Atop a bed of chocolate silk, I lie completely naked and spread, waiting … just waiting.

The French doors to the balcony overlooking the ocean are open, a breeze blowing the sheer, champagne colored curtains hanging from them. My nipples peak when the cool, midnight ocean breeze sweeps across my heated and wanton body.

I cup my breasts and tug gently on the diamonds adorning the ends of the piercings, sending a wave of pleasure down my body until it reaches my core. My pussy clenches as I stroke my fingertips down my body and cup myself, applying just enough pressure to intensify my need. I gently rub around my clit, causing more pressure and pleasure to build, to burn, to ready myself.

Sliding a finger into my center, I moan as I curve it up, hitting my sweet spot, while using the other hand to pinch my nipple harder.

Closing my eyes, I continue to build the desire as I wait for him. And when he appears, his milk chocolate eyes rake down my body as he removes his crisp, white, button down shirt, slowly revealing his exquisite body inch by inch to me. The black ink covering his hard, ripped body causes more fire to burn deep inside me.

When his shirt falls to the ground, he runs his hand over his thick black hair that has specks of silver near his temple. He ages like the finest of wines made from the grapes grown in the vineyards we once played in as children.

“You couldn’t wait for me, Valentina?” His voice is husky and oozes with desire, desire for me.

“I’ve yet to come,” I purr, allowing my legs to fall to the sides, giving him a better look at what I know causes his mouth to water, showing him what he yearns to taste, to touch. Displaying what once was his and still is.

He unhurriedly unbuckles the black Italian leather belt around his trim waist, letting it hang open as he slowly works his button and zipper with his thick, long fingers. He then pulls his belt out inch by glorious inch, one loop at a time, as he watches me rub my soaked slit.

“My pussy is more beautiful now than I remember when I …” he sighs, not saying it. He never says it.

He pushes his thumbs slowly under the waistband of his undone slacks, providing me a glimpse of the deep-cut muscles that form a V.

I lick my lips, wetting them, preparing them for him.

My love.

He pushes his slacks down slightly, just enough to tease and torment me, exposing the thick root of his cock.

My insides clench. I want so badly to ease the burn.

“Wait for me, Valentina,” he whispers as I watch him push his pants farther down.

He is beautiful.

His cock is growing thicker before my eyes.

He pushes his slacks farther down.

I know his cock like it is a part of me. I know how much is still covered.

“You want my cock.” It’s not a question. It’s a statement. He knows it.

Yet, I still tell him, “Yes.”

He pushes his pants down fully now and stands up.

He is the only man I have been with whose cock doesn’t stand erect. It can’t. His thick, heavy cock hangs between his legs perfectly, resting against tight, large, magnificent balls.

I inhale the salty scent of the sea air, willing him closer so I can smell his manly scent over it.

He grips his cock, swiping his thumb across the broad head. Then he lifts it up and rubs his forefinger against his thumb, spreading the pre-cum between them as he walks closer to me.

“Would you like to taste my cum, Valentina?”

I nod.

Walking closer to my naked body, flames burn behind his eyes. Flames that haven’t lost their heat, their luster, their desire for me.

“Move closer to the end of the bed. I want your beautiful hair falling off its edge while you look up at me as I feed you.”

I turn my body, letting my head hang over the edge of the bed as I look up at him. “Feed me …”

I hear the whispers. Whispers then the giggles.

My loves.

I roll to my side, wishing for just ten more minutes of sleep as the bed dips behind then in front of me.

“Feed us! Feed us!”

The giggling begins, and then the jumping.

I open my eyes to my reality and try to sit up while my girls, my wild ones, jump on my bed, demanding to be fed.

I grab them both, one in each arm, and pull them down onto the mattress before tickling them.

“What would you like this morning?”

“Pancakes!”

“Go brush your teeth and give me ten minutes.”

I get a kiss on each cheek before they scramble off the bed and run for the door.

* * *

Standing under the water in the two-person shower, I let myself remember what I was … before them.

Trouble is said to come in threes, but not in my life. It has always come in twos. Like when my parents died in a double-engine aircraft, on the second of February, leaving behind two children—me and my brother Dominic. And in my life, I thought I had loved two men. One was no such thing. He was a liar, a manipulative snake who groomed me from the time I was my daughters’ ages to believe he was my savior. The other was in fact my savior. He was my love in the purest and truest form. Until he betrayed me.

Now I am without a lover, except in my dreams, every night, the same one as last night.

My true love used to fuck women, two women at a time. In his belief, those women wanted each other more than they wanted him. Therefore, he was free from the responsibility and burdens that caring for a heart held. He did not want to cause anyone’s heart to break.

Two weeks after he betrayed me, I found out I was pregnant. Two weeks after that, I found out I was pregnant with twins.

Two.

My beautiful girls, Francesca and Antoinette, were born on April fourth. Double trouble. And they certainly are.

My identical twins are mischievous, little beauties. Some days, they try tricking me into believing they are the other. Last night, it was during teeth brushing. Antoinette, or Toinette as we call her, brushed her teeth twice. As exhausted as I was, it almost went unnoticed. But having grown up with an overprotective brother and a bodyguard turned lover as my biggest role models, coupled with what I have been through in my life, I notice things. And this, I noticed immediately.

Toinette is the quieter of the two. She likes softer colors. The pale pink paint on her toes as opposed to Francesca, or Cesca’s, plum was a dead giveaway that landed them both in trouble.

After breakfast, I braid their long, black hair and make sure their uniforms are properly pressed before I take them to school and drop them off. My daughters attend a private Catholic school where they learn about religion, as I believe it’s important to have that foundation because, without it, what is there to hope for aside from material things?

