When he starts moving, I stop thinking completely.
When he moves even faster, I can only cling harder.
It's like being on a ride that just goes up, up, up, while my body tightens more and more and more. I know I'm going to fall, fast and hard. I just don't know when. And it's the not knowing that makes me sob.
That makes him grit my name out against my mouth.
His arms tightening around me like he's afraid this is the moment he loses me.
His voice doing something I've never heard a man's voice do before—saying my name like it's the only word he's ever wanted to know.
And when it finally does happen, it's not a fall.
It's the opposite.
Like everything I've been holding for eighteen years is finally being held by someone else.
Like my body remembers, before I do, that there's such a thing as being safe.
“Mine,” he murmurs against my throat.
“Yours,” I whisper back.
His. Mine. His.
Sei mia.
Sono tua. I'm yours.
He says my name in Italian. Then in English. Then in a language I don't think anyone speaks but him.
And every time he says it, I'm a little more his. A little less alone. A little less the woman who's been living with the silence of Como.
Later.
I don't know how much later.
The light at the windows has gone soft. My head is on his chest. His heartbeat's under my ear.
His hand is moving in my hair. Very slowly. Like he's afraid that if he stops, this'll turn out to be a dream.
He's not stopping.
I'm not sleeping, but I might.
I turn my face into his chest. His skin is the warmest thing I've felt in eighteen years.
I never want to move.
I open my mouth, against the place where I can feel his pulse moving.
“I love you, Mr. Sestini.”
His arms tighten.
I feel his lips at the top of my head before I hear his voice.
“Ti amo, signora Sestini.”