‘Do not kiss me,’ he warned throatily. ‘Or I will ravage you here and now.’
Skye’s eyes twinkled. ‘Then how about we go back to my place?’
‘Right now?’
‘Right now.’
* * *
They didn’t make it upstairs.
They barely made it to her sofa. Skye welcomed her husband back into her home and her arms, needing to feel him more than she’d ever felt anyone or anything. He kissed her, he held her and he made love to her in a way that showed her what he’d been showing her all along.
There was no way their chemistry was just a physical thing.
It was all of them. It was everything.
She lay on his chest afterwards, her head pressed to his toned body, listening to the strong beating of his heart and knowing he was right—that it did indeed beat in unison with hers.
‘Well, cara, what do you say?’ he murmured against her hair, adjusting himself slightly as he reached to their pile of rumpled clothes on the floor beside them.
‘About what?’ The words were heavy with satisfaction and completion. She was energised and exhausted all at once.
He brought his hand close to her face and she blinked her eyes towards him, moving so that she could see him more clearly. She stared at the ring box, and her heart kerthunked against her ribcage.
‘Would you consider wearing this ring? Will you be my wife?’
She wrinkled her nose. ‘I am your wife.’
‘Yes, you are,’ he agreed, pulling the ring from its position and holding it towards her. Skye pushed up higher and held out her hand. Her fingertips were quivering.
‘But I want the world to know it.’ His eyes glittered with her possessively. ‘With this ring, in this moment, with all my heart...’ the words were gravelled ‘...I thee wed.’
She stared down at it and smiled, meeting his eyes and nodding. She wasn’t even sure he’d asked a question, but she knew she needed to reassure him. To promise him that she had meant what she’d said in her lawyer’s office.
‘I had it inscribed,’ he said huskily, holding the ring out to her.
She took it and lifted it closer to her eyes, peering into the fine gold band and reading the elegant scrawl.
Tu sei il mio sangue.
‘You are my sangue?’ she asked, repeating the final word aloud.
‘You are my blood,’ he said with a nod. ‘And everything else of me. Always.’
A shiver of delight ran down her spine and she handed the ring back to him then extended her hand.
She watched as her husband slid the ring onto her finger—it fitted exactly. As though it had been designed for her.
‘It’s perfect.’
‘As are you.’ He pushed up and kissed her with a drugging, sensual need. ‘It is very old. One of six that were made in the middle ages by a famous Venetian designer.’
She nodded, but she was moving over him already, her hands and her wedding ring tangling in his thick hair. Over his shoulder, her eyes caught sight of the gladioli she’d purchased over a week earlier. They had begun to bloom without her noticing and they stood now, proud and confident, filled with colour and light, the promise of all that they were fulfilled.
‘You are as much a part of Venetian history as I am,’ he murmured and she nodded, tears sparkling in her eyes.
‘And I always will be.’