King of Stars (The Next Generation #2)

48. Matteo

Chapter 48

Matteo

O ur December wedding came faster than I thought fucking possible, but then again, the days slow-ticked for me. One set of test results said Stella was in the clear, but the tests that would reveal the future—whether it was hereditary or not—hadn’t come back. The geneticist said that, even without the tests, her family history indicated she was at higher risk for having the harmful cells.

What the fuck was taking so long to get those test results back, if he was so sure?

Stella said it would take a while, but two months felt like torture. If we could save her from what her mamma was going through, I wanted to do it as soon as possible.

Her life was mine. We were tethered together. I couldn’t live without her. The thought cast a dark cloud over my world. I couldn’t seem to fucking escape it.

I was a man of action. I’d told her to get the preventive care that day. But she refused. Said she wanted to know what the test results said first. Waiting to act felt like wasted time to me, though.

I even wanted to cancel the second wedding, but Stella wanted to keep the date. She said it meant a lot to her that her mom would be there. I agreed for her sake—I’d steal the stars and give them to her if they made her eyes light up like they did when something made her happy.

After that day in the doctor’s office, I thought she’d be as panicked as she was the day her mom had told her she needed to get checked. But after she walked out of the doctor’s office, she seemed calm, and she told me everything was going to be okay.

At first, I thought she was so calm because the results of the genetic testing had come back and were fine, but I knew better. Those kinds of tests did take time to come back, but not this fucking long. I was going to speak to the doctor myself when we got back to Italy. We were supposed to take a honeymoon to Germany, to stay at the castle where I’d gone after I’d first found her, but I was debating on whether we would take a detour back to Italy first.

Something just wasn’t fucking right. The unease. The heaviness in my bones. Whatever anyone wanted to fucking call the rock in the pit of my heart that I couldn’t dislodge. It made me feel like I’d only felt four times in my life.

When my mamma almost died.

When I left Stella after finding her.

When we found Stella, and she had been unresponsive.

When Stella was grieving for her mamma.

And then.

The fifth time.

When I didn’t know what the fuck was going on inside of my wife.

My life felt like it was spinning me around, and I was out of fucking control.

Until a knock came at the door, and I closed my eyes for just a second. When I opened them, she was standing before me, shimmering like the star she was.

Then we were reaching for each other, our fingers entwining, the world orbiting around us.

We’d decided to see each other before the vows for the second wedding.

“I don’t even…” I set my hand over my heart, mimicking the beats of my heart. Too fast. I felt breathless. My heart at her feet, along with my knees, even though I was standing tall, pressing this gorgeous creature that would always be mine hard against me.

This gown was the total opposite of the one she wore in Tuscany for our first wedding. This one seemed to be made of glittering material. When the flames of the candles caressed her gown, she was going to shimmer, the brightest thing in my eyes. The dress was long-sleeved, showed off how tiny her waist was, but it flared out, and the train must have been at least eleven feet long. Her veil was even longer, decorated with embroidered northern stars. Her hair, which cascaded past her breasts, was pulled up on the sides, and her gray eyes seemed almost electric.

“Here,” she whispered, pushing us even harder together. “We don’t have to say anything. Our hearts will always do the talking.” She gazed into my eyes and turned my hand over, pushing up the sleeves of my tux jacket and shirt. Across my wrist, over my pulse, was the star coordinates from the night we’d met.

If my mind was ever lost, my body had the map to find her again. I leaned in and kissed her forehead. She closed her eyes.

And maybe we were both transported for a second to the place we met—not the chaos that had surrounded us, but the complete peace we’d found in each other with just one look.

“I have a surprise for you too.” She opened her eyes, a smile on her face. She lifted the hem of the heavy gown and turned her foot some.

Her heels had a bow that tied around her ankles, and her legs looked…I whistled low while my hand roamed up her leg to her garter. She closed her eyes and shivered.

“I wonder if this is how the stars feel when the night caresses them,” she breathed out. Then she opened her eyes and looked at me. “Those are your mom’s wedding shoes. I liked the idea of walking toward you in the same shoes she walked toward your father in. I love their love.”

“Not as much as ours.” My voice was rough, my emotions hard to express.

