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All this exhilaration felt a far cry from the horror of opening Fiore’s door to find him on the brink of death. Revealing his face to him—as he’d longed to all the while—was the least Enzo could do to reward Fiore for surviving.
And afterward, the sheer relief of watching him fall into a peaceful sleep loosed the tension in Enzo’s own body. To see by moonlight how the pained furrows vanished from his perfect brow and to hear his agonized hiss replaced by soft, steady slumbering breaths would’ve contented Enzo forevermore. To lie curled around him in his boat felt a thousandfold more comfortable than drowning alone in his own massive four-post bed. And thus, even as he drank in the sight of his beloved beside him, Enzo found his eyes falling shut as he descended to join him in dreams.
Dawn arrived and cast its rays across Enzo’s bare face. He opened his eyes to find the same light and warmth playing over Fiore’s still-sleeping features.
And with his own mouth uncovered, he could hardly resist smoothing the slumber-tossed curls back from Fiore’s forehead and pressing his lips to that beautiful brow.
After all, he told himself, the lips were the part of the skin most sensitive to heat and chill, and to check for a fever by this method would disturb Fiore far less than the termometro. To Enzo’s sweet relief he found the fever had indeed abated.
A soft and satisfied mumble escaped Fiore’s throat as Enzo withdrew, and a dreamy smile played across those perfect lips. Enzo resisted the urge for further kisses and set about making himself ready for another day of tending his most beloved invalid.
Whilst he plied Fiore’s razor to his own face at the wash-stand, his mind wandered. His thoughts never once strayed far from Fiore. Instead they drifted backward to the horrors he’d endured; not just the pain of the chirurgy itself but the all-consuming fear that’d seized Fiore and almost precluded his survival. Enzo knew well what most folk thought of chirurgeons. Giovanna’s children fled from the sight of him based on tales from their nursemaids. But they were mere children. And Fiore’s terror seemed to outstrip even theirs. He wondered what had happened to make Fiore more afraid of chirurgeons than of death. To witness the agonies of his mind and body alike had proved almost more than Enzo’s own heart could bear. He could only hope in some small way he’d helped Fiore through the worst of it.
Carlotta arrived shortly after Enzo had finished dressing. A few whispered words through the cracked-open door sufficed to arrange for such nourishments as befit an invalid in Fiore’s condition. She accepted these orders with a nod and departed still more silently than she’d arrived.
Taking charge of something even so small as meals made Enzo feel a touch better. True relief would arrive only when Fiore woke up. Enzo spent the interim perched on the bed’s gunwales with his fingertips laid against the inside of Fiore’s wrist where his hand had curled beside his head against the pillow. The pulse was neither so weak nor so frantic as he feared. Just a low steady throb of vitality as reassuringly eternal as waves lapping against the shore.
Carlotta returned with breakfast. She remained just long enough to surrender the basket into Enzo’s hands before she vanished again. Unwrapping the brioche from their napkin released a plume of fragrant steam. The coffee proved still more aromatic, its scent a welcome change from the iron tang of blood and gore that had seeped into the sickroom. Indeed, they’d used coffee grounds for just such a purpose at university to banish the stench of putrefaction from the dissection hall.
And at present, the smell of coffee as Enzo poured out two cups seemed to banish sleep as well as miasma, for Fiore began at last to stir.
A soft hum escaped his perfect lips as his head lolled across the pillow, tousling curls in its wake. Then his agile limbs stretched languid beyond the boundaries of his blanket. His unconscious movements held all the casual grace Enzo imagined might attend a faun blooming into wakefulness when touched by dawn’s first light. At last, the dark eyes opened, blinked, and fixed upon Enzo.
Enzo set the coffee cups aside. “Good morning.”
Fiore stared at him in silence. Then his hand shot up, seized Enzo by his shirt-front, and dragged him down for a kiss. All concerns vanished from Enzo’s mind as he lost himself altogether in Fiore’s soft embrace. That is, until Fiore broke off with a pained groan and fell back against the pillows.
“More anodyne,” Enzo prescribed.
“And coffee?”
Enzo felt only too glad to grant him both.
Fiore drank his without assistance, which Enzo took as a good sign, and the sight of which sent his heart soaring disproportionately. After coffee came brioche—Fiore had a good appetite, an even better sign.
After the brioche, Fiore’s gaze lingered on Enzo’s mouth, flicking up to meet his eyes and back down. Enzo took the hint and bent to kiss him again. His hunger for affection seemed to equal if not outstrip his hunger for actual nourishment. Enzo, for his part, felt no less ravenous. For all they kissed now, he thought he might never feel satisfied. They had not just the past few weeks to make up for but also the years and years in which they’d never yet known each other. So many kisses that they could never make up the debt, much less experience a surfeit. Kisses upon the mouth, along the jaw, and on down the throat to grace the collarbone with a bruise.
Only then did Enzo realize just how far he’d allowed his passions to drive him.
Fiore caught his panicked gaze with a slow and satisfied smile. “You can mark me, if you’d like.”
Enzo’s pulse stuttered.
Fiore’s tongue darted out to grace his swollen lip. “I don’t think I’ll be seeing anyone else for a while yet.”
Enzo’s pulse throbbed in places he had no use for it just now. He cleared his throat. “We ought to abstain for a fortnight at the very least.”
Fiore raised his brows. “If you insist.”
Enzo didn’t have the heart to insist upon anything. Still, “It would be medically inadvisable to do otherwise.”
Fiore looked as though he didn’t have a very high opinion of such medical advice. He smoothed his hand over the beard-shadow on his jaw and throat. “I look a mess, don’t I?”
“Hardly,” Enzo protested.
Nonetheless he supported Fiore in rising and brought him to his wash-stand. Fiore plied tooth-powder and brush, bracing one hand against the stand itself to remain upright. Enzo hovered within arm’s reach all the while. A collapse seemed unlikely, given the promising improvements in his patient’s condition, but the possibility yet haunted him. And furthermore…
Fiore reached for something on the wash-stand, hesitated, looked puzzled, then after glancing over it all found what he was after—his razor, which Enzo had replaced somewhere other than its usual position.
