18. Vivi
VIVI
Ifollow Giovanni to the en suite bathroom, sneaking a glance around as he gathers first aid supplies.
The space is gorgeous, just like the rest of the suite.
There’s a rainfall shower, an enormous soaking tub, and what looks like a steam room.
It’s got to be the fanciest bathroom I’ve ever seen in my life.
“Here.” Giovanni sets out some disinfectant, sterile pads, and some extra-large bandages. He turns, bracing his palms against the bathroom counter, presenting his injury to me. “Have at it.”
I do, trying very hard not to think about how impressively broad his back is, or how his muscles flicker beneath tanned skin at every brush of my fingertips.
Otherwise, he’s motionless. Even when I sterilize the wound.
No hiss. No jerk. No nothing.
The cut is long and deep but clean. “What happened?”
“Knife fight.”
“What? Here?!” I meet his eyes in the mirror. He’s unbothered. Like getting sliced open with a blade on his own island is an everyday occurrence. “But…how? Was it those people, the lunch guests? Did they attack you before they left?”
In the reflection, Giovanni blanks. Then, out of nowhere, laughs. Like, really laughs. His heavy shoulders shake, his Adam’s apple bobbing as his head tips back. The laugh comes from low in his chest, resonant and rich.
He doesn’t smile, not really, but there’s sharp humor in his eyes when the chuckles fade. “Mi scusi. I don’t think I’ve heard anything that funny in years.”
“Funny?”
“The idea that the Romanos would have the balls to attack me. Or the skill to break skin. No.” He’s back to being his stern, somber self. “No, they’re too cowardly for that. This injury came from one of the only men who’s ever been able to beat me in a fight.”
“Who’s that?”
“Vampa.”
I form a silent ah.
In the reflection, Giovanni’s eyes drop to my lips. Hold. The longer he stares, the harder it is to keep my hands from shaking as I apply the bandages. My throat has gone bone dry. “D-do you and Vampa fight often?”
“Not as much as we used to, but the old man still spars with me when I need an outlet.” He’s still looking at my lips as he licks his own. “When I need a way to purge some reckless fucking energy. It helps me stay focused, controlled.”
I think back to the meal. To his knife against that man’s throat. The vicious glint in Giovanni’s eye, the one that seemed to only get brighter as he watched the couple run away. “You needed a purge after the lunch.”
“Yes,” he confirms. “It was either fight Vampa or fly over to the mainland and gut the Romanos like fish.”
I press the final bandage to his back, fingers lingering longer than necessary. “Would you have really killed him,” I whisper, “just because of what he and his wife said?”
Giovanni’s answer is immediate. “Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because no one insults my family and gets away with it.”
His family.
Two words that make me lightheaded. And nervous in a way I can’t pinpoint. Tiny tremors kick across my skin, and I have to lick my lips before I can ask, “And did it work? Are you feeling better?”
This time, Giovanni is quiet for several moments before answering. “No, Viviana. I’m not feeling better at all.”
If I were paying closer attention, I’d have heard the warning in his voice.
But I’m distracted, staring at where I’m still touching his lower back.
My fingers look so small and pale against his darker complexion, his skin hot and smooth, and I swear I’m halfway to memorizing the large tattoo inked there when he twists in my hands.
I startle.
Giovanni seizes my hips, steadying me against his body.
His half-naked body. And in a moment of pure insanity, I think of the video he showed me.
The one of Tino and that woman together, naked, touching, his groin rocking between her legs.
The image is doing something strange to my synapses, making it impossible to ignore the bulge between Giovanni’s thighs and how it presses against my stomach.
Awareness slowly creeps over me, my lungs malfunctioning as Giovanni’s eyes pin me from above. “Careful, Viviana. I haven’t lost nearly enough blood for you to keep looking at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you want to know what it would feel like if I fucked you the way Tino fucked that woman.” His lips coast across the shell of my ear. “Like you want to know what it would feel like to have my cock buried between your sweet thighs.”
Heat explodes everywhere. Sparks of embarrassment. More dangerously, flames of curiosity. Desire.
I have no practical or even theoretical knowledge of what Giovanni is talking about.
Of what I saw Tino and that woman doing on the video.
But my body doesn’t seem to care that my brain is light-years behind.
Giovanni’s words have made that more rational organ malfunction.
Other parts of me aren’t having the same problem.
My nipples have pulled into tight peaks.
My stomach is overwhelmed with butterflies.
And the place between my thighs—the place the nuns refused to talk about even when I got my first period, the place I was always too embarrassed to touch or explore—it feels warm and electric and ready for…something.
And I think I’m actually going to find out what that something is, until I see Giovanni’s expression. It’s as hard as the rest of him. “You don’t know what I’m talking about, do you?”
“W-what?”
“Fucking. What you saw Tino and his girlfriend doing in that video. His cock, her pussy. Other ways, too. Fingering her until she comes. Her sucking his dick until he creams in her mouth and throat. Fingers and tongues and cocks and clits and the innumerable ways people can get each other off. Fucking.”
If I was hot before, I’m nothing but molten lava now. But Giovanni’s tone is harsh, crass. Like my lack of understanding pisses him off.
He curses, body rigid as he steps away. The knife fight with Vampa really didn’t work. A frenetic energy is coursing through him. His expression is dark, hooded, but the cracks in his control are getting deeper, exposing something below the surface he’s fighting so hard to hide.
“I’m going to ask you some questions now, wife, and you’re going to tell me the truth. Understand?”
I nod, barely.
“Let’s start with a detail your father was more than willing to share on your wedding day. You are a virgin, si?”
“Yes.”
“Have you ever been touched?”
“Touched?”
“Sexually. Intimately. By a man. Or…” He pauses, a thoughtful look passing over his face. “A woman.”
I’ve barely been touched by anyone, for any reason, on any part of my body. But I’m starting to understand what he’s asking. “I’ve been kissed once. By a man. By?—”
“Tino?” His jaw flickers as he says my dead fiancé’s name.
“Yes. Tino. The weekend he came to the convent, and we officially got engaged.”
“He never touched you any other way?”
“No, never.”
The thunder cloud above his head dissipates ever so slightly. “And that’s it? No groping over the clothes or stroking you between the legs. Nothing?”
I shake my head, mouth falling open in confusion. “Groping? Stroking? I don’t even know what you’re trying to say.”
“Meno male.” Giovanni scrubs a hand down his face, his eyes raised to the heavens. “Another question, Viviana, and think very carefully before you answer. Have you ever had an orgasm?”
I blink, beyond confused. His expression says I should know what he’s talking about. That this is important. But I’m clueless. I answer honestly. “I don’t know.”
Giovanni’s curse is harsh, heated. He turns away, hiding his reaction as he mutters something beneath his breath. Yeah, whatever he and Vampa did, it definitely didn’t help.
I pluck at my dress, keeping my restless hands busy as I watch my husband across the expanse of his beautiful bathroom.
The luxurious features are nothing like what I’m used to.
Neither is this conversation, or the responses it’s provoking.
I’m completely out of my depth. So unbelievably clueless.
And I have no idea what to expect from my husband when he turns around to face me.
There’s color high on his cheeks, and the fervid gleam has leaked back into his eyes, but he’s otherwise composed. “The nuns taught you nothing?”
“About f-fucking?” My voice cracks on the word.
That prompts a burst of laughter. A grin that lingers longer than I’ve ever seen before. “Yeah, about fucking. Though, I doubt they’d have used that word. They probably would’ve described it as intercourse. Or the act of procreating?”
“No, they never discussed it. Not with me. The only conversation we had about my body was when I got my period. I thought I was dying. I didn’t know what was happening or why.
When I told one of the nuns I was bleeding and from where, she got so flustered.
She forgot my father had forbidden them from teaching me Italian, and she rushed through an explanation I couldn’t understand.
Then she vanished. A few hours later, she came by my room with a bag of sanitary pads, tampons, and a few sentences scrawled in English about how to use each, how long the bleeding would last, and, the most horrifying bit of all, the fact that it would happen every month for years. Years.”
I still remember my horrified shock. “Did you know that? It goes on for actual decades. That was hard to process, especially because no one would talk to me about it ever again.”
Giovanni is absorbing everything I say, muscular arms crossed over his chest. He seems calmer, but the glint in his eyes lingers. There’s an occasional catch in his breath. This conversation is affecting both of us. I just don’t understand why.
“The video I showed you earlier—was that the first time you’ve seen or heard anything about sex?”
I bite my lip. Nod.
He steps closer. Lifts a hand to my face, brushing his thumb against my bottom lip. “So, to review your answers…you’re a virgin.”
“Yes.”
Giovanni presses his thumb past my lip. Dips it into the heat of my mouth. Traces the damp and tender flesh. His eyes have gone two shades darker. “A complete sexual innocent.”
“Yes.” It escapes on a breath. I want to lick his skin. Taste it. I’ve lost control of my body. My hands are on his waist. My nails clinging to his side.
My husband traces his thumb along my teeth. Testing the sharpness. Holds it there. “Who has only had one kiss.”
“Yes.” As I answer, his skin catches between my teeth.
Giovanni’s entire body jerks. His hand spasming against my jaw, tugging me so close to his mouth I can feel his breath.
We’re sharing each other’s oxygen. Though, honestly, it doesn’t feel like I’m breathing at all. I’m just existing, waiting. Dying to know what it would feel like to be kissed by him.
“Vaffancuolo!” Without warning, Giovanni breaks away, shaking his head furiously. It doesn’t clear his expression. If anything, he looks more troubled. And he’s talking to himself. “You are nothing but one fucking problem after the next.”
Huh?
“You need to go. Right fucking now.” He corrals me to the suite’s door before I’m able to stop him.
The picture frame is in its place, the face of the little girl smiling up at us. I want to ask her name, but Giovanni is pulling on the shirt that he grabbed along the way, erecting an impenetrable barrier with every button he anchors in place.
Our conversation is over.
The chance for answers already gone.
By the time Giovanni opens his suite door, he’s back to being the man I first met. Stoic, inscrutable. An abyss of questions buried behind impeccable tailoring and eyes that give nothing away.
We’re down the hall and into my room in seconds. He doesn’t touch me. Doesn’t even try.
Giovanni is about to close my door when he pauses. “Thank you for bandaging my wound, Viviana, but don’t you dare step foot in my suite again.”
The door swings shut. The lock slides home. And I’m alone, again.