Reckless Abandon(4)

“Those things are huge. There’s no way you’re carrying them around. And if you lose them, I don’t care how much Adam loves you. He’ll flip.”

Leah lets out a loud laugh. I return it. We both know Adam staying mad at Leah is about as likely as me befriending an octopus who speaks French.

See? Unlikely.

I walk over to the bed and fall into it. My body sinks into the duvet and I actually sigh, it feels so good. My eyes are just about to set into sleepyland when Leah lets out a loud gasp.

I prop open an eye.

“Ems, Ems—come here, you have to see this.” She’s still on the veranda, her hand flapping at a million miles a second. Her eyes still glued to the binoculars.

I let out a grunt and fall further into the pillow.

“Emma!” She shrieks. It’s a hurry-up shriek, not a I’m-being-kidnapped shriek.

Unwillingly and very tiredly, I roll off the bed and pad over to where she’s standing. When I reach her side, she hands the binoculars over to me and positions my body and the binoculars in the direction she was gawking at. I lift the binoculars to my face and look out on the marina.

“What am I looking at?” I ask.

“The boat. Do you see the boat?”

“I see, like, a million boats.” I reply.

“The ginormous boat, Ems. It’s huge. You can’t miss.”

I pan the area where she’s positioned me to look. Sailboat, sailboat, sailboat, smaller vessel, smaller vessel, motorboat, hydrofoil . . . Ahh, I see it. Ginormous isn’t even the word. It’s twice the size of the ferry we took from Naples this morning. It’s impressive, I’ll give her that, but so not worth getting out of bed for.

I hand the binoculars back to Leah. “It’s very nice. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some sleep to catch up on.”

Leah pushes the binoculars back to my chest.

“Look at the upper deck, spaz.”

With an eye roll, I take the binoculars back. There’s the boat again. I see windows. I see a double staircase off the back of the boat. I see a seating area. I see . . . oh. Oh, have mercy.

I see a man. Not just any man. I see a naked man. Naked in all his glory.

Yup, I’m awake now.

These binoculars are really powerful because from the incredible distance we are from the yacht, I can see the clear definition of his ass.

It’s a good ass.

It’s a gladiator ass.

And that’s not all. His back is rumbling with muscle, cascading with each movement of his incredible body.

Sweet Jesus, hallelujah.

I can’t see his face because his back is to us as he is pounding into a woman. Maybe pounding isn’t the word. Grinding, thrusting, plunging—take your pick. I can’t see her at all because his masculine frame is blocking my view. All I can see of her is two legs wrapped around his lean torso. With each thrust, his gluts flex in and the lats muscles on his back pump out.

These two are having sex. And it’s the really dirty kind.

A pool of heat settles between my legs. The nerve endings in my chest spark alive and my cheeks flush with heat.

It’s like the first time I watched soft porn. My friends wanted to see what it was about so they turned on Cinemax and we sat there in silence pretending we weren’t being affected. The truth was I was sitting there with a throbbing between my legs and the very strong desire to do something about it.

I have that exact feeling right now.

“My turn.” Leah says, grabbing the binoculars from my face.

I breathe out through my puckered lips. That was hot. Really hot.

And really sick of us to watch.

“Leah, there has to be some law against you watching them have sex. Aren’t there, like, stalker laws?” I ask.

“They’re having sex in the open. If we were home, they’d be the ones getting arrested.” She licks her lips and bites down on her lower lip. “I love Italy already.”

Shaking my head, I walk back over to the bed and try to fall asleep.

My mind racing with visions of naked men, it’s not so easy for me to fall into sleepy land as it was before.





The first night of our sister sabbatical was more than I was ready for. After sleeping for five hours, Leah threw me out of bed and made me put on a very sparkly halter top and black capri pants for dinner. She insisted we wear capris in Capri. I couldn’t argue with her logic.

After dinner, we went to the Piazetta Umberto I, the town square, got tipsy on limoncello and then followed a group of other twentysomethings to a club in town. Leah’s idea, not mine. There we drank more limoncello, and by the end of the night Leah had the entire club singing a Katy Perry song.

Because that’s what Leah does.

And apparently, even non-English–speaking Italians know the words to Katy Perry songs.

While they sang and danced, I sat at a table and sucked down my drinks, plastering a fake smile on my face, trying not to ruin Leah’s “honeymoon” or elicit one of those looks from her.

I caught her inspecting me a few times, making sure I wasn’t falling into a mood or withdrawing myself. She thought she was being sly, asking me if I wanted another drink when it was still full and hers was drained, encouraging me to drink up or telling me a joke and making sure I laughed at it, because, if I didn’t, then something must be wrong. Each time her eyes drifted over to mine, I’d bob my head to the music pretending I’m into whatever song the DJ is playing when I’d rather have been back in the room.