Chapter 38 #2
I press a soft kiss to my wife’s forehead before heading inside.
But just as I’m about to leave, a somber thought hits me.
What if she uses this moment to leave? What if she only went along with this idea of a honeymoon to lower my guard?
And once I’m lulled into that false sense of security, that’s when she makes her escape?
The thought tightens something fierce in my chest, forcing me to hesitate, unable to move an inch, much less leave her out here alone.
No. If I want Anna to trust me, I have to trust her. Trust that, deep down, her love for me would never allow her to do something like that. Anna wants to be with me. She’s just having a hard time admitting it to herself.
Besides… I stole her once. I have no qualms about stealing her again. Even if I had to drag her back into my arms, kicking and screaming until it sinks into that pretty little head of hers that we’re in this for the long haul. Because Anna and I… we’re not temporary. We’re fucking forever.
Another glance at her sleeping face, peaceful and untouched by plaguing trauma, reminds me that a future with her will always outweigh whatever past I had to endure.
However, as I head upstairs, passing the carefully curated images of the loving Donato family lining the staircase walls, my fury returns.
Their laughing faces.
Their joyful smiles.
Their polished lies.
By the time I reach our room, I’m wrath incarnate.
I storm into the ensuite bathroom, strip off my clothes and step under the cold spray.
Unfortunately, it does nothing to temper my anger about the past. My head is still a volatile mess when I finally give up and step out of the shower, wrapping a towel around my waist. I walk back into the bedroom, reaching for a T-shirt in the drawer, when I hear a sharp gasp behind me.
Porca miseria.
I close my eyes for a moment, dreading what I’ll find when I turn around. My hands are fisted at my sides as I spin around and find my Anna standing there, her hands clasped over her mouth.
“Matteo…” she whispers, horror etched across her face as she takes me in.
However, it’s the moment the horrified look in her eyes fades into agony that really does a number on me. It hits me harder than anything else ever has. I straighten my spine and square my shoulders, even as something inside me coils tight.
“I’ll be down in a minute,” I say, my voice sharper than I intend. “Just let me get dressed.”
Still, my wife doesn’t listen. Instead, she closes the distance between us, her tear-filled eyes tracing every mark on my body as if cataloging all the ways it was abused.
Unlike Niccolò, who covered up the damage done to his body in tattoos, I never inked my skin to camouflage what was done to me.
It’s not like I wear each scar or burn mark with pride.
They just serve as a reminder never to put my trust in anyone.
Not even on those who were put on this earth to protect me.
My proud older brother, Carlo, didn’t.
My poor defenseless mother couldn’t.
And Ginevra and my father… Well, they made sure I learned exactly where I stood.
Ginevra gave a whole new meaning to the term ‘wicked stepmother’. She used whatever was within reach to cause me pain. Once, she even hurled her favorite Tiffany’s vase at my head. The shards flew close enough to blind me in one eye, just because she didn’t like the way I looked at her one morning.
My father never stepped in to stop her. Quite the contrary.
He loved watching his wife lose her shit, always with that infuriating smug smile on his lips.
Sometimes when Ginevra was in a good mood, he’d lean in and whisper something in her ear, just to rile her up so she could take out all her frustrations on me.
And on the nights my asshole of a father sought out my mother in his brothel, I always knew where he’d gone. Because those were the nights when Ginevra would get really creative. That’s when the knives and other sharp objects always came out to play.
Still, more often than not, she fell back on her favorite pastime—burning her mark into my skin, branding me so I’d never forget my place.
I remember one time when she was trying to quit smoking, she was especially inspired. She made me stoke the fireplace until the poker burned red, then told me to press it against my thigh and keep it there while I recited her favorite poem, just to see me break. But I never did.
I might have cried. I might have wailed. But I never broke.
It was either one of my brothers or me.
She knew I’d endure anything before I let that happen.
However, it’s not Ginevra taking in her handiwork right now. It’s my Anna. My heart. My soul. My vita mia.
“Who did this to you?” Anna whispers, her voice trembling as her fingers trace the scars. I swallow hard, her touch searing me in a way nothing else ever has. “Matteo?” she says again, looking up at me.
Anna’s eyes dim, stripped of their light, filled with something I can’t bear to face. I can’t stand seeing such pain in her blue eyes, such misery. And when a tear slips down her cheek, I pull her into me and kiss her. Hard.
