Page 65

Sistine

M y husband set me down in our old bathroom. Before he could start to do things for me, I stopped him by setting the quilt down on the counter.

This was all I had to do.

His eyes took me in from head to toes, roaming back up to my breasts, my nipples hard from the cold.

Soon enough, I wondered if they would not be.

His stare felt like the sun on my body. If he had not been covered in blood, his eyes wilder than I had ever seen them, I would have grinned at the way he stopped at the sight of a naked woman.

His naked woman.

“Let me do all of this for you,” I whispered. A tightness was in the pit of my stomach, and I knew it was only going to grow with the intense passion he was about to touch me with.

He had been fighting.

He had killed in my honor.

He was more turned on than I had ever seen him.

He had to express it, or he might die, as he told me.

Being inside of me would relieve him of it .

I went to wave my hand, encompassing let me do this for you, meaning whatever I felt he needed from me, such as starting the shower, grabbing clean clothes for him, simply taking care of his needs, but he took both of my wrists and hauled me into the shower with him.

My back hit the wall, and my breaths were coming out in pants. He was a rush. A rush of everything any risk seeker seeks to find. He was almost…too much.

My own wild mustang.

I am the mare he seeks to find.

My own wild lion.

I am the lioness he instinctually protects.

As Fausti men were known to do, however, he was right on the line. Not too much. Not too little. He knew exactly what he was doing, except…when he was this way with me, I could feel the wildness stirring him. Stirring him to take me, as I was submitting to him.

His eyes broke from mine and he glanced at the shower handle. With a trembling hand, I reached over and turned it on. The first spray was freezing, and he shielded my body from it as it turned warm. He closed his eyes to it, his arms coming around me like bars, his palms against the tile.

I began to undress him. He said nothing, but it was as if I was stroking his cock. His breaths were sliding out, and I could feel the coolness of them as they washed across my face. He trembled, his muscles taut against his skin.

“Turn around, my husband,” I said in Italian.

I knew he had been hurt. I demanded to see what had happened to him in my honor.

In Italy, I was sure this honor would have been greater, to battle a foe who should have been more honorable, who understood the Fausti ways, two knights dueling with swords, their steeds whinnying and stomping, but Italy or Wyoming, he had shed blood for me.

I would honor him. Honor him with my kisses, my warmth, my healing—whatever came together and was greater than the sum of love between us.

I stared into his eyes—his eyes were penetrating. As penetrating as his cock. I could feel his warmth inside of me, inside of my system, flowing through it, as if his blood was my blood.

I shook my head.

He is inside of me.

His heart.

His ways.

Him.

Perhaps I was always a romantic person. I love the idea of jewelry being given as a claim.

I love the lyrics of an amazing country song because of the way the singer pined for a lost love or made a vow to keep the love they had.

All of this was fodder for the fire of my husband’s blood.

I might have been romantic, but not to this degree. He took me back to ancient times.

Times when a knight would climb a woman’s trellis only to get a glimpse of her before he charged into danger to fight for her honor.

He would wear a token of her love on his person for the entire world to see.

He would write her love letters. Sing her.

He would bring the woman out in her, and she would bring the man out in him.

It was not him or her, it was them — us .

He might look like the stronger sex (and in physical battle, he was), but deeper than skin, she held half of the power. Perhaps in her knight’s eyes, even more.

She could heal him when no other soul on this earth could.

“Turn around,” I ordered in Italian, in a voice much stronger than my hands belied. Blood still swirled around the drain. The scent of it, wet pennies, almost, overpowered the scent of eucalyptus from the plants I’d set around to give the bathroom a more pleasant smell.

He stared at me for a moment before he pushed against the wall and began to turn around. As he moved, it turned the entire water on the floor red, and the smell, almost made me cover my nose.

Then his back came into view, and I had to force myself to stay on my feet. My hands touched the cool tile before they barely hovered over his back.

“Mariano,” I barely got out.

“A mark,” he rasped out in Italian. “For you. It is yours to keep. To heal.”

It was clear to see a strip of leather had done it—split his back open in a long gaping wound that would leave a scar. Some areas had clotted. Some were still dripping with his blood.

