“You’re looking at the message again, aren’t you?” I say as I finish my dinner, setting my fork down and crossing my arms to rest on the table.
“Sorry, I know it’s rude, I-”
I wave it off, shaking my head. “Oh come on, I don’t care about that, Serena—I can tell something’s bothering you. Did your mother have bad news to give you? Is she okay?”
She looks up at me with a little relief, as though she’s glad to know that I’m only worried about her wellbeing first and foremost. Done with her food, she pushes it aside while I scoot my chair to sit beside her and look at the message she shows me.
“Here, look at this.” She holds out her phone to me, and I take the little thing in my hand. She has an app pulled up—a secure, encrypted messaging app that makes it difficult to trace without the kind of resources only a government agency might have.
The little glowing screen displays a message that looks like it’s from Serena’s mother Luisa. But it’s nothing. It’s just one, simple little letter. An X. Probably accidentally hit it while she was getting dressed or something.
“Am I missing something?” I ask, handing the phone back to her. “I don’t understand, it looks like an accidental text from Luisa.”
Serena looks at me with increasingly worried eyes. “Mom outright refuses to use texting, she always has. She’s like, you know, old-fashioned. She’s always just called me and kept me talking for an hour or even hand-written a letter. The few times I’ve ever gotten a text from her, it’s just been something quick like ‘call me.’ I’ve been trying to get her to get better at texting for years, but she never budges.”
I furrow my brow. Any other time, I wouldn’t worry about something like this, but now of all times, I have to admit that just about anything could make me suspicious.
“Then why just an X? Why not send you just a normal greeting?” I ask, crossing my arms.
Serena shakes her head, still looking at the screen. “No... It’s that... When I was younger, and I first got a cellphone, she hated the idea. She thought I was going to spend all my days on it and get bad self-esteem. The only reason she let me get it, is in case of emergencies. I guess because of dad’s job. So when we agreed to get a family package, she made me promise to text her with one letter if I was in trouble.” She trails off, looking to me with worried eyes.
I frown, rubbing my chin with a hand for a moment before I reply.
“An X,” I guess, and Serena nods.
“But that was for you texting her, and that was a long time ago. Do you really think it’s not just coincidence?”
Serena frowns, looking at the phone again.
“I want to think it’s a coincidence, but she hasn’t gotten back to me since. Do you think this is her secret SOS?”
“Luisa isn’t totally in the dark. Through some of my friends back home, I had her updated on some very basic details about what’s going on—she knows she can’t reach you by letter-mail right now or make international calls.” I smile warmly and add, “We have eyes on her, too, remember. She’s probably safe and sound, and like you said, probably got frustrated trying to type up a text.”
“True, that’s possible,” she admits, not looking totally convinced. “But that still doesn’t explain why she hasn’t gotten back to me. Gosh, that sounds overly paranoid, doesn’t it?” She leans an elbow on the table, resting her head on her hand and rubbing her forehead.
“Not at all,” I assure her, giving her shoulder a squeeze and massaging her neck with one hand a little. “You have every right to be worried for your mother. This is why we take precautions. Tomorrow, I’ll get in touch with my men and have someone check up on her to make sure everything is okay.”
She smiles at me, looking appreciative. “I’d like that. Thanks, Bruno.” She looks back down to the phone, pursing her lips a little. “I’ll just try texting her again, and let her know that I am going to die in pasta heaven.
“Bene,” I say and wave down the server to beckon them over to us. “In the meantime, though, don’t think you’re getting out of here without dessert,” I say, a smile on my face, but when I look back to Serena, I see her looking at her phone with worry.
I listen to my lover when I see that kind of worry on her face.
And whatever the real situation is with that message from her mother, I don’t have a good feeling about it.
14
Serena
“Oh god, I’m stuffed,” I groan, sitting back in the chair. Across the table, Bruno laughs, setting his fork down and taking a sip of his red wine.
