#mtoc

[arklayvirus]

Sanctuary Beyond The Wall 「 18+」

Pairing ⛤ Enzo Favara x Fem! reader

Word count ⛤ 18.2k

Summary ⛤ For three months they meet under the moon, sharing pages and setting duty aside—the distraction both of them need. After one charged moment in the wine cellar, they can’t stop thinking about each other, and going back isn’t an option.

Tags ⛤ 18+, NSFW, p in v sex, unprotected sex, oral sex (f receiving), fingering, handjob?, creampie, aftercare, slow burn, sexual tension, wet dream? forbidden yearning, hurt/comfort, angst, employment, Catholic/religious themes, outdoor sex, slow dancing, cum, improper use of cross/rosary, catholic guilt, I will never use the notes app again, first time smut, I think I over did it, idk how to tag.

A/n ⛤ I would drag my body through the Sahara desert and walk through a mile of broken glass while simultaneously sipping sewer water just to taste a single droplet of his cum and feel him rearrange my guts.

(Please tell me what y’all think ◡̈)

Previous ⛤ The Quiet Thrill

For nearly three months, you kept slipping into Enzo’s thoughts the way night settles over the vineyard—quiet at first, then everywhere. While hauling crates or rinsing tools, he’d catch himself replaying small moments: the tilt of your head when you listened, the quick smile you saved for the end of a sentence, the way your eyes checked the corners of a room before you moved. It wasn’t dramatic. It was steady and persistent, like a song he couldn’t turn off. 

You’d fallen into a rhythm together—meeting by the garden wall every other night when the courtyard finally emptied. You knew which door hinges breathed when they opened and how to slip past them. He knew the lock. He’d kneel under the cypress, listen for the pins, and you’d keep an eye on the corridor. In and out of the library, quick and careful, the two of you would pick something to borrow. The next evening in the garden, you traded thoughts like contraband: a favorite line, a turn of character, the way a chapter left your pulse a little high—and returned it before dawn. The work of it, the trust of it, had become its own kind of habit. 

But Enzo had begun to notice something else—the way exhaustion lived in your shoulders during those stolen hours, how your hands trembled when you turned pages, not from nerves but from the bone-deep weariness of starting each day in darkness. He started timing his work differently, finding excuses to cross the courtyard before sunrise as you hurried to the kitchen, catching glimpses through windows as you labored over pastry long after the others had retired. The festival season had you trapped in an endless cycle, and he could see it wearing you thin even in moonlight. 

Tonight he finds you in the wine cellar, tucked behind the largest barrels where shadows gather thick and stone walls muffle sound. You’re perched on an overturned crate, back to cool stone, eyes closed, head tipped back in a moment of stolen stillness. Your black dress is dusted with flour, sleeves rolled past your elbows, and your hands rest limp in your lap—the first time they’ve been motionless in hours. The festival preparations have the estate moving at double pace, but you’ve taken the worst of it. Down here, away from Signora Benedetta’s sharp eyes and the suffocating heat of the kitchen ovens, you can finally breathe. 

“Thought I might find you down here,” Enzo says softly from somewhere between the wine racks, his voice carrying just far enough to reach you. 

You open your eyes, but you don’t move—too tired to startle, too grateful for the interruption to pretend you weren’t hiding. His footsteps sound on stone, careful and deliberate, before he emerges from the maze of barrels. He’s still wearing his work clothes, dirt under his nails from whatever task kept him in the fields until this hour, and he’s moving differently—slower, more cautious, as if carrying something fragile. 

You let out a long breath that’s been trapped in your chest for hours. “If Signora Benedetta asks, you haven’t seen me.” Your voice is barely above a whisper, but it carries a bone-deep exhaustion that makes even speaking feel like work. “I have three dozen more cassata to finish for tomorrow’s dinner, and if I don’t steal ten minutes of quiet, I might actually collapse into the sugar work.” 

He stands across from you, close enough that you can smell the vineyard on his clothes—earth, grape leaves, and the exhaustion of proving yourself again and again. 

Dim light filtering through the cellar’s small windows catches the tension in his shoulders, and you realize he’s not just checking on you. “What about you?” you ask, studying the set of his jaw, the way his hands hang too still at his sides. “You look like you’re hiding too.” 

He doesn’t answer immediately. He runs a hand through his dark hair and leaves it there, fingers pressed against his scalp like he’s trying to hold something in. The silence stretches between you, filled with the estate settling into evening—footsteps overhead, the clatter of dishes, voices carrying down corridors that feel a world away from this dim sanctuary. When he finally lets his hand fall, there’s something raw in his expression that makes you sit up despite your exhaustion. 

You lean forward without thinking, your hands folding in your lap, flour still caught beneath your fingernails. The movement brings you to the edge of your makeshift seat, close enough to see his jaw work like he’s chewing words he can’t quite swallow. The wine cellar feels smaller now, shadows pressing in around you both, and you realize whatever happened today has followed him down here—the same way your exhaustion drove you to hide among the barrels. 

“Had to collect from the Torrino family today,” he says quietly, the words coming out flat and careful. You know that tone—it’s the one he uses when he’s trying to keep emotion locked away, when whatever he’s carried back with him is too heavy to examine in full light. “Old man Torrino, he…” Enzo stops, shakes his head, and you can see him weighing… how much of the darkness he’s willing to let spill into this space that’s become your shared refuge. 

You don’t press him for more. You’ve learned some of his work lives in a space where questions aren’t welcome, where even closeness has boundaries you can’t cross. 

But you can see the cost of whatever he carried out today written in the tight line of his mouth, in the way he keeps his distance even as he seeks your company. The festival season means more than extra pastries and late nights in the kitchen—it means debts come due, and Enzo is the one standing on doorsteps to see they’re paid. 

Understanding passes between you without words, as it always does when his other life brushes too close to these stolen moments. You shift on your crate, wood creaking under your weight, and study the line of his shoulders, the way his hands won’t stay still. 

There’s something magnetic about his restlessness tonight, something that makes you want to reach out and still those flexing fingers with your own. But you don’t. You never do. 

Instead, you curl your hands tighter in your lap and let the wanting settle in your chest like a familiar ache. 

“You should sit,” you say quietly, gesturing to another crate an arm’s length away. Close enough to share this sanctuary, far enough to keep the boundaries that protect you both. “You look like you’re about to wear a groove in the stone.” 

He moves toward the crate you indicated but stops just short of sitting, fingers brushing the rough wood as if testing its solidity. 

The hesitation makes your breath catch—you know that pause, the way he weighs every action when you’re this close, as if proximity is its own danger. When he finally settles onto the makeshift seat, the careful distance between you feels like salvation and torment at once—close enough to smell the vineyard on his clothes, far enough that your skin aches with the space he’s left unfilled. 

He’s looking at you now with the expression you’ve come to know—the one that says he’s thinking the same dangerous thoughts that keep you awake at night, wondering what it would be like if the world were different, if you were different people with different lives. The festival lights filtering through the small windows pulse with your heartbeat, and you look away before you do something foolish  like close the distance between you. 

“Better?” you ask, though your voice comes out softer than you intended—nearly a whisper in the wine-scented air. You’re hyperaware of everything now—the way his hands rest on his knees, the rise and fall of his chest, the way shadows play across his profile in the dim light. This is how it always is when you’re alone together: a heightened awareness that makes even breathing feel deliberate. 

He turns his head slightly, not quite looking at you but close enough that you can see the exhaustion etched in the lines around his eyes. “Some.” The word carries more weight than it should, and you both know he’s not just talking about sitting. There’s relief in this—in being seen by someone who understands the cost of the life he’s building, someone who knows better than to ask questions that can’t be answered safely. 

Silence stretches between you, comfortable after months of stolen moments. You find yourself tracing the pattern of dust motes dancing in the filtered light—anything to keep from staring at how his shirt pulls across his shoulders when he leans forward. 

“The festival ends in three days,” you say at last, the words falling into the quiet like stones in still water. 

“I know.” His voice is rough at the edges, and when he looks at you—really looks—something raw in his expression makes your pulse quicken. “But the work doesn’t end with the festival. Don Torrisi has been watching how I handle things. There might be… opportunities after.” 

The way he says “opportunities” makes your stomach tighten. You both know what he means—a chance to prove himself further… but also deeper into a world that will demand more of him, take him away for longer stretches. 

“And the garden?” you ask quietly, before you can stop yourself. “Our books?” 

Something shifts in his face, a flicker of the same longing that burns in your chest. 

Those stolen hours among the cypress and lavender—sharing stories and glances over borrowed pages—have become the axis everything else turns around. “I’ll always find time for that,” he says, voice lower, more certain. “For you.” The last two words hang between you like a confession you’re not supposed to make. 

The words settle like a match struck in darkness—illuminating everything for a moment before the shadows close in again. Your heart stumbles against your ribs, and you look away from his face, from the intensity that makes you forget why this is impossible. A maid who bakes and steals books; a man clawing his way up through blood and loyalty—the distance between your worlds should be insurmountable, yet here you are, close enough to count his heartbeat at his throat. 

“You shouldn’t say things like that,” you whisper, but there’s no conviction in it, betraying how desperately you want him to keep saying exactly those things. Your hands twist in your lap, flour-stained fingers betraying your nerves. “If someone heard—if they knew about the books, about us meeting…” 

“No one knows.” His voice is steady, though a rasp at the edges betrays how close this feels for him too. “And no one will know. We’ve been careful.” The certainty wavers on the last word, as if he’s trying to convince himself as much as you. 

The air between you grows thick with unspoken questions, each breath carrying the weight of everything you can’t ask. You steal another glance at him, cataloging the way the dim light catches in his dark hair, the strong line of his jaw, and you wonder if the ache in your chest is something he feels too—or if you’re simply a convenient refuge from his other life. Maybe you’re reading too much into the way he seeks you out, the way his voice gentles when he says your name. Maybe, for him, these meetings are just stolen quiet in a world that demands too much, and you’re fooling yourself into thinking there’s something more in the space between his words. 

Enzo shifts on his crate, the movement bringing him a fraction closer, and you feel the pull of him like gravity. The uncertainty gnaws at you and makes you want to reach across the space between your makeshift seats and touch his hand—if only to see how he’d respond, what truth might live in that contact. 

“Sometimes I wonder,” you begin, then stop yourself—the words too dangerous to finish. 

Sometimes I wonder if you think of me when you’re away. Sometimes I wonder if this feeling that’s growing in my chest like wild vines has taken root in yours too. But admitting such thoughts would shatter the delicate balance you’ve built and would force answers neither of you might be ready to give. 

“Sometimes you wonder what?” he asks, his voice barely above a whisper, and the question hangs in the air like incense—heavy and intoxicating. Before you can answer—before you can decide whether you’re brave enough to speak the truth that sits like a stone in your throat—the distant sound of music drifts down from the courtyard above. It’s slow and haunting: a violin weaving through the deeper notes of a guitar, the kind of melody that makes people move closer together, that turns conversation into murmurs and glances into lingering stares. 

