of us understood, because our eyes met over the hundreds of candles.
I did not need the heat from the flames to make me melt. I needed only one look from him. I remembered the night he first touched me, and a shuddering breath left my mouth.
Corrado Alessandro Capitani was one of the world’s most talented magicians. He could touch me without putting a hand on me.
A band started to play and couples drifted closer to the stage. A soft but gruff voice—one of Corrado’s cousins from America, Domenico (Dom) Casino, who was famous there, or so Anna told me—started to sing. It was an older song redone, but in the same romantic way—“Unchained Melody,” by the Righteous Brothers.
I turned my eyes away from Corrado to the stage, realizing its purpose, and started to sway to the melody. When I turned back to my husband, his eyes were still on me, but his body moved.
It felt like he crashed into me when one arm wrapped around me, the other fisted in my hair, and his lips came against mine in a kiss that stole my breath. I pulled his hair, trying to get even closer, and my fingers dug into his shoulder.
We moved to the song as we kissed.
Would it always be like this? The intensity of my feelings for him? What I felt from him? The secret thing that moved between us, that kept us moving closer and closer together until there was no him, no me, but only us—would it live as long as we did?
I breathed the lyrics around his mouth, and then I lost my breath when his mouth trailed down my neck, his teeth biting, his tongue licking, his warm breath moving like hot wax from a melting candle. When he reached my pulse, he sucked on the spot and I pulled his hair even harder. “You like it when I get rough with you.”
“I do,” I barely got out. “I am not made of glass.”
“No,” he said. “Just the fucking madness from the moon.”
I laughed at that, and then he dipped me, making me lose my breath completely. A second later, he pulled me close to his body again. “Let me remember,” I said, tapping my chin, pretending to think. “You do not sing and you do not dance.”
“Corretto,” he said. “I also don’t do the love thing. It’s not for men like me.”
“Ah.” I smiled even brighter, using my thumb to caress his cheek. His cheekbones looked as if they had been chiseled, giving him a fierce look. The look of a man who had seen and done many things. I was sure most of them were not good. “But you do with me.”
“Solo tu,” he said. Only you.
Even though the song was slow and romantic, we moved even slower, even closer. His breath was mine when I breathed in.
He took the fabric of the dress in his hand, almost violently, and I could feel the heat from his palm burning through the delicate lace. When he removed a strand of hair from my face, it was as tender as the breeze. “Ti amo, Alcina Maria Capitani.”
“Ti amo, Corrado Alessandro Capitani,” I breathed back. I closed my eyes, using his shoulders to lift myself, placing a soft kiss on his lips.
The song ended, the music changed, and more people were starting to dance, moving faster around us. Anna was making her way toward us with a few of our cousins.
Corrado grinned at me. “That’s my cue,” he said, giving me a firmer kiss, patting my culo as he did. His hand lingered as he put his mouth close to my ear. “It’s all fucking mine.”
I stared after him as he walked away and took a seat next to his nonno, his eyes finding mine after he’d settled. Even after I’d turned away, I could still feel them watching me wherever I would go.
17
Corrado
Don Emilio didn't expect my wife—who she was or what she looked like.
When I'd called him and told him the news, it was brief, very little detail, and he'd been satisfied to think Tito had arranged it all. That the sound of my voice, eager, had been more to do with expediting the process of being a mere spectator in the family business to a man who ruled the entire empire.
He didn't expect anything more.
In fact, the first time he saw her, before I had introduced them during dinner at Giuseppe’s restaurant two nights before the wedding, he leaned over and whispered