Our clothes fall away. Adriano's body covers mine, his hands roaming everywhere, bringing out pleasure with each caress.
“I need you,” I say, pulling him to me, opening to him. He slides in, and arch, savoring the moment we become one. Sometimes, I’m still amazed that we’re here. We’ve come through the hardship and now we’re two souls joined.
We move together. It’s like the most perfect dance. All the pain of the past is gone, replaced with love and a promise of a happy future.
“Fuck,” he groans. “I was going to make this last all night, but?—”
“We have all night to do this over and over again. All our lives, really.”
He smiles down on me. “I bet we’ll break the record for the most times a married couple has sex.”
I laugh. “We should keep a tally.”
“No doubt.” He rolls us until I’m on top. “Do we tally each time we have sex or the number of orgasms?”
I rock over him. “Both.”
He levers up, his lips kissing my nipple before capturing my lips. His fingers slide over my clit, and immediately, I’m soaring into pleasure.
“One,” he murmurs against my lips.
I push him back. “Now it’s time for two.” Moments later, orgasms two and three rush through us.
Later, tangled in sheets with his hand protectively covering my stomach, I marvel at how life works. Four years ago, I fled thisworld, never planning to return. Now I've found my home in the last place I expected.
"What are you thinking?" Adriano kisses the scar on my temple.
"Fairy tales do come true.”
EXTENDED EPILOGUE
Alessandro
I watch Isabella Vitale from across the ballroom.
Her dark curls cascade down her back as she laughs with my sister, Valentina.
She's stunning, no doubt.
And she’s my future wife whether either of us wants it or not.
It feels criminal. I’m thirty-three years old, perfectly happy to be a bachelor.
My siblings are married and procreating all around me. I don’t need to join in.
And yet here I am at my engagement party, about to marry a woman who’s only eighteen.
I swirl the amber liquid in my glass as I reflect on how I got here.
Eighteen months of hell, and this is where we've landed.
A marriage alliance with the same family that plotted our destruction with the Bratva.
"You look like you're planning a murder rather than a marriage," Adriano says, appearing at my side. My younger brother has changed since finding Eva and learning about Mirabella. The edge is still there, but there's something softer too. Fatherhood suits him.
"Maybe I am," I mutter, taking another drink.
"She's beautiful," he observes, nodding toward Isabella.