My blood.

The blood of the man I could not live without.

My hands tightened into fists, and I felt strangled.

“Who did this?” My voice was breathless, but only because my emotional stableness was being rocked to its core. I wanted to cry at the same time I wanted to use the same weapon to destroy the hand that had done this.

Mariano waved a hand. “Does not matter now,” he said in Italian.

Meaning…the hand was dead.

My tears came fast and hot, the water washing them away, but he sensed it.

Or he had scented it. He turned on me so fast, I almost fell backwards.

He caught me with one arm. His eyes were as wild as his hair.

I did not know what to do, except to reach out to him.

To fix his hair. To wash him. To heal him.

He caught me before I could. My wrist was a prisoner in his hold.

Our eyes searched each other’s.

“Let me do this,” I whispered. “For you. I am your wife.”

“My healer.”

I nodded, pointing to my chest with my free hand. “Only me.”

“ Solo tu ,” he repeated, his eyes lingering until he released me.

I breathed out a trembling breath, reaching for the loofah I had bought for him at the store.

I soaped it up, and in some areas gently, and others not so much, I washed the blood from his skin.

I avoided his back. It needed to be cleaned under more sanitary conditions.

I washed his hair for him, directing him to set his head in a certain angle so the dirty water could not touch his wound.

“You,” he said, nodding to my loofah, going for it.

I went to stop him, but he shook his head.

“My honor.”

My throat was tight as I closed my eyes and allowed him to wash me. I was not sure what was happening between us, but it felt as if the tapestries of our lives were being stitched even tighter with thread that could not fray with time or be yanked out.

Hannah came to mind. The quilt she refused to take from her shoulders. Her warmth. The warmth she had lost when her husband and children were taken from her.

I understood it.

As life was made around us, each scene became a pattern, and each pattern made up the quilt of our life.

She wore hers around her shoulders to remind her of the memories, to keep them all close, to feel the warmth she would never feel again from those missing from the life that was created between her and her husband out of love.

One day, we, too would wear the quilt we had stitched together.

My tears came harder.

We dried each other, and I was careful not to touch the long gash with the towel.

I rummaged in the cabinet for the first aid kit I had purchased with the loofah sponges.

The major work on the cabin was not set to start until after winter, but we were still repairing what needed to be done to make the place habitable.

I was thankful I had planned ahead. I used the clean gauze cloths to pat the fiery red of his skin dry, silently praying for my life’s healing, my mouth working as adamantly as my hands.

His palms were against the counter and he was almost leaning over it, his eyes on mine through the mirror.

At the soft touch, he closed them. His breathing slowed.

He was relaxing at my touch, although nothing had relaxed about his cock.

It almost looked…painful, as if the hardness of it would rip through his skin.

I gently applied some antibiotic cream to his back. I would speak to Rio about antibiotics—perhaps Mariano should take them. Who knew where that damned leather strip had been.

Mariano’s eyes fluttered open.

“My wife,” he said in Italian, the tone almost questioning.

I shook my head. “Am I hurting you?”

“Nah,” he breathed out. “The only thing that could ever hurt me is you—the word no coming from your mouth. You trying to leave me.”

I caught that.

Trying to leave me.

Our eyes seemed to lock even harder.

He gave me one sharp, slow nod. Try to leave me. I could almost sense the grin coming from him at the thought. It was not a nice one. It was a challenge me and find out one.

My chest felt tight, and I started to almost pant.

In front of him, however, I was determined to tame my reaction.

I did not want him to see, or feel, how that unsettled me.

I would leave him if it ever came down to his life.

We had a war to face in Italy, and I would not see another scar on his flesh.

Flesh that belonged to me. His Papà and Mamma might have created him, but he was created for me, as he said I was created for him.

I was almost in a trance as I continued to stroke his skin, attempting to ignore the intense look he was giving me.

He knew.

He always knew.

The gauze flew from my hand as he turned on me, took my wrists in his hands, and walked me back to the bedroom.

“Mariano!” I barely got out. “We need to call Savre?—”

“Say his name.” His teeth rolled over his bottom lip.