Chapter 27 #2
I shed my suit jacket, tie, shirt—clothes borrowed from Domenico for the ceremony. Everything fell away until it was just skin and want.
"Come here," I said.
She moved into my arms, and I lifted her carefully onto the bed. Her body had changed—softer curves, the C-section scar visible below her navel, breasts fuller from nursing.
More beautiful than ever.
I kissed my way down her body, worshipping every inch. The soft sounds she made when I reached her thighs. Her fingers threading through my hair. The way she opened for me without hesitation.
"Alessio—"
"Shh. Let me."
I tasted her slowly, thoroughly, until she was shaking and begging. Until she came apart on my tongue with my name on her lips.
Then I moved up her body, settled between her thighs, and positioned myself at her entrance.
"You're sure?" I asked. "We can wait if—"
"I'm sure." She pulled me down. "Make love to your wife, Alessio. Show me I'm yours."
I slid inside her slowly, carefully, giving her body time to adjust. She was tight, warm, perfect.
"Okay?" I managed, every muscle straining with restraint.
"More than okay." She rolled her hips, taking me deeper. "Move. Please."
I did—slow, deliberate, each thrust measured. Not the desperate coupling from before. This was different. Sacred.
This was making love to my wife.
Her legs wrapped around my waist, heels digging into my lower back, urging me deeper. I obliged, picking up the pace, finding the rhythm that made her gasp and arch beneath me.
"There," she breathed. "Right there—"
I held that angle, watching her face as pleasure built. Her eyes fluttered closed, lips parting, back arching.
"Look at me," I demanded. "I want to see you when you fall apart."
Her eyes opened, locked on mine.
"I love you," she gasped. "I love you so much—"
"I love you too. My wife. My everything."
She shattered around me, and I followed seconds later, thrusting deep and holding as release crashed through me in waves.
We stayed like that, joined completely, breathing hard.
"Worth the wait?" I asked eventually.
"So worth it." She traced my face with gentle fingers. "Though six weeks apart is going to be torture now that I remember how good this is."
"I'll make it up to you when I get back. Promise."
"I'm holding you to that."
I carefully withdrew, settled beside her, and pulled her against my chest. She fit perfectly in the curve of my body, head on my shoulder, hand over my heart.
"I don't want tomorrow to come," she whispered.
"Me neither. But it has to." I kissed her hair. "Six weeks. Maybe less. Then I come home to my wife and children, and we start our real life. The boring one we've been fighting for."
"Boring sounds perfect."
"It does, doesn't it?"
We lay in comfortable silence, hands interlaced, legs tangled together.
"Thank you," she said eventually.
"For what?"
"For choosing me. That first night in the motel room, you could have honored the blood debt. Taken me back to Marco. Instead, you chose me over everything you'd been raised to value."
"Easiest choice I ever made."
"Liar. It nearly destroyed you."
"Fine. Hardest and easiest simultaneously. But I'd make the same choice a thousand times." I tightened my arms around her. "You're worth everything, principessa. You and our babies."
"You're worth everything to me, too." She pressed a kiss to my chest. "Come home to us. That's all I ask. Just come home."
"I promise."
We made love again later—slower, more tender, savoring every touch. Then held each other through the night, neither of us sleeping, both unwilling to waste a single moment.
Dawn came anyway.
Sofia brought the babies back at seven a.m.
Both of us were exhausted, hair mussed, clearly having spent the night exactly as she'd hoped.
She smiled knowingly but didn't comment. Just handed over Ezio and Eva with kisses on their heads.
"Your last morning together for a while," she said gently. "Make it count."
We spent those final hours as a family of four.
Fed the babies together. Changed diapers. Sat on the couch with one twin each, just being present.
"They won't remember this," Valentina said, looking at Eva sleeping in her arms. "They're too young."
"But we will." I traced Ezio's tiny hand. "We'll remember. And we'll tell them someday—how Daddy had to go away for a little while to make things right, but he came back. Always came back."
"Always," she repeated, voice thick.
At noon, Domenico arrived to drive me to the federal facility.
The goodbye was brutal.
I held Ezio first, memorizing his weight, his smell, the serious expression that was pure concentration.
"Be good for Mama," I whispered. "Protect your sister. I'll be home soon."
Then Eva—so small, so perfect. "Love you, sweet girl. Daddy will be back before you know it."
Finally, Valentina.
I kissed her desperately, tasting salt from the tears neither of us could stop.
"Six weeks," I promised. "Maybe less. Then I'm home and never leaving again."
"I'm counting every day." Her hand pressed over my heart. "Come back to me."
"Always, Mrs. Valestri."
The name made her smile through tears.
I walked out without looking back, because looking back would have broken me.
Domenico drove in silence for the first ten miles.
"You did well, fratello. The wedding, the babies, walking away from the life. Eva would be proud."
"You think?"
"I know. She always wanted you to find something worth living for instead of just surviving." He glanced at me. "You found it. Now go serve your time, come home to your family, and live the life she never got."
"I will," I promised.
To Domenico. To Eva's memory. To myself.
I would come home.
And we would finally, truly live.