Hot Shade

by Tamara Lush

  “What?” he asked.

  She shrugged.

  “You don’t believe me.” He planted a quick kiss on her forehead. “Why?”

  “You won’t tell me anything about your past, and you don’t share many details about your present. And you don’t want anything long-term with me. It’s tough to see how far wanting me goes.”

  Luca sat up and sighed. “Skylar, have you ever thought it might be dangerous for you to know about my past? That it might be dangerous for you to be part of my future?”

  She stared. “Why? Tell me why that would be.”

  He stared back at her, his previous gentle mood evaporated. “Stop asking questions, Skylar.”

  She flashed him a defiant look and muttered something about how that wasn’t possible.

  Holding a hand above her wet breasts, she climbed out of bed and went into the bathroom. Relieved to be rid of her insistent regard, Luca rolled onto his back and shut his eyes. His heart was racing, and not just because he kept having mind-blowing orgasms with her. The truth was, his plans for casual, no-strings sex were deteriorating. He had to stop himself before either he or Skylar became too attached.

  Hell, who was he kidding? He was already too attached. Her words danced in his mind: “This is perfect.” He had agreed, while adoring every one of her kisses.

  We are perfect together.

  Yet what did that mean? Maybe in another life they could have been perfect together. Now, after all the pain he had caused, he could never be perfect with anyone. Not until Castiglione was put away, if even then.

  And if he did tell her everything, she wouldn’t want him anymore. Who would want a damaged man with no home, no roots, no compass? A man whose mother lied about his parentage? A man whose work got his family killed? Skylar needed a man with stability, and he wasn’t a stable man.

  No, Skylar Shaw needed to remain exactly what she was: a summer fling.

  * * *

  The next morning, Skylar awoke when Luca slipped out of bed to use the bathroom. To her surprise, he didn’t go downstairs to make coffee afterward. Instead he climbed through the gauzy curtains hanging from the canopy rails and got back in bed, kissing her. He smelled like mint.

  Still sleepy, she used the bathroom too. When she returned, she paused after parting the curtain. He was asleep, and the sheet only barely covered his hips. Wow. His mouth, full and sensual, was relaxed and supple. She imagined it around her nipple. Reaching her hand in the air, she only just stopped herself from touching his lips.

  Would she ever tire of this insatiable attraction? No. He was breathtaking, that bronzed skin against the white covers. Like a Roman god in repose. Her eyes went to his muscular chest, then to the tantalizing trail of hair below his bellybutton. Just thinking about what was beneath the sheet set her body aflame, aflame and desperate to feel that body part’s true purpose.

  It was time, she realized. She had denied herself for too long.

  Stripping off her T-shirt and panties, she slid under the sheet next to him, wrapping her bare skin around his body. He shifted, encircling her with his arms. Trailing his hand down her back made her shiver. His hand went lower, over her cheeks. His fingers stopped in that sweet, wet triangle where her ass met her thighs.

  There. Right. There.

  A little moan escaped her mouth, and he pressed his erection into her.

  “This is a nice surprise, waking up to you naked and wet,” he whispered.

  Every muscle in her tightened as he kept the heel of his hand on the bottom of her ass, also slipping a finger inside of her. She could feel herself becoming swollen, needy, and she kissed him fiercely.

  Keeping two of his fingers inside of her, he rolled her atop him. She spread her legs and writhed on his fingers, feeling his hard cock against her pubic bone.

  “Your boxers are going to have to come off,” she whispered.

  “But. Do you want…?” He took his fingers out of her, and she sat up, straddling him.

  “Yes. I want you inside of me.”

  They stared at each other, the morning sunshine filtering through the gauzy bed curtains. Every nerve in her body lit up, and her need was almost unbearable. Taking his hand, she guided his thumb in between her legs, between her folds, to her throbbing core.

  He sucked in a breath as his thumb made contact with her clit. “You want me?”

  She made an unintelligible noise that she hoped translated to yes. His touch brought her close to the edge, and she didn’t want to concentrate on words or thoughts.

  “Can I make you come first? Please? I love watching you come,” he whispered. “Then I’ll fill you up with my cock. Is that what you want?”

  Nodding, whimpering, she thrust herself toward his hand. Rocked and rubbed on him and shut her eyes. She was close, so close.

  And then her phone rang.

  * * *

  Luca watched Skylar’s face go from hazy and sensual to panicked and wide-eyed. The sensual mood shattered.

  “Fuck!” she exclaimed.

