Tuscan Heat (7 page)

His fingers grazed the tip of my nipple poking up through my bra. Then he gripped my breast and squeezed. “How can I not react to that?” I said.

“But you must not. If someone walked by, they would see your face.”

My eyes snapped away from his to look over his shoulder. No one was there, but I could hear voices on the wide gravel path.

He chuckled. “So do nothing. Nothing at all. If someone should come along, we will simply stand up and go on our way.” He moved his hand to my other breast and lifted it, testing its weight. He flicked my nipple with his thumb.

“Tease.”

“I am not a tease.”

“You’re teasing me.” I was trying not to gasp and shudder.

“Isn’t a tease a person who does not follow through?”

“I just said I couldn’t do sex this publicly.”

“Sex, no, but surely you can come for me.” He brought his hand sharply to my pussy, almost slapping my mound.

I bit off the scream of delight. His pupils were dilated now, and his dark eyes looked almost black. He wasn’t smiling. My heart pounded like a jungle drum. “Maybe.”

He pushed a knuckle against the crotch of my capris until he found the valley between my pussy lips. I pressed against him, but he shook his head. “No. Do not move.”

It was torture. I wanted to put my hands on his body. I wanted to feel his hair in my fingers, and pull his weight on top of me. Above all else, I wanted him to move his hand a little faster.

He knew what I was thinking, but he did not oblige. He moved his knuckle up and down, looking for the perfect spot. With his other hand, he raked his fingers along my inner thigh, and over my stomach and breasts. I was frozen in an attempt to not make any noises.

He inched a bit closer. “I have made an error in judgment, Serafina,” he murmured. He didn’t stop touching my pussy.

“How…so?” I managed to say.

“I should not have promised that we should be able to simply stand up and walk away.”

“Eh?”

He leaned toward me. “I desperately want to put my hand inside your pants. I want to put my fingers inside of you.”

I moaned. I couldn’t help it. His voice was gravelly with desire.

“Yes, you want me to do that. You are so wet, and hot. I want you, Sara. You are beautiful and I want to feel how slick you are, pushing into you over and over. You are so tight. Oh, yes, your pussy is tight around my fingers, I can imagine.”

He kept talking, the words flowing over me. My whole body was burning. With every other word he ground his fist against my crotch. I knew I was wet and I didn’t care. All I knew was him.

“Now come for me. Let me imagine that you are shaking with me inside you. Come, Sara. I want you.”

The orgasm tore through my body. Wave after wave of powerful sensation started in my groin and fled outward. My arms were quivering with the strain, and my legs were flexing outside of my control. Whenever I thought I was done, another powerful aftershock took over my pussy and shuddered against his hand.

I opened my eyes. He was smiling at me. “Dear…God,” I said.

“Rest. We must also let the wind dry you.” He flapped his hand near the vee of my legs, waving enough air onto my crotch to let me know that my panties were soaked along with the capris. “A good thing we will walk to dinner tonight, so you can wear your dress.”

“I’ll be annoyed with you for spoiling my pants as soon as I can stand up.”

He popped a strawberry into my mouth. “Now we are even.”

As soon as I swallowed, I stuck out my tongue. “We are so not. I’m going to get you back for that.”

“That was my hope, yes.”

I shrieked and shoved him.

We finished our lunch and went back to my hotel. Marco had errands to run before our dinner date, and my ankle was a little sore. His farewell kiss wasn’t the perfunctory peck I still half expected, and I practically danced into the lobby of the Giglio. The answering grin on the concierge’s face was only embarrassing until her words sunk in.

“Miss Wright, the airline’s van arrived an hour ago.”

I threw my arms into the air and cheered.

A few hours later, I rode the elevator down to the lobby wearing my favorite first date dress, the one I’d meant to use to hook a fling on my vacation. The bodice fit tightly, but the calf-length skirt was loose and full. I wore delicate beaded sandals, and my hair cascaded back from a matching beaded headband.

The three greatest things are not life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. If you have ever had to wear the same crummy outfit for practically three straight days, you know the big three are lipstick, perfume and clean underwear.