The music seeps through the stone floor above—muffled but unmistakable—and you can almost picture the scene: couples swaying in the lamplight, hands finding waists, bodies moving in the ancient rhythm of want barely contained by propriety. Enzo tilts his head, listening, and when his eyes meet yours again, heat flickers there and your pulse quickens with the slow, hypnotic beat drifting down. 

“Sounds like the kitchen staff found Don Torrisi’s good wine,” Enzo says, a hint of amusement coloring his voice as another slightly off-key note drifts down. “Probably half the estate up there swaying around like they know what they’re doing.” There’s warmth in his teasing, and something else—a careful distance that comes from watching other people’s joy from the outside. 

You tilt your head, listening to the rhythm above, and can’t resist a small smile. “Oh, they definitely don’t know what they’re doing. That’s not even close to the right tempo.” The confidence in your voice surprises you both, and you catch Enzo’s eyebrows rise, curiosity flickering across his features. “Trust me, I can tell.” 

“Can you now?” he asks, and there’s something almost vulnerable in the question, as if he’s trying to piece together this new information about you. “And how would you know the difference?” 

The admission sits on your tongue for a moment before you let it slip free. “I used to dance. A long time ago.” You glance at him sideways, watching his expression. “What about you? Ever been brave enough to try it?” But you already know the answer from the way he shifts on his crate, from the tension creeping into his shoulders. 

“Never had the chance,” he says quietly, and there’s weight behind the words—years of darkness underground, survival measured in breaths and backbreaking labor, when music was only a distant memory of the world above. The admission carries the ghost of those lost years, of a childhood spent in places where dancing was as foreign as sunlight. 

The silence that follows his words carries more weight than any explanation, and you study his profile in the dim light, understanding settling over you like a gentle hand. 

Those missing years, the childhood stolen from him in darkness and dust—no wonder something as simple as music seems to draw him and hold him at a distance. You want to reach out, to bridge the gap between his lost innocence and this moment, but instead you let the melody from above fill the space between you, softening the edges of old pain. 

“It’s not so complicated,” you say at last, your voice gentle, testing. “Dancing, I mean. It’s mostly just… listening. Feeling the music and letting it move you.” You shift slightly on your crate, and the movement brings you a fraction closer to him—close enough to see his eyes follow the gesture. “My father used to say anyone could dance if they stopped thinking so hard about their feet.” 

Something shifts in his expression then—a flicker of curiosity mixed with something like longing. The music above swells, the violin’s voice growing more insistent, and you can almost see him weighing the possibility against his own uncertainty. “Sounds simple when you put it like that,” he murmurs, but his hands remain firmly planted on his knees, as if anchoring himself against the pull of the melody. 

The words hover on your lips before you can stop them, dangerous and sweet as stolen honey. “I could—” you start, then falter, heat rising in your cheeks as you realize what you were about to suggest. Your hands twist in your lap, flour still dusting your fingers, and you can’t quite meet his eyes. “That is, if you wanted to… I mean, just to show you how simple it is.” The offer hangs between you like a bridge neither of you is sure is safe to cross. 

Enzo goes still, and you feel the weight of his gaze on your face even as you study the stone floor between your feet. The music continues above, oblivious to the small revolution happening in the shadows below, and you wonder if you’ve just shattered something precious by speaking the want that’s been building in the space between you. When he finally speaks, his voice is rough at the edges, uncertain in a way that makes your heart stutter. 

“Here?” he asks, and the single word carries a dozen questions—about propriety, about safety, about whether this moment is real or just another dream you’ll both have to pretend never happened. 

You glance around the wine cellar, taking in the narrow space between the barrels, the uneven stone floor, the way shadows dance in the filtered light. It’s hardly a ballroom, but something about the intimacy of it—the way the music drifts down like a blessing, the way you’re hidden from the world above—makes it feel like the only place this could happen. “Why not here?” you whisper, finally meeting his eyes, and the vulnerability you find there nearly steals your breath. “No one to watch, no one to judge if we stumble.” 

You can see him wrestling with the decision, can almost hear the arguments playing out in his head— all the reasons this is dangerous. But there’s something else too, a hunger in his expression that mirrors the ache in your chest, the desperate want to close the distance. 

Slowly, carefully, as if the movement might shatter the spell, Enzo rises from his crate. His hand extends toward you, palm up, fingers slightly trembling, and the gesture is so tentative, so achingly hopeful, that you feel something crack open in your chest. “Show me,” he says, his voice barely audible above the music drifting down. 

The contact sends electricity racing up your arm, and you bite back a soft gasp at the warmth of his skin against yours. His fingers close around your hand with infinite care, as if you’re something precious that might break, and when he helps you rise from your crate, the world narrows to just this—his touch, his nearness, the way he’s looking at you like you’re the answer to a question he’s been afraid to ask. 

You’re standing now, closer than you’ve ever been, and you tilt your head back to meet his dark eyes, the height difference making you acutely aware of how he seems to shelter you in this small space between the barrels. Close enough to see the tension in his jaw, to count his heartbeat in the pulse at his throat. 

The space between the wine barrels suddenly feels impossibly small, intimate as a prayer, and when you place your free hand lightly on his shoulder, you feel the sharp intake of his breath, the way his muscles tense beneath the fabric of his shirt. 

“Just follow me,” you whisper, though your own voice is unsteady with the magnitude of this moment. His other hand hovers near your waist, not quite touching, as if he’s afraid that even this small contact might be too much, might shatter whatever spell has brought you both to this precipice. 

The music above provides a rhythm, but down here in the amber shadows, time moves differently—slower, heavier, weighted with three months of stolen glances and careful distances finally collapsing into this single point of contact. 

When his hand settles against your waist, the touch light as a feather but burning through the fabric of your dress, you both go perfectly still. 

Neither of you breathes. Neither of you moves. 

His thumb brushes your waist, just once, a whisper of movement, but it might as well be lightning for how it makes your whole body come alive. You can feel the restraint in him, the way he’s holding himself back even as his dark eyes search your face with an intensity that makes your knees weak. This close, you can see the slight parting of his lips, feel the warmth of his breath against your forehead, and the want between you is so thick you could drown in it. One wrong move, one moment of lost control, and everything you’ve both been so carefully protecting will crumble to ash. 

Your breathing turns shallow, uneven, matching the rapid rise and fall of his chest beneath your palm. The music above seems distant now, muffled by the thundering of your pulse in your ears. “We shouldn’t,” you whisper, but the words lack conviction, coming out breathless and weak against the magnitude of what’s building between you. His hand tightens almost imperceptibly at your waist, and you feel him lean down just slightly, bringing his face closer to yours. 

“I know,” he breathes back, his voice rough and strained, but he doesn’t pull away. If anything, he seems to be fighting the same losing battle you are, the same desperate war between what’s right and what feels inevitable. “We should stop.” But neither of you moves. Neither of you steps back. 

The space between your faces grows smaller with each labored breath, and you can see yourself reflected in his dark eyes, and see the same wild want there that’s consuming you from the inside out. 

His free hand rises slowly, trembling as it cups your cheek, his thumb tracing the line of your cheekbone with reverent care. You lean into the touch without thinking, your eyes fluttering closed for just a moment before opening to find him even closer, close enough that his breath mingles with yours in the small space between your lips. “Santa Maria, aiutami,” (Holy Mary, help me,) he whispers, the prayer falling from his lips like a confession, and you can hear the war in his voice—between the boy who knelt in church pews and the man who’s learned to navigate darker paths. 

The distance between you shrinks to nothing, to less than nothing, until you feel the ghost of his lips against yours, and taste the promise of what’s about to happen. Your heart hammers against your ribs as his mouth hovers over yours, as every nerve in your body screams for you to close that final, impossible gap. But just as you feel yourself leaning forward, just as you both begin to surrender to the pull that’s been destroying you slowly, the sound of footsteps echoes down the stone stairs above you. 

The moment snaps like glass. Enzo jerks back as if burned, his hands dropping from your waist and face so quickly you nearly stumble. “Hide,” he whispers urgently, his voice tight with panic and something else—a fierce protectiveness that cuts through his own fear. “Behind the barrels, now.” He’s already moving, putting distance between you both, his body positioning itself between you and the stairs without conscious thought. “If someone finds us—if they find you here with me—” 

You don’t need him to finish the sentence. Your heart is still racing from the almost-kiss, from the moment that nearly changed everything, but now terror floods your system for entirely different reasons. Your hands shake as you gather your skirts and slip deeper into the shadows behind the wine barrels, pressing yourself against the cool stone wall where the darkness is thickest. 

Through the gaps between the barrels, you see Enzo straightening his shirt, running a hand through his hair, transforming himself back into someone who has every right to be in the wine cellar alone. 

The footsteps grow closer, accompanied by voices now, and you hold your breath, tasting copper and regret on your tongue as you watch the man you almost kissed prepare to face whatever’s coming down those stairs. 

“Enzo? That you down there?” Cesare’s voice carries down the stone steps, rough with wine and laughter. You hear Leo’s quieter murmur beside him, the two of them moving with the careful deliberation of men who’ve had just enough to drink to make the stairs treacherous. 

Relief and disappointment war in your chest—not estate management, not Signora Benedetta, just Enzo’s friends from the vineyard—but their presence still feels like a knife cutting through the moment you’d been building toward for months. 

“Just checking the reserves for tomorrow,” Enzo calls back, his voice steady despite what just passed between you. Through the gap between barrels you catch his profile, how he’s composed himself so completely that no trace of the man who nearly kissed you remains visible. 

“Don Torrisi wanted to know how much of the ’03 vintage we have left.” 

“’Course he did,” Leo’s voice draws closer as they reach the cellar floor. “Man’s got half of Palermo coming for the festival finale. You find what he’s looking for?” You press yourself deeper into the shadows, acutely aware of every breath you take, every small sound that might give you away. Your heart is still hammering from what almost happened, and now you’re trapped, listening to casual conversation while the taste of possibility still burns on your lips. 

“More than enough,” Enzo replies, and there’s an ease in his voice now that speaks of genuine friendship—the kind forged through shared work and mutual trust. “The ’03 is holding up better than expected. What are you two doing down here anyway? Last I saw, you were losing badly at cards to Marco’s wife.” 

Cesare’s laugh echoes off the stone walls, warm and familiar. “She cleaned us out, the little shark. Leo here thought maybe we could liberate a bottle of something decent to drown our sorrows.” 

Boots scuff on stone as they move deeper into the cellar, closer to where you’re hidden, and you find yourself holding your breath again. “Besides, that music up there was getting a bit too romantic for my taste. All that swaying and sighing—makes a man feel like he should find himself a wife.” 

