by Karina Halle
“Ummm,” she says, staring down into her wine.
“Grace,” I say to her. “You are my muse. I need you.”
Her face softens, her eyes growing wet. Her mouth opens and then closes again. She has a sip of wine, licks her lips. “Look … Claudio.”
And here it comes. The blow. What she was trying to tell me this morning but lost the nerve, perhaps feeling sorry for me because I was too honest about what I wanted, too open with my feelings.
She sighs and looks down at her hands. “I’m … I’m afraid.”
This is news to me. “Afraid?”
“Yes.” She swallows, eyes roaming the field. “I’m afraid that … I’ll lose focus. Not just with the book. That I’ll lose focus on myself. Last night…” She sucks in her lower lip and my dick twitches, dying to have another taste. “It meant something to me. And because it meant something, it changes everything.”
“Maybe it’s okay if everything changes. And I would never let you lose sight of yourself.”
“You don’t understand,” she snaps, then shrinks back. “Sorry. I’m sorry. It’s just … I don’t know myself. I’ve only just begun to discover who I am and what I want. And I’m afraid that … that I’ll throw it all away for you.”
“So that’s what you’re really afraid of? It’s not about Vanni, it’s not about Jana…”
She gives me a wry look. “Oh, it’s about them, too. I’m just afraid that … well, you always talk about how I need to discover myself. Unearth myself. What if I miss that opportunity because I’m with you.”
I lean in close to her, putting my hand on her leg. “But what if I help you?” I whisper. “What if this is something we do together?”
She frowns. “You want to fix me.”
“I want to help you.”
“By fucking me?”
I can’t help but grin. “You don’t think it counts?”
She scoffs and twists slightly away from me.
I give her leg a light squeeze. “I’m not going anywhere, Grace. All I ask from you is to let yourself go. Let yourself be free. You did that last night. Last night you lost yourself to me. It’s okay to surrender sometimes, let the current take you where it needs to.”
She runs her tongue over her teeth and slowly nods, her attention off in the distance. I know I’ve just come on too strong and I wish I could take my words back, but they’ve been said and now I have to deal with them.
Then she gets to her feet, and I realize how much I’ll have to deal with.
“Where are you going?” I ask her.
“I need to clear my head,” she says, walking away. She finishes her wine and tosses the cup over her shoulder. It bounces in the grass beside me.
I watch her for a moment, blindsided. It’s not like Grace to act like this, and the fact that I’m the reason is disconcerting.
I get up, march over to her, grab her by the arm and pull her around to face me.
“You can’t run from me,” I tell her, feeling emboldened. “You can’t run from your problems. Maybe you thought you could by coming here, but you have to face them head on and you are. You are changing before my eyes. But don’t pretend that I’m part of those problems. You’re not that good of a liar.”
“Let go of me,” she says, her pupils pinpricks, her words harsh.
I drop her arm, feeling lost in all of this.
“Grace,” I manage to say. “Let’s talk about it.”
“I don’t want to talk to you right now,” she says. “You’re making everything so much more complicated.”
I do the next best thing to talking.
I grab her face and I kiss her.
She presses her fist against my chest and I expect her to pound on me, like I’m King Kong and she’s some hapless maiden.
But then her mouth is opening against mine, a whimper escaping her lips and flooding through me, and her hand goes from a fist to being open and flat against my shirt. Her fingers grab hold of the fabric, and my tongue slides into her mouth, eager and ravenous.
I spin us around, still kissing her, still holding her, pressing her against the ancient wall. My hands drop to the hem of her dress, and I yank it up, feeling her spandex shorts underneath. I let out a grunt of frustration; this is the equivalent of a chastity belt.
I take hold of her shorts and underwear, roughly tugging them down until she kicks them off her ankles.
Then I slip my arm under her ass and hoist her up until she’s against the rough stone wall.