The desk staff and the concierge burst into applause when the doors slid open. I twirled around and bowed to everyone. “Thank you, thank you.”

“Che bellezza!”
said the doorman.

“Yes, you look very nice, but you always looked nice,” said the concierge. “I know you were tired of that outfit, however. Have a good evening with Mr. D’Alessandro.”

Marco himself pushed through the door. My cheeks grew warm at the way his eyes widened and traveled over my body. His smile could have lit the city. He took my hand and kissed it before he led me out into the sultry evening.

“I had in mind an intimate trattoria, but you are so beautiful that I wish to display you,” he said. Almost as soon as we left the hotel, we turned down a medieval street so narrow that a rogue Vespa could have done serious damage.

“Displayed? Like a trained monkey?” I suggested.

“I was thinking a precious jewel, but if you prefer the image of a monkey…”

“Only if it has a Medici nose.”

Our laughter echoed against the walls. An old man wearing an even older fedora smiled at us from a stoop. He said something to Marco and bowed to me.

“What did he say?” I asked when we were farther down the street.

“To seize our youth,” said Marco. Something in his face kept me from making a joke.

We came to a beautifully carved wooden door. There was an iron frame with a pattern of grapes and leaves mounted on the wall, holding a sign that said Vino Dolce in an art deco font.

“I feel young, going to such an old restaurant,” I said.

Marco sniffed. “This? No. This has only been a restaurant since 1925. In Firenze you are not established until you have been in one place for one hundred years.”

“This building looks four times that old.”

“It can be restored to appear old, but in this case, you are correct.”

“I stand corrected.”

He grinned. “Soon you will sit corrected.”

The hostess greeted us warmly. Well, she greeted Marco warmly. She swept her eyes over me, calculating the value of my outfit and the quality of my hair before giving me a tiny nod of approval. I raised an eyebrow at her, but before I could say anything, an enormous man in chef’s whites raced up to us.

“Marco!” He continued in Italian for a moment, but after a glance at me, he shifted into English. “You have come on an excellent night. Perhaps the
bistecca alla fiorentina
for two?”

“You mean for four, Orsino. Your menu lies when it says it is for two. You would have to push us home in a wheelbarrow,” said Marco.

“Well, then. Perhaps the
gnocci dell’aragosta
? Very fresh. Come, sit at the chef’s table.”

He bustled away and disappeared into a doorway. The hostess shrugged and handed us two menus with a smile. “It is for the best,” she said. “The main room is crowded tonight.”

We followed the chef down a dark stone tunnel. I couldn’t see any light with my date standing in front of me. I held tightly to Marco’s shoulder. “Do you not have safety codes in Italy, or do you use medieval stairs as a kind of sorting device? The survivors get to eat?”

He chuckled, and at that moment, we came out into a small dining room with only a few candlelit tables. Low brick vaulted ceilings and old plaster walls, but somehow proportioned so well that I didn’t feel claustrophobic. It was delightfully cool after the sweltering evening we’d left behind, and when I saw the casks along one wall, I realized I was about to eat dinner in an old wine cellar.

With a certain amount of fluttering, the burly cook ushered us into a round banquette in a private corner. It was laid with beautiful stoneware plates and green linen napkins. “I wish I could stay and guide you, but I am training a new sous chef. And of course, you are on a date. I should not be a third wheel, no? Do consider the
gnocci,
and save room for
Torta della Nonna
. You know she will ask, Marco.”

He ducked behind one of the casks and vanished like an overgrown gnome.

“She’ll ask?”

“
Torta della Nonna
means Grandmother’s Cake. Everyone in Tuscany makes their own version. In this case, it is in fact his grandmother’s recipe. She is a friend of my family’s and I can assure you it is excellent.”

Someone had thoughtfully tucked an English version of the menu inside the leather folder, and I realized the chef had recommended lobster dumplings. They had me from the word lobster.

After we ordered and the wine chosen by Marco was poured, we were quiet for a moment. Then he took my hand. “Serafina…Sara. You are even more beautiful every time I see you.”

I smiled. “You’ve only seen me a few times. I hope I’m on my way home before we get to the point of diminishing returns.”