“Or at least someone to dance with,” Leo adds with amusement, and you can hear the grin in his voice. “What about you, Enzo? No pretty kitchen maid catch your eye yet? I’ve seen the way some of them look at you.” 

The question hangs in the air like smoke, and you feel your cheeks burn in the darkness behind the barrels. From your hiding place, you can see Enzo’s shoulders stiffen almost imperceptibly, can watch the careful mask slip over his features as he navigates this dangerous territory. Your heart pounds so loudly you’re certain they’ll hear it echoing off the stone walls, and you press your hand against your chest as if that might somehow muffle the sound. 

“Kitchen maids have enough work without me adding to their troubles,” Enzo says lightly, but there’s something guarded in his tone now—something that makes you wonder if Leo’s teasing has hit closer to home than intended. “Besides, you know how Signora Benedetta feels about her girls getting distracted. She’d have my hide if she thought I was sniffing around her kitchen.” 

Cesare snorts at that, clearly amused by the image of the old crone chasing Enzo around with a wooden spoon. “Fair enough. She’s scarier than Don Torrisi when she’s angry.” The conversation shifts away from dangerous ground, but you stay with your back to the cool stone, acutely aware of how close you came to discovery, how easily this moment could have destroyed everything you’ve both worked so carefully to protect. 

“Come on then,” Leo says, the sound of glass clinking suggesting he’s found what they came for. “Let’s get this upstairs before someone notices we’re gone. Maria was asking about you earlier, Cesare—something about promising her a dance.” You hear the shuffle of boots on stone as they begin to move toward the stairs, their voices growing more distant as they prepare to leave. 

Enzo falls into step with them, but you feel the reluctance in his movement, the way he’s being pulled away from something unfinished. 

“Right behind you,” he says. His voice carries just far enough for his friends to hear. As they reach the stairs, you see him pause. His head turns slightly, just enough that you catch the profile of his face in the dim light, and his hand rises to press briefly against his chest—right over his heart—before he lets it fall. The gesture is small, private, meant only for you, and it carries the weight of everything unsaid, everything interrupted. 

Then he’s gone, following Leo and Cesare up the stone steps, leaving you alone in the shadows with the taste of almost on your lips and the echo of his touch still burning against your skin. 

You stay with your back to the stone long after their footsteps fade, long after the wine cellar falls back into its hushed silence, broken only by the distant music still drifting down from above. 

Your legs feel unsteady beneath you, and when you finally step out from behind the barrels, the space where you almost danced feels impossibly empty, haunted by the ghost of his hands on your waist, the phantom warmth of his breath against your face. The air still holds traces of him—earth and grape leaves and something indefinably male that makes your chest tighten with want you’re not sure you can contain much longer. 

Your fingers rise unbidden to your chest, pressing the spot where your heart hammers like a caged bird, and you realize you’re still holding your breath. The memory of his thumb brushing your cheek, of the way he whispered that broken prayer before leaning closer, plays over and over in your mind until you feel dizzy with it. The careful boundaries you’ve both kept for so long feel thin now, stretched to breaking by a single moment of almost touch. 

You know you should return to the kitchen—to your waiting work and the safety of routine—but your body refuses to move. Instead you stay frozen in this space where everything shifted, where the distance between wanting and having was measured in heartbeats rather than miles, wondering how you’ll ever look at him the same way again. 

The cassata. The thought cuts through your haze like a knife—three dozen still waiting to be finished, the sugar work that will take you past midnight, Signora Benedetta’s sharp eyes that notice every delay. Your hands smooth down your flour-dusted skirts, a gesture more nervous than practical, and you force yourself to take a step toward the stairs. Then another. Each movement feels deliberate, like walking through honey—your body still singing with the memory of his touch. 

By the time you reach the stone steps, your breathing has almost returned to normal, though your pulse still thrums with dangerous possibility. 

You pause at the bottom, listening for voices, for any sign that Leo and Cesare might still be lingering nearby. The music above seems louder now, more insistent, and you can almost picture Enzo among the others, pretending nothing has changed while the ghost of what almost happened burns between you like a secret only you both carry. 

The kitchen welcomes you back with its familiar bustle—servants hurrying with platters for the evening’s festivities, the clatter of dishes being washed and dried, and Signora Benedetta’s voice directing the organized chaos of serving and cleanup. You slip into the rhythm of it, ladling stew into bowls for the vineyard workers, wiping down surfaces sticky with spilled wine, stacking clean plates with mechanical precision while your mind remains in the wine cellar. The work keeps your hands busy, but nothing can chase away the memory of Enzo’s thumb against your cheek, the way his breath mingled with yours in that moment before everything shattered. 

Hours pass before the estate finally settles into quiet—the last dishes cleaned and put away, the fires banked for the night. Even with your body aching from the long day, restless energy thrums beneath your skin like a second pulse. 

Tonight, with guests lingering in the corridors and Signora Benedetta making her rounds to ensure everything is secure, slipping away to the garden feels impossible—too risky, too likely to end in discovery. Disappointment sits heavy in your chest as you climb the narrow servant stairs to your small chamber, knowing that for the first time in weeks you won’t see Enzo among the olive and fig trees. 

Your room is a modest thing, barely larger than a confessional, with whitewashed stone walls showing their age in hairline cracks and water stains. 

A simple iron bed takes up most of the space, its thin mattress covered with coarse linen sheets you’ve mended more times than you can count. A wooden chest holds your few possessions, and a small washstand with a cracked mirror reflects the candlelight in fractured pieces. Above your bed hangs a wooden crucifix—the only decoration in this sparse space that somehow feels like luxury after years of sharing cramped quarters with other servants. As you blow out the candle and settle into the darkness, the ghost of his touch follows you into sleep. 

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The sharp clang of the servant bells cuts through your dreams like a blade, the sound echoing off the stone walls of your small chamber and pulling you abruptly from sleep. Your eyes snap open, heart racing, and it takes a moment to orient yourself—to remember where you are, why your body feels feverish beneath the thin sheets. “Enzo…” His name falls from your lips in a breathless whisper, the taste of it familiar on your tongue from the dream that dissolves like morning mist the moment consciousness takes hold. 

Heat floods your cheeks as fragments of the dream surface unbidden—his hands tangled in your hair, his mouth moving against yours with desperate hunger, the way he’d pressed you back against the wine barrels with none of yesterday’s careful restraint. In sleep, there had been no interrupting footsteps, no boundaries, no reasons to pull away. Your breathing is shallow and quick as you sit up in bed, the phantom sensation of his touch still burning against your skin, making the modest confines of your chamber feel impossibly small. 

The bells continue their relentless call, reminding you that the world beyond your door is already stirring, that Signora Benedetta will expect you in the kitchen within minutes. But for now, in the gray light filtering through your single window, you remain frozen between the memory of what almost happened and dreams of what never can, your want still thrumming with nowhere to go but deeper beneath your skin, where it burns like a secret you can never speak aloud. 

Your legs feel unsteady as you swing them over the side of the narrow bed, the cool stone floor shocking against your bare feet and helping chase away the last lingering heat of the dream. You move to the washstand with practiced efficiency, splashing cold water from the ceramic pitcher onto your face and neck, the sharp chill making you gasp but clearing the fog from your mind. Your reflection in the cracked mirror shows flushed cheeks and eyes that still hold traces of sleep—and something deeper, more dangerous. 

The familiar routine of dressing helps ground you in reality. You pull on your chemise first, the rough linen settling against skin that still feels too sensitive, then your dark woolen stockings and the simple black dress that marks you as estate staff. The fabric is sturdy but worn soft from countless washings, the sleeves long and modest, the neckline high enough to satisfy even Signora Benedetta’s strict standards. Over this goes your white apron, the strings tied tight around your waist—the uniform that renders you nearly invisible among the other servants, though right now you feel anything but invisible with yesterday’s almost-kiss still burning in your memory. 

The corridor outside your door is already alive with movement as you step into the stream of servants hurrying toward their morning duties. Your feet know the path by heart—down the narrow stone steps, through the servants’ hall where the smell of bread and coffee mingles with the mustiness of old stone, past the laundry where steam already rises from the great copper vats. The kitchen beckons ahead, warm and bright with lamplight, Signora Benedetta’s voice already cutting through the morning air with sharp instructions. You smooth your apron one final time and step into the familiar chaos, hoping that work will chase away the phantom touch that still lingers on your skin like a brand. 

────────

The same bells that wake the estate pierce through Enzo’s sleep, but he’s already stirring before they sound, his body trained by dangerous work to wake at the first hint of dawn. The small room that serves as his quarters was once a pig pen—the stone walls still bear faint stains from its previous purpose, and no amount of scrubbing has completely eliminated the earthy smell that clings to the corners. But it’s his now, and in the three months since he’d arrived with nothing but the clothes on his back, he’s slowly transformed the space into something resembling a home. 

What had started as just a straw-filled bedroll on the floor has been replaced by a proper wooden bed frame with a thin but adequate mattress. A small dresser holds his few changes of clothes, and in the corner sits a metal tub for washing—luxuries he’d never imagined during those dark years underground. Most telling of all is the wooden box beneath his bed where he keeps the tools of his other trade: a revolver with a worn grip that fits his hand like it was made for him, a knife with a leather-wrapped handle, and the small leather pouch that holds the lire he’s earned through collections and enforcement. He slides the box beneath the bed and sits on the edge, knuckles pressed to his knees, letting the bells fade until only one thought remains. 

The thought of you hits him the moment consciousness fully takes hold, and with it comes the memory of last night—your hand in his, the way you’d tilted your head back to look up at him, the impossible softness of your waist beneath his palm. He runs both hands through his dark hair and sits up on the edge of his bed, trying to shake off the want that’s been gnawing at him since he walked away from that wine cellar. The cold morning air raises goosebumps on his bare chest, but it does nothing to cool the fire that thinking of you always kindles in his blood. 

He moves to the metal tub with practiced efficiency, the cold water shocking his system awake as he splashes it over his face and chest. The silver cross hanging around his neck catches the early light filtering through the small window, and he touches it briefly—a habit formed in childhood, before everything changed. The tattoo of Saint Barbara on the left side of his chest, just over his heart, stretches as he reaches for the rough towel. She’s the patron saint of miners, a bitter irony—both protection and a reminder of where he came from, of the darkness he clawed his way out of. 

His movements are methodical as he dresses—clean white undershirt first, then the cream-colored button-up that marks him as something more than a common vineyard laborer. The work shirt is well-made, sturdy cotton with two practical chest pockets; he leaves the top few buttons undone, letting the white undershirt show and the silver cross rest against the hollow of his throat. Dark trousers follow, better quality than what the field workers wear, paired with leather boots that have seen hard use but still hold their shape. The transformation is complete when he tucks a small knife into his boot and checks that his revolver sits properly in the holster hidden beneath his shirt. 

He pauses at the small mirror propped against the dresser, running his fingers through his hair to tame the unruly strands that never quite cooperate. 