“I’m a little jealous,” he says, looking back to me and grinning. “I wish I had the excuse to eat for two.”
I pat my belly. “Well, don’t be too jealous. I think the whole getting-to-eat-a-lot thing is really only a fair trade-off for the constant exhaustion and nausea.”
“How has that been lately, by the way?” he asks, leaning forward and furrowing his brow. I love the way he does this—effortlessly transitions from goofing around to taking me very seriously. I can tell that underneath his jokes, he’s often worried about me. Worried about the baby.
He keeps his concerns to himself most of the time, probably because he doesn’t want to give me anything else to fret about, but I know him better than anyone. I can see when something is bothering him.
I can feel it.
“Much better, actually. I think being around your family and… well, you, has helped a lot with the sickness,” I assure him, reaching across to take his hand.
He nods slowly, and I can see the cogs turning in his mind.
“I’m sorry, Serena,” he says suddenly, his face going solemn, his voice lowering.
I tilt my head to one side, confused at this sudden apology.
“Sorry? For what?”
He looks back up at me, those bright green eyes full of feeling.
“It’s my fault. How rough the past few months have been for you. I should have been here, by your side, helping you all along. I feel like I abandoned you at the worst possible time. You’re carrying my baby—our baby—and for all that time you had to do it alone. I can’t help but think that’s the reason you were so sick. You were stressed out and scared and lonely, just like anyone would be in that situation. I should have been there, Serena. I’m so sorry.”
I give him a smile, shaking my head.
“Bruno, I don’t blame you for anything. You know that, right? None of this is your fault.”
“If you hadn’t met me, gotten tangled up in this mess—”
“Then I wouldn’t be carrying this baby,” I interject. “I wouldn’t be in love with the most amazing man in the world. I wouldn’t be here right now, sitting in a genuine Italian restaurant eating genuine Italian pasta and drinking a very small, very cautious glass of red wine.”
I shrug and squeeze his hand.
“Bruno. You have to understand: I don’t regret anything. I don’t regret any single thing of what has happened since you came back into my life that day at Bathing Beauty. Hell yeah, it’s been difficult. Of course, it has. But it’s worth it. Everything—every hardship, every moment of fear, every misstep, it’s led me here. With you. And I can’t think of anywhere else I would rather be right now.”
He stands up and walks over to help me up, kissing my hand like a true gentleman. Gazing into my eyes with pure devotion, he says, “I’ve never met anyone quite like you. So strong. So brave. Our child is lucky to have you as a mother. And I am lucky to call you my fiancée.”
We pay the bill and stroll back out onto the cobblestone streets of this quaint little countryside village. The sun is setting over the golden hills, casting pink and orange streaks through the sky. There’s a pleasant breeze keeping us from getting too hot in the balmy, early summer evening.
Hand in hand, we walk down the street toward the sound of live music playing, both of us wondering what the commotion is all about. We turn a corner into a village square ringed with vendors selling gelat
o, wine, spritzers, sgagliozze, and cannoli. There’s a band of lively musicians playing folk music while in the center of the square, a big gathering of people are dancing, some in couples, others in groups of young women.
There are many more people sitting at little tables arranged on the perimeter, watching the dance while they sip wine and chat. It’s an almost magical scene: the music, the laughter, the smells of salt and sweetness mingling in the air.
Bruno turns to me with an adventurous, mischievous look on his handsome face.
“What?” I ask warily. He grins and pulls me along behind him as we join the dancers. “Oh no, Bruno, I’m not much of a dancer!”
“Don’t worry,” he says, grinning, “I am.”
He takes the lead, spinning me around through the village square, teaching me how to find the beat and move fluidly with the music, without ever saying a word of instruction.
At first, I’m awkward, my face burning bright pink with embarrassment. Everyone around me seems to have taken dance lessons their entire lives or something. They all move freely and smoothly, never missing a single beat, whereas I feel like someone’s weird grandpa at a family barbeque.