She used her pointer finger to bop me on top of my head. “Untie that one.”

I did, and when I set it aside, she used my shoulders to keep steady. I turned her foot a little, and on her heel was a matching tattoo to mine—the one with our coordinates. My eyes flew up to hers.

“Where you go, I follow, Matteo Fausti. My life began on that night too.”

I secured her heel, making the bow as perfect as the other one, and then stood, feeling like a bastard who was about to get his queen for the second time. Our parents met us outside of the door, along with Uncle Tito, who took my spot, Stella’s mamma on the other side. My mother-in-law couldn’t resist the old gangster’s charms either. She was happy to share the walk with him.

If Stella noticed that both of our mammas were dressed in black, she didn’t comment on it. I kissed her hand before we separated, me to wait at the top of the stairs in the grand foyer for her.

I’d wait centuries for her. And if my heart couldn’t take another beat without her, I’d fight monsters to get to her.

As my grandfather serenaded the room with his rich, warm voice, a collective gasp seemed to echo, causing the thousands of candles to sway. My star had arrived in a sea of darkness to share her brightness with me. When she reached me, I took her from Uncle Tito and her mamma, and she whispered as we walked to the priest who’d married us before, “Why is everyone in black?”

I lifted her hand and kissed her chilled fingers. “Because I requested that of them. This is a representation of who you are to me, Stella. The rest of the world was always in the darkness with me, but the moment my eyes found you, you became my light. La mia stella .”

She started to cry, tears streaking down her cheeks.

We repeated our vows.

I had new ones for her.

She had a few for me.

I slipped a diamond band on her right hand, third finger, because I not only wanted to claim one hand, but both of her hands.

Then we partied, Stella changing into two forms of her main gown. As the night grew thinner, the hems of the gowns became shorter.

It was never about where, or when, or what we wore or didn’t, or whether cameras were present. If we were together, hearts and souls willing to entangle in the vows we spoke to each other, nothing else mattered to me.

“Same Matteo Fausti,” she whispered to me as the clock struck twelve and we welcomed in a new year. Fireworks blasted in the distance above the Eiffel Tower.

I kissed her until she melted in my arms, even in the frigid cold, and she was holding on to me like she might lose herself if she didn’t stick to my bones.

I kissed her like the first time.

I kissed her like it was the last time.

I’d always kiss her this way.

It was her right as my wife to feel everything I did for her. It was my right as her husband to take pleasure in serving her that way.

The honor of my life.

“Estella Valentina Fausti,” I whispered roughly against her lips, “we’ll welcome one hundred more nights like this one, and it still won’t be enough.”

Her eyes slowly opened. “How can you be so sure…you’ll always want me like this? That you’ll always want me this much?”

I hit my heart with our hands, mimicking the beat beneath the surface. “When it comes to you, this rules me, and it tells me so.”

“In what language?” She smiled.

I growled at her as I pulled her closer and kissed her neck. “Every fucking language.”

She laughed even harder, and we left, a plane waiting to take us to Germany for our honeymoon. I agreed with Saverio that the wedding on French territory was pushing fate enough. But we let them all know.

We were there, and my heart was with me, and they would have to kill me to get to her again. The thought stirred something inside of me, and I couldn’t stop staring out the window in our room at the castle, snow twirling outside of it while a roaring fire crackled behind me. I took a sip of the bourbon in my glass, letting the spice and caramel and chocolate flavors caress my tongue before I drank it down, where it made a small fire in the pit of my stomach.

I’d given my wife the day and night, and I’d give her the next day too, but I wanted answers. I wanted to fucking act.

The thought of losing her…it took my breath away, and it seemed like it was lost to the cold, a surge of wind causing the small flakes to twirl in a panicked flurry.

A vision in a silver robe and barely anything underneath was reflected in the glass behind me, and even though our eyes met and the connection started to move, she tapped me on the shoulder when she got close enough.

I set my glass down, then turned, my hands reaching out to bring her closer. The silk was cool, and I wondered if I’d burn through the fabric with the heat from my palms. A heat that was hotter than anything I’d ever felt when her skin touched mine.

I stepped back, bowed to her, and asked her to dance. “It would be my greatest honor.”