Today isn’t vineyard work. Don Torrisi has another collection that needs handling, another family whose debt has come due during festival season. The knowledge sits heavy in his stomach as he steps into the courtyard; he’ll spend the day walking the line between persuasion and threat while you’re safe in the kitchen, kneading dough and arranging pastries. The irony isn’t lost on him—he’s building a life that might someday be worthy of you by doing work that takes him farther from the man you deserve. 

The stable is quiet this early, most of the estate still focused on breakfast and morning preparations. Enzo moves past the larger horses—the ones reserved for Don Torrisi and his higher-ranking men—to where his mare waits in her stall. She’s a small brown thing with intelligent eyes and a sure step on uneven terrain, another sign of his rising status, though still modest enough not to attract unwanted attention. 

He saddles her with practiced ease, checking the girth twice and ensuring his saddlebags are secure. The weight of the day’s work presses against his ribs where the revolver rests beneath his shirt, a familiar reminder of the delicate balance he must maintain. As he leads the mare from the stable into the morning light, he catches a glimpse of movement near the kitchen windows—just a flash of black dress and white apron, enough to make his chest tighten with longing. Then he swings into the saddle and turns toward the road, leaving the estate behind as he rides toward obligations that grow heavier with each passing day. 

The horse beneath him moves with a steady rhythm along the dusty road that winds through the hills outside the estate. The morning air is crisp, carrying the scent of wild herbs and the distant promise of another scorching Sicilian day. Each hoofbeat marks time toward a confrontation he’s learned to dread—not for the physical danger, which he can handle, but for the way these encounters chip away at whatever honor he has left. 

The stop takes him to Dario’s carpentry shop, tucked into a narrow street where the afternoon shadows run long and cool. Wood shavings scatter the ground outside like golden snow, and the scent of pine and varnish should be welcoming, but something in the carpenter’s posture—the careful way he planes a board without looking up—sets Enzo’s nerves on edge. 

“You’re new,” Dario says finally, still focused on his work. His hands move with practiced efficiency, but there’s tension in his shoulders that wasn’t there during previous visits Enzo has watched from across the street. 

“New enough,” Enzo replies carefully, keeping his voice neutral. He’s learned to read the rhythms of these conversations—the delicate dance between authority and submission that keeps the wheels of the Don’s business turning smoothly. 

“The last man who came for collection…” Dario’s hands stay on the wood plane. “He’d been with Don Torrisi since before the war. Twenty years, maybe more.” The carpenter finally turns, his weathered face creased with something that might be sympathy or warning. “Terrible thing, what happened to him.” 

Enzo feels his pulse quicken but keeps his expression blank. He’s heard whispers about his predecessor—fragments of conversation that die when he enters rooms, meaningful glances exchanged when they think he isn’t watching. “These things happen,” he says carefully. 

“Do they?” Dario wipes sawdust from his hands on his leather apron, the gesture somehow deliberate. “Twenty years of loyal service. Never missed a collection, never shorted a payment. Knew everyone’s children by name, remembered their saints’ days.” The carpenter’s eyes find Enzo’s and hold them. “Man becomes part of the neighborhood, you know? Part of the family.” 

The emphasis on the last word isn’t lost on Enzo. In their world, family can mean everything—and nothing—depending on the circumstances. 

“He grew comfortable,” Enzo says, testing the waters. 

“Comfortable.” Dario tastes the word like something bitter. “Is that what they’re calling it? Comfortable.” He reaches beneath his workbench, and Enzo’s hand moves instinctively toward his jacket before the carpenter produces only a cloth pouch heavy with coins. “Here’s this week’s payment. Counted twice, just as always.” 

The money changes hands with practiced ease, but Dario doesn’t release the pouch immediately. “Twenty years,” he repeats quietly. “And in the end, it didn’t matter. One day he’s here, making his rounds, asking about my grandson’s first communion. The next…” The carpenter’s grip loosens, letting Enzo take the payment. “They found what was left of him floating in the harbor. Fish had been at him for days.” 

The words hit Enzo like a blow, though he keeps his face neutral. The image paints itself in his mind—a loyal man who knew children’s names and remembered feast days, reduced to scraps for the fish to feast on. His hand moves instinctively to the cross at his throat, a gesture that feels more like superstition than prayer. “The business continues,” he says, the expected response tasting like ash. 

“Sì, the business continues.” Dario’s smile holds no warmth as he returns to his wood plane, the blade curling off thin ribbons of pine with each stroke. “New faces, same expectations. But tell me, young man—do you have twenty years to give? And if you do, what makes you think it will be enough?” The question hangs in the air between them like sawdust, settling heavy in Enzo’s lungs as he pockets the payment and nods his farewell. 

The ride back to the estate feels longer than the journey out, every hoofbeat carrying Dario’s warning deeper into his bones. The afternoon sun beats down mercilessly, but the cold that has settled in his chest since the carpenter’s words doesn’t lift. Twenty years of loyalty, and his predecessor still ended up as fish food. What does that say about his own chances? What does that say about the life he’s trying to build—the future he’s foolish enough to dream about with you? 

The mare’s hooves clatter against the cobblestones as they enter the estate courtyard, and Enzo dismounts with the automatic movements of a man whose mind is elsewhere. He leads her back to the stable, unsaddling with practiced efficiency while his thoughts circle like vultures around Dario’s words. The routine helps ground him, but it can’t chase away the image of his predecessor floating in the harbor. 

“Successful day?” Luca’s voice carries from the stable entrance, casual but observant in the way that’s made him Don Torrisi’s most trusted lieutenant. He leans against the doorframe with the easy confidence of a man who’s earned his position through blood and cunning rather than birthright, his dark vest unbuttoned in the heat. There’s something almost paternal in the way he watches Enzo work. 

Enzo glances up from stowing the saddle, reading the genuine interest in Luca’s expression. It’s a friendship that’s grown slowly, carefully—built on shared meals and quiet conversations about the weight of the work they do. “Payments collected. No trouble,” he reports, though the lie sits heavy on his tongue. The trouble isn’t in what happened, but in what he learned—and that’s not the kind of burden you share, even with someone you’re beginning to trust. 

Luca pushes off from the doorframe, falling into step beside him as they leave the stable. “Good. Don Torrisi will be pleased. The festival’s bringing in more than we expected this year.” His tone is conversational, but Enzo catches the way his eyes scan the courtyard, always watching, always calculating. It’s a habit that comes with survival in their world. 

They walk in comfortable silence for a moment, their boots echoing off the stone as they cross toward the main house. The question burns in Enzo’s throat, dangerous and necessary, but before he can find the words to ask it safely, Luca speaks again. 

“You’re distracted today,” Luca observes, his voice pitched low enough that it won’t carry to the servants bustling around the courtyard. His voice stays professional—a tactical assessment, the kind of observation that keeps operations running smoothly. “Distraction gets people killed.” 

Enzo weighs his response carefully, knowing that whatever he says will be remembered, catalogued in the mental ledger that Luca keeps of everyone around him. The smart move would be deflection, but the image of his predecessor floating in the harbor sits like a stone in his stomach. “What happened to the man before me?” he asks finally, the words coming out rougher than intended. 

Luca’s step doesn’t falter, but something shifts in his expression—a flicker of understanding that suggests this isn’t the first time he’s heard such a question. “He got comfortable,” comes the simple reply, delivered without emotion. “Started believing his own importance.” The answer hangs between them like a blade, sharp with the weight of unspoken warning. 

They reach the main house steps, and Luca pauses, his hand resting briefly on Enzo’s shoulder—a gesture that carries more weight than his usual matter-of-fact instruction. “Don’t ask questions that might get you answers you can’t live with,” he says quietly, and for a moment there’s something almost protective in his tone. Then the mask slides back into place, and he climbs the steps toward Don Torrisi’s study, leaving Enzo alone with the weight of what he’s learned. 

The courtyard feels different now, charged with new understanding as Enzo makes his way toward the servants’ quarters. It’s the time of day when paths cross naturally—when kitchen staff hurry between buildings and vineyard workers return from the fields. His internal clock, calibrated by stolen moments, tells him you’ll be moving through this space soon, carrying platters or linens or whatever task Signora Benedetta has assigned you. 

The thought of seeing you should bring relief, but instead it twists something sharp in his chest. How can he look at you now, knowing that every step he takes toward earning a place in this world carries him deeper into darkness? 

As if summoned by his thoughts, you emerge from the kitchen entrance, a basket of linens balanced on your hip. The late afternoon light catches in your hair as you move with the efficient grace he’s come to memorize, but there’s something different in your posture today—a tension that mirrors his own. Your eyes find his across the courtyard, and for a heartbeat the careful distance you both maintain threatens to crumble under the weight of yesterday’s almost-kiss. 

You alter your path slightly, a movement so subtle it would be invisible to anyone not watching for it, and your paths converge near the old fountain where the sound of water might mask quiet words. “You look tired,” you murmur as you pass, your voice pitched low and concerned in a way that makes his chest tighten with longing. 

“Long day,” he replies, matching your casual tone while his fingers brush yours for just an instant as you both reach for the fountain’s edge. The contact sends fire racing up his arm, and he has to force himself to step back, to remember that servants are always watching, always listening. “You?” 

“The same.” Your eyes search his face, reading the shadows there with the intuition that’s developed between you over months of stolen moments. “Tonight?” The single word carries everything—hope, question, need—and he knows you’re asking about the garden, about whether the careful routines that anchor you both can continue despite the weight he’s carrying. 

He wants to say yes, wants to lose himself in the familiar ritual of borrowed books and whispered conversations beneath the olive trees. But Dario’s words echo in his mind, mixing with Luca’s warning about comfort and complacency, and suddenly the garden feels like another kind of trap—a place where he might forget the precarious nature of his position, where he might start believing in futures men like him aren’t meant to have. “I’ll try,” he says instead, the noncommittal answer tasting like ash in his mouth. 

Something flickers across your expression—disappointment, perhaps, or recognition of the distance he’s trying to create. You adjust your grip on the basket, the movement small but telling, and he realizes you can read the shift in him as clearly as he reads the hurt in your eyes. “Of course,” you say quietly, your voice carefully neutral the way it gets when you’re protecting yourself from hoping too much. 

The space between you feels vast, filled with all the things he can’t say, all the warnings he can’t share without dragging you into the darkness closing around him. He watches you walk away, your shoulders straight and proud despite the dismissal, and knows that protecting you might require breaking both your hearts. 

You make it halfway across the courtyard before the hurt hardens into something sharper, more familiar. I’ll try. The words echo with the weight of a door closing—gentle but final. You’ve heard that tone before—from men who promise things they have no intention of delivering, from people who offer hope with one hand while taking it away with the other. The basket grows heavier in your arms, or perhaps it’s the sudden weight of understanding that’s making everything harder to carry. 

