Is he saying it was all a bad dream? Was it a plan we made that I made too real in my mind? I want to believe it, but How can I help you? was said in a voice I’d never heard before and didn’t make up.

Right now, he’s real. His skin under my fingers. The warmth. The crackle of his life. The feel of his breath on my throat as he kisses it, and the muffled sound his hand makes when he touches the bandage on my ear.

It happened. The imprisonment. The aborted wedding. The longing and constant terror that he’d be killed. This, right now. Our bed. Our house. He’s more real than any memory. More urgent than any fear I can recall from the past or all the worry I can create for the future.

I pull the shirt over his shoulders, and he shrugs out of it. He gets up long enough to leave his crisp trousers in a pile on the floor, then lies on me, creating a safe cocoon inside a protected room inside a peaceful world, where his kisses don’t have ulterior motives and his cock is hard for the only woman in the universe.

I want this so badly.

I lay my hands on his smooth cheeks and look into his eyes. There’s enough love in them to fill a church, but there’s something else I can’t read.

“What did you do, Dario?”

“I loved you as well as I could.” His tone implies that it wasn’t enough, or it wasn’t the right way. His tone carries guilt, and regret, and a plea for forgiveness.

“How can I help you?” I don’t sound as genuine as Rosemarie. I want to help, but I’m afraid of what I’ll be supporting.

“Open your legs. Let me inside. Show me how to love you.”

Wrapping my legs around his waist, I give myself to him.

“Did you do it?” I ask as he moves inside me. “Did you give them up?”

He straightens his arms to look me in the eye. “I did it.”

“Why?”

“I’ll spend the rest of my life finding those women, but without you, there’s no life.”

My right hand shoots forward and slaps his face. He seems more surprised than hurt.

“What are you doing?” he asks.

“Showing you how to love me.”

“I had to. Don’t you see that?”

“Why are you stopping? Harder, Dario. Show me how much you hate yourself for this. Let it go. You love me? What’s under that love? Let your cock find out.”

With a single deep thrust, he stabs me with his dick. I gasp in pain, then he moves against my swollen nub and the warmth overtakes the hurt.