“Claudio—” she says, breathless, but I cut her off with my mouth, my lips devouring her, the wolf to the lamb. She’s kissing me back, just as ravenous, and I can feel the push and pull inside her, the war to either continue arguing over something stupid, or to succumb to me, to let me fuck her senseless, and turn her world inside out.
I quickly reach down and fumble with my zipper, taking my cock out of my pants, positioning it against her cunt as her legs wrap around my waist. I suck in a deep breath — she’s already so wet, and then I thrust up into her.
She gasps into my mouth, her head rolling back against the wall, and I pull down her neckline, sucking a perfect pink nipple into my mouth. Flicking, sucking, tasting her perfect skin. It makes her cry out again, hoarse and breathy and god, those sweet little sounds she makes will be the end of me.
I keep pumping into her, my cock lengthening with each thrust, until I’m sure I can’t go on like this. Her nails are digging into my head, into my shoulder as she holds on, more of those hungry cries falling from her open mouth.
I lick up her collarbones, sliding my tongue across her neck, and reach down to tease her clit, knowing the best way to set her off. I want to make her come around me so hard she sees stars and we break right through this wall.
Of course, the fact that I’m fucking her in public, for all the world to see, hasn’t escaped me. It just makes me harder. At any moment someone could come stumbling from behind the wall and see me screwing her, her legs wrapped around me, her breast bare.
I can see it now. I’m a lucky bastard.
And this woman is heaven. This woman will make me fall so damn hard I won’t be able to get to my feet again. With each and every jab of my hips, each slick velvet pass of skin as I move inside her, it brings me to the edge, the place you don’t return from. I’m not sure if I’ve ever been this close before, to that big unknown.
But I will gladly take the leap.
For her.
“Oh, fuck, Grace,” I cry out hoarsely into her neck, biting and sucking and leaving marks and bruises, but she just grips my cock even tighter, grows even wetter. She likes this bit of pain, and from what I can tell, doesn’t mind that I’m fucking her out in the open.
She tugs at my hair, harder and quicker now, and I feel her urgency. She’s breathing heavier. I pull back to watch her face, her eyes half-closed, jaw slack. Her eyes open enough to hold mine, fear and lust and vulnerability washing over them.
I rub my thumb over her clit in a few hard, rough strokes.
Her eyes go wide, her hips trying to meet mine, and then she’s coming.
I take it all in.
The sight of my muse in freefall.
Something in my chest drops, like I’m freefalling with her, like this is a journey only the two of us can go on, a journey that could take us anywhere.
Her mouth opens, her brows snapping together, and she’s crying out my name, over and over, not caring that people passing on the other side of the wall can hear her.
Then she’s shuddering around my cock, squeezing me into my own orgasm. It snakes through me as I’m fucking her hard, and then I’m shooting inside her, my pumps slowing, and every inch of my body is warm, so warm. Like slipping into a bath.
Mio Dio.
La mia musa.
My eyes flutter closed, sweat rolling off my forehead and dripping onto her chest. I kiss her again, dazed, the taste of wine still on her tongue.
“You…” I whisper, catching my br
eath. “You are full of surprises.”
She swallows hard, breathless. “So are you.”
I grin at her and quickly pull out, then I lower her to the grass. She moans a little, hand at her spine.
I grab her shoulder and turn her around, taking a look at her back. I wince.
Her nice dress is all roughed up from where I was fucking her against the wall, the stones tearing apart the fabric.
“I don’t think your dress will forget this,” I tell her, pulling at the back so I can see her smooth spine. “Your skin doesn’t look broken though.”
“I’m sure I will bruise,” she tells me, turning around and smoothing her dress out. “And I have enough dresses anyway.”
“That you do,” I say, my fingers trailing down her arm until I’m holding her hand. “So tell me, Grace. Are we done arguing for the day? Do we need to talk some more?”
She looks flushed from the sex, or it could be the sheepish look on her face.
“We’re done.”