Your feet know the path to the laundry without conscious direction, muscle memory carrying you forward while your thoughts spiral back to yesterday’s wine cellar—to the way his hands trembled at your waist, to the prayer that fell from his lips like a confession. “Santa Maria, aiutami,” (Holy Mary, help me,) he’d whispered and you’d thought he was asking for strength to cross the distance between you. Now you wonder if he was praying for the will to pull away. 

The familiar ache settles in your chest, the ache that comes from wanting someone just beyond reach. You’ve been a fool, reading poetry into moments that were probably only loneliness, mistaking his need for quiet companionship for something deeper. The realization burns worse than the almost-kiss that never happened, because at least that had felt real, mutual. This careful distance feels like charity, like pity dressed in gentle words. 

So lost in the spiral of your thoughts, you don’t see the loose stone until your foot catches, sending you stumbling with a sharp gasp. The basket flies from your arms, linens scattering across the dusty ground as you fight to regain your balance, but momentum carries you forward and you have to take several quick, ungraceful steps to keep from falling completely. 

Your heart pounds from the near-miss, and heat floods your cheeks as you look around to see if anyone witnessed your clumsiness. The scattered linens seem to mock the moment, white fabric now dusted with dirt that will require explanation to Signora Benedetta. You reach for the nearest sheet with trembling fingers, trying to push down the embarrassment and the way your thoughts keep circling back to his deliberate distance. 

Even this small mishap can’t chase away the echo of his words, the way I’ll try sounded more like goodbye than promise. 

You gather the linens methodically, shaking out the dust and folding them with mechanical precision while the sun sinks behind the estate’s walls. The courtyard gradually empties as the day’s work ends—kitchen maids hurrying to finish their final tasks, vineyard workers trudging toward their quarters with dirt-stained clothes and tired faces. 

From his position near the stables, Enzo watches you disappear into the main house, and the sight of your straight shoulders—so carefully held, so deliberately proud—hits him like a physical blow. He saw the exact moment his words landed, watched hope flicker and die in your eyes like a candle snuffed out. Even now, the coward’s phrase tastes like iron on his tongue, a lie dressed as consideration when the truth was he was protecting himself as much as you. 

His fingers find the cross at his throat, worrying the silver between thumb and forefinger the way he once worried rosary beads in those dark years underground. The gesture brings no comfort now, only the weight of guilt that’s followed him since childhood—guilt for wanting what he shouldn’t, for putting you in danger with his selfish need, for being the kind of man who dreams of futures built on other men’s blood. “Perdonami, ti prego,” he thinks (Forgive me, please), but even the prayer feels hollow when he knows he’ll keep wanting, keep pulling you toward a world where innocence is devoured. 

He can picture you tonight, waiting in the garden beneath the ancient fig tree where you’ve shared so many stolen hours. The image of you alone on that weathered bench, surrounded by the wild beauty you’ve cultivated in secret, makes something crack in his chest. The rational part of his mind whispers that distance is kindness, that pulling away now might save you both from whatever reckoning is coming. But knowing he put that careful hurt in your expression makes him wonder if protecting you is worth becoming the man who breaks promises to the one person who makes him feel salvageable. 

He’s survived years in darkness, endured pain that should have broken him, but the image of your disappointment cuts deeper than any wound. You deserve better than his caution, better than careful words that guard his heart while breaking yours. 

“Minchia,” he breathes, the curse slipping out as he runs both hands through his hair. Luca’s warnings, Dario’s grim prophecies, the specter of his predecessor’s fate—none of it matters more than the memory of how your face fell when he offered half-hearted maybes instead of the certainty you deserved. Not because he can give you what you want—he can’t, won’t drag you deeper into the shadows that define his life—but because leaving you to wonder if you matter to him feels like a cruelty he can’t live with. 

His decision crystallizes with the hard clarity of necessity rather than desire. He’ll go to the garden, not to feed the impossible thing growing between you, but to make sure you know his distance isn’t indifference. You deserve that much honesty, even if it’s all he can safely give. The rational part of his mind reminds him that seeing you will only make this harder, that every stolen moment is another step toward a precipice he can’t afford to fall from. 

But the alternative—you alone beneath the fig tree, thinking yourself forgotten—is worse than his own torment. He can suffer his wants in silence, can bury whatever feelings threaten to bloom in his chest, but he cannot let you suffer his absence believing it means you don’t matter, when you’ve become the one bright thing in a world painted in shades of gray. 

────────

Hours later, the estate has settled into its deep nighttime quiet. Enzo stands at the small window of his converted quarters, his bare feet planted on the cool stone floor as he watches shadows shift across the courtyard below. He’s changed from his day clothes into a simple linen shirt, soft and worn from many washings, the fabric open at the collar to let the night air reach his skin. The silver cross rests against the hollow of his throat, catching what little moonlight filters through the glass. Dark cotton trousers—comfortable enough for sleep but decent enough for midnight wanderings—complete the simple ensemble. 

He presses his palm to the window frame, feeling the ancient wood give slightly under the pressure. The rational choice would be to stay here, to let distance do what his words couldn’t—create the space necessary for both your safety and his sanity. But rationality has never been his strength when it comes to you, and tonight the pull toward that hidden garden feels stronger than his fear of the consequences. 

With a quiet exhale that fogs the pane, he turns from the window and moves to the door. The stone floor is cold against his bare feet as he crosses the threshold, stepping into a night that wraps around him like silk. The air is crisp and clean, carrying the wild scents of Sicily—night-blooming jasmine, the distant salt tang from the sea, and the earthy richness of soil that’s known centuries of cultivation. 

Above, the moon hangs full and luminous in a sky scattered with stars, casting everything in silver light that makes the familiar estate feel otherworldly. The shadows are deep and welcoming—perfect for a man who’s learned to move unseen—and the night hums with possibility despite the weight of his reservations. Each breath of cool air fills his lungs with the promise of seeing you again, and for the first time since his conversation with Luca, the knot of tension in his chest loosens. 

The courtyard feels different at this hour—longer, more forgiving. Enzo’s footsteps whisper over the cobblestones as he makes his way through the sleeping estate, past the kitchens where tomorrow’s bread will rise, past the stables where horses shift in their stalls. Tonight belongs to silence—to the kind of solitude that lets a man’s thoughts run wild without witness. 

You told him about the garden two months ago, your voice dropping to that conspiratorial whisper you use when sharing secrets. “There’s a place,” you said, “past the main vineyards, where the old stone wall crumbles. No one tends it but me.” Your eyes lit with something between mischief and pride. “Wild things grow there—things the groundskeepers would pull up if they knew. But it’s beautiful, Enzo. Hidden and beautiful.” 

He asked why you went there, and your answer stayed with him: “Sometimes you need a place that’s just yours, don’t you? Somewhere you can think dangerous thoughts without anyone watching.” 

Now, as he follows the path past the ordered rows of sangiovese vines, along the eastern boundary where ancient olive trees cast gnarled shadows, his pulse won’t settle. If anything, the night sharpens his awareness of everything: the silver wash of moonlight across the grape leaves, the faint spice of wild fennel, the soft rustle of wind. He finds the gap in the wall exactly where you said it would be. The volcanic stones have shifted with age, leaving a space just wide enough to slip through. Wild rosemary and oleander have grown thick across the opening, a fragrant curtain. Enzo pauses there, chest tight for reasons that have nothing to do with the walk. 

Taking a breath, he pushes through. 

The transformation is immediate and startling. Where the estate’s gardens are formal—manicured for the Don’s approval—this hidden space pulses with Sicily’s wild heart. Bougainvillea spill in violent purples and magentas over broken walls; jasmine threads itself everywhere, its sweetness heavy in the air; oregano and thyme burst in unruly clusters beneath his feet. At the center, an ancient fig tree spreads its branches like a sheltering canopy over the clearing. 

Your hand is everywhere here—clay pots of basil and mint, the wooden bench weathered smooth beneath the fig, the organized chaos only someone who loves wild beauty could keep alive. Beautiful, he thinks. If your conversations lit the fire in his chest, this place—your place—threatens to consume him whole. 

He moves deeper into the sanctuary, bare feet soundless on the soft earth you’ve tended with such care. Moonlight filters through the fig’s broad leaves, casting everything in silver and shadow, and his gaze finds the bench beneath the tree’s protective embrace. His breath catches. 

You’re already there. 

You sit with your back straight against the weathered wood, your pale nightgown ghostlike in the filtered moonlight, but you don’t turn when he enters your sanctuary. The stillness in your posture speaks louder than words—not the relaxed peace he’s come to associate with your meetings here, but something brittle, guarded. Your hands rest folded in your lap, and even from this distance he can see the tension in your shoulders, the way you hold yourself like someone braced for disappointment. 

“You came,” you say at last, your voice carefully neutral, eyes fixed on some point in the darkness beyond the garden walls rather than on him. There’s no surprise in your tone, no relief—just a flat acknowledgment that cuts him deeper than anger would. “I wasn’t sure you would. After this afternoon…” 

The space between you feels vast despite the garden’s intimate confines, filled with all the things he can’t explain without revealing truths that would only hurt you more. He takes a step closer, then stops, some invisible barrier holding him back. “I said I’d try,” he offers quietly, but the words sound hollow even to his own ears—a poor defense for the careful distance he put between you at the fountain. 

“You did.” Your fingers tighten almost imperceptibly in your lap. “Trying seems to be the most you can manage these days.” The observation hangs in the jasmine-scented air, not quite an accusation but carrying the weight of one, and Enzo feels something crack in his chest at the quiet pain threaded through your voice. 

He moves closer despite every instinct screaming at him to keep his distance, his bare feet silent on the earth you’ve tended with such care. The moonlight catches the open collar of his shirt, the silver cross at his throat, and you glance at it before looking away. “It’s not what you think,” he says, the words scraping his throat raw. “This afternoon, what I said—” 

“What I think?” You finally turn to face him, and the hurt in your expression stops him cold. “What I think, Enzo, is that you’ve decided I’m not worth the risk of being honest with me.” Your voice remains steady, controlled, but he can hear the fracture lines running beneath the surface. “What I think is that whatever happened between us in the wine cellar meant something very different to you than it did to me.” 

“You’re wrong,” he says fiercely, taking another step before catching himself. “You’re so wrong about that.” 

“Then explain it to me.” The words come out sharper than you intend, frustration bleeding through the careful control you’ve been maintaining. You rise from the bench in one fluid movement, your nightgown catching the moonlight as you face him fully. “Because from where I’m standing, it looks like you can barely tolerate being in the same space as me. Like every conversation we have is something you’re enduring rather than—” You stop yourself before you can say wanting, before you can reveal just how desperately you’ve been hoping. 

