Chapter 28: Running Away

“Liliana Corti Cortales, I love you,” I said. We’d managed to drive as far south as Indianapolis after the wedding reception. Little Joe and I had agreed to spend our honeymoons in different parts of the country. He and Isabella headed east toward New York. Lily and I headed south toward Florida. I didn’t want to be anywhere close enough to hear my sister screaming out her passion and I was pretty sure that was what she was doing. We checked in at a Holiday Inn and I carried my bride across the threshold of our hotel room.

“If you didn’t, Sylvester Cortales, we would not be standing in this room together.” She turned and embraced me. I kissed the top of her head. “Sly, I’m a little scared. I was raised in Italy. Virginity was something sacred we were taught to preserve until our wedding night. Now it’s my wedding night and I don’t know what to do.”

“We’ll take it slow, love. We’ve waited through six months of courtship for tonight. We don’t have to rush now.”

“I’m afraid you won’t like me… my body… or sex with me. You’re used to professionals.”

“Lil, listen to me.” I sat her on the edge of the bed and put my arm around her. “There is no such thing as getting used to professionals. Yes, there were women available and when Joe and I came in out of the field, we used them. That’s all it was. We used them to release the pressure that had built up after we’d been on an assignment. I knew nothing of love until I met you.”

“Kiss me. Kiss me like you did on the el when you were released after the mugging.”

“That was… I didn’t mean to lose control. I’d just killed two men, Lil.”

“Is that what sparks your passion, Sly? Killing people?”

“No. It’s… surviving. Living past the moment when I could have died. That’s why we went to prostitutes near the base. We’d survived.”

“Hmm.” She kissed me and it deepened as we became more passionate. She pulled my hand up to her breast and I could feel her breaths coming in deep gasps as we continued to kiss. I forgot all about survival mode. I was lost in the passion of my Italian love. “I just hope you survive tonight,” she whispered as she struggled to unzip her dress. Being a gentleman, I helped her, and the little party dress she had worn to the reception and in the car fell to the floor. She kicked it in a very unladylike fashion and began struggling out of her pantyhose.

I knelt at her feet and unfastened her shoes. Once they were off, I helped work the pantyhose off her feet. They were so tiny—at least, compared to my size elevens. She looked dainty and I massaged her feet as I kissed her toes.

“Sly! You still have your jacket on. Don’t you want to undress with me?” she asked. “You don’t plan to make love fully clothed, do you?”

We stood and I pulled at my jacket as I took in the sight of my virgin bride. My God! She was beautiful! She began unbuttoning my shirt as I kicked off my shoes and reached for my belt. I kept one hand on her bare back as we kissed again. I had touched her skin. Her hands. Her face. Once she had permitted my hand to stray to her thigh, but it was covered by pantyhose, of course.

But now it was Lily’s bare skin that my fingers caressed. Parts that had always remained covered. I was lost in the sensations of touching her as my trousers fell to the floor and I kicked them away to join her dress. I had to release her in order to get my shirt off, struggling with the cuff buttons that had been turned inside out in her hurry to pull it off. She bounced over to the bed and pulled the covers down, sliding beneath the sheet. I caught my breath at seeing the shape of her bottom beneath the silk panties she wore. I wanted to see that sight often.

“Take off your socks,” she giggled. “You look silly.”

I did as she said and slid under the sheet with her. She still wore her bra and panties. I still wore my boxers and T-shirt. Once we were both in bed, we just lay there. My erection was already raging and I knew she’d seen the evidence in my boxers before I got in bed. I didn’t want to frighten her again. Her hand moved over to mine and I held it as we lay on our backs.

“Do we have to get naked?” she asked in a tiny voice.

“Um… We don’t have to if you don’t want to, but um… we sort of have to… um…” I was supposed to be an experienced man guiding his wife. I was a stuttering idiot.

“Maybe we could… kiss some more before…?”

We rolled toward each other and our lips met, the hands that we held, trapped between us. I wrapped my left hand around her and held her gently as our lips and tongues meshed.

“I will never get tired of kissing you,” I said. “I will never get enough of it.” We kissed again.

“Take your T-shirt off so I can feel your skin,” she whispered. That took a split second and for the first time the skin of our bare stomachs touched. I changed position enough to put my right arm under her head as my left continued to stroke her shoulder. Her hands explored my chest and my back as we kissed some more.

It was a near perfect world except for the scratching of her bra against my chest. It was time to act like a man. I reached for the clasp on the back of her bra. One of the three hooks was still fastened when she jerked her lips away from mine.

“Sly?”

“It will be better this way,” I whispered. “I promise.” She whined a bit as the last hook came away. I tugged at the straps until she pulled her arms out one at a time, immediately snapping her arms over her breasts to protect them… from me? I leaned in to kiss her again and ran my hand up and down her back from neck to panty line. I massaged her skin and the marks that the straps had made. Gradually, she opened up and moved her arms around me again. I gasped as I felt her bare breasts pressed into my chest. Her kisses became more passionate and our breath barely escaped our lungs as I finally slipped a hand around to the front and caressed her breast for the first time.

“Sly? I think… if it’s always like this… I think I’m going to want to do this a lot.”

“Cariño, I hope it only gets better with time.”

“Sì, Tesoro. I am ready. I am ready for you, my love.”

Lily’s panties were flared at the leg and edged with lace, almost like a little skirt. When I ran my hand up her silky leg it slid right under the leg and onto her butt. She moaned loudly and I thought she would devour my mouth with hers. I reached up to the waistband and pulled them down, spending as long as possible caressing her round bottom as I dragged them off her hips. She shifted so I could pull them all the way off and then tugged at the waistband of my boxers. I stretched it out over my cock and shoved them down off my legs with my feet to the foot of the bed. I yearned to see… to look at my naked wife… but we were covered with the bedding. She clutched me to her and I felt her sob.

“What is it, Cariño? Sweetheart, tell me how to help you?” The first touch of a tear on my chest and my erection began to flag.

“It’s going to hurt! You are so big. The old ladies say the first time hurts and is not enjoyable. Why does it have to hurt when I feel so close to you and want you so much?”

“Oh.” I wasn’t going to win any awards for great dialog. I had no idea what to say. I’d heard guys talk about ‘doing virgins’ and how they screamed. I didn’t want to put my beloved Lil through that. “It can’t be that terrible if everyone keeps doing it, can it?” I asked.

“Be gentle with me, Sly. Just love me when I cry and be gentle.”

She lay back and spread her legs in resignation. The powers that be should create education courses on how to make love. They’d spent two years training me to kill. You’d think someone could have taken ten minutes to teach me how to love.

I let my hand drift down between her legs and she instantly clamped them shut.

“Lily, let me touch you.”

“You are going to touch me? There? It’s so…”

“I’m going to touch you. I’m going to give you pleasure. I’m going to make love to you. My lovely Lil, don’t hold yourself away from me any longer.”

Her legs slowly relaxed but more as if she was resigned to the inevitable than that she was excited.