Total pages in book: 26
Estimated words: 25827 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 129(@200wpm)___ 103(@250wpm)___ 86(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 25827 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 129(@200wpm)___ 103(@250wpm)___ 86(@300wpm)
“Stop thinking, moglie mia.”
His voice is rougher than I've ever heard it, and the accent he's spent eighteen years hiding is in every word now, and my toes are curling at the sound of him.
“It makes me feel I am doing a bad job at driving you crazy.”
His words catch me off guard, I didn’t...I never thought it that way, but when I open my mouth to apologize, I don’t get the chance to speak. The moment my lips part, Nicolo takes advantage, and his tongue slips in, tasting and claiming me, and all my thoughts finally fade, passion sweeping me up like a tidal wave.
Even breathing becomes a challenge as he finds—
RIIIP.
I have my answer, I think dazedly. He's a ripper, since he's just torn the sweater off me.
“Never ever wear something again that's from another man,” he grits out against my mouth, “or you will really not like the consequences.”
How does he know?!
I want to ask him. I intend to. But when his mouth leaves mine, I end up whimpering instead of speaking, because he turns out to be both. A ripper and an unbuttoner. His fingers have found the buttons of my blouse, and he's undoing them so, so slowly.
He's taking his sweet time.
Like he really wants me to lose my mind.
One...button...at...a...a...aaah!
The blouse falls to the floor. I don't even have time to cover myself, because he's already unclipping the front clasp of my bra, and he's...he's really good at this.
I can't guess when he's going to be slow or fast. Ripper or unbuttoner. All I know is that one moment, I'm still covered. And the next moment, I'm completely exposed to my husband's gaze.
And I just start crying.
Because the way he's looking at me...
The eighteen years were harder for him.
Because he did what he did, I really was able to just walk away. Never look back. Move on with my life.
But it wasn't the same for him.
Because he knew the truth. He waited for me all those eighteen years. Loved me all those eighteen years. And the moment the danger was over, the danger he refused to let reach me even if it meant turning himself into a bad guy in my eyes—
Oh, my love.
The hunger, the reverence in his eyes...
I feel like I don't deserve this at all. But I have no chance to tell him that, because he's kissing me again, this time with all the hunger that's grown in all those eighteen years.
I don't know if he's taking me or I'm giving myself to him.
It feels like both.
Like he's surrendering all of himself to me and I'm taking everything because he's mine, too.
When he starts moving, I stop thinking completely.
When he moves even faster, I can only cling harder.
It's like being on a ride that just goes up, up, up, while my body tightens more and more and more. I know I'm going to fall, fast and hard. I just don't know when. And it's the not knowing that makes me sob.
That makes him grit my name out against my mouth.
His arms tightening around me like he's afraid this is the moment he loses me.
His voice doing something I've never heard a man's voice do before—saying my name like it's the only word he's ever wanted to know.
And when it finally does happen, it's not a fall.
It's the opposite.
Like everything I've been holding for eighteen years is finally being held by someone else.
Like my body remembers, before I do, that there's such a thing as being safe.
“Mine,” he murmurs against my throat.
“Yours,” I whisper back.
His. Mine. His.
Sei mia.
Sono tua. I'm yours.
He says my name in Italian. Then in English. Then in a language I don't think anyone speaks but him.
And every time he says it, I'm a little more his. A little less alone. A little less the woman who's been living with the silence of Como.
Later.
I don't know how much later.
The light at the windows has gone soft. My head is on his chest. His heartbeat's under my ear.
His hand is moving in my hair. Very slowly. Like he's afraid that if he stops, this'll turn out to be a dream.
He's not stopping.
I'm not sleeping, but I might.
I turn my face into his chest. His skin is the warmest thing I've felt in eighteen years.
I never want to move.
I open my mouth, against the place where I can feel his pulse moving.
“I love you, Mr. Sestini.”
His arms tighten.
I feel his lips at the top of my head before I hear his voice.
“Ti amo, signora Sestini.”
One Month Later
I'm late. I think I overslept. I'm already reaching for my phone to check the time when I realize something's different. The bed feels bigger. And nicer. And occupied by someone else?
My eyes fly open—
Nicolo.
Relief floods through me, and right behind it is a joy that's so, so deep it's almost surreal. We've been married eighteen years—he showed me the papers, the U.S. government has known I was Mrs. Sestini all along—but we've only been living as husband and wife for a month, and so this...