“And so…? You’re not going to run from us, no matter how complicated I am? You’re not going to let your mind conjure up things that aren’t true? We can just … be? Claudio and Grace, two incredibly sexy people who like to fuck each other?”
She gives me a quick smile at that, and then wets her lips with her tongue, eyes roaming my face as she thinks. She nods. “We can just be … and I’m sorry if I’ve been…”
“Nothing to apologize for,” I tell her quickly. “I want you to talk to me, okay? About anything. Don’t be afraid to do that. Both of us … I think this is so new. I know I haven’t been with a woman in a long time, and I certainly have never been with a woman like you. It will take some getting used to, and I am sure we are both bound to get afraid or say the wrong thing, but as long as we keep communicating…” I gesture between us. “Then we will be okay. Maybe better than okay?” I say gently.
She flashes me a pretty smile, a touch of relief on her brow. “Definitely better than okay.”
Good enough for me.
Fifteen
Grace
“Vanni, where’s your father?”
Vanni doesn’t even raise his head, his eyes glued to his iPad, where someone with a very serious voice is talking about something. Probably a scientist.
“Vanni,” I say again, leaning against the railing. I had woken up late this morning since Claudio hadn’t come to wake me. Neither had Vanni. I’ve been up and down the house, peeked at the pool, and haven’t seen Claudio anywhere.
“Parla in Italiano,” Vanni says dismissively.
This kid, I swear.
“Dove tuo padre,” I say, pretty sure I’m saying it right. “Dove tuo padre?”
Finally, Vanni looks up at me and smiles triumphantly. “I am an excellent teacher, am I not?”
Truth is, it’s been Claudio that’s been helping me with my Italian lately. Though half the things he’s said, I can’t repeat in front of his child.
“Yes. Of course.”
He turns back to his iPad. “He is in the chapel.”
My brows shoot up. The chapel?
“He said not to wake you,” he goes on. “Said you needed to sleep.”
My face immediately goes hot and I’m grateful that Vanni is so involved with whatever he’s watching. The truth is, the last few days here, the only time Claudio and I have had time alone together is at night, which means there’s a lot of him sneaking into my room. We have sex for hours, feeling spent and exhausted, but he can never stay the night and sleep with me, just in case we get caught.
There’s a dirty thrill about it, the sneaking around, the keeping our liaisons a secret. Not that it feels all that good to keep secrets from Vanni, but in this case, the less he knows the better.
Besides, I don’t know what we are and I don’t want to put a label on it. I’m well aware that my time here is ticking away. I only have ten days until I’m supposed to leave.
Ten days left of having Claudio sculpt me, with both his hands, and with his tongue.
Ten days of trying to get as much of the book finished as possible, before I head back home and lose my inspiration entirely.
With the weather getting progressively hotter, working on the veranda isn’t cutting it anymore. I do what I can in my bedroom, with the fans whirring full blast, and sometimes I’ll go and write in the study. But the heat, plus the ever-present distraction that is Claudio, makes it hard to concentrate.
But in some ways it’s also been easier. I’m able to put my feels directly into the book, as my character starts to fall for her love interest. The only difference is, I know my characters are going to have a happy ending and that won’t be the case for me.
It can’t be.
However complicated my feelings for Claudio are, I know deep in my heart that I’m setting myself up for a sad ending. This can never move beyond a temporary thing, a vacation fling. Even if I let myself fall deeply for him, if I remove the bars around my heart and let him in, give something of myself to him that’s more than just my body, I’ll be devastated when it all comes crumbling down.
Sleeping with my agent’s ex-husband is one thing. I already feel as if I’m breaking some kind of “girl code,” even if Jana and I aren’t exactly friends. But dating her ex-husband? Taking this to the next level? I can say goodbye to the book deal, say goodbye to having Jana as my agent. She is the one chance I have to get my career going, to stand on my own two feet, out of the weight of Robyn’s shadow. If I fuck this up, it’s over.