He closes the remaining distance without seeming to realize he’s doing it, his hands half-raised as if he wants to reach for you but doesn’t dare. “It’s not that simple,” he says, and there’s something almost desperate in his voice now, the walls he’s built around himself showing cracks. “You don’t understand what’s at stake here, what could happen if—” 

“If what?” you challenge, tilting your chin up to meet his dark eyes. “If someone sees us talking? If the great Don Torrisi discovers his maid has been keeping company with one of his men?” The bitter laugh that escapes you sounds foreign to your own ears. “I’ve been invisible in this place for years, Enzo. No one notices what I do or who I talk to, so whatever excuse you’re building, it’s not about protecting my reputation.” 

Now you’re close enough to see the quick rise and fall of his chest, to catch the faint scent of soap and something uniquely him that makes your pulse race despite your anger. 

“It’s not about your reputation,” he says quietly, his voice rough with something that sounds like pain. His hands flex at his sides, fingers opening and closing as if he’s fighting the urge to touch you. “Fammi resistere, ti prego,” he blurts (Let me resist, please), “if it were only that simple.” The slip is out before he can stop it, and you see his control start to crumble, the way his jaw works as words catch in his throat. 

You step closer, drawn by the raw vulnerability in his expression despite your frustration, and he mirrors the movement without seeming to realize it, until he’s so near you have to tilt your head back to meet his eyes. “Then what?” you press, your voice softer now but no less insistent. “What is it that has you so afraid you can barely look at me without pulling away? What happened today that made you treat me like a stranger after everything we’ve—” 

“Because men like me don’t get to keep good things like you,” he interrupts, the words tearing out of him like a confession ripped from bleeding hands. He’s close enough now that you feel the warmth radiating from his skin, see every emotion play across his face in the silver moonlight. The admission hangs between you in the jasmine-scented air, stark and brutal in its honesty, and he recoils as if he’s revealed too much—as if saying it aloud has made it real in a way that terrifies him. 

His chest rises and falls fast, and in the moonlight filtering through the fig leaves you can read the battle across his features—the desperate want fighting the darkness he’s trying to keep from you. 

Silence stretches, heavy with the weight of his confession, and something shifts in the air around you both. Your breath catches as you search his face, finally seeing him—not the mask he wears during the day, not the polite distance he hides behind, but the raw truth of what he feels. “Enzo,” you whisper, his name barely more than breath, and the sound of it seems to undo something vital in him. 

His hand rises before he can stop it, trembling fingers hovering beside your cheek as if you might disappear if he dares to touch you. “You don’t understand,” he breathes, his voice breaking. “The work I do, the world I’m part of—it destroys beautiful things. It takes everything good and pure and turns it to ash, and I can’t…” He swallows hard, his thumb finally, barely brushing your skin. “I can’t be the one who destroys you.” 

But you’re already leaning into his touch, your hand coming up to cover his where it rests against your face, and the garden seems to hold its breath. “What if I don’t want to be protected?” you whisper back, your voice steady despite the way your heart hammers. “What if I’d rather be ruined by you than safe without you?” 

The words hit him like lightning, and you see the exact moment his last defense crumbles, the walls around his heart turning to dust in the face of your fierce, fearless honesty. 

For a heartbeat neither of you moves—the air between you charged with three months of want and restraint finally given voice. Then his other hand rises to frame your face, and he leans down, his forehead touching yours as if he’s asking permission for what comes next. When you don’t pull away, when your eyes flutter closed and your lips part slightly in invitation, he closes the final distance. 

The kiss starts soft, hesitant, as if he’s afraid you might disappear like morning mist. But when you respond—when your hands fist in the open collar of his shirt and pull him closer—something wild and desperate awakens in him. A low sound escapes his throat, part prayer and part surrender, and suddenly he’s walking you backward until your shoulders meet the rough bark of the ancient fig tree. 

His mouth moves against yours with growing urgency, months of denied wanting pouring out in the way he kisses you like he’s drowning and you’re air itself. One hand tangles in your hair while the other braces against the trunk beside your head, caging you with his body as jasmine and wild rosemary perfume the night air around you both. The careful distance he kept shatters, replaced by the need to memorize every soft gasp, every way you mold yourself against him in the silver-washed dark. 

His lips trail from your mouth to the delicate skin beneath your ear, and the sensation sends fire racing through your veins. Your head tips back against the bark, a soft sigh escaping as he presses open-mouthed kisses along the column of your throat. The silver cross at his neck brushes your collarbone, cool metal against heated skin, and in the haze of sensation. 

“Fammi degno di te,” he breathes (Make me worthy of you) against your pulse point, the words vibrating through your skin as his free hand slides to your waist, fingers splaying over the thin cotton of your nightgown. He feels your heart racing beneath his lips, tastes the salt of your skin, and the knowledge that you want this as desperately as he does wars with the guilt that has been his constant companion. You’re everything pure and good in his world of shadows, and here he is—pressing you against ancient bark like some pagan offering, taking what he has no right to claim. 

But when your fingers thread through his dark hair, holding him closer rather than pushing him away—when you whisper his name like a prayer of your own—the guilt dissolves beneath the overwhelming rightness of finally, finally touching you the way he’s dreamed of for months. 

His kisses drift lower, slower now, tracing the fragile line from your throat to the hollow between your collarbones, each press of his mouth deliberate, almost worshipful. The thin cotton of your nightgown does little to hide the heat of his breath as he follows the curve of you downward, lips ghosting over fabric that trembles with every quickened breath you draw. And then—without hesitation, without shame—he sinks to his knees before you in the moonlight. 

He kneels not like a man conquered, but like one in prayer; the rough earth beneath him is forgotten as he bows his head against the soft fall of your nightgown. His hands come to rest at your hips—not pulling, not demanding, only holding—as if anchoring himself in the storm you’ve become. The sight of him kneeling there—broad shoulders bent, silver cross glinting against his chest as he presses reverent kisses just above your knees—burns itself into your heart like scripture rewritten in flesh. To anyone else it might look like sin, but to Enzo it is nothing less than devotion, a confession offered not to any altar, but to you. 

“Ti prego” (Please) 

 He whispers, the word rough at the edges—not hunger so much as humility—his forehead resting against the hem of your nightgown as if bracing against a tide. His hands tighten where they hold your hips, then ease—careful again—and he tilts his face up just enough for you to feel his breath warm through the thin cotton. “Dimmi che posso,” (Tell me I can) he murmurs. 

He moves up your shin, his hands warm and sure, a dry, careful drag that says he’s holding himself in check. Every inch is deliberate. He doesn’t hover; he presses and learns—the fine smoothness here, the quick catch of your breath there, the tense-and-release of muscle under his touch. 

Cotton rasps as it lifts under his wrist. His palm slides higher along your inner thigh, pressure steady, pace unbroken. Heat gathers beneath his hand; he feels the faint pulse under your skin and the way your body answers—a small shiver that makes his breath catch.  

He guides your leg higher until your knee rests over his shoulder. The nightgown slips with it, brushing his cheek; your weight settles on him and he feels the trust of it. One hand brackets your calf to steady you; the other spreads warm and sure at your hip, keeping you balanced as he draws you a breath closer. The nightgown inches higher. 

He bends and kisses the inside of your knee—no hesitation. Heat shoots up your thigh. He stays there a beat, like he owns the choice, then moves higher in short, steady steps, lips pressing where no one has before. Your breath goes quick; he hears it. His hand slides wider on your outer thigh, thumb pressing once to keep you steady. He’s already given in, and every kiss proves it. 

He worked slow, worshipful, as if mapping a territory no one had ever dared cross. At the high point of your thigh he paused, lips hovering, breath hot. Only when you angled you hips nearer, silent invitation, did he dare move higher. His hands slid up the sides of your legs, thumbs pressing in to hold you steady, and he breathed you in— lavender oil on your skin and something uniquely, maddeningly you. 

Your hand found his hair, uncertain at first, fingers tentative until they settled at the nape of his neck, pulling him closer with a need that surprised you both. 

He lingered, savoring, then finally, daring, he let his mouth drift higher, to where you were hot and soft, pulses colliding beneath the thin shield of cotton. He kissed you there, gently, then firmer, and the sound you made—helpless, breaking at the end—hit him with a force that almost made him fall in love right then and there. 

He wanted to hear more. 

 One hand pulling you further down until you’re weight is fully being held up by him, the other grabbing at your right leg to spread you open for him. The act of being so wide open in front of someone like this made the little spot on your cotton underwear get bigger. 

Leaning forward and letting his tongue run up and down on the cotton, teasing you in hopes you'd make that sound again. And you did. Gentle, soft gasps as his tongue dampened the material of your underwear. You raked your fingers through his hair and arching your back into his touch. 

His hands made their way up and pulled your underwear down your legs until it was left hanging on your left ankle. 

“Enzo..” you whined, still squirming around and desperate. 

“I know, I have you. Will you make more of those pretty sounds for me again,Tesoro?” (Teasure). You nodded, as you watched his head sank lower. He smiles in response as he spreads you open with his fingers, in awe of the way you parted for him. Like petals on a flower dripping with the morning dew. 

But you were far more delectable. A forbidden fruit begging to be tasted. 

And oh was it pretty. In the open air and the in hush of the secret garden. He hasn’t seen something this beautiful before other than you, begging to be tasted, touched. Admired. 

The sound you made as he dragged his tongue from your weeping hole to your clit was like music to his ears. His own, deep, guttural moan escaped from his chest as he licked again. Your taste flooding his mouth in a way he could only compared to the sweet honey treat you made for the workers on certain days. 

“Please” you quietly moaned. 

 He then dipped his tongue into the welcoming warmth of your cunt, his eyes falling closed for a moment as he felt your clench around him, desperate for more. Desperate for him. And he would give you more, would give you anything you asked of him. 

He kneads at your thighs as he mouths at you, keeping you firmly against him. A high, airy huff escapes you and he moans, his eyebrows furrowing and eyes closing, focusing fully on how you whine, how you’re steadily soaking his face. Nothing else matters to him right now, not even his own arousal - just the sensations of you, of pleasuring you. You’re slipping into a sweltering haze, head falling back, fingers clutching his hair, thighs shifting against the sides of his head. 

He ate you like he was starved. Like a man ready for the gallows enjoying his last meal. His arms wrapped around your thighs, keeping your legs apart for him as you bucked and squirmed against his face. It was visceral. Carnal. You made him feel like his grip on his own composure and control was weaker than ever, that he was holding on it with nothing but his fingertips. 

“So good..” You moan at the heat creeping up. 

“That’s… mm—it, Tesoro—” Enzo slurred between kisses, his voice rough but coaxing, lapping at your clit. “I have you..” he said quietly to himself to be reminded that you’re real. 

“Don’t stop please, Enzo” he had no intentions of stopping, none at all. 

“I won’t stop.. I promise” he murmured against you. 

You whine when you feel him move, one arm releasing one of your legs, his mouth leaving your clit as he gasps. A slick sound draws your dreamy focus down to him, and you're met with the sight of him wetting one of his finger, the digit sunk into his glistening mouth. His eyes are trained on you as he pulls his finger from his mouth and brings it back to your core, using his other arm hooked under your thigh to open your legs further. He leans his face against your thigh, kissing gently and looks up at you as he pushes his finger into you until his knuckles brush your skin. You let out a strangled moan, and your grip on his hair tightens, drawing a groan from deep in his throat. 

