about to explode.”

Her love was my undoing.

We moved together as the friction between our bodies seemed to be causing the smoke around us, and as I felt her body bow to mine, mine bowed to hers, and we came together at the same time in an explosion that felt like it might have rocked the stone around us.

Nothing felt real.

The world spun.

I may have had other lovers, but I could not even remember names, faces, places—only the cold emptiness of unfeeling. My cock might have worked, but my heart had not.

This woman.

She brought my heart to life.

She made it softer, yet stronger.

No other woman had the power to do that.

The flesh could be weak. She had turned my heart into an untouchable animal, therefore she held the key to the rest of me.

She tucked her face in my neck, her breaths washing over my skin. “I don’t even know what came over me,” she whispered. “One minute the world felt unreal, like it usually does when we’re together, and in the next…I felt hate. A hate so hot it could have been the reason the water is so warm. I love you, Rocco, I love you so much—though that’s not enough. It doesn’t feel like it’s ever going to be enough?—”

I kissed her, and kissed her, and we held on to each other as if the consuming passion of Mount Vesuvius was at our door and this was our last moments together. I could not speak. All words in the face of the feeling between us were lies. But she knew. She told me she understood without me speaking the words, but as my wife, she could say all these things to me, even if they sounded frantic and nonsensical at times. We were behaving as if tomorrow may not come for us. I held her body as close to mine as physically possible, bringing us back into the water, fusing our lives together in the warmth of the pool.

This fountain of youth, as she had called it, but for whatever it was that existed between us.

She rested her head on my shoulder, the sweet coolness of her breath washing across my racing pulse, and she made pleasurable noises as we drifted. As if she had been drained of all life except for me. I was the man who had the honor of being with her this way. Knowing her this way. Taking care of her in this way.

All mine.

The lion inside of my chest stood prouder. Bolder. His gold mane impenetrable, his claws made of steel. I had never felt such a protective instinct before. I would stand against all lions for this woman. I would kill armies. Battle serpents. Lay down my life for her—live my life for her. It was as if every day was a new vow in her name.

I realized after a moment that I was making rounds. The confusion in my mind at my heart’s new direction sent my body in a never-ending circle. Just as never-ending as the new platinum band on my ring finger engraved with the words ‘senza fine’ and her name.

She started to hum in my ear, and I realized she had fallen asleep in my arms. I stepped out of the pool, and she did not even stir. I slipped my T-shirt over her body. It covered her as a blanket would, and she tucked her arms in the sleeves, burying her face in it.

It was almost lunchtime, and Guido was to have one of the soldiers deliver lunch. The soldier was to wait outside of the cave for me to claim it. Men would be waiting at the cave opening, making a door with their bodies so no one could get past the barrier. The thermal springs were tucked deep inside. No chance of a man seeing my wife or hearing her when she was not presentable to anyone but me. When I stepped fully outside, most of the men were huddled together, staring at the solider who had come to deliver the food.

He was sprawled out on the rock, lunch scattered around him, blood running from a split in his skull.

I held my wife tighter in my arms, my eyes meeting one of the soldier’s wide eyes. The whites of his eyes swallowed his dark brown irises. His face seemed bloodless.

“She did not like you in the cave,” he stammered out in Italian. “She hit him in the head with a rock.”

Even though he was panicked, he read the look in my eyes and answered it.

He pointed behind me, toward the top of the cave, with a trembling finger. “Your wife.”

Then he hit the ground, as lifeless as the man at my feet.