So then don’t fuck it up, I tell myself as I head out the door and down the outside staircase to the front, catching the scent of the geraniums. I walk along the pebbled driveway, past the flowering oleander and potted lemons, the heat bearing down on me and making me break a sweat, even though it’s only ten a.m.
I cross the country road to the chapel, the rows of silvery olive trees climbing up the dusty hill behind it.
I’ve actually never been in it before. It’s quite small, white, with two narrow slits for windows, and one glass door with a curtain. The door is open, the curtain billowing in the hot breeze.
I go up the stone path and pause outside the door.
“Claudio?” I ask, hearing the muffled sound of something being moved around.
“Shit,” he swears from inside.
Swearing in a church? How uncouth.
“Are you okay?” I ask, not wanting to go inside in case he’s, like, praying or something. I know the Italians are very religious, although the swearing has thrown me off.
Suddenly the curtain moves and Claudio pokes his head out.
He smiles, perfect white teeth glowing against his tanned skin, a thin sheen of sweat on his brow, and once again I feel my insides melt, my legs growing weak. All he has to do is just fucking appear and I’m a goner.
I’m hopeless.
“Good morning, musa,” he says to me. “I was hoping you wouldn’t discover where I am.”
I frown. “Vanni gave up your whereabouts. What are you doing in there?”
He doesn’t look impressed. “Did Vanni mention that he was supposed to keep it a surprise?”
I shake my head. “He didn’t say much. What’s the surprise?”
“Well, it’s not done yet. I was planning to show you this afternoon.”
“And the surprise is in the church?” I pause. “You’re not planning to introduce me to God or something, are you?”
He smirks. “Not quite. More like God might find you.”
Okay, now I’m really worried.
He chuckles warmly at the look on my face and then straightens up, pulling back the curtain. “Come on in, then.”
I hesitate, because honestly I don’t know if I’m about to walk into a religious intervention or what. That would be a surprise.
But I walk through the curtain and into the chapel.
I don’t know what I was expecting, a church I guess, but this isn’t it. It’s a literal bedroom, complete with a queen-size bed t
hat is pushed haphazardly against the wall. The walls are painted pale yellow and there’s a nave at the center, a carved out arch where the altar would be, dotted with golden candles. An oil painting of Mary hangs in the middle. Handmade decorations in low relief line the side walls, and there’s a velvet chaise lounge with golden legs and gilded trim.
In the middle of the room is a desk. It’s large, made of dense dark wood. It looks very old and is covered in patches of dust.
“What is this?” I ask, and then my eyes are drawn to the ceiling. I gasp. There are frescoes along the curved ceiling, each one intricately painted.
“This,” Claudio says, leaning against the desk, “was a chapel that Francesco Scatena built for his family in the 1880s. Before this was a hunting lodge, a family had a house here and this was a working olive farm.”
“But what is it now?”
“Oh. It was renovated a long time ago to become a suite for the lodge. Naturally, it hasn’t been used for a long time, unless I have a lot of family staying over. Now, I’m turning it into your office.”
I stare at him, mouth open. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Your office,” he repeats, wiping dust off the top of the desk with a smooth swipe of his hand. “Do you like it?”
“Like it?” I repeat, shaking my head. “I’m … what do you mean this is my office?”
“Grace,” he says patiently. “You know I tell no lies. This is your office now. I moved the desk in here, brought it out of storage. Now I just have to grab a chair from the house, move some things around, but yes, this is your office. I know you’ve been struggling with a place to write, so I figured…”
Holy shit.
I mean, maybe that’s not the right thought for here but…
Yeah. Holy shit.
One of those bars around my heart is threatening to break. It’s definitely bending, moving, feelings I’d never had before threatening to overtake me.
He did this … for me?
“But,” I say, still not believing it. “This is sacrilegious.”
Claudio stares at me with wide eyes for a moment before he bursts into laughter.
“Sacrilegious? Oh, musa. No, no. There is nothing sacrilegious about art.”