The flat of his tongue found your clit again, certain he could feel you pulsing against him. Desperate and full of desire for him. He felt honoured, privileged. That you were letting him see this side of you. When you mewl, he picks up the pace, squeezing your thigh between his bicep and forearm, spreading you open further. 

“Enzo-” 

Then he added a second finger, gauging your reaction to see if maybe it was too much. 

He knew it must not have been when your hips thrusted up into the palm of his hand.  

Curling his fingers and hitting a spot that made you gasp and your body shudder “There she is” he whispered. The heat and slickness of you combined with the song-like quality of your moans making him dizzy. 

“There- Yes- That’s-” 

He moans in response through the haze. He keeps his speed but switches up the rhythm of his fingers, drawing out the thrusts, letting you feel the length and breadth of his fingers. You shudder and tug his hair as you rock your hips up into his mouth and hand. He can feel your toes curl behind him as you writhe. 

You feel the ache of your impending orgasm branching up through your core, twisting the muscles of your abdomen, choking any semblance of coherent thought from your mind as your back arches tightly. 

The words barely form, more like gentle huffs between your heaving breaths that are steadily climbing in pitch.        

Enzo grunts, continuing his ministrations at the same pace, and you respond in kind, eyes squeezing shut and body shuddering as he draws your orgasm from you. With a sequence of keening cries, your head falls back, hands gripping his hair almost painfully, thighs and folds smothering Enzo to the point that all he can feel, smell, taste, and hear is you and only you. Your back spasms, your hips rocking languidly, and Enzo whines when he tastes the flavour of your cum spilling from you. 

He slows his fingers and mouth to match your hips, keeping them deep as you pulse around them, relishing in how your brows furrow, how your nose scrunches up, how your face is aglow with pleasure. 

“Merda…” You sigh, hands letting go of his hair. With a hum, Enzo slowly withdraws his fingers and mouth from you and he takes a deep breath. He took his fingers to his mouth, sucking the remnants of your climax onto his tongue. Unable to control himself. You watched him do it, mouth slightly agape and eyes half open with some desperate undeniable look of utter desire. He could almost see the way it made you feel, could see you unable to contain the overwhelming feeling of realizing you were desired.  

Wanted.   

He pushed to his feet in a slow, unsteady rise after letting your legs fall from his shoulders and for a moment he looked wrecked in the gentlest way—hair mussed from your fingers, hairs tugged loose to frame his face; lips flushed, parted, shining. Remnants of you clung to the corner of his mouth and slipped to his chin, then wandered lower, tracking the strong trail of his throat before finding his chest. His shirt is unbuttoned at the top and his skin caught the moonlight as it traced his sternum and kissed the silver cross at his neck, smudging it with the sweet release you didn't know you needed. He didn’t wipe it away at first. He just stood there—breathing hard, eyes heavy and soft, a little dazed—pussy-drunk and you had undone him in the best possible way. When he finally dragged a thumb across the cross, he only smeared the cum on it, leaving a warm shine over metal and skin that made him look even more human, even more yours. 

Sweat gathered at the base of his neck, slid beneath his collar. His chest rose and fell quicker, until the fabric felt unbearable against him. His fingers found the button—fumbled it loose—then the next, each one giving under a heat that wasn’t the air alone. 

He shrugged the shirt open fully and kept going, rolling his shoulders to free the linen. It slipped down his arms in a slow slide, brushing the pale crosshatch of old scars along his forearms—fights, work, careless slips—stories he never told. He tugged the last cuff free and held the shirt in his hand. 

Now bare above the waist, his body caught the moonlight; shadows pooled in the shallow valleys between the ridges of his abdomen—defined but not showy, a strength carved by survival, not vanity. Over his left chest, Saint Barbara watched in ink—fine lines of tower and halo—her dark shape turned gunmetal by the light. A thin line of hair ran from his sternum downward, dark against warm olive skin, disappearing at the waistband of his trousers. Beads of sweat clung and drifted—one catching at a rib, another sliding the curve of his side. Tiny, healed nicks dotted his skin like faint constellations, winking as he breathed. 

He held the linen, shook it once, and spread it neatly on the ground beside the bench under the fig tree. His palm smoothed it flat, quick glance at the dirt, then back to you—quiet, deliberate.  

He took a step towards you and slid one arm behind your shoulders and the other under your knees, and lifted. It was easy for him; the kind of strength the mines had built into his body showed in the steady way he held you, no strain, no wobble. You pressed into the heat of his bare chest. Your fingers found his shoulder and then the damp hair at his nape. 

“Okay?” he murmured at your ear, low and careful. You nodded. His jaw unclenched; his hold shifted closer—reassuring, not possessive—as he carried you to set you down on the shirt instead of the earth. The fabric took you first—cool, clean—while his hands stayed a moment longer, warm at your back and under your knee, before he eased away just enough to see your face in the same band of moonlight. 

He stayed above you on his forearms, close enough that his breath brushed your cheek, every line of him steady and intent, as if this—here—was exactly where he meant to be. 

He held there, forearms braced, breath warm against your cheek. 

“Tell me to stop and I will,” he said, low and even. 

Your hand found his shoulder, then his jaw. He leaned into your touch like he’d been waiting for it, lashes lowering, that wrecked, tender look back in his eyes. 

“I want this, Enzo” you breathed. 

He dipped closer, not rushing—closing inches like they mattered. His forehead rested against yours first, letting your breaths find the same rhythm, then his mouth traced your temple, your cheek, the corner of your lips. “Slow,” he murmured. “We take our time.” His thumb skimmed your lower lip, patient. “Tesoro… look at me.” 

You did. When his mouth met yours,  His shoulders dropped; something tight in your chest unknotted. You breathed the same breath. Heat moved between you in a bright little current, the kind that lifts the fine hairs on your arms and runs quick along your nerves. He tasted of honeyed wine and you, warm and sure. 

A quiet sound broke in his chest—relief more than hunger—and you answered without meaning to, a soft exhale that made him hold you closer. Your fingers curled in the hair at his nape; your other hand found the top of his head. He kissed you again, deeper, and the relief sharpened into something electric—steady, undeniable—like stepping into light after a long dark and realizing you’re home. 

He paused just enough to see you, foreheads touching, breath mingling. You tugged, and he came back to your mouth with a small, helpless laugh against your lips, joy slipping through the heat. The chain at his neck swung in small arcs, the cross tapping your skin as his pulse kicked, and the two of you settled into the kiss like it was the only thing you’d been trying to find all night. 

He then broke from your mouth and followed your breath down, mouth skimming your jaw before finding the warm place beneath your ear. Your hand at his crown guided him; he took the cue, covering your throat with slow, open kisses—one at the hinge of your jaw, one lower, then lower still—each press sure, hungry, grateful.  Under the moonlight, a quiet “Dimmi se—” died against your skin; he already knew you’d tell him if you wanted him to stop, and you didn’t. You tipped your head and he fit closer, palm steady at your back as his lips traced the line to your collarbone.  

Every sound you made fed him—small catches of breath he chased and coaxed, the flutter of your laugh turned breathless as he found a place that made your whole body answer. 

Your hand found his shoulder first—heat stinging your palm like you’d pressed it to sun-warmed stone. He drew a breath through his teeth, a sharp hiss, the muscles beneath your touch jumping as if the softness burned more than any bruise. You smoothed lower, slow over the curve of his back with your fingertips; he shivered, then leaned into it, forehead tipping to yours as if your touch were the only steady ground in the room. When your palm slid to his chest he caught your wrist—gentle, not stopping—guiding you flat over his heartbeat. It thudded hard against your hand, wild and unguarded. “Not pain,” he rasped, voice rough with something too tender to hide. “Just—” He swallowed, jaw flexing, eyes closing as you traced the line of heat down his ribs. 

“Don’t stop.” He whispered. 

Your touch drifted lower, skimming the faint line of hair below his navel—soft at first, then a little coarser as you traced it lower— until you felt his abdomen tense beneath your palm—hard lines tightening under each slow pass. He breathed in sharply, a hiss that broke into a rough exhale as you traced the last ridge above his waistband. His hand hovered a breath over yours—never steering, only shadowing—moving with you like a promise kept close. His gaze jumped to your face, dark and unguarded, and he gave the smallest nod, jaw tight, as if to say keep going without daring the words. 

You slipped one finger under the band—just inside—testing the give of fabric and the heat gathered there. He didn’t guide you; his hand hovered above yours, shadowing each small advance without closing over it. 

You tested the shape of him with a cautious curl of your fingers, tracing along the rigid line before closing your hand more fully. His hips twitched once, helpless, and his palm hovered above yours without touching—shadowing, not steering—every tendon in his forearm drawn tight. 

“Please.” He plead the second time tonight. 

You responded by stroking—slow pressure, then gentler, learning what made his breath catch and his lashes fall heavy.  A low curse slipped from him, half-breathed, half-prayer, and his chest shuddered against your arm as if the smallest movement from you might undo him completely.   

Heavy, heat-soaked, unmistakably alive as you closed your fingers around bare skin, you felt the smooth glide of him and a steady pulse thudding against your palm. At his tip you could feel his sticky precum, wanting to coax more out of him, you used your thumb circle the head — smudging it around. You can feel him twitch in your grip with each slow pass, a faint vein pressing into your inner palm. The weight settled into the curve of your hand perfectly. 

He folded his forehead to yours, eyes closed, and let the shiver take him while your hand moved again, steady and sure, the heat of him pulsing against your palm as if the room had narrowed to just this: your touch, his restraint fraying, and the quiet rasp of his voice, “Good… just like that.” 

For a breath he went perfectly still as your fingers closed, shock flashing clean and bright. No one had ever touched him like this— not with care, not with intent— and it rewrote his breath in an instant. His mouth opened on a rough, surprised sound; his eyes squeezed shut; wonder moved through him like heat meeting cold. He didn’t chase. He let you set it, holding to your wrist like a lifeline while relief surged hard and sweet, so new it felt almost holy. 

He felt the heat climb fast—tight and insistent, gathering low and surging up his spine until his breath stuttered against your cheek. Another stroke and he knew he’d tip; the thought alone made his hips jolt helplessly into your hand before he forced himself still. “Wait,” he rasped, the word rough with warning and want. His fingers held  your wrist still—not to refuse, but to keep from spending the moment too soon. 

He drew your hand to his chest and laced your fingers there, pinning his own need beneath them, then shifted—one arm sliding beneath your knee to draw you higher, the other braced beside your head as he settled over you. His mouth found yours again, deeper, greedier. The hem of your nightgown hitched higher as he pulled you closer—closing the last space until there was nothing left to measure but breath and the low, unguarded sound he made when you arched to meet him. 