But gradually, between the little bit of wine I drank and Bruno’s patient faith in me, I begin to loosen up. And as soon as I turn off my brain and just go with the flow, it’s like the music takes over my body, and suddenly I can dance. Maybe not like a professional, but at least nobody is laughing at my awkward moves.
Before long, I’m grinning and laughing, not giving a single damn about who may be watching or judging me.
After all, when I take into stock what’s really going on here, how can I be self-conscious?
I’m dancing in a picturesque Italian village with the man of my dreams!
When the song ends, we walk over to a vendor to buy a cannolo to share, and on the way to find ourselves a table to sit at, a few men suddenly swarm over to us, laughing and shouting. For a split second, I’m afraid, until I see them all smiling and calling Bruno by name. Bruno’s face lights up when he sees them, opening his arms to embrace each one of them. They begin to speak very quickly in Italian, but I can sort of follow along if I pay attention.
“Bruno! Is that really you, my brother?”
“Holy shit, man! You used to be shorter than me, what happened?”
“What are you doing back in Apulia?”
“How long has it been? Ten years?”
Bruno answers each of them happily, laughing and clapping them on the shoulder as he reacquaints himself with old friends. If there’s one thing I’m figuring out very quickly, it’s that Bruno was very well-known in these little villages.
When I think about how much of a ballsy troublemaker he was when he was a kid, it makes sense. He’s always been so charismatic and fun to be around, of course everyone back home would adore him.
He spends a few minutes chatting with them, introducing me as his fiancée, giving them a very sanitized version of the events which led us here.
Luckily, all his old friends appear to have been drinking, so they don’t ask any questions. They just seem happy enough to see Bruno again. They don’t need all the gritty details.
After a while, they head off, presumably to keep drinking and meet up with some women.
Bruno and I eat our dessert, listening to the music while he explains to me how he knows each one of the men who just came up to us. It turns out that most of them were schoolboys together, and they took part in many of Bruno’s pranks on teachers and other students. He assures me that they never did anything too destructive, but they were definitely not teacher’s pets, either.
It’s so strange to me, hearing how silly he used to be as a kid. By the time I met him, he was already so mature by comparison to all the guys I had classes with. He seemed like an adult, like he was world-weary and knowledgeable about everything there was to know.
But I guess the life he led, leaving home to work hard for his Uncle Carlo in America, must have changed him. Roughed up those soft edges he used to have. Now that we’re so comfortable together, I can see little pieces of that old silliness and lightheartedness shining through sometimes. But it does break my heart to think of how quickly he had to grow up as a teenager. None of it was his fault, but he was the one who paid the price.
The band strikes up another song, this one slower and more romantic. Bruno takes my hand and leads me out onto the dance floor again, pulling me close.
We spin slowly together, cheek to cheek, his hand on the small of my back. With the tempo change, most of the single dancers have gone to sit down, leaving just the two of us and a few other couples.
The singer croons about old lovers rediscovering one another, about old vows being renewed, about being together forever and ever in love. It’s enough to make my hormonal heart beat a little faster, and I find myself fighting off the tears in my eyes. At the end of the song, Bruno kisses me softly on the lips, his hand cradling the back of my head like I’m something delicate, something precious.
He rests his forehead against mine and whispers, “I love you, Serena.”
“I love you, too,” I answer, smiling.
As we walk off the dance floor, I see several people seated at the tables looking at their partners with lovesick eyes. They scoot closer to each other, hold hands. There’s definitely been a shift in mood. Where before the square was filled with high-spirited laughter, now there’s a seriousness, a sense of heavy romance in the air. And the two of us are affected the same way.
Bruno leads me down the winding streets, away from the bright lights strung up from lamppost to lamppost, away from the music and the smells and the crowds of people. The further we walk, the more alone we are.
We arrive at a lovely, perfectly-manicured little park on the edge of the village. It overlooks the cliffside below, the hilly fields dotted with grazing animals and flowering bushes. The moon now hangs high in the velvety dark sky, only barely illuminating the face of the man I love, his flawless features nearly glowing before me.
