A Place in the Sun(70)

He gripped my biceps and twisted me to him so I was straddling him in the bathtub. We touched everywhere, so intimately fused that the nature of our discussion broke my heart.

“Don’t you remember what I told you? You’re my northern wind, my tramontana.”

His words weren’t enough; when your heart is set on love, anything less seems paltry.

I didn’t want to talk anymore. A part of me realized this would be the last time we touched like this, the last time our two bodies moved like one. I leaned forward and kissed him, slow and sweet at first. He responded right away, tilting my head back and softly gliding his tongue past my lips. My chest pressed against his and my breasts glided across his wet skin. It was all so deeply erotic—our minds were slaves to caution, but our bodies were free. His touch turned me on like never before.

He tilted me back, peeling my chest off his so he could bend down and take my right breast into his mouth. His tongue swirled around my sensitive nipple, working it to a peak before switching to the other. His hand moved to the velvet skin under the curve of my breast, bringing the warm bathwater up across my chest, heating my flushed skin.

I tried to lean forward and touch him, but he had such a gentle, commanding grip on me. With his hand on my waist, I couldn’t move over his hard length. The best I could do was string my fingers in his hair, gently moaning when he continued to seduce me.

I knew his body more than I knew my own, but this time was different. I tried to memorialize every fleeting moment. When he picked me up and positioned himself at my center, I squeezed my eyes and focused on every delicious inch sliding into me. He gripped my neck and his touch sent a ripple of sensation down my spine, numbing my toes.

“Open your eyes,” he told me when I’d pinched them closed.

It was hard to take it all in. With mine open, I was compelled to stare into his dark eyes, to witness our exchange. I didn’t want to see the incredible potential for love there.

Is that adoration in his eyes?

I knew my mind was playing tricks on me. Like a mirage, the promise of Gianluca’s unbridled affection was too good to be true.

I squeezed my eyes closed and gripped his shoulders as he picked me up and slid me back down onto him. It went on like that, painfully slow. I shuddered as the first waves of pleasure started to spread, but then he turned me around so my back was flush with his.

“Be here,” he said, leaning forward and dropping his lips to my neck.

He gripped my thighs and spread them beneath the bath water, sinking back into me as I let my head fall against his shoulder. His hand traveled down the front of my chest and I watched its descent. It was hidden beneath the bubbly bath water, but I felt him slide past my navel and my hips. He circled so close to my center that my toes curled and my fingers dug into the nape of his neck.

His lips found the shell of my ear and then at once, he was everywhere, circling his fingers beneath the water, right across the most sensitive part of me, and whispering in my ear, his breath warm, his words confident. His other hand sought my breast, thumbing my nipple in time with his circles. It was all too much; I couldn’t hang on.

“Gianluca…”

I felt vulnerable, utterly exposed to him. He could see my nerves starting to fray, my body shuddering from the rush of climax. He continued his rhythmic teasing with his finger as he sank deep inside me, all the way to the hilt. My breaths came in short, weak cries against his neck. My teeth grazed him there, and then finally he picked up the pace, pumping in and out of me, and I was writhing in agony and pleasure, climaxing so high I thought I’d split in two from the pleasure of it.

I was in a daze, vaguely aware of his orgasm combining with mine. I luxuriated in the blissful claim he laid on my body. Vaguely, I registered him sliding out of me and forcing the two of us to stand. He held up my weight as he bent forward and pulled the drain open. The spray of the shower collided with my back and we lathered each other up, taking our time and being lazy about it.

He bent down and kissed my cheek as I lathered up his chest. Before I’d even finished, he hauled me up against his body. He was soapy and warm, a human shield I used to block the shower’s spray as well as the depressing reality that would await us when the water eventually turned cold.





ALLIE HATED THE sea. She’d watched some nature program about sharks as a little girl and subsequently, she wouldn’t go near the ocean. She said it was too unpredictable for her taste. She liked pools, nice lovely resort pools with umbrellas in the drinks and complimentary towels. It was a bit funny that we’d moved to Vernazza for the last year of her life because she never once touched the water. She’d sit up on the pebbled beach, reading while I swam laps. I’d try to entice her, drag her to the edge of the water. It was crystal clear, no fish in sight, but Allie would scrunch her nose and retreat, slipping back to her spot in the shade or ordering a drink from one of the seaside vendors.

I hadn’t ever let myself consider it, but in the last year of her life, Allie had been incredibly hard to love. I couldn’t blame her for it. I’d placed her on a pedestal, treated her like a princess, and she’d grown accustomed to the role. It made sense. If she only had a finite number of days, what was the point of compromise, in forcing herself to do something she didn’t want to? That last year, and even the years before (if I really wanted to consider it), my world revolved around pleasing Allie. If she wanted pasta for dinner, I’d have Massimo deliver a special dish just for her. If she fancied a massage, I’d hire someone and bring them in from La Spezia. If she needed more sleep, or extra pain meds, or anything at all, I’d oblige. What choice did I have? I’d have cut my arm off to please her and she deserved to be a bit selfish, didn’t she? Only recently had I come to realize that in the five years since her death, I’d only remembered the good, the fun, the rose-colored.