He laughed, but his eyes remained serious. “Beautiful and a quick wit, and more sensual than a Botticelli painting. I said I would display you as a rare jewel, for that is what you are.”

“You’re going to give me a big head with all this sweet talk.” I took a sip of the wine. It wasn’t quite as spectacular as the vintage he’d chosen from the
enoteca,
but then again, that night he hadn’t known I was a sure thing. This one was sweeter, with more fruit flavor. I tasted currants somehow.

“Then let us talk of other things. Tell me of yourself.”

I leaned back in my chair. “What do you want to know?”

“Everything! Anything!” He flung out his arms. “I know you are an artist, that you are without pretention, that you are independent and clever. But I do not know anything else about you, and I must know you.”

“You know me pretty well.” I slipped my hand under the table and onto his leg.

He shivered, but he caught my wrist in a gentle hand. “No. Not yet. I have noticed one thing. You keep changing the subject whenever I approach matters of the heart. Why is that?”

“I don’t.”

“Must I say ‘do too’ like a small boy?”

“You don’t like my subject changes?”

“I love them, but I also wish to love the woman.”

I froze like a terra-cotta statue. The cultural differences accounted for the effusive compliments and the dramatic praise, but I didn’t think Italian men whipped out the
l
-word any easier than American boys. I remembered to breathe, and even managed to recover enough brain cells to respond. “You’re dangerously charming.”

“I am out of practice. Give me time.”

“I’ll be across an entire ocean before too much time passes.”

“Have you not heard of airplanes? The internet? Web cameras?”

“I’ll need a webcam to prove to my friends that I was lucky enough to meet a gorgeous man in Florence.”

“I am lucky you were free.”

I liked that. Not single, just free. I gave in after another fortifying sip of wine. “I recently moved to an apartment in a suburb of Washington, D.C. I’m an only child. My favorite color is yellow but I look terrible when I wear it. I’m an artist because I love to draw and bring things to life so other people can see them, not because I have anything to say through my art. I have a black thumb.”

“A what?”

“I kill houseplants.”

“Ah, yes.”

“Now it’s your turn.”

He took his own sip. “I grew up here,” he said slowly. “I have three brothers. We all work for the family architectural firm. The specialty is shopping centers that appeal to very rich people. I do not like this work.”

“Why?”

“Many reasons. The one that matters most is that I love the old city. I wish to make beautiful things, things to make one think of the glorious history of Firenze. There are people who think we must try to be more modern. These are the people who would tear up the old paving stones—stones placed by Medici workers—and replace them with blacktop. I say no. No!” He slapped the table.

I grabbed for our glasses and saved the wine. “I agree,” I said. “It feels like the whole world is hell-bent on being modern. Does every last piece of the world have to be the same?”

“I am sorry to get so excited, Serafina. Yes. You have it. These shopping malls, they are the same everywhere in the world. But there is only one Duomo.”

“I picked my hotel just so I could see the dome first thing in the morning.”

He touched my cheek. “I knew you and I were well matched.”

I blushed. He must have felt the heat of my blood against his hand, because he gave me a smile as slow and sweet as honey. I nearly kissed him on the spot.

Our food arrived to save me from myself.

He never let our wineglasses get less than a quarter full, and I discovered that he’d picked a wine that somehow went well with both my lobster and his wild boar. We chatted easily over dinner, discussing books and movies as well as places he’d visited while he lived in Virginia. I guess that’s how we got to sharing stories of our collegiate exploits. A few of my stories brought a speculative gleam to his eye, and nearly all of his had the same effect on me.

My leg muscles were feeling warm and loose, and I knew I needed more food or less wine. Fortunately, his next remark was like a bucket of cold water.

“Why, why, why, Serafina? Why is a priceless woman like you not spoken for?”

“That, sir, is sexist,” I said.

“How is it sexist?”

“Why are
you
single?”

“I do not know any women as wonderful as you.”

“Nice one.”

“Thank you.”

“If you had been a normal man, you would have said something like ‘because I don’t feel like getting attached’ or ‘I like playing the field.’ And everyone would be okay with that,” I grumbled. “How do you know they don’t apply to me?”