From the Baroness’s Diary III

Chapter 27

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Today the day starts normally, well, as normally as it can since I’ve slept with two of the three men in the house already and seen one jerking off.

But I should have known that nothing in this house is normal. There are hidden passions within these walls, simmering with intent to bubble over. And now with Anna’s…what? Jealousy? I can feel the walls trembling as if Mount Etna is about to explode. And I fear if we don’t come out in the open, the house will be consumed by the lava of suppressed emotions.

I am finishing breakfast with Salvatore’s mother as we have been doing during all the five days I have been here when I hear a noise behind me.

I whirl around in the chair to see Salvatore leaning against the open doorway. My heart beats against my chest as I take in his casual appearance, the way his shirt opens to show his tanned chest.

I wish to take him right there on the tiled floor. Or maybe I would go first to their house since it would be weird to make love to him in his mother’s kitchen. Ugh. What am I even thinking? “Bonjour.”

His smile is warm as he pushes away from the doorway, crossing over to the table and dutifully kissing his mother on the cheek. “May I borrow Chloé, Madre?”

“Sì,” she answers, her eyes smiling at me. “Go, enjoy the morning.”

I push back from the table and stand, smiling shyly at the man that knows every inch of my body better than my own husband did. I have the imprint of his lips on my inner thigh, bite marks along my shoulder where he has nipped at my skin during our lovemaking.

But that pales in comparison to the marks he has on his back.

With a secret smile now, I take his hand and he guides me outside into the hot sunshine.

“It’s lovely here,” I say with a sigh as he pulls me along the path to the vineyard.

“Very lovely, Cara,” he answers. “And the sun shines brightly on both of us now that you are here.”

Blushing, I allow him to draw me along the vineyard, where the vines are bursting forth with plump grapes. “You are truly happy here.”

“Sì,” Salvatore responds as we make a turn to the right—not very far from the main house itself but far enough so we have privacy—and onto a path which leads us to a garden of roses.

A garden full of English Roses. With their full petals, outstanding fragrance, and in all colors and tones.

I stand there open-mouthed, not believing the beauty of it.

“Welcome to Mademoiselle De La Fleur garden,” he announces like a majordomo, with a flourishing wave of his hand.

“Oh! Mon Dieu.” I throw myself in his arms, peppering his face with kisses, then I run to the middle of it, not believing he created this for me. Me.

“Do you think you could be happy here as well?”

Surprised at his question, I nearly stumble on the raised dirt path. Is he asking me to stay with him in Italy? My heart screams oui as I wish for nothing more than to stay here.

But my concern about the future causes me to hold it in. “I believe that I could, if the timing was right.”

Salvatore turns toward me, his heated gaze nearly burning a hole through my skin. He advances on me, until I am pressed against a wooden structure. I don’t breathe as his hand drifts into my unbound hair, tucking a wayward lock behind my ear.

“You are so lovely, Chloé,” he says after a moment. “So sweet, innocent even, yet full of barely restrained passion, passion that I have unlocked in you.”

“Salvatore,” I whisper, the heat of his words starting to build within me. I’m already wet for him, waiting for the moment that he will take my body and do what he wishes with it.

“Cara.” He drifts his hand down my cheek and onto my shoulder, then toys with the collar of my shirt. “I wish to have you here, in your garden, f*****g you among the roses I planted thinking of you until you scream my name. Will you like that?”

I blush at the thought. “Oh, oui.”

“You let me enjoy your body, and it just so happens I love looking at you. Feeling you. Tasting you.” He smiles wolfishly. “It never felt wrong to love you. Even when you were married. If anything, it felt and feels so right.”

“It always felt right to me, too,” I agree, wondering what he’s getting at, noticing he worded it as if I am not married anymore.

“But to me, you seem like a woman who wants more. Who will not have her appetite quenched by one lover.”

Oh, mon Dieu. He knows. I bring a hand to my mouth. Perhaps he feels unsafe with me, and I wouldn’t blame him, I feel horribly guilty. It doesn’t help that I had explicit dreams about him and Enzo two nights ago. Dreams where they asked me to stay and then they made love to me.

Uncertain, I lay open my heart to him. “Salvatore, I didn’t mean, I…I don’t know what—how that happened between me and Enzo. I’m so sorry.”

He smiles at me. “Come, come. We are adults. Enzo and I are fratelli. I don’t mind sharing with him.”

I nearly faint, right there. “What are you…”

“Cara.” He takes my hands in both of his, and it’s only that which keeps me standing. “Do not feel guilty.”

How can I not? I’ve f****d his brother and not said a word to him. I lied to both men, first to Enzo, saying I was Fleur, than in the best of worlds, you could say I only omitted from Salvatore that I had s*x with Enzo.

