"I know," he says, the same, and moves.
The sensation that arrives is like looking directly at the morning water when the sun first hits it, that particular moment when the surface goes from gray to gold all at once, total and complete and impossible to look away from. Colors behind my eyes that have no name, warm and spreading, and my back arches off the bed and I make a sound that fills the room and Tomas's hand tightens in my hair and Matteo's mouth at my breast finds the peak and presses and the sensation becomes two things at once, layered, one over the other, and the colors behind my eyes brighten and spread.
"There she is," Santos says, warm and satisfied and close, and I feel his smile against my skin.
The wave moves through me the way the tide moves, not quickly, not all at once, building from somewhere low and spreading outward in layers, each one warmer than the last, until it reaches everywhere at once and I see the water again, the way it looks from the kitchen window at first light, all those ripples moving outward from a single point, spreading and overlapping and spreading again.
Santos moves up beside me and his mouth finds mine and I taste him and the saffron and the tiramisu and the afternoon, and his arm comes around me, warm and broad, and I press my face into the curve of his neck and breathe him in and my strawberry scent and his saffron sit together in the warm air of the room like something that has been waiting to be combined.
"Bene?" he says, against my hair.
Matteo has moved to lie beside me on my other side and his pale eyes are on my face and he reaches out and tucks a strand of hair back from my cheek with two fingers, careful and deliberate.
Tomas sits at the edge of the bed and his silver musk is steady in the warm air of the room and he puts his hand over mine on the sheet and holds it with the quiet deliberate warmth of a manwho has made a decision in a library on a Wednesday and has not once revised it since.
"Not rushing," he says. "However long. Whatever you need."
"I know," I say. "That's the thing. I know."
The heat moves through me again, warmer and deeper, and our combined scents fill the warm room completely, the way the evening fills the island, gradually and then all at once.
Santos moves over me carefully, his weight on his forearms, his warm brown eyes on my face with complete attention.
"Still with me?" he says.
"Completely," I say.
"Tell me if anything," he says.
"Santos. I know."
He kisses me again, deep and unhurried, his tongue warm against mine, and I taste him and the afternoon and the saffron, and then he moves and the sensation that begins is the sea at its morning best, the way it looks when the wind comes off the water and the surface goes into those long rolling waves that travel all the way to the shore, slow and inevitable and warm all the way through.
I close my eyes.
The colors are back, warmer this time, richer, the specific warm amber of the September afternoon light coming through the window and landing on the water, and I feel Santos's breath at my neck and Matteo's hand at my hip and Tomas's warmth at my side and the wave builds and builds and builds in the way that waves do when they have had the whole ocean to build in, nothing rushed, nothing forced, just the slow gathering of everything.
"Jennifer," Santos says, against my neck.
"Yes," I say.
"Look at me," he says.
I open my eyes.
He is right there, warm brown eyes dark and direct and completely unhidden, and the saffron in the air is warm and certain and everywhere, and I look at him and the wave arrives.
It arrives the way the morning does, not all at once, but in layers, each one warmer and more complete than the last, spreading from the center outward the way the light spreads across the water at dawn, touching everything, and the colors behind my eyes are gold and amber and that color the water goes at sunset that I still do not have a name for, and I make a sound that belongs to nobody performing anything and everything feeling something completely real.
Santos says something in Italian against my neck, low and private, and his arms tighten around me and he holds me through it with the particular steadiness of a man who has been thinking about this exact moment for six weeks and intends to be present for all of it.
When the wave settles I lie still for a moment and feel the room around me.
The warm air. The September gold through the window. Our scents are braided together the way they have been braided in this room, settled and certain and entirely without apology.
"All right?" Matteo says, from beside me, his voice low and warm, the controlled surface of him entirely absent.
"More than," I say.