All I Believe (Firsts and Forever, #10)(38)
Nana picked up a bottle of hundred and fifty proof rum and filled the vase to the top. Then she reached into a little paper bag and said, “Now we’re gonna garnish it up.” She pulled out a huge handful of condoms in every color of the rainbow and threw them in the bowl. Their clear wrappers had pictures of smiling cartoon cocks on them. “Any great bartender will tell you, it’s all about presentation. This drink is called Sex in a Volcano, so we gotta make it lively. Oh, and there’s one final step.”
“Wait, Nana,” I exclaimed as she produced a lighter from her pocket, but it was too late to stop her. She held the flame over the rum, which ignited instantly and produced a good-sized fireball. Everyone jumped back as Nana swore vividly. We all breathed a collective sigh of relief because the apartment hadn’t gone up in smoke.
“I don’t see how we’re supposed to drink this though, since it’s on fire,” Nana said. She picked up the small shopping bag that had contained the condoms and tried to fan out the flames, and suddenly it caught fire too. “Oh shit,” Nana exclaimed, waving the burning bag around as she jumped off the stool.
Everyone tried to help her at once, and Jessie tripped in all the commotion and gave the cart a hard push just as Nana threw the burning bag on the floor and stomped it out with her shoe. The cart shot across the living room and out the open door to the balcony with Luca and me in hot pursuit. It crashed into the low railing and momentum carried the bowl forward, but by some miracle Luca caught it and the vase and kept it from going over. The same could not be said for the couple gallons of alcohol. A flaming waterfall of booze sloshed over the railing and rained down on someone on the sidewalk. The alcohol burned off in the next instant, so the person was unharmed, if soaking wet.
When the dripping figure looked up at us, we saw that it was a Catholic priest. “Sorry, Monsignor,” Luca called. The man glared at us and plucked something off his cheek. His frown deepened when he got a look at the condom wrapper. We ducked back into the apartment, and then we both doubled over laughing. When he could speak again, Luca said, “We’re definitely going to hell for laughing about this.”
“For sure,” I agreed, drying my eyes. I was still chuckling.
All of that proved to be one hell of an icebreaker, and the party was really festive after that. Everyone proceeded to get pretty drunk, which helped the appeal of the tuna casseroles considerably. Since there weren’t many chairs in Fiona’s small apartment, Luca and I sat on the floor as we ate, leaning against each other and one of the living room walls. He pretended to be afraid of the casserole, but went back for seconds.
While we ate, Luca entertained us with humorous stories about his travels. This led to my cousins trying to one-up each other with the funniest travel anecdote. They were no match for Luca though, who brought the house down with a story involving evading a pack of amorous wild monkeys, a case of mistaken identity, dressing up like a Buddhist nun (complete with shaved head, per local custom) and fleeing in a miniature three-wheeled car called a tuktuk to avoid false arrest in Thailand. “You have to be making that up,” Matteo said, gasping for breath because he was laughing so hard, but Luca swore it was a true story.
I watched his profile as he spoke. I was absolutely charmed by him, no doubt about it. Everyone else was too, including my grandmother, who hung on every word.
We visited well into the evening, and eventually my cousin Remy said, “I hate to break up the party, but our babysitter can’t stay late. We should go.” He slid his arm around his wife’s waist and she gave him a hug.
“We need to go too,” Matteo said. “Allesso and I have to be in the studio at seven a.m. We’ll be back to help out tomorrow night, when Nana tries to set up every single person on the east coast of Sicily.”
“Oh wait, I forgot about dessert,” I exclaimed. I’d baked chocolate chip cookies and turned pairs of them into ice cream sandwiches with a scoop of vanilla gelato in the middle. I handed them out to my departing relatives, and we sent Nana and Jessie home in a cab with two desserts each. Both of them were all smiles and thanked us for a wonderful night.
Luca and I helped Fiona clean up. When we finished, we said goodnight to my cousin and decided to walk back to the hotel, since the night was clear and beautiful. Luca tucked my painting under his arm and held my hand, and we shared an ice cream sandwich as we strolled through the quiet streets. Fiona’s neighborhood was up on the hillside, so it was an easy downhill walk back to the piazza.
He took a bite of the dessert as I held it for him, and when he got some gelato on his lower lip, I licked it off and kissed him. That made him smile. When I fed him the last bite of the sandwich, he took my index finger between his lips and sucked it clean, holding my gaze.
Lust flared in both of us simultaneously, and he veered off the main road and led me up a little dirt path that ended at the edge of a cliff. Down below us, the lights of Viladembursa hugged the curved coastline and sparkled like a crescent moon. We were shielded from the road by overgrown bushes and the nearest building was over a hundred yards away, so we had a bit of privacy. We were going to need it.
Luca set the painting down carefully before grabbing me and kissing me with raw passion. I moaned as he rubbed my growing hard-on through my shorts, and I fumbled with his belt and zipper. As soon as I freed his erection, I dropped to my knees and began sucking him urgently, feeling him swelling between my lips while my cock throbbed. He let me suck him for a while before pulling me to my feet, and kissed me as he pushed my shorts and briefs to the ground. When I stepped out of them, he spun me around and rubbed his cock on my bare ass. A tremor of pure lust shot through me.