“Are you sure you don’t want to come?” he asks.
I shake my head. As much as a trip to the mountains up north sounds fun, I know I have to write. I figure with him gone, it will probably be easier too. The only problem is that he’s planning on staying overnight at a friend’s house, one of the guys who works at the quarry, which means I’ll be alone with Vanni. He was invited but he passed it up, saying it was boring.
“I’m looking forward to getting some work done,” I tell him. “Less distractions.”
“Yes, well let’s hope that Vanni stays out of your hair.”
“He’s a good kid. He knows when I have to work.”
In fact, later, right after Claudio gets in his Range Rover and takes off for Carrara, Vanni turns to me and says, “Time for you to get to work. Go, go!”
I laugh and collect my laptop from my room. I have a few hours of writing left before I have to make dinner. Luckily, Vanni has volunteered to help, which should be a fun thing to do together. No doubt it won’t be as good as Claudio’s but if we make it ourselves, at least it means something.
Since Claudio finished my office right before he left, I know it’s ready for me to use. I head across the road and step inside the door, taking in the room with respect.
It hums with silence in here, and the thick stone walls keep out all the heat. It feels like a tomb in some ways, but it’s comforting. There’s enough good lighting so my eyes won’t feel strained, and the lack of windows means I have even less distractions.
I open my laptop and get to work.
The time passes quickly, the words flowing freely. Every now and then I pause to have a sip from my water bottle, and I glance up at the Virgin Mary who is staring down at me. If anything, I feel her encouragement.
I stop for an early dinner, and Vanni and I make caprese sandwiches and eat them outside on the patio. I have a glass of wine that goes down too easily, but I need to keep my wits about me.
It’s still oppressively hot, even after dinner, and Vanni wants to go swimming. Since I should supervise him anyway, I decide to join him. At first, I attempt to do some laps, but Vanni is playing shark and diving under at the last minute as I pass him by, grabbing my legs. So we end up having a splash fest, which then escalates once he brings out the pool noodles.
I know my experience with kids was lacking before I came here, but I have to say being around Vanni has really opened my eyes. I’ve never been sure I wanted kids before and, frankly, I’m still not. I get it when Claudio said that Jana wasn’t maternal, because sometimes I think I’m the same way (and it does give me a bit of a pause, because Claudio is so well-suited to being a father).
But I really like being around Vanni. So much so that I think Claudio won’t be the only one to break my heart when I eventually leave. I’m going to miss this kid, too.
At least we have the whole summer together now.
“Grace!” Vanni yells at me, snapping me to attention.
I have no time to react as the pool noodle goes whack right across my face.
“You’re dead,” I growl at him.
“Italiano!” he yells gleefully, swimming away.
“Sei morto!” I tell him, grabbing the nearest pool noodle and going after him.
Later that night, I’m deep asleep in my bed when I hear something.
I sit up slowly, my eyes adjusting to the darkness of the bedroom.
The door creaks open.
I don’t panic right away, because I assume it’s Vanni. Maybe he’s had a bad dream about being stuck in the wrong universe.
But then I notice a tall, dark figure stepping inside.
Oh my god.
I open my mouth to scream but hear, “Grace…”
Would a killer know my name?
They would if they were like Kathy Bates in Misery.
“It’s me.”
Claudio.
I exhale deeply, my heart thundering against my ribs. “What are you doing here?” I whisper.
The door quietly clicks shut and he walks across to my bed, standing at the end of it. “I came back. I couldn’t stand to be away from you.” His voice is raw and impassioned.
I lick my lips, instantly melting at the urgency in his words.
“It must be the middle of the night.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he says. “I woke up on the couch at my friend’s and I thought, what am I doing? Why am I here? Why am I not with you? It doesn’t matter that we have more time together now if I’m not going to use that time properly.”
I lean over and switch on the bedside light.
There he is, his features seeming sharp and shadowed in the half light. My god, is this really the man I’ve been giving my body to? The man who seems to want so much more? How can he be so beautiful?
“I’m glad you’re back,” I tell him quietly. “It was a little lonely without you.”
He doesn’t say anything to that. The look on his face is so serious and smoldering that it makes my skin feel like it’s being licked by flames.
We stare at each other for what feels like minutes and hours and then he’s getting on the bed and prowling across it over to me.
“Why can’t you sleep naked?” he whispers to me as his body rises above mine and I’m bracketed in by his large, strong frame, and his musky, sweet scent. His hand trails down over my breasts and then tugs at the hem of my t-shirt. “You know I come for you. You know I make you come.”
I gulp. That he does.
And yet something feels different tonight. There’s an intensity in the air, electric and alive, and the look in his eyes is nothing short of brooding. He wants me, that much is sure. Wants me so badly that he drove back to see me in the middle of the night.
For once, I feel like what we’re doing is slipping beyond casual fucking.
This is becoming something so much bigger than that.
Fear flits through me again and I nearly clutch my chest, as if I could protect my heart from being squashed by him. How will he not break me when this is all over? The path to destruction is inevitable.
But I raise my arms as he lifts the shirt over my head, my breasts bare, and then he works down my underwear, until I’m lying on the bed completely naked.
My mind is racing as I watch him, wondering what he’s going to do, his gaze raking over my skin.
He lowers his head and his mouth licks over my breasts, his fingers pinching my nipples until I let out a cry of sweet pain, my face growing hot. My spine seems to buzz with each suck of his hot mouth over my cooler skin.
How can I leave this? How can this all be over one day? I don’t want this to end and yet I know there is no alternative. We simply can’t be together, so it’s casual sex or nothing, but at the same time, this isn’t casual. Not even a little. I want to be with him so badly that it scares me, makes my bones shake, makes my heart feel pinched and tight. If the yearning and the pining is already like this and he’s here, what will it be like when he’s not?
“You’re thinking too much,” he murmurs, and I look down to see his face moving down my stomach and back up, licking a path with a wide sweep of his tongue. His hands are at my thighs, digging into them, spreading them wide.
But he stops, tilting his head as he studies my face.
“W-what?” I manage to say, my throat feeling incredibly dry.