Chapter Twenty-Six

I look at myself in the mirror and smile.

I'm still a little too thin, but there's a healthy glow in my cheeks. The makeup artists have made me look more beautiful than I ever thought I could.

The mass of my dark hair is piled in artistic waves on top of my head. I look like a true mafia princess, soon-to-be queen, and I am surprisingly pleased about that fact.

I had always imagined that Elio and I would just sneak away to some beautiful beach and get married with just a couple of witnesses. When I was younger, I had wanted to have him all to myself on the day we exchanged our vows.

I guess I had believed that having witnesses would make the moment less special and less important to me.

As a grown-up, I'm so glad that our family and friends are all going to be present at the wedding.

Elio even decided to allow Luca and Enzo, along with their families, to attend. Having peace among highly powerful mafia families is always preferable. They had been told sternly by Grazia not to cause any trouble. She had promised to beat them within an inch of their lives if they made so much as a peep during the wedding.

Now that I knew more about her, I recognized that she was fully capable of forcing two grown men with dangerous reputations to listen to her.

"You look beautiful," my mother says to me, her voice thick with tears.

She appears in the reflection beside me and kisses my cheek, leaving a smudge of red lipstick. She tsks and wipes it away with a wetted-down finger and I feel like a little girl again in the most delightful of ways.

"I'm so glad that you and Papá were able to be here," I say to my mother. I'm starting to see the resemblance between us more clearly now that I am older.

My mother is still a beautiful woman and I'm happy to be aging as well as she has.

"Our little girl, back from the dead," she whispers. She waves a hand in front of her face and squeezes my hands gently. "I have to go find my seat and your dad before I ruin my makeup by crying again," she tells me. "I'll see you in just a little bit, my angel."

I nod, my own throat closed off by emotion. I watch my mother leave the room and draw in a shaky breath.

Grazia already came and fetched Mateo to get him ready for his ring bearer duties. He was so excited that he was jumping around and asking a million questions. I have to admit that I'm glad that someone else is entertaining him for a little bit.

There's a sudden sound in the hallway outside the hotel room door and I turn around in surprise. Grazia is supposed to come and get me when they are ready for me to walk down the aisle but I should still have another fifteen minutes to wait.

"You're not supposed to be here," I chide Elio as he slips through the door and locks it behind him. "It's bad luck to see me in my dress before I walk down the aisle."

He laughs and pulls me into his arms. "That's just superstition," he says, kissing me.

"Even if it is, I can see that look in your devilish eyes, and you're going to ruin my hair and makeup," I insist, playfully pushing on him a little bit as he hugs me even closer to his body.

"I wouldn't dare, my sweet bride. You look much too perfect for me to ruin. We will have to do this carefully," he says. He pauses. "Unless you still aren't…" his voice trails off.

We hadn't had sex since the night before my accident. I had been so frail and so tired all the time that it just hadn't occurred to me.

In the past two days, with the wedding looming, I had been so busy with preparations that I had fallen into a deep sleep nearly the instant that my head hit the pillow each night. I felt well enough today, a little tired, but no longer aching with exhaustion.

My headaches had gone away seemingly for good just a few days ago as well, which was a relief.

"I'm okay Babe, I promise. It's been too long," I say huskily to him as I sit on the oversized bed in the center of the hotel room leaning back onto my hands as support.

I spread my legs lewdly, eager for his touch. "But if you ruin my hair, Grazia will murder you with her bare hands."

He laughs, and starts rummaging through the layers of my silky, white dress. "You are in here somewhere, aren't you?" he asks as he lifts layer after layer of wedding dress out of the way.

I chuckle. "Yes, I promise that you will find me if you keep searching.

"Oh! There you are!" he exclaims reverently, his fingers brushing against my most intimate self.

I gasp, my nerve endings tingling with sudden life.

He shifts the silky thong that matches my dress out of the way and begins to French kiss my pussy with vigor, causing me to mewl softly.

My soon-to-be husband eats me out like he's a starving man. I involuntarily grab the back of his head and I push his face into me more, as hard as I can with one hand.

I will be a happy woman if the rest of my days are spent being sucked on like a lollipop by this ravenous man. His hot, wet kisses get me painfully close to coming.

But he makes me wait for my release. He pulls his mouth away and brings his body up to lean over me slowly. He carefully lifts my dress out of the way, his narrow hips wedging up against mine.

He gazes at my exposed cunt. "Yes," he says with a nod and a smirk. "This will do very nicely."

I smile coyly as I watch him unbutton his pants and step out of them. He folds them carefully and places them over a nearby chair before slipping off his boxer briefs.

His cock springs free, eager, ready for me, and my core throbs in anticipation.

"Don't look at my garter at least," I tell him, shifting the clouds of dress down over the frilly little band around my thigh.

"Never even saw it," he reassures me playfully. "I only have eyes for this delicious little pussy." He dips three fingers into me and works them in and out, eliciting a gasp.

"Elio, stop teasing me," I tell him sternly. "I want your dick. I want you to fuck me."

"Hush," he tells me firmly as he continues to finger me. He kneels down and starts kissing his way up my thighs, giving me sharp, painful nips on each place that he has kissed.

The pain and the pleasure run together, just as they always do, making me writhe a little on my elbows. I want to fall back onto the bed, but I can't risk ruining my hair.

"I'm going to make a mess of all of this finery as soon as this wedding is over," he promises me. "I hope that you're not too attached to this dress."

I shake my head cautiously, aware of the weight of my magnificent updo on my head. "All I care about is that you fuck me. Now," I say, my teeth gritted together.

Elio gives me a pirate's smile and rises over me again, licking my wetness off his fingers.