He leans in to kiss me, softly at first, then more passionately. He pulls me in tight, our bodies pressed together so I can feel every rippling muscle. His hands slide down over my hips and around to cup my ass.
His tongue pushes gently into my mouth and I moan, feeling my body warm with excitement at his every touch. His hand roves up my body to grope my breasts, his thumb circling over my nipples, poking through the thin fabric of my dress. I shudder, feeling somehow both weak and powerful in his arms. I don’t know how he does what he does to me, but god, I hope he never, ever stops.
He breaks the kiss for a moment, his eyes sparkling as he looks down at me.
There’s a question there. My heart starts racing.
I murmur, “Go ahead.”
He grins mischievously and scoops me up, carrying me over to the thigh-high stone wall that circle the park and keeps people from falling over the edge and down the cliffside. He sets me down there, wrenching my thighs open with his leg as he kneels down in front of me. I can scarcely breathe, my whole body is on fire, anticipating whatever he’s going to do to me.
Some part of me is acutely aware that this is dangerous. I’m literally sitting on the precipice of a painful, terrible fall. And at any moment, someone else could come strolling by and catch us out here, two lovers in the park. But I don’t care. The only thing I care about is Bruno.
He slides the hem of my dress up my thighs and hooks a finger under the band of my panties, tugging them down, exposing my sex to the night air. I shudder at the coolness of the breeze, my hands gripping the stone on either side of me. Bruno looks up at me with a hungry stare, green eyes shining in the moonlight.
And then he leans in, his tongue flicking over my clit, enveloping my dripping pussy in his warm mouth. I toss my head back and groan, goosebumps prickling up on my arms and legs as he devours me. His tongue pulses in and out of my aching hole, sliding up and down the length of my sex, drinking me in. He plays with m
y clit, suckling at the tiny bundle of intense nerves until I’m bucking my hips, my hand on the back of his head, holding him there.
“Fuck,” I murmur breathlessly, “don’t stop, don’t stop!”
He nibbles gently at my clit, then sucks it into his mouth, his tongue swirling around it expertly. I whimper, feeling my whole body start to tense up. He always knows just what to do, like he knows my body better than I do. Like I was built for him alone.
Bruno spreads my thighs wider and slides one finger inside me, curling it ever so slightly to stroke my g-spot deep inside while his tongue works my clit. The sensation is almost overwhelming, almost enough to make me recoil. But if I withdraw, if I pull back from him, I could fall—down, down the cliff behind me. There’s no place else to go. I have to just suck it up and deal with the powerful, intense waves of pleasure radiating through my body.
“Oh my god, oh my god, Bruno!” I gasp, closing my eyes as my orgasm mounts. He groans into my pussy, and I can tell he’s enjoying this. He loves it: sending me into near-hysterics with that amazing mouth of his. His finger slides in and out of me faster and faster, his tongue circling my clit until I’m almost in tears.
Finally, I erupt into shivers of exquisite bliss, climaxing and gushing sweet honey all over his finger. Bruno eagerly licks up every last drop, not even letting up for a moment while my thighs tremble and I whimper incoherently.
He looks up at me, those green eyes fierce, almost frightening in their intensity. He stands up quickly, turns me so that I’m almost lying down on the stone ledge, one foot safely planted on the ground, the other leg dangling off the edge. He unbuckles his jeans, tugs them down along with his boxers.
His cock springs free, long and hard, and I can’t help but gasp as he reaches down to rub my clit with his fingers, keeping me slick and wet. He’s really going to fuck me right here on the edge of a cliff, in a public park, with a village gathering just streets away from us!
I moan, wriggling toward him, my body aching for him. My heart is pounding, all my senses heightened by the pure danger and thrill of what we’re about to do. “Please,” I whisper, “do it. Fuck me right here in the open. I need it, Bruno. I need you.”
Bound in Love Page 13