Chapter 26 Jennifer #2
Then I put my hand on his face, the way Santos puts his hands on mine, warm palm against jaw, and I look at him with the particular directness I use for things I mean completely.
Santos's hands reach my hips and he looks up at me and his saffron is everywhere and warm and bright. "Still good?" he says.
"Yes," I say. "Santos. Still yes."
"Buono," he says, and his mouth follows where his hands have been, warm and deliberate, his tongue tracing a slow line along my hip bone that sends ripples outward in all directions at once and I grip Tomas's arm with one hand and the sheet with the other.
Matteo's mouth moves upward to my breast and his tongue traces the curve of it, slow and thorough, and then he presses his lips to the peak and the sensation is not a ripple this time, it is a wave, full and warm and total, moving through me from the top of my head to the soles of my feet and back, and I make a sound that I have never once made in a composed or professional context.
Santos's mouth is warm against my inner thigh and his tongue traces slow circles that are not quite where I want them and exactly where they need to be, building rather than arriving, and the heat inside me has moved from low and warm to something deeper and more insistent, and my rose scent is so open in the room that I can smell it alongside all three of them, the combined layered warmth of it, and my omega is entirely done with subtlety and has been for approximately twenty minutes.
"Santos," I say.
"I know," he says, against my thigh.
"Santos," I say again, differently.
"I know," he says, the same, and moves.
The sensation that arrives is like looking directly at the morning water when the sun first hits it, that particular moment when the surface goes from gray to gold all at once, total and complete and impossible to look away from.
Colors behind my eyes that have no name, warm and spreading, and my back arches off the bed and I make a sound that fills the room and Tomas's hand tightens in my hair and Matteo's mouth at my breast finds the peak and presses and the sensation becomes two things at once, layered, one over the other, and the colors behind my eyes brighten and spread.
"There she is," Santos says, warm and satisfied and close, and I feel his smile against my skin.
The wave moves through me the way the tide moves, not quickly, not all at once, building from somewhere low and spreading outward in layers, each one warmer than the last, until it reaches everywhere at once and I see the water again, the way it looks from the kitchen window at first light, all those ripples moving outward from a single point, spreading and overlapping and spreading again.
Santos moves up beside me and his mouth finds mine and I taste him and the saffron and the tiramisu and the afternoon, and his arm comes around me, warm and broad, and I press my face into the curve of his neck and breathe him in and my strawberry scent and his saffron sit together in the warm air of the room like something that has been waiting to be combined.
"Bene?" he says, against my hair.
Matteo has moved to lie beside me on my other side and his pale eyes are on my face and he reaches out and tucks a strand of hair back from my cheek with two fingers, careful and deliberate.
Tomas sits at the edge of the bed and his silver musk is steady in the warm air of the room and he puts his hand over mine on the sheet and holds it with the quiet deliberate warmth of a man who has made a decision in a library on a Wednesday and has not once revised it since.
"Not rushing," he says. "However long. Whatever you need."
"I know," I say. "That's the thing. I know."
The heat moves through me again, warmer and deeper, and our combined scents fill the warm room completely, the way the evening fills the island, gradually and then all at once.
Santos moves over me carefully, his weight on his forearms, his warm brown eyes on my face with complete attention.
"Still with me?" he says.
"Completely," I say.
"Tell me if anything," he says.
"Santos. I know."
He kisses me again, deep and unhurried, his tongue warm against mine, and I taste him and the afternoon and the saffron, and then he moves and the sensation that begins is the sea at its morning best, the way it looks when the wind comes off the water and the surface goes into those long rolling waves that travel all the way to the shore, slow and inevitable and warm all the way through.
I close my eyes.
The colors are back, warmer this time, richer, the specific warm amber of the September afternoon light coming through the window and landing on the water, and I feel Santos's breath at my neck and Matteo's hand at my hip and Tomas's warmth at my side and the wave builds and builds and builds in the way that waves do when they have had the whole ocean to build in, nothing rushed, nothing forced, just the slow gathering of everything.
"Jennifer," Santos says, against my neck.
"Yes," I say.
"Look at me," he says.
I open my eyes.
He is right there, warm brown eyes dark and direct and completely unhidden, and the saffron in the air is warm and certain and everywhere, and I look at him and the wave arrives.
It arrives the way the morning does, not all at once, but in layers, each one warmer and more complete than the last, spreading from the center outward the way the light spreads across the water at dawn, touching everything, and the colors behind my eyes are gold and amber and that color the water goes at sunset that I still do not have a name for, and I make a sound that belongs to nobody performing anything and everything feeling something completely real.
Santos says something in Italian against my neck, low and private, and his arms tighten around me and he holds me through it with the particular steadiness of a man who has been thinking about this exact moment for six weeks and intends to be present for all of it.
When the wave settles I lie still for a moment and feel the room around me.
The warm air. The September gold through the window. Our scents are braided together the way they have been braided in this room, settled and certain and entirely without apology.
