“Mariposa.” He studied me. “It’s normal to hurt the first time. To bleed.”
“I know.” The sheets beneath me were soaked with blood. When I asked my doctor what to expect the first time, she told me that blood was normal. No blood was normal. Everyone was different. She had given me the lowdown on every circumstance so I wouldn’t be surprised.
He kissed my lips. “Use all of the words.”
I didn’t expect to feel closer to you I wanted to say. I didn’t expect for this… connection to grow even deeper inside of me so fast.
All of the fear I felt at the grape arbor was not because I was afraid of sex, but of the emotional strings it came with. Strings scared the shit out of me because I was married to a man who had a severe aversion to love. Even if I wanted that, which I didn’t, it could never happen that way.
“Was it…good for you?” I bit my lip, not really wanting to share my deeper fears. I chose a surface one instead.
Maybe it was stupid, but I wanted him to enjoy me, too. Even though we never discussed his history in detail, a man like him probably had a lot of women. Women like Gigi, and Rocco’s pretty secretary, Giada.
“So innocent,” I thought he said in Italian, and then he answered me in English. “I said fire. You brought it. The kind that consumes water.”
“Not yet.” I smiled, kind of shyly, and I wasn’t sure why. “I wasn’t sure what to expect…tonight. Now that I do…”
“You’ll kill me.”
“Me?” I rose up on my elbows, getting closer to his face. “Kill you?”
“You have no idea,” he whispered. “What you do to me.” His eyes lowered and he caressed my thigh, coated in dry blood. “Vieni.” Come. “I’ll wash you clean in the shower, la mia farfalla. Then we’ll take a bath. It’ll help ease your muscles.”
Without asking, he scooped me up from the bed, both of us still naked, and brought me into the bathroom. After showering together, I fell asleep with my head against his chest, his fingers caressing my back in that delicious ‘C’ pattern, in the warmth of the bathtub.
I heard nothing but the sound of his heart beating against my ear. I smelled nothing but his skin. I felt nothing but him.
I never learned how to swim (and I couldn't remember how to ride a bike), but I knew what it sounded like to be submerged underwater in a tub. Sounds came in echoes, so close yet so far away. The closer to the surface, though, the clearer the sounds became.
Cars zooming. Background music. Mouth of truth. Legend is, if you’re givin’ to lying, you put your hand in there, it’ll get bitten off. More music. Laughter. Let’s see you do it. Higher voice. Feminine. Sure. Deeper voice. Male. More music. Dun. Dun. Dun. Screaming. Hello. You BEAST!
My eyes slowly came open. Where was I?
Same sights. Same smells.
Still at the hidden villa.
I yawned and stretched, consciousness snapping awake, and the sounds in the background took form in my mind. A movie. Roman Holiday with Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck. We had started watching it and I must’ve fallen asleep.
It had been two days since our wedding and I was blissfully sore and tired all of the time. I took naps whenever I could. Then I’d wake up, he’d kiss me, or touch me, and we’d be at it again.
“You make bubbles with your mouth when you sleep.”
Even though my brain was on, my eyes were slow to open. I blinked at him. He was leaning on his hand, his perfect bicep bunched like a hard knot, watching me.
“Were you watching me sleep?” My voice was rough, almost shredded. We had been having some wild times.
He grinned and I pushed at his bare chest. He kept my hand there, sucking on my pointer finger.
“That’s so creepy, Capo. It’s like you’re stalking me in my sleep.”
“Your dreams.” He chuckled, the sound coming out raspy and low.
“And what do you mean?” I narrowed my eyes at him. “I make bubbles?”
“Like this.” He pushed his lips out using air, making a soft popping noise when his lips parted, and then he relaxed them, and then did it again. It was like he had no control of his lips, and a light push of air kept making ‘bubbles.’
My laugher rose to the ceiling. “I must be drowning in my sleep. Or maybe I’m part fish.”
“You sleep hard lately.”
“When I sleep.” I smiled.
He leaned in and kissed me softly. I made an mmm noise and he cupped my boob, like he was weighing it in his hand. I couldn’t remember the last time I wore clothes.
“Tell me something about yourself, Capo.” My voice came out soft, as soft as the kiss had been.
I had come to learn that other than the occasional kiss, there was nothing soft about Capo Macchiavello. The first time we did it was as gentle as he got. And I liked it. I liked when he almost tore me in two. I liked when the orgasms he gave me were so intense that dizziness followed. I was lightheaded day and night.
“You know everything worth knowing.”
“Not the heart.”
“In time.”
I nodded and gently touched the scar on this throat. I never left my hand there long, but sometimes I ached to find out the story behind it. How it had happened. I never asked, but even if I had, he didn’t seem ready to share. Sometimes when I touched or kissed him there, his muscles contracted.
“You put a lot on the table, but I want something that’s not part of the deal, Capo.”
“Something given without terms.”
“Yeah.”
“Boundaries are there for a reason, Mariposa.”
“You didn’t say that we couldn’t share anything. You only said that in time you’d give me the heart and all its veins. Just like I said in time I’d give you my body. I did.”
He sighed. “Twenty fucking questions.”
“Ooh! I’ll go first.”
“I didn’t agree, Mariposa.”
“You didn’t say no, either. And you kinda said yes. You said—”
He put his hand over my mouth and I tried to bite him, but he didn’t have enough fat on his palm. “I know what I said.”
“Ten questions.” My voice was muffled.
He released my mouth. “Two.”
“Two? That’s one each. That’s measly. That’s nothing. That’s being tight. You’re so free with money, why not with all your words?”
“Words are worth more than money.”
“Words are free, Capo. This is costing me nothing. See? There is no little man running around with a collection jar, screaming, ‘Tab! You have a tab!’ There is no tab for words.”
“Both questions are for me and I’m sure it’ll cost me something.”
“You don’t have one for me?” That was about right. He knew everything about me. And what he didn’t? It didn’t matter. I was boring. All I did was survive. I hadn’t even had sex until him.
He studied my face for a moment. “Actually. I do have a question.”
“Just one?”
“Uno.”
All right, I mentally rubbed my hands together like a villain in a romantic novel. I had a bargaining chip. “For your one question, about me, I can ask you more than two, as long as they don’t cross any invisible lines. And I go last.”