Chapter 22: Rain on the Roof

The room over the shed had a narrow bed, a rag rug, and a slanted ceiling that Santo had to duck under.

Rain drummed on the roof so hard that we could not have heard a car in the yard.

Luca was asleep in the house with Nonna's door open across the hall from his.

I had checked twice.

"Sit," I said.

Santo sat on the edge of the bed, and the springs complained.

He looked up at me in the lamplight with his hands flat on his knees.

"You said you'd ask."

"I'm asking you to keep them there."

His jaw moved.

"Where?"

"Where they are. Until I put them somewhere else."

I unbuttoned my sweater slowly and let it fall.

His eyes followed it down, and then came back up to my face, and I saw him swallow.

I pulled my shirt off over my head.

He made a rough sound in his throat and his fingers dug into his own knees.

"Alessia."

"You don't get to rush me. Two years I did without, and you can do a few minutes with your hands on your knees."

"You're killing me."

"Good."

I unhooked my bra and dropped it on the sweater.

I stood in front of him with my breasts bare and the cold air on my skin, and I watched him look.

It was not a look at a stranger, or a wife on a pedestal, or a woman he had paid for.

It was plain hunger, and a thing underneath it that I did not want to name yet.

I stepped between his knees and took his face in both hands.

I kissed him slowly.

He tasted of Nonna's coffee and rain, and his breath shook when I bit his lower lip.

"Now," I said against his mouth. "Touch me."

His hands came up at once.

One closed on my waist and the other cupped my breast, and his thumb dragged over my nipple.

I gasped, and he did it again.

He pulled me down onto his lap and put his mouth on my throat and then lower, and I held his head against me and arched.

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