A warm ache fanned out inside of me, and I tumbled into oblivion, a kaleidoscope of colors exploding behind my eyelids. I contracted around his hard length over and over, my mind erased of everything other than the pleasure spiraling through me. My neck bowed, my teeth clicked together, my toes curled, and a slow, needy moan spilled from my lips.
He mumbled a few words in Italian, and his hands dug into my thighs with enough force to leave an imprint of his fingers. I opened my eyes, needing to see him. I was glad I did. His features were screwed up, his eyes pinned shut. His nostrils were flared, and his body trembled.
He collapsed on top of me for a few moments, our heavy breaths loud in the deafening hush of the room. “God, Emilia. What are you doing to me?”
Bewildered, I licked my lips, terrified the wrong words would come out of my mouth. All of the times I imagined being with Sal, it didn’t even compare to the unsettling emotions and sensations unfurling in my chest. I wanted to simultaneously beg him not to leave and rage at him for finding all the chinks in my armor and embedding himself into my life, my thoughts.
He rolled off of me and draped my naked and limp body over his torso. Somewhere in the back of my mind I registered the achy loneliness within me as if I were no longer whole without him.
I counted the steady thumps of his heart. I inhaled his spicy scent mixed with my vanilla perfume and the unmistakable smell of sex. I took note of the way our sweat-slickened bodies clung together. I felt dampness trickling down my thighs.
So many words were on the tip of my tongue I didn’t know where to start. I wanted to tell Marcello I trusted him. I needed to let him know I wouldn’t back out on my promise to go with him. That I’d give him, us, a chance. That maybe fate came in unusual packages. Instead, I trailed the pads of my fingers over his chest, committing every detail to memory.
“I have to go. Your father won’t be happy if he comes home and I’m still here.” He scooted out from under me and crawled out of the bed.
With methodical precision, he put back on his clothes, never looking at me, never reassuring me. Nothing. Every second that elapsed, my chest squeezed tighter and tighter, and I suspected I was about to experience a full-blown hyperventilation.
“I’ll be here around noon tomorrow.” His metal belt clanked together. “That should give you plenty of time to pack enough clothes for a couple of weeks. Your dad can ship anything else you want, and I’ll buy whatever you need in the meantime.”
“Oh, okay?” I had no clue why my answer came out as a question. “And I’ll be staying with your sister.”
“No.” He stuffed his arms into his suit jacket and tugged on the cuffs of his shirt so they peeked out of the sleeves. “You’ll stay with me. We’ll get married within the next week or two, something small. We’ll have a big reception this summer when everything settles down.”
I pulled the sheet up to my neck, feeling exposed, vulnerable, and a little sick to my stomach. “You said we could take it slow.”
“That won’t work. You could be pregnant, and after I explain what happened between us, getting married will be a foregone conclusion.”
The blood rushed out of my face, and I folded my arms around my waist, confused how we got here. Confused where the caring understanding man went, then it hit me. “You planned this. You tricked me. The shots of Sambuca, carrying me to my room, sympathizing with me, promising me the trial period. All of it was a lie so you could trap me.”
He sized me up for an excruciating, drawn out beat, his demeanor and lack of expression rendering my attempts to read his thoughts futile. “You and I marrying has been a foregone conclusion since the second I saw you standing in the hallway outside your dad’s office, all sleepy-eyed and clueless to the chaos building around the both of us. Until then, I was pissed off that we were the sacrificial lambs for other people’s sins, but when I saw you, something clicked, and I knew we could ride out this storm together. You weren’t my enemy. You weren’t my punishment. We were going to be each other’s salvation.”
My mouth opened and closed three or four times in quick succession like a fish out of water. My heart fluttered at his words, and I quickly shoved the little girl inside of me who still believed in fairytales back into the corner. Fairytales and whimsical castles-in-the-air thinking had no place in the conversation. In my life.
“That’s crazy talk, Marcello. I don’t even know what that means. We hardly know each other.”
He brushed his knuckles across my face. “That’s bullshit and you know it.”