King of Stars (The Next Generation #2)

20. Matteo

Chapter 20

Matteo

S tella couldn’t stop staring at the sky while I fanned the blanket out underneath an ancient olive tree. Its roots boxed us in on both sides, but the area I’d set the blanket down was clear of them. Only grass grew wild. A soft bed underneath our blanket underneath the stars.

Her back was turned to me as she gazed up. “I can’t believe this,” she whispered. She reached up a hand and waved it against the sky. “It’s like I can touch them.”

“Mamma always says it looks like someone spilled a jar of olive oil in the sky, and what’s floating around is specks of glitter. Papà says it’s a 3D light show.”

“They just seem so low. So real. Like I’m touching them when I raise my hands like this.” She added both hands and moved them like windshield wipers. “I’m expecting them to swoosh or something.”

I laughed, but it was one that stayed in my chest, the sound a bit gravelly in the night. I stepped up behind her and wrapped my arms around her waist. I stuck my nose in her neck and breathed her in. She smelled like magnolia, gardenia, a bit of rose, and musky woods—sandalwood, maybe. It wasn’t strong, but just enough to linger on the clothes and in the air around her.

The perfume was as romantic and feminine as she was. It clung, but in the safest fucking way possible. Even when she wasn’t in the room, I could smell it. The scent of a woman.

My woman.

I’d always been raised to be a man of honor. But I couldn’t claim those shoes fit as well as they were supposed to until Stella appeared in my life. Just standing next to her, I’d never felt like such a man before. I knew the longer we were together, the more comfortable those shoes would be on my feet.

She entangled her arms with mine and somehow got our fingers the same way. “I had no idea stars like this existed. A clump of them.”

“They brighten the night sky, ah?”

“ Ah ,” she said with a smile. “They do.”

“That’s who you are to me, Stella. You brightened my life the first time I saw you.”

She turned her head and looked into my eyes. And there she was. A bright speck in the night. Her pale skin and silver dress reflecting light in the dark pools of my eyes.

“My life won’t always be light,” I whispered.

She gave me a fierce look and nodded. “Running this family, right?”

“Right. I’ll need you to cut through the darkness with your light when I get lost in eternal nights.”

She rested her head on my chest but didn’t move her stare. “You’ll need me to lead you back to me when the darkness tries to eat you whole and take you away from me. I won’t allow it, Matteo Fausti. To this family, you’ll be their leader, but you’ll always be my love.”

My hold on her became tighter, and she gasped some, but didn’t try to pull away. “Don’t make a promise to me that you can’t keep.”

Our eyes held.

I counted the breaths she took.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five.

“I promise you, Matteo Fausti. You’re it for me. I couldn’t imagine being caged or free in life with anyone but you. I’m—I’m not sure if I could make it. Maybe that’s why I kept going for so long when I thought I couldn’t take another day. Mom. The thought of her burned in my darkness. You. You were there all along with me in the darkness.” She kissed me, a kiss that sealed the words she’d vowed to me underneath the stars.

A strangled noise came from my throat, half human, half animal. The hell she’d been through put me inside of her nightmares at night, and I’d spend the rest of my life keeping her in heaven.

Before Stella even registered the noise, I tucked her behind me, the gun I kept strapped to me already in my hand.

“Wha—” Stella started.

“Don’t shoot!” A woman’s voice interrupted.

“Evelina,” I said.

“It’s me and Wolf, Teo.”

I lowered my gun and tucked it back in. Evelina and Wolf appeared out of the darkness. His humongous black wolf—the real wolf—followed behind. He was sniffing around, and when he came close to Stella, she stiffened.

“He won’t hurt you,” Evelina said, patting his head.

Stella’s eyes flickered down. She was being as still as a statue. The wolf nudged her hand, and to show her that he was, mostly, friendly, I patted his head. Evelina’s hand and mine hit when she went to pet him again, and she started laughing. Wolf, the man, made a low growl in his throat and pulled Evelina close. Stella was already close, and I added some pressure so she would feel me. Prove to her that there was nothing to be fucking jealous of.

Wolf said something to the wolf in Russian. The wild dog left Stella’s side and sat next to Wolf. The wolf’s tongue lolled out.

“You have met a wolf before,” Wolf said in broken English, but it was enough to understand.

Stella nodded. “Boris,” she said. “He has one. She ate Ivan’s heart.”

My eyes narrowed. She turned to me.

“The night you showed up in Sub Rosa. After Ivan was killed. Boris got Ivan’s heart in a box. He fed it to the wolf.”

“A treat,” Wolf said.

Stella gagged.

“Okay,” Evelina said. “We were just doing a sweep of the land, and now we’ll leave you both alone. No more visitors.” She made a noise with her mouth, like she was calling a puppy, and both wolves followed behind her.