Don’t I deserve the right to feel guilty?

I open my mouth to respond but I have to close it as I realize I have no idea what to say. Or even what to ask.

If he doesn’t mind that I slept with someone else, does that mean he doesn’t love me like I thought he did? Oh, but what am I saying. By that logic, he could assume I don’t love him because I slept with Enzo. But I do love him. And I believe he loves me.

This is so messed up—and yet, it sounds like he’s saying I haven’t messed up anything. “Quoi? What do you mean?”

“I mean that I know you had a brief affair with Enzo and that the two of you got…very well together. I also know that you put him on hold.”

“I did. I felt terrible when I found out he was your brother. I mean…not that what happened with us was okay before that—I’d been lonely for so long and I just…”

“It’s okay. You don’t need to explain.”

“But I feel like I need forgiveness.”

“You’ve done nothing that needs to be forgiven.”

“If not from you, then I need it from myself. I feel like I’ve betrayed you, even though we weren’t together.”

“Fine. Punish yourself. But be quick about it. When you’re done you can think about whether or not you’d like to resume what you have with Enzo, and with me too, with no problems about it between us. Everything is okay, Cara.”

“But what about Angelo?” I put both of my hands over my too big mouth. I have never said his name out loud before. But his name is very appropriate. Angelo. It agrees with his physical appearance, though this angel is a bit more sexy than those depicted in the walls of churches and on paintings. His blond curls…mon Dieu, I can see my hands tearing through them as I press his face between my legs.

How can I think of that! At a time like this?

He raises an eyebrow. “You like Angelo too? Nessuno problema. He can join us as well.”

I want to slap myself on the forehead. “Oh, Salvatore, that’s not at all what I meant to say.”

“So, you don’t like him then?”

“Oui— Non! Merde.” Or maybe I want to shake Salvatore to make him understand what I am trying to say. “Oui, I do like him, but non—oh! You’re making this so hard. I was asking what would he think if he knew of me being with both you and Enzo…sexually? I don’t want him to hate me.”

I hadn’t even begun to consider adding a third person into the mix of what would be three of us together if I agreed to continue what was started with Enzo at Mario’s villa. Being with two men is already weird enough for my mind to process.

Part of me is tempted by the thought, but my mind cannot go there just now. This is too much to take. Too much to think about all at one time.

“He’d not hate you. More likely the opposite will happen. He’ll probably fall for you like a baby dog.” He half-snorted, half-smiled. “I just want to be clear about one thing. Not minding if you are intimate with my brothers does not mean I would be accepting of you being with any other man.”

“So, if I did this thing, it would be like a relationship with us? We would be loyal, the same as if it were only two, like normal?”

“Sì. Enzo and I, we’ve shared women for years, and it’s always felt natural, like this is how we’re meant to be. We’ve talked about having a permanent menage à troi or a polyamorous relationship and dreamed that one day we would find someone and make a home with the three, who knows, maybe the four of us. You could be our woman, our wife.”

“Do you mean…” Their woman? Are they all crazy or am I the only one taking a serious departure from reality?

Something suddenly shifts between us and the air thickens. My breathing speeds up. Is he proposing a weird form of…of…harem? Where I would be the sheik and they would be the…concubines?

“What do you think, Cara?” He holds my hands.

I am confused by his words. He isn’t making any sense to me. “Je ne comprends pas. I don’t understand what you’re asking.”

“It’s quite simple. Share a bed with us all. Make love with all of us. Separately and together. With one of us, two of us, and hopefully, with the three of us. We’ll be here for you, only you. All times. You would be bound to all three—well, at least two of us. Wife to each one of us. Cherished by us. All times.”

I am there opening and closing my mouth but not a word leaves it. I have no idea what to answer to that. Surely, something like this—one woman to three men—can’t work. If one man is already enough to deal with, what about two? And three? Dieu.

Three handsome, rugged, passionate...and virile...and wealthy Italian men.

Hmm…it might not be a very bad idea…

Oh.

I can’t believe the thoughts that are running through my head, that I am even considering this. Finally, I manage to say, “I need to think—”

He silences me with a hot, open-mouthed kiss.

Pushing on Salvatore’s chest, I break the kiss.

I have to clear some things in my head.

So much is rattling around in there that I need some clarity. “Please, I need some answers here, some space, even. This is…overwhelming.”

I run from his arms without looking back.

Since then, I have been sitting up in my room, shaking.

And thinking.

Thinking about what it might be like to spend a night in the arms of three beautiful, masculine brothers.

Mon Dieu, never in my life did I think I’d find such temptation.