to side, before her fingers made a slow trail from her neck, between her breasts, back up to her mouth. She traced her lips with a finger, smiling after. It wasn’t full, but there was something rebellious about it that I recognized right away.
She lowered down to the ground after, getting comfortable on the quilt, and then lay down, like she was at the beach and the moon was the sun. The light fell on her body, and I could make out every bone highlighted by the dark shadows. Her breastbones. Her hipbones. They created the shape of her flesh.
Her fingertips stroked the sides of her body, until one hand rose up higher, circling her nipple. The other hand went lower, between her thighs, until it disappeared between her legs.
Her mouth parted as she started to move her fingers between her legs and tease her nipple even harder. Her legs parted even wider, and I could see every move she made.
How high she was becoming. How fucking turned on she was.
The inside of her thighs was coated, soaked. My dick was so hard that it was painful.
Her cheeks were red, almost like she was ashamed of the pleasure her touch gave her. This was forbidden for a woman like her. A woman who was told self-pleasure was a sin.
“Forbidden” seemed to dare her—turn her on. It was buried down deep with that wild spirit she could never set free.
I recognized it right away. It was the reason she’d fallen so hard for me.
I was all of those things and fucking more.
It wasn’t the madness from the full moon in my blood. It was this woman running through my veins.
Her breath started to hitch, quiet moans coming from her full lips, and her back arched while she pushed against her hand, fighting for the release.
I could smell her desire and her frustration in the air, like chocolate and lemon. She needed more.
The craving was there, as concentrated and as hot as the air, but not the satisfaction.
My name escaped her lips, once, twice, like a call from the wild, and I stood.
I had been playing a game all night, so I decided to play one more. One Bugsy called Italian Roulette.
13
Alcina
I had never done this before. Explored my body with my hands—not in this way. I had thought about it, craving the feeling, the release, but nothing had ever turned me on enough to give myself over to it.
I knew it was wrong, forbidden, just like the man I fell in love with, and I couldn't stop that either. So I gave myself over to it...the ache, the unyielding want. The desire.
To be touched...
His face so close in my mind. His eyes staring into mine. The fantasies of him touching me. Doing things to me that I knew were...
Arrgh…! A frustrated sound came from my lips as my fingers worked faster, trying to reach the highest point, but it was no substitute for the real thing.
For him.
I needed his touch more than food, more than drink, more than the breath in my lungs, which came out of my mouth in pants.
“Where are you, scorpione?” My voice came out breathy, almost begging. My eyes slowly opened and I blinked a few times, staring at the man watching me. My fingers stilled, but the ache continued to claw at me. I should have been embarrassed, mortified, but all I felt was great relief.
A fantasy had come to life in my darkest hour.
The golden light made him glow. The moon was the biggest candle of all.
I opened my mouth, ready to speak, when he removed his t-shirt, so bright against the darkness of his skin, and his boots and pants. A second later, he was fully naked, the moon at his back.
The breath left my mouth, and I shook my head, sitting up. “Please, il mio amante. I need you. Your touch. I—”
“You want me to touch you.”
“Sì.”
“You want me to taste you.”
“Sì.” The word trembled out.
I got to my knees when he was close enough, soaking in the rugged beauty of him—the only man I had ever called mine. If he claimed me tonight as his, I wondered if I was going to be able to walk in September. He was as hard as stone, and as hot as the lava that poured from the mountain. His skin radiated heat, and it circulated between the space between our bodies. A cool bead of sweat ran down my neck, and his finger came out