I took Stella’s left hand, and she didn’t even notice that I did. She was fixated on the disappearing forms ahead of us.

“Stella,” I said. It took her a moment to look at me.

“She’s really beautiful and smart, Teo ,” she said.

“She is. So is my sister. Your point?”

She sighed, sagging in my arms. “I’m not sure why I feel this way. Like I want to claw her eyes out for…nothing. Wait. Have you taken her here before?”

“We’ve been here before as a group. It’s been a minute.”

“I can live with that,” she whispered.

I smiled and, leaning down, kissed her nose. I had a feeling Stella was going to have a hot jealous streak. Her fierceness and passion had already claimed me as hers. And I couldn’t control it. My dick got so hard, it was almost fucking painful.

She looked down and then into my eyes. A flicker of light from her left hand, finally, caught her eye. She lifted her hand, checking out the new diamond ring on her ring finger. “Where did this come from?”

Burying my face in her neck again, I laughed a little. “Me, baby.”

She looked between me and the ring, confused. I could tell she was wondering how I’d done it.

“You were busy looking elsewhere,” I said. “Not paying attention.”

“Maybe I have nerve damage.” She lifted her left hand. “How could I not feel this? It’s gorgeous, Matteo.”

“ Bene, ” I whispered, taking her hand, placing it against the sky. “See these side diamonds? The ones that streak out. They’re not really diamonds. Some of them are moissanite, from a meteorite.”

“Oh, they’re from the sky. What about the others? From the sky too?

“Real diamonds.”

“I love it, Matteo.” Her eyes seemed glued to her hand.

“A year, Stella,” I said.

“What about a year?” She looked away from the ring and at me.

“We’ll get married.”

She grinned. “You didn’t ask.”

“You want me to?”

“No, you don’t have to. Spoiler alert, though. I would have said yes.”

“Tell me, are you saying yes now.”

“Yes,” she breathed. “Why a year, though?”

This time a wild smile overtook my face, and she blinked, blinked, blinked at me. “In a rush?”

“Yes, I want a claim on you.”

I opened my arms. “You have it.”

She shook her head. “Not the same. But why a year?”

“I want to give you time to adjust to life.”

“Your life?”

“Life in general.”

She looked away from me again, and then her eyes flew up. “Does your mom or dad not like me? Oh man. Nonno? Did I make a fool of?—”

I pulled her in so fast, she gasped before my mouth found hers. She pulled away when she couldn’t breathe.

“Nothing like that,” I said. “In fact, Nonno gave permission for our marriage at the end of dinner.”

“He did?” She looked thunderstruck.

“He did.” I led her to the blanket and bent down, taking her shoes off, moving them to the side. I ran my hands up her legs and she trembled. I continued doing it as I said, “My family doesn’t always speak directly. It’s an art form to speak the truth without saying the words.”

“ Okay ,” she barely got out. Her eyes were shut tight, and she was absorbing my touch.

She was so pliable, it didn’t take much to get her on the blanket with me. I used my body as a shield against the ground, placing myself between her and it. She rested her weight on me and got comfortable in my arms as we both looked toward the sky.

“New Year’s Eve,” she said.

I looked down at her, but she kept gazing up as she expanded on the date.

“Let’s get married then. I always wished for a new start—every year. I think it would be…perfect.”

“That’s over a year.”

“I’m not sure if I can last that long.” She grinned. “But…what do you say?”

“I say, whatever you want, you get.”

“That easy, huh?”

“Say the words. That’s it.”

She fiddled with the ring, and I noticed her breathing had picked up. Each slide of my hand along her arm made goose bumps rise. After a minute or so, she turned in my arms. Her eyes matched the stars in the sky, and she had a celestial quality about her. So beautiful, she almost seemed unreal, but it was believable that she’d burn like cold fire in my arms.

Crawling up my body some, her eyes never leaving mine, she started to fiddle with the buttons on my shirt. “If…if I understand the language of saying something without having to say something…and can communicate that way, do I get what I want? You can’t say no to me, if I do.”

I nodded, watching her closely. I’d already set my jacket down. She was working on the buttons of my white shirt. When she was able to free me from it, her eyes roamed over my chest. They stopped over my heart and narrowed. Her hand traced the shape of the tattoo there.

“This is new.” She became quiet and then breathed out, “Stars.”

I moved her hand over the writing. “ Na muri scrivutu ne stiddi. Un amore scritto nelle stelle .” I helped her trace the shape of the two interlocking stars, then her name. “ Stella .”

“You got this for me?”

“Yeah.” My voice came out gruff.

In a rush of air, she started kissing me like her life depended on it. Mine fucking did. I needed her kiss, her acceptance, more than air. The kiss grew wilder and wilder as we tussled on the blanket.

“You are so fucking beautiful,” I said as my hands roved over her curves, the dress feeling like a barrier I was about to burn down with my palms.

She looked like she landed on top of me, straight from the stars that seemed to be moving behind her. Her eyes came to mine, and she started moving on top of my cock. I hissed out a breath, and before I could recover, she lifted her dress from over her head.

“Fuck,” I breathed out, reaching out to caress a finger over her breasts. She wasn’t wearing a bra, and her underwear were nothing but a thin piece of silky material.

She lifted up some, shimmying the underwear down, tossing them with her dress.

This sweet creature was naked before me, and even the stars above couldn’t compare. She was the most beautiful thing my eyes had ever seen.

She reached down and ran her hand along my length. My hips went forward, and her eyes lowered even more. Her mouth parted, like she wanted to say something, but she was doing this another way. Her palms were against my chest, and she lifted herself up some, her hips moving a little. I ran my fingertip along her lips, and she closed her eyes, her fingernails sinking into my skin.

“What do you want, baby?” I whispered. My voice came out like I’d just eaten a bunch of rocks, and they were grating against my throat.

It took her a second, like she had to remember who she was, and she shook her head. “My way,” she breathed out. She reached between us and undid the button on my pants.

Once we were both naked, she took my cock in her hand and tightened her grip. I pulsed into it. She moaned at the stroke of my hot cock against her cool hand.

“Do you understand, Matteo Fausti, what I’m saying without me saying it? What I want?”

I flipped her over, making her gasp, and then silenced her with a kiss that was too hot for even the stars to survive.

This woman was going to be the death of me.

I couldn’t control myself with her. She couldn’t control herself with me.

We were like two wild animals, brought back to primal need, as we rolled around on the blanket all night. When I wasn’t buried inside of her, we were constantly touching, kissing, licking. She was stealing my fucking breath. But I needed more of the theft. She needed more of me.

The blood of her vow to me stained her thighs, my chest, over my heart, after I smeared it there and vowed to her in Italian to always want her only. Tears dripped from the corners of her eyes, but she told me it wasn’t because she was hurting. She couldn’t contain all the feelings inside.

Beneath the stars that led me to her, our bodies seemed to remember each other from centuries before, but we were new and making more vows for centuries to come.

I’d never felt like this before.

Yeah, the women I’d had in my life couldn’t seem to get enough of what I could give them. Even things I couldn’t. Such as love, promises. But with Stella, it was different. She was the first woman to ever make me crave the taste of her skin, her kiss, and to know that I’d crave it until my dying breath. And whatever came after, I would always be there with her.

What took you so long?

Maybe a fault in the stars, wrong directions, but whatever the reason, I couldn’t imagine being late finding this woman in whatever lifetime we were sharing again.

Her fingers lightly touched the blood on my chest. “Giving myself to you in that way…that’s a vow?”

I pulled her fingers to my mouth and kissed them. “ Sì . It means you can’t leave me, and I can’t leave you.”

She lifted her upper body and leaned on her palm. Her hair was a mess, and her eyes still lowered in a bedroom stare. She traced my lips, and I bit her finger. She breathed out before she smiled. “I don’t plan on it.”

I looked at her seriously. “We talked about this before—once we made love and the blood vow was final, so was the rest of our lives.”

“I know. I agreed. Eleven times, maybe more.”

“Thirteen,” I said. “A lucky number in Italy.”

“Call me the winner then.” She leaned down and rested her palm over my heart, her chin over her hand. She yawned. “Is this normal? How many times we’ve done it?”

“Done it ?”

“You know what I mean.” She shoved against my chest and we both laughed, but it was quiet, only for us and the ancient trees to hear. “How many times you’ve been inside of me…” Her voice trailed, and I tucked a strand of hair behind her ear as she came in for a kiss.

Our tongues tangled and our hands entwined. My body was a magnet to hers, and we couldn’t seem to separate. As the kiss grew deeper, more intense, she started to moan into my mouth. I flipped her over, cleaning her with my shirt between her legs, before I moved my lips from hers to her neck, even lower, to her chest, the spot over her heart, and then to each hardened nipple, sucking until she started to squirm.

She made the sweetest fucking noise, pulling me closer.

“Shh,” I whispered against her skin, kissing her all the way down to her thighs. I spread them open and started to lick her clean. She fisted the blanket and started pushing herself against my mouth, and when she came apart, it was in a soft rush that sent me upwards, burying myself in her warm wetness. I couldn’t go any deeper, but I kept moving, my hips pulsating, my rhythm slow but filling her up to the brim.

She made the sweetness noises while her eyes were closed, lost to the space only she and I had created.

“I love you,” I whispered. “ Ti amo .”

“Ahhh,” she sighed out long and soft. Her nails barely scraped my sides as she encouraged me to keep going. “This feels so good. So good. I never want to stop. Never stop. Never.”