I want my girls to be strong like me. I want them to hold their values and beliefs so tightly it becomes an extension of who they are, like their father. I want them to know right from wrong, regardless of what life shows them. I want them to be a perfect part of two people—me and him—only different.

After dropping the girls off, I hit my morning yoga class before heading home to work.

In my office, I smile as I look up at the sign my aunt Joe gave me when I took my old lifestyle and fused it into my current one. I was once a half-assed student who lost my dream of working with animals when the animal Benito ruined me. What I became great at is partying and posting on social media. People loved it. Then I went from a socialite to a single mom, and they apparently liked that just as much.

I began getting products mailed to me from baby companies to review and promote after posting monthly pictures of my fast-growing belly. I stuck my nose up at most of the products, and Aunt Joe found them in the garbage. She talked me into giving away what I didn’t like. Overnight, my social media likes blew up. Then I began getting two of each product sent to me; one to keep and one to giveaway. I also started getting checks and direct payments into my account for doing so. My popularity grew, and so did an income I didn’t really need but appreciate.

So now, while my girls are at school, I do video tutorials and post random things about my day and my girls.

Still blows my mind that I get paid for this.

* * *

Sighing, I lean against the doorframe of their shared room. One side is painted pink, the other plum. Even if color didn’t separate it, you would be able to tell which side belonged to which girl. I thought they would have grown out of wanting to share a room, but they haven’t.

I watch them sleep, like the beautiful angels they are. Beautiful, protected angels who I will make sure no one ever ruins ever.

I glance at the windows and see they are locked, but I already know they are. We checked them together, all three of us. No one will sneak in here and put thoughts in their heads they shouldn’t have.

The nightlight is glowing a soft yellow, so when they wake in the night, they will see no one is standing at the end of their bed, watching them. Plus, the security system that was installed by my cousin Cyrus is said to be unbreakable. I have tested that theory … several times.

Every night, every single night for all these years, I have slept like shit because the man who was there, even when he wasn’t visible, who always protected me, is now gone. He’s gone when he should be protecting what our love created.

I hate him for it.

Pushing myself off the doorjamb, I sigh as I pull my hair up into a messy ponytail and slide the elastic band from my wrist to tie it. Then I walk into their room one last time to kiss their foreheads and glance around before walking out the door, locking it behind me, knowing they are safe, sleeping, and protected by me, their mother.

Walking down the down the stairs, I see the picture of him proudly displayed on the same walls that pictures of our girls hang. He may have betrayed me, them, us, but I would never let them know I felt that way. I want them to know that the man who was their father was good and strong, and would have loved them had he not been killed the night he slayed the dragon.

Walking into my room, I move past the bed, open the doors to the balcony, and look up at the stars. Using my finger, I outline the constellation of Orion as he shines down over us, reminding me of Franco.

* * *

Waking to the empty bed, I stretch and take in the scent of him, of me, of us, of passion and sex and lust and want and need.

My body is sore, deliciously so. My insides ache, not only from the all-night love making session we shared, but the need for him to fill me again.

Hearing the water in the bathroom running, I force myself out of the bed and make my way into the bathroom. The glass shower door is fogged over, as is the mirror. I open the door to find it empty.

“Franco.” I laugh as I yell out his name, knowing he has done this to toy with me, because I tricked him in the same way.

I grab the white terrycloth hotel robe and wrap it over my body as I walk out of the bedroom and into the suite.

Seeing Aunt Joe at the table, with her husband Thomas standing beside her with his hand on her shoulder, I look around.

“Valentina, sit please.” She pushes out the chair that is beside her.

I shake my head because, in her eyes, in her voice, in her unmistakable likeness to her mother, my grandmother, a memory is triggered. The memory of the day my parents’ plane crashed.

Unlike Grandmother, she doesn’t insist, she stands as her eyes fill with tears.

I step back when she reaches toward me.

“Dominic?” I ask while retreating.

“He’s on his way home from Italy to be with you,” she says, taking another step toward me.

“Then who?” I ask, knowing by the emptiness in the room and the one that is quickly filling my heart that the answer is Franco.

“He was shot,” she whispers, no longer allowing me to walk away as she grabs me and hugs me.

I sob, and so does she.

“He killed Benito,” she whispers repeatedly, as if to sooth me, but it doesn’t.

* * *

Today and nearly every day for the past nine years, I wish I had possessed the strength to kill him myself; kill Benito DeLuca, the man who made a desolate and worried little girl trust him by telling her that, when the rest of her family was gone, he would make sure she was all right, because Segrettis die, but DeLucas live forever. When no one else was there to ensure I was taken care of, he told me that he would, and that I would be his. Hearing that from a man after being sent away with the blessing from my everything, my brother Dominic, gave me hope … until I found myself pregnant and he denied my calls.

When my private school contacted Grandmother, she made me promise to never mention it to Dominic, to protect him by keeping the secret that would ruin him, the family, the business, and what was left of my reputation. It wasn’t until then that I found out that was why Dominic wanted me gone, because he thought I would be safe from the danger he saw, the one I took refuge in because, at that time, I was too innocent to know men like Benito existed.

I hate him. I hate him for everything he did to me, to Franco’s sister, and to my girls; my beautiful girls who don’t know the man who slayed dragons for us all—their father, my one true and beautiful love.

Walking down the hallway, I kick off my shoes. My cousins’ wives always comment on them. It starts with how beautiful they are, and then gradually becomes something along the lines of: how the hell do you wear them all day, every day? I wonder how the hell they don’t, but to each their own.

As I walk down the hall, I can’t help admiring our home. I was pregnant when I purchased the beach house. It wasn’t done without consideration of space, security, location, and privacy. In all honestly, I can thank Dominic, Aunt Joe, my cousins, and Vincent for making me truly consider all those things.

Without them, I have no idea what kind of mother I would have become.