  It was a good thing she didn’t understand Italian, because he couldn’t control himself, either. He said something really vulgar out of frustration.

  “Do you have to get that?” he bit out as she lunged for the nightstand, fighting with the gauzy curtain. He tried to help her find the opening, and it was almost comical how they were tangled together, their hands madly pawing at the fabric. Comical, if it wasn’t for his raging hard-on.

  “Yes. I do. It’s the paper. I have a special ringtone for my editor.”

  He groaned and shifted in the bed. This was the problem with dating a reporter.

  She put the phone to her ear. “Jill!” she said, breathless.

  As Skylar talked, Luca’s hand slipped below the waistband of his boxers and he adjusted himself. He longed for release and took his hand away from his cock. Shifting to Skylar, he spooned her and cradled her breast as she spoke. Her nipple was still hard, and the first thing he’d do when she got off the phone was to put it in his mouth. She had such round, beautiful breasts, and he pressed his erection into her backside, just thinking about how her nipples puckered like raspberries when she was excited.

  Fuck. This woman would kill him.

  He rubbed against her body. She lightly swatted his leg, which he’d slung over her hip.

  “An escape? No way. That’s crazy. Of course I’ll come in to cover it. I’ll be there in a half hour, tops.”

  Rolling onto his back, Luca shut his eyes and groaned silently. He heard her tap her phone forcefully and set it on the nightstand. She flipped over and gave him a quick kiss on the mouth.

  “Luca, I’m sorry. I have to go to work. There’s been an escape at the primate sanctuary.”

  He opened his eyes. “Don’t apologi—Wait, what? A what?”

  She giggled. “Did you know there was a primate sanctuary on the other end of the island? Near the bridge?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Well, apparently one of the monkeys escaped. A macaque who was a retired movie actor.”

  Laughter exploded from his mouth. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “No. I’m not. This is big news. Neighbors are worried about Ebola. I have to write a story. Jill says I’m the best reporter to cover this because I love weird news.”

  Still laughing, Luca grabbed her and wrapped his arms around her body, hugging tight. Despite his sexual frustration, her decision just endeared her to him even more; he would have done exactly the same thing once. “Just come back after you’re done, okay? I’ll make you dinner and we can finish what we started.”

  She kissed him. “I will. And thank you.”

  “For what, amore mio?” he asked.

  “For being so understanding. Most guys would be upset about this—interrupting what we were doing to cover a story about a monkey. It’s not easy dating a reporter.”

  He grinned. She was so cute. And she was his. And she was ready to give herself to him.

  Studying her pre
tty face, he knew that he wanted to come clean about his secret soon. She deserved to know. Maybe when she came back.

  Her mouth dropped open. “Oh, I didn’t mean to use the word ‘dating.’ It just slipped out.”

  “But that’s what we’re doing, no?” He kissed her again, and his heart softened even more. “You need to get out of bed now, before I keep you here,” he growled, spanking her lightly on the butt. “You have a monkey to find.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  “So, they found the monkey at some guy’s house. It was trying to break into the lanai. There was a bowl of fruit on the patio table.”

  Skylar was sitting in Luca’s kitchen, telling him about her day. He couldn’t stop laughing, and she couldn’t stop swooning, thinking about how their bodies had looked so erotic together that morning before her editor’s phone call. About how sensual they’d be later, after dinner, when they would finally have sex for the first time.

  “No way. Come on. Monkeys don’t really eat fruit.”

  She giggled. “It’s true, Luca. They do. They found the monkey trying to rip through the screen door. They used a tranquilizer gun to immobilize him. Oh, and the monkey’s name was Cheetah.”

  God, she loved making Luca laugh. She sipped her wine and watched him stand at the open fridge, trying to decide whether to make chicken or fish.

  Her mind shifted vaguely to her fledgling herb garden back at her condo on the balcony. The plants might be dead by now. Maybe she could bring them over here. Surely Luca would take good care of them. Skylar envisioned them gardening together. I mean, he’d admitted they were dating. So why couldn’t she dream of a future?

  Luca took out a package of chicken breasts, a package of cherry tomatoes and a head of garlic. “Pollo alla parmigiana,” he said. Jazz wafted softly through the air, and Skylar allowed visions of her life with Luca to unfold in her mind. Speaking Italian. Cooking together. Ski vacations. Making love on beaches and in front of fireplaces in the mountains. The fantasies were limitless and sparkling, urbane and classy.

  He rinsed a few of the small tomatoes and held one between his thumb and forefinