20. Chiara
— ? —
Chiara
The stairs to the main house feel different tonight.
I’ve climbed them so many times over the past two years, usually with something to do when I reached the top. Sometimes I’d pause on the landing, listening for him before going into the bedroom alone.
Tonight I’m climbing them with his hand in mine, the music from the courtyard fading behind us, and every step feels like a choice I’m making on purpose.
Our bedroom door is the same heavy oak it’s always been. Lorenzo reaches past me to open it, and I step through into the room where I spent so many nights alone, wondering if this marriage would ever feel like something I wanted.
I put my wrap over the chair beside the window.
My robe is still on the hook behind the bathroom door, where I left it when I packed. I know where everything is, but I have to remind myself I can put things down. I won’t be getting back into the car tonight.
“Strange, isn’t it?” I cross to the window and look out at the courtyard below, where guests are still dancing in the warm glow of the heaters. “Being back here after everything.”
“Strange good or strange bad?” Lorenzo closes the door behind us, muffling the distant music to a soft hum.
“Strange different.” I turn away from the window. He’s standing in the middle of the room, still in his formal suit, watching me with an expression that’s careful but not guarded. “I kept expecting it to feel like coming back to a place where I didn’t belong. But it doesn’t.”
“I’m glad.” Lorenzo loosens his collar, apparently as tired of formal clothes as I am. “I was trying to remember whether I left anything in your way.”
“I’ll move it if you did.” I catch his tie before he can pull the knot free. “Let me.”
He tips his chin up, letting me loosen the knot. His breath warms my fingers.
“I wanted this all evening.” I slide the tie free from his collar and let it drop onto the chair beside us. “Having you to myself.”
His hands find my waist, pulling me closer, and I go willingly. I mean to kiss him briefly, but he kisses me back and I lose interest in stopping. There’s no one waiting to interrupt us with a question about the vintage. I can take my time.
“Wait.” I pull back just far enough to speak. “The clasp on this dress is impossible. I’m going to need help.”
“Turn around.” He tries the clasp with his fingertips before I move, discovering for himself how awkwardly it fastens.
I turn, lifting my hair out of the way, and feel his fingers find the tiny hooks at the back of my neck. He works them loose one by one, his breath warm against my skin, and I close my eyes and let myself feel it.
The intimacy of being undressed by someone who’s taking his time. The pleasure of being wanted by someone I want back.
“There.” He presses a kiss to the curve of my shoulder as the last hook comes free. “That wasn’t so impossible.”
“You’ve had practice.” I let the dress slide down my arms, catching it before it pools on the floor. The chair beside the window is close enough to drape it over, and I do, taking a moment to smooth the silk before I turn back to face him.
He’s watching me with an intensity that makes my pulse quicken. Still dressed, still formal, while I’m standing here in my slip.
“Your turn.” I close the distance between us and start on the buttons of his shirt. “Fair is fair.”
“Is that how this works?” But he’s already shrugging out of his jacket, letting it fall beside my dress.
“That’s how it works when I’ve spent the entire evening admiring your suit and wondering what you look like without it.” I get the last button free and push the shirt off his shoulders. “I’ve been very patient.”
“Have you?” He folds his shirt over the chair, but I catch him before he can straighten it. “I thought you were being professional.”
“I can be both.” I pull him toward the bed. “I’m very talented.”
We fall together onto the mattress, tangled and laughing and entirely graceless about it. His elbow catches the pillow and sends it tumbling to the floor. I kick off my shoes and hear one of them hit the nightstand with a thunk that makes us both freeze.
“The lamp?” Lorenzo reaches toward the nightstand, just as concerned about my bedside reading light as I am.
“Still standing.” I pull him back down before he can worry about it. “Focus.”
He kisses me again, slower now. I can feel him smiling when I pull him back for another kiss, and I want to keep him exactly where he is. I want to be close without stopping to explain what it means. For once, I can let him feel it instead.
“I missed you.” The words escape before I can second-guess them. “Even when I was angry, even when I thought I hated you, I missed this.”
“I missed you too.” He brushes the hair away from my mouth before kissing me there. I have time to answer him, to let him feel how much I mean it, without watching for the moment he will pull away.
“Come here.” I pull him down beside me and reach for the lamp. I want to leave enough light to see him, and nothing from the gala that will keep us awake except each other.
He catches my wrist before I can dim it fully.
“Leave it.” Soft command. “I want to look at you.”
I leave the lamp where it is. Then I kiss him.
It starts soft, the way the evening has been soft, and then it isn’t.
His mouth opens under mine. I taste wine and the last of the gala sweetness and something hungrier underneath. His hand slides into my hair, tilting my head so he can deepen the kiss, and I make a sound against his tongue that would have embarrassed me if anyone downstairs could hear it.
We shift. Somehow we are standing again at the edge of the bed, still kissing, my slip caught between his palms and my ribs.
I feel every place he touches: the small of my back, the curve of my hip, the underside of my breast through thin silk. I work his belt open without looking, because I refuse to stop kissing him long enough to see what I’m doing.
“Chiara.” He says my name into my mouth as if it’s a warning and a prayer. “If you keep doing that…”
“Then take it off.” I push the belt free and get my hands on the waist of his trousers. “I’ve been patient all night. I’m finished being patient.”
Lorenzo laughs once, low, then kisses me harder. Jacket already gone, shirt half open from earlier. I finish the buttons and shove the fabric off his shoulders, dragging my palms down his chest, his stomach, the trail of hair that disappears into his trousers.
He shudders when my fingers skim lower.
“Dio.” He catches my wrist again, not to stop me, to slow me. “Look at you. Choosing me. Standing in our room like you never left.”
“I almost did.” I free my hand and push his trousers down. “Don’t make me regret staying.”
“I won’t.” He kisses the corner of my mouth, then my jaw, then the place under my ear that always undoes me. “Tell me what you want.”
“You. All of you.” My voice breaks on it. “Don’t be careful with me tonight. I want to feel that you missed me.”
He hooks his fingers in the straps of my slip and draws them down my arms.
The silk pools at my waist. He looks at me for a long second, eyes dark, then bends and takes my breast into his mouth. Slow. Thorough. Tongue and gentle teeth until my knees weaken and I have to brace on his shoulders.
“Lorenzo…”
“I know.” He switches to the other side, hand sliding between my thighs over the last scrap of lace. When he finds how wet I already am, he groans against my skin. “Cazzo. So ready for me already… Perfect.”
I whimper when he rubs me through the lace. He does it again, firmer, watching my face, and I roll my hips into his hand without shame.
“Is that good?” He asks it against my mouth. Dominant, checking. “Harder? Slower? Tell me.”
“Harder. Inside. I don’t want your hand. I want you.”
He strips the lace down my legs. I kick it free. Then he lifts me bridal-style in one clean motion, my arms locking around his neck, laughing into his kiss when my heel nearly catches the chair.
“Careful,” I breathe.
“I’ve got you.” He lays me down on the mattress like something precious and follows me down, coming over me face to face, bracing on his forearms so I feel the full length of him without being crushed.
He kisses me again while he settles between my thighs, long open-mouthed kisses that leave me restless and aching.
When he notches himself against me, he doesn’t push in yet. He rubs the head through my wetness until I try to lift for him, then holds my hip still.
“Like this?” Forehead to mine. “Slow? Or do you want me to take you apart?”
“Both.” My legs wrap his waist. “Start slow. Then don’t stop asking.”
He pushes in in one long, deep stroke.
The stretch punches a moan out of me, raw and helpless. He holds still buried to the hilt, breathing hard, giving me time to adjust, kissing the sound from my mouth.
“Fuck. Chiara.” Praise, wrecked. “You feel perfect. So tight. My wife. Mine again.”
“Move.” It comes out as a plea. “Please… Lorenzo, move.”
He does. Gentle at first: deep rolling thrusts that fill me completely, pull almost out, then seat him again. I feel every inch. He watches my face like the answer to every question is there.
“There?” He adjusts the angle when I gasp. “Or here?”
“There. God. Right there.”
“Good girl.” He gives me that angle harder, still controlled. “Take it. Look at me while you take it. I want to see you.”
I look at him. I can’t look away.
Every thrust draws a softer sound out of me, then a louder one, until I’m moaning continuously into his mouth whenever he kisses me. His hand finds mine and pins it gently beside my head, fingers laced, dominant without bruising.
“Is this what you wanted all evening?” He drives deeper. “Me inside you. No audience. No wine. Just us.”
“Yes.” I’m shaking. “Harder. Don’t stop.”
“I won’t.” He fucks me harder, filthy and loving at once, hips snapping, the bed whispering under us. “Listen to you. So wet. So loud for me. Perfect. Come on. Give it to me.”
The climax hits hard. I cry out against his mouth, clenching around him, legs locked at his back while he fucks me through every pulse without slowing.