His fingers found the hem of your nightgown and stilled, eyes on yours; when you nodded, he gathered the fabric in slow waves, sliding it up your thighs, over your hips and ribs, his mouth following in brief, warm touches. He broke the kiss only long enough for you to lift your arms; the cloth whispered over your shoulders and head, then he folded it quickly and tossed it on the bench, away from the dirt. 

He froze, taking you in without a word. No poetry, no clever lines—just a hard, simple thought hitting him all at once. 

 I’m the luckiest man alive 

He swallowed, steadying himself so he wouldn’t rush, and let out a slow breath. “You’re beautiful,” he said. 

Leaning forward to kiss you again, his hands moving to grab at your chest. You moaned into the kiss as he squeezed and massaged your breasts with his large hands, seizing the opportunity to dip his tongue into the warmth of your mouth. Your fingers in his hair, twisting strands around your fingers and tugging lightly. Certain he’d somehow taken a stumble through the veil and ended up at heaven's gates. 

Dragging his lips from yours he found himself unable to resist the sight, leaning forward and capturing a pebbled nipple between his lips. Your hands kept roaming his body and your lips yearned to be on his skin. Hands scratching lightly up his sides before slowly moving to slide over his shoulders and down his back leaving faint marks in its wake. You rolled your hips against him and whined softly. 

There they are, those beautiful sounds 

He feel your wetness soak though his trousers, and that is when he went to work on the buttons on his pants. Pulling his pants off along with his underwear. His cock slapped against his stomach as he settled back between your legs. Your eyes seemed hungry as you looked at him, dragging down his body and lingering on his hard cock. He was practically throbbing with want, the tip an angry shade and precum leaking down. 

“Come here. Please. Back down here, Enzo..” 

He looked into your eyes as he licked the palm of his hand and grabbed a hold of his sensitive cock, stroking himself a couple of times to get himself slick. You swallowed hard, pulse jumping; the sight alone felt like a promise you weren’t sure you could stand to wait for. He lined himself up with you, eyes trained on your face as he dragged his weeping tip between your folds. You gasped as he caught your clit, still sensitive and alert from your first orgasm.   

“Once I have you, I'm not letting you go.” He said looking into your eyes. 

“Understand?” 

You whispered out a yes and brought your other hand to the back of his neck. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from you, still running his cock along the length of your slit. Teasing. 

“Enzo...“ you whimpered rolling your hips up against him, so desperate to have him inside of you. 

“Patience” he murmured “just like we said remember?...slow..” you whined in answer, fingers wrapping around what you could of his bicep and digging your nails into his skin as he finally pushed into you, he took it slow.  

Making sure you felt every single devastating inch, your back arching away from his shirt as your body flushed with warmth. Eyes watching you take it inch by inch, watching the look of ecstasy wash over your face. Your eyes fell closed. 

He fought to retain his own composure, overwhelmed by the tight, wet, warmth of your walls enveloping him. He could feel every unique ridge and bump that made your cunt oh so perfect, feel every muscle stretch and contract as you adjusted to him. 

“M-minchia“ he stuttered. 

He paused once he was seated inside of you, grabbing at your hip with one hand to angle your hips better.  Allowing you to comfortably take all of him in. He waited, let you adjust to his size, not daring to move before he got the go ahead from you. The stretch was a lot, a deep burning ache that eventually melted away into a blinding hot pleasure that burnt its way through your veins. 

“This okay?” Enzo asks in a low whisper, leaning over you to brush a kiss to your forehead. 

“More than,” you answer with a whine. He hums in response, satisfied with that, letting his mouth trail down the line of your neck. You twist and arch for him, trying to thrust up against his cock, but it’s no use.  Enzo’s solid, sturdy body keeps you pinned exactly how he wants you, though he can feel what you’re attempting. His lips curl into a grin against your collarbone, tongue poking out to lap at your pulse point.  

“Please…don’t tease me–” 

He groans, making you clench tight. 

“Just relax.” 

Biting off an impatient sound, you nod, trusting him with everything you have  He takes a moment to rest himself up against you, chest to chest. While his forearm is resting next to your head as his hand strokes the stray hairs away from your face, the other hand holding your hip. Slowly pulling out, he feels your heat try to suck him back in.  

Greedy 

A moan drags out of you as Enzo pushes himself into you, angling his hips to get his cock deep into your pussy. Your head falls back to rest against his shirt as he begins to move into you. Moaning, Enzo pushes his forehead as yours and your mouth drops open in pleasure. His arms lock themselves around your frame as he moved with a steady, sure rhythm—no rush. 

Each time he drew you in, your bodies met fully; he watched your face and adjusted to every breath and nod. “Here?” he asked once, quiet. You answered with your hands slipping from his arms to his back, dragging your nails down him to try to pull him impossibly closer to you. 

“Keep those pretty eyes on me” he murmured as they fell closed again. His sweat slick skin slapping against yours. He was desperate to see you come again. Wanted to see your face up close this time, watch your eyes stare back into his eyes and swollen lips part in ecstasy. You opened your eyes and look at him through your eyelashes. “That’s it Tesoro... Don’t hide from me.” Every time he spoke the slightest word of praise you practically beamed, so desperate to hear it. 

He looks at you like he’s just come up for air. Eyes blown wide and glassy, soft at the edges, fixed on your face as if he’s memorizing it. His hair is a mess from your hands, hair sticking where sweat’s dried; his lips are swollen and parted, breath catching every time you move. There’s a stunned sort of joy in him—like he can’t believe you’re real and that you chose him—and it loosens everything: the set of his jaw, the guard in his shoulders, the hardness he wears with everyone else. 

“Don’t stop, don’t stop...” 

Moans echoed against Enzo, each sensation sending waves of arousal to his cock as he continued to drag his cock against the sopping, sensitive heat of your cunt. Feeling the ridge of his tip pulling in and out of you pushing you closer and closer to your release. 

He moved a hand down between your bodies, rubbing your clit in time with his thrusts, grunting and choking back his own moans as you squeezed him. Like your body never wanted him to leave, gripping his cock with your cunt and making it ever more harder to hold back. He couldn’t help but have a look, glancing down to see the way you stretched around him, mesmerized at the way you took him in so deep. 

He had begun to moan shakily, his own breath as laboured and quick but his thrusts are slow. He rests his forehead against yours, trying not to focus on the fierce pleasure enveloping his body because he wants to see you come undone. With how high and quick your gasped moans are becoming, he knew you were close as well, teetering on the edge of euphoria waiting for him to push you over. Your sighs were becoming more ragged with every pleading beg of his name. 

Your eyes widening as instinctual panic rises through your core right before you attempt to muffle another cry as your hips buck up into him. You could feel yourself burst as you  cum all over Enzo's cock, your cunt clenching down so hard on him. Enzo's fingers on your clit only made the you messier as he continues to flick and fan your bud. He overloads your nerves as you soak both Enzo and yourself creating a puddle beneath the two of you.  

Enzo was soon to follow. With a few staggering, thorough thrusts, his own climax quickly overtook him as he buried himself deep inside you. Stilling his movements, his head pressing deep within you. His cum shooting forcefully into your exhausted cunt rope after rope, cock twitching inside you, moans matching every pump of his load.  

Your body tremors with every jolt of your orgasm's after shock as your body relaxes in Enzo's arms. 

You face was hot and surely beet red, your hair sticking to your forehead due to the sweat that had collected on your skin. You could feel Enzo lips gently pressing tender kisses to your lips, arms still holding your tight as he waited for you to calm down.  

He stayed close, forehead to yours, counting a few slow breaths with you until the shake left your chest.  

“Stai bene?” (are you okay) 

His palm spread at the small of your back, steadying you; he guided your hand to his heart so you could feel it settle under Saint Barbara’s ink. 

“Cold?” he asked next. When you nodded, he reached to the bench without really leaving you, caught the nightgown, and shook it once. “Up,” he murmured. He slid it over your arms and shoulders in careful inches, lifting your hair free from the collar, smoothing the fabric so it wouldn’t twist. The chain at his neck brushed your collarbone, the cross cool against warm skin. 

He tucked you against him on the shirt he’d laid down, one arm under your shoulders, the other over your ribs like a blanket. He pressed a kiss to your temple, then your forehead, then the corner of your mouth—simple, grounding touches. When you shifted, he adjusted with you, no hurry, thumb tracing small circles where your pulse beat. 

“Look at me,” he said, gentler now. You did. Whatever fierceness had carried him was gone; what remained was relief and a quiet kind of joy.  

“Con te,”(with you) he murmured.  

The garden around you seems to exhale with your contentment; the night air is soft on your skin where it mingles with the warmth coming off his body. His thumb keeps a slow rhythm at your pulse, and you feel the steady thrum of his heartbeat under your palm as it rests over the Saint Barbara tattoo on his chest. The ink sits slightly raised beneath your fingertips—a permanent reminder of the darkness he survived—but here, in the sanctuary of your secret place, it feels more like protection than memory. 

“Ti amo,” (I love you)

He whispers into your hair, the words barely audible but weighted with months of restraint and careful distance finally breaking. Your breath catches at the confession, at the raw vulnerability in his voice as he says what you’ve both been circling for so long. His arm tightens around you, as if he’s afraid you might disappear now that he’s spoken the truth aloud.

You lift your head to look at him and see fear and wonder warring in his dark eyes. “Ti amo anch’io,” (I love you too) you whisper back, your voice steady despite the way your heart feels ready to burst. The relief that floods his features is almost painful to witness, as if he’s been holding his breath for your answer, afraid you might not feel the same desperate, consuming love that’s been eating at him from the inside.

“More than I have any right to,” he continues, his fingers carding through your hair with gentle reverence. “More than is safe for either of us.” But there’s no regret in his voice now—only acceptance of what exists between you, dangerous as it may be.

He stares at you for a long moment in the silver moonlight, as if memorizing every detail of your face—every shadow and curve lit by the ancient fig tree’s filtered light. His thumb traces your cheekbone with reverent gentleness, and when he speaks again his voice carries the weight of a man who’s finally found something worth all the risks he’s taken, all the darkness he’s walked through to reach this moment. “Qualunque cosa accada, proteggerò questo. Proteggerò noi,” he murmurs (Whatever happens, I’ll protect this. I’ll protect us.), sealing your fates with a kiss as soft as a prayer and as binding as a vow.

[raiponces]

"Do you have everything?" "I have you. Nothing else matters."

[chimiye]

OMERTÀ Mafia: The Old Country (2025)

[jasonbrdy]

ENZO FAVARA & LUCA TRAPANI Mafia: The Old Country (2025)

[flow-of-forces]

Isabella Torrisi | Mafia: The Old Country

[cityyrain]

trapani family tradition

[pixilerz]

I cant never be srs abt this game 😭lol

[phaiinon]

my first thought during that scene