This kiss is not gentle. It’s not patient. It’s desperate. Hungry to chase away the shadows creeping in, the ones who seem determined to steal us of our joy.
This is our honeymoon, goddamn it! And I will not allow the ghosts of Ginevra or my father to ruin it.
All of Anna’s questions disappear as she melts against me, her hands gripping my shoulders when my tongue slides into her mouth, claiming it as mine.
I feel the tension in my muscles begin to relax when she kisses me just as passionately, her fingers finding their way into my hair.
Her skin is still warm from lying out by the pool, her hair smelling of the ocean breeze.
She smells of summer and new beginnings.
My entire world narrows to just this—her warmth, her breath, the feel of her bare skin beneath my fingertips.
My mind ceases to think, while my body does nothing but crave. I walk us toward the wall, pressing my hard length against her stomach, the pressure maddening me further. I swallow her little whimpers, one kiss at a time, while my hands begin to trail all over her body.
“Matteo,” she breathes into my mouth, her body unashamedly grinding against mine.
Anna’s already so needy, so overwhelmed with desire that she can’t think straight either.
Fuck!
I want to kiss her all over. Lick every inch of her sun-kissed skin, every freckle, every place my lips can reach. But most of all, I want to taste her. Taste her sweetness on my tongue.
With that thought in mind, I pull my lip away from hers, Anna letting out a frustrated groan that I ended our kiss.
“What are you—”
But before she has time to finish her sentence, I drop to my haunches and stare up at her from my knees.
“Do you trust me?” I know it’s a loaded question, but I need her to answer it. Her gaze turns heavy-lidded as she nods. “Good girl.”
I hook my fingers into her bikini bottoms and pull them down her legs, slow and deliberate. She watches me on bated breath, her cheeks flushed with both shyness and arousal. I grip her waist, then drag my nose up and down her pretty pink pussy.
Fuuuuck!
Her scent, paired with the fact that my wife’s pussy is already soaking wet just from kissing alone, drives me insane.
“If this gets too much, tell me.”
A shiver runs through her in response, her eyes never leaving mine. I hold onto her gaze as my breath ghosts over her sensitive flesh, my tongue eager to lap at her essence. My eyes close of their own accord as I take my first taste, groaning the minute her sweetness touches my taste buds.
I tell myself to go slow. To let myself savor this moment. But I’m too far gone now. I don’t want to think. I just want to feel. And this… this piece of heaven is worth a lifetime in hell.
I flatten my tongue to lap at her slit in slow, measured strokes before sucking her clit into my mouth.
“Oh, my God!” my wife shouts, throwing her head back against the wall, the little thud making me stop and growl in disapproval. “I’m fine! I’m fine! Don’t stop!” she reprimands, sliding her legs further apart so that I have better access to her.
I pin her with a stare, my eyes telling her that I will not be pleased if she ends up with a concussion.
“I said I’m fine,” she grits out, taking a fistful of my hair and shoving my face in between her thighs. If I weren’t so on edge, I’d chuckle at how needy my girl gets. But right now, giving my wife pleasure is the only thing keeping the monsters at bay.
My tongue returns to her apex, taunting her with each languid stroke, my fingers bruising her hips with the way they are digging into her tender flesh.
But my sweet, beautiful wife never complains that I’m being too rough with her.
In fact, by the way she’s tugging at the strands of my hair, she likes my particular brand of brutality just fine.
When it seems I can’t get deep inside her enough, I lift one of her legs over my shoulder to get a better angle. But when that still doesn’t satisfy me, I do the same with her other leg, and then rise to my feet, while keeping her pinned to the wall.
Better. Much better.
It’s a miracle the towel hasn’t dropped from my waist to the floor yet, with the way my hard length is poking at it.
I ache to wrap my hand around its girth and give it a few strokes while eating Anna out.
But I don’t dare let go of her, too afraid that she might fall with the way she keeps rocking on top of me.
I devour her with fervor as she tries to balance on top of my shoulders, her body trembling with every devilish stroke of my tongue.
When I see that my Anna is too far gone to measure her movements, I pull her away from the wall and guide her to the bed. I lay her on her back, then drag her to the edge of the bed, wrapping her legs over my shoulders as I kneel at her altar.