He places his hands on my wrists, squeezing them hard. My bones grind together a little under the pressure of his fingers, and the pleasure spirals higher inside of me.

Suddenly, he thrusts his painfully big cock into me in one swift, sharp movement, and I cry out loudly, my back arching and my wrists singing with pain as he clenches them and presses them into the bed.

I twist beneath him, desperate to move, to seek my release, but the weight of the dress and the pressure of his hands on mine has me pinned firmly in place.

"Elio," I whimper, hungry for release.

"Did you miss me all those years?" he grunts as he dives inside of me. "Did you miss this?"

At the end of each thrust, he presses as far as he can, causing an added jolt of pain and pleasure to race across my skin, spiraling out from my core.

"Every moment of every day," I whisper, frozen in place, my insides riot of sensation that cannot be expressed.

"Did you think of me when you played with this perfect little pussy?" he asks me, his voice rough. I know him well enough to know that he's close to the edge and I lift myself an inch to meet his next thrust, crying out as I do so.

"Every single time," I say, each word timed with one of his deep and nearly painful thrusts into my body.

"I am never letting you out of my sight again," he grinds out, moving faster now.

His hands soften on mine, and I slip one hand free. I grab a hank of his thick hair and I yank on it. "Look at me," I commanded him. When he doesn't open his eyes, I yank again and he complies this time. "I am never leaving you again, Elio. Not ever."

I see the tide of his release threatening and I release his hair, falling back onto the bed on my elbows as my own orgasm washes over me in an explosion of sensation.

Elio lets go of my hands and leans over me, his body shaking.

"My God, Kate!" he growls, his voice choked with the intensity of the sensations tearing through him. "I love you. You are mine forever now," he says softly, shivering above me, his arms trembling.

I feel a moment of shining triumph. I had always wanted him to say my name when he came. It finally happened. I already feel like I'm married.

The ceremony is merely a formality now.

There's a moment of quiet in the room, our harsh breathing the only sound.

I look at Elio, his eyes closed, his handsome face reduced to stark lines. The thick fall of his hair is trembling slightly as his chest rises and falls rapidly.

I reach up and gently press his hair back from his forehead before I sit up and press him back away from me.

He slips out of me with a regretful sound, then pulls me to my feet with a gentle tug. He starts setting my dress back to rights and I glance in the mirror. I'm pleased to see that we didn't ruin my hair or my makeup.

The inside of my dress might never be the same, but no one else will ever know about that.

"Kate?" It's Grazia and she's twisting the handle of the door insistently. "Are you okay in there?"

I look at Elio and he shrugs. I don't care that we are caught either.

"Elio," Grazia says sternly. "I swear to God, if you have ruined her hair or makeup, I'm going to skewer you!"

We both laugh at her words. "You should know me better than that," Elio says back. He glances back at me and I nod. He pulls the door open to reveal Grazia in a beautiful pink dress, tapping her foot on the marble floor in annoyance.

"I don't need to tell you that this is bad luck," she states flatly.

We both laugh like children caught making out in the back seat and she rolls her eyes.

"Ugh," she says. She grabs Elio's wrist and tugs him out of the room. "You need to be at the altar waiting to meet your bride. Get going." She starts fussing over my hair and my dress, but then calls back to Elio, "Make sure that you act surprised to see her, at least."

"Yes ma'am," he calls back and I grin.

Grazia tsks at me. "Shameless," she says, tugging at the bustle on my dress. "You both should know better."

For some reason, I can't stop laughing. Grazia gives me an annoyed look, but then her face relaxes into a smile. "It's good to see you so happy," she admits.

"Thank you," I say. I take her hands. "Thank you for everything that you have done for both of us over the past few weeks."

She nods and smiles. "It's what my Nonna would have done. She used to say that life is fleeting and that we have to make the most of the times when things are good."

"She sounds like a wise woman," I say.

"She was," Grazia agrees, then she wags a finger at me. "And she would never, ever have approved of your husband seeing you before you walked down the aisle. However, since you two have been intended for one another since birth, I suppose she would have excused this lapse in good sense."

"I hope so," I tell Grazia. "We can't take it back now."

Grazia sighs. "Well, I don't think anyone else will know that you two jumped the gun on your wedding night by a few hours. Let's go."

I follow Grazia out into the hallway and around the corner where I meet my father. He bursts into tears the moment that he sees me, causing me to start crying again. Having my family back filled a hole in my heart that I didn't even realize had gotten so big.

Grazia rushes around clucking over us, applying mascara again and dabbing at my cheeks.

The walk down the aisle is a blur at first. There are so many people standing up and watching me approach the altar. I can't take in all the faces around me, so I just look straight ahead and smile.

Elio's wickedly handsome face swims into view and I focus on him with relief, tugging my father forward faster as we draw nearer to the man that I love.

As we get closer, I realize that Grazia didn't need to worry about a thing. Elio's cheeks are streaked with tears as he reaches for my hand and turns me toward the officiant standing before us.

"Dearly beloved…" the officiant begins. I think about Elio shouting my name earlier as he came, and I grin. This might be the ceremony that binds us together legally, but our marriage began ten minutes ago.

I look up into Elio's dark, sultry eyes. I know everything behind these eyes, he's revealed his deepest darkest secrets to me. His whole self. He doesn't have to feel the torture of his past alone anymore.

I know everything. I know him. And it only makes me love him more.

As the words of the ceremony wash over me I think of how grateful I am for this man that I understand inside and out. He turns to meet my gaze and the love that is reflected back at me fills my heart.

"I've got you," I mouth silently to him.

"You're mine," he mouths back with a smirk.

The road to this moment was long and winding. Fraught with pain and suffering, but none of that matters now.

Today is the first day of a life that I never thought I would actually get to live.