"All right?" Matteo says, from beside me, his voice low and warm, the controlled surface of him entirely absent.
"More than," I say.
"Good," he says, and the almost-smile does what it does, brief and real, and I feel it in my chest the way I have been feeling it since a kitchen at nine in the morning.
Santos lifts his head and looks at me with warm eyes and the most genuine expression I have seen from him since the roulette table, no performance, no deployment of charm, just him. "Principessa," he says.
Tomas picks up his glasses from the nightstand and puts them on and looks at me over the rim of them with those gray eyes and the particular steady warmth he uses when something has settled the way he calculated it would and he is sitting in the satisfaction of the correct result.
We stay like that for a long time, the room warm and gold and full of our scents, and outside the island is doing its September evening thing, the water going from gold to amber to that color, and somewhere in the herb garden Gerald is standing in the last of the light being exactly what he is, having been here longer than everything else, having watched considerably stranger evenings than this one from the same quiet spot.
The heat moves through me again, softer now, the asking rather than demanding kind, and Santos makes a low sound beside me and Matteo's hand tightens fractionally at my waist and Tomas looks at me over his glasses.
"Again?" Tomas says.
"Yes," I say.
Matteo takes his time.
He rolls toward me and his pale blue eyes are dark in the evening light and close, closer than Matteo usually allows himself to be, and he reaches out and touches my face first, two fingers at my jaw, the same deliberate touch he used to tilt my face toward him in the early days, but different now, softer, the touch of someone who has stopped having to convince themselves they are allowed.
Matteo kisses differently from Santos.
Where Santos is warmth and immediacy, all saffron and Latin and the particular generous urgency of a man who has wanted something for a long time and is glad to be done pretending otherwise, Matteo is slow and deliberate and thorough, his mouth tracing mine with the precise attention he brings to everything that matters, his tongue warm and certain, his hands finding my waist and learning the shape of me with the focused patience of someone who is not in any hurry and knows it.
I press my hand flat against his chest and feel his heart going considerably faster than his exterior would suggest.
"Your heart," I say, against his mouth.
"I know," he says.
"It's beating so fast," I say.
He presses one finger down the center of my chest again, that same slow deliberate line, and the sensation ripples outward from it in every direction, layering over everything else in the room, and I close my eyes and feel it spreading.
He follows the line his finger made with his mouth, warm and unhurried, his lips pressing at my collarbone, at the curve of my breast, at my ribs, taking his time with each place, and the ripples build on each other the way the morning ripples build when the wind crosses the water at a particular angle, each one catching the last.
I put my hand in his hair.
He makes a low sound and his mouth becomes less deliberate and more present, and I feel Santos's hand at my shoulder from behind, warm and steady, and Tomas's silver musk quiet and certain at the edge of the room.
"Still good?" Santos says, from behind my shoulder.
"Very," I say.
Matteo lifts his head and looks at me with those pale blue eyes and they are as dark as I have ever seen them and entirely unhidden.
He moves with the same deliberate patience and I close my eyes and the colors come back, different this time, cooler, the particular blue and silver of the water in the early morning before the sun has fully arrived, all that cool clear light, and the wave that builds is long and slow and certain the way Tomas is certain, and when it arrives it arrives completely.
Matteo holds me through it with both arms, and he says something against my hair that I hear and file away in the place where I keep the things I am not ready to examine yet but intend to return to.
After a while the room is quiet and gold and warm.
The window is going from amber to the color I do not have a name for, that color, and outside the island is going into its September evening, the water settling, the stars beginning their excessive thing overhead, and inside the room the four of us, the five of us, are breathing together in the warm close air.
Santos is on my left, his saffron settled and warm, his arm across me, his mouth at my temple pressing a kiss that is slow and deliberate and real.
Matteo is on my right, his hand resting near mine on the sheet the way it always rests near hers without touching, close, present, requiring nothing.
Tomas is sitting at the edge of the bed with his glasses on and his hand over mine, and the silver musk of him is the particular steady quality it goes when he has reached a conclusion and is sitting in the certainty of it.
Santos makes a sound that is almost a laugh, warm and low against my temple.
Matteo's mouth does the actual smile, brief and real, and I feel it against my shoulder.
She shifts, low and rolling, the evening shift, the contented one, the one she does when I am somewhere warm and the company is good and things are exactly as they should be.
She kicks, vivid and certain, the full statement kick, the one she makes when she has been listening and has formed views.
Santos laughs. The real one, filling the room.
Matteo sits up and very carefully puts his hand on my stomach, flat and warm, and he looks at his hand for a moment with those pale eyes and then he looks at me with an expression that is careful and warm and entirely his own.
She kicks once more, softly, the goodnight kick, the settling-in kick, the kick of someone who has been listening to all of this and finds it satisfactory.
I put my hand over her.
Outside the window the stars are doing their excessive thing.
And in the warm dark of Santos's room, in the best room with the best view and the excellent mattress, I close my eyes.
No thorns.
Not one.