I kissed her lips, claiming her mouth, as my body became the husband of hers, and hers the wife of mine. Just those two words, husband and wife, sent me into another sphere. I had to control the impulse to marry her in a few hours.

The thought did things to me.

Things my body took and converted to a wild energy that ran through me and then through her. Even though the weather was mild, almost chilly, we were both sweating. My body was working to please hers, the grunts from my chest deep, and she was climbing, climbing, climbing, until she shattered with a cry that seemed to make the leaves tremble above us. I spilled myself into her and then pulled her close, using my jacket to cover her.

“I think I need sleep now,” she said, yawning. Her eyes closed, and I kissed her between them.

She was a silent sleeper unless her sleep was restless. Then she tossed and turned and said things I couldn’t understand. But after that night in the hospital where I’d first touched her in the bathroom, she’d slept soundly. She said I tired her out in the best way. She’s told me that even when she danced in Sub Rosa, she never truly felt tired after she got back. She said her room made noises and she didn’t like it.

The thought made me pull her even closer, and she clung to me, entwining our arms and legs in a way that could have made a knot. I sighed. I could die this way, so close to her. In her arms.

My eyes rolled to the top of the tree, where the morning sun was just starting to lighten the spots between the branches. I lost track of time as I watched the leaves tremble and sway with the cool winds that would breeze by. It was a moment of complete peace.

A white butterfly, or maybe a moth big enough to be a butterfly, came flitting down. It hovered over our heads before it ducked even lower, flying around Stella. I tried to wave it away, but it seemed to come even closer, and something about it made my heart race. Like it was fucking trying to tell me something.

I didn’t fucking like it.

Without disturbing her too much, I was able to extract myself from her. I went for our clothes, dressing in record time. I brought her clothes over, ready to wake her up, but stopped cold. The thing with wings fluttered around her stomach, dipping like it was looking for a safe place to land, or maybe water.

“Baby,” I said, swatting at it. “It’s time to get dressed.”

“Ah?”

It came back for her head, and I shooed it again with my hand. I hit it and the top part of Stella’s head, making her hair stand up even more. The white winged creature took off in the opposite direction. I had no clue why, but it made all the hair on my body stand on end.

“Stop messing with my hair, Matteo,” she said, voice full of sleep.

She was like a puppet, and she let me dress her without hardly opening her eyes. I had her clothes on her in record time and picked her up. Leaving the blankets and everything else behind, I rushed toward the villa, bathed in buttery light as the low Tuscan clouds broke around it.

Mamma was in the kitchen, making coffee. The scent of it, so familiar and so rooting, floated through the air, along with rose perfume. Papà sat at the table, his eyes on my mother. I could tell she was antsy as she toyed with the straps of her white robe. When mamma turned to look at me, I swallowed hard and then nodded toward the steps. She nodded back.

I carried Stella upstairs and tucked her into bed. I kissed her, and she cracked her eyes open. “Again?” She stretched her arms.

“Sleep, baby,” I said, kissing her on her lips again. “I’m going to go for a run with my father.”

“Okay.” She turned over, wedged my pillow against her body, and fell asleep again.

I turned the fan on for her, changed my clothes in the bathroom, and then got a few things together for her. I left them on the table next to the bed, then went downstairs.

Mamma and I faced off when I walked into the kitchen.

“Tell me,” I said in Italian.

My father stood, but she held a hand up.

“I don’t know,” she said.

“You don’t know.”

She shook her head. “I don’t. If I did, you know I’d tell you.”

“Something’s wrong,” I said.

“I don’t know,” she repeated again. “The white moth?”

I nodded. “Whatever it is.”

My father looked at her and then at me.

“We saw it the night Ettore held Mia from me,” mamma said. “I dreamed of it last night.”

“Is she sick?” I forced the words out.

Mamma flung the coffee cup at the wall, and it broke into irrevocable pieces. She had a temper, especially when she was frustrated with herself. When she couldn’t understand the feelings talking to her. “I don’t know!”

“She had so much bloodwork,” I said. “When she was in the hospital.”

“This all could have to do with the Nemours. What’s coming.”

“We will increase security,” my father said in Italian. “We won’t let her out of our sight.”

“Yeah,” I said. “But if it’s something else…” I couldn’t stand to even finish the thought. My heart felt like it was cracking in two, while my blood heated, making me sweat. I needed to fucking destroy something, or I’d tear the entire world down.

“Meet me in the gym in five,” my father said, taking the steps two at a time.

Mamma set her hand on my shoulder. “Remember, my son,” she said in Italian. “Your sister was fine. I truly believe Stella will be too. Have faith.”

Fine wasn’t good enough for me. I left mamma in the kitchen, staring after me. With each step that I took toward the gym, the uncertainty of the future haunted me to my bones.