She curtseyed to me, laughing quietly. “Mine as well, Signore Fausti.”

When I looked up, she had the biggest smile on her face, and she nodded at me.

I took her hand and, instead of doing anything fancy, we swayed, gazing at each other.

“We don’t have any music,” she whispered.

“What does the lady request?” I lifted a brow at her.

“Mmmm…how about the song we danced to for both weddings, at the receptions?”

“Anything my heart wants.”

I cleared my throat and sang to her. She sang the female singer’s parts. We danced just like we had at both receptions, singing to each other, only the two of us existing in the world. Our voices were quiet, though, the popping of the logs in the fireplace louder than us.

“This song,” I whispered. “Tell me, la mia stella , who do the two of them need.”

We swayed, and she turned her face away from me, toward the window. “Only each other.”

I set my pointer finger underneath her chin and turned her face back to mine. Her eyes rose to meet mine. “That’s it, Estella. Only the two of us. That’s all we need. Nothing else will make me happier or keep me here.”

She sighed, and her breath smelled like mint, her skin floral. Her bright scents seemed to dance with my darker ones. Bourbon. Cigar smoke. Cologne.

It was making me fucking high. Like if I didn’t tear her clothes off, and she didn’t tear mine off, and our bare skin didn’t touch all night long—all life long—the bourbon I’d just drank would turn into poison in my system, and the only antidote would be her.

Dramatic?

Perhaps.

But when it came to this woman, my heart had no boundaries. It felt what it felt, and my body was only the conductor of it.

“Matteo…” She looked me in my eyes. “Give me this night. Tomorrow. Our entire honeymoon to just…breathe and not think about anything but us. Can you do that for me?”

My hands stiffened, and I realized I was holding her too tight when she moved her hands, like she was reminding me that I was holding on too tightly.

Fucking right I was.

I’d always hold on to her like my life depended on it.

It did.

“Please.” Her voice was tender, but there was an undercurrent to it that was rough, like she was being patient, but if I didn’t agree, she wouldn’t be.

We’d fight.

I sighed. Lifted my pointer and middle fingers. “Two weeks, if the results don’t come sooner.”

She sighed. Then she looked away from me, real demure, and smiled, a little shyly. “Don’t you want to unwrap me?”

She gasped and beat me on the back when I picked her up and threw her over my shoulder, bringing her to a bed that could sleep ten. I set her down on it gently, untying the silk bow keeping the robe together. It opened to another fucking world.

“You are so beautiful, Stella.”

“Your light?” Her eyes welled, and I wiped the tears away, rubbing the salty droplets against my lips and drinking them down.

“ Per sempre .”

Our eyes connected, and it was like the biggest star in the sky had come out to shine just for me. The connection between us moved like the warmth the fire was giving off, but even hotter. I felt it down to the marrow of my bones—a cold fire. From her. From me. Coming together.

A feeling I’d never felt before and had become so fucking addicted to.

“Teo?”

“ La mia stella .”

“The cold used to burn me. It’d burn me so bad that I wasn’t sure if I’d live through the night, not even with that big fireplace in the dungeon she kept me in. But—” she reached for me, unbuttoning my shirt, running her hands along my skin, flinging my shirt to the floor “—when I’m touching you, just near you, your warmth runs the cold away and…I feel so good. So good, I can feel myself lighting up, wanting to get lost in your warm eyes. In the safety of your darkness.”

Fuck me.

I was in the light of the brightest thing to ever grace my life, but I was still so lost.

So lost in this woman who could bring me to my knees with a look.

A touch?

A touch could end me, if the beating of my racing heart pounding against my ribs was the truth.

It was.

My lips were slower, though.

So were my hands.

As I served every inch of my wife’s skin with my body.

I sucked the pulse in her neck, leaving a mark I knew would last for days.

Deeper below her skin, on the pulse of her life, my mark would stay forever.

“Teo,” she barely got out, opening her thighs to me, her slick wetness glowing, reflecting the fire, the sweet smell possessing me.

It felt so fucking good, tasted so fucking good, it was like she was melting into me, and I was melting into her.

Groaning, a sound from deep inside of my chest, I went to her, burying myself inside of her so deep, I gave her all that I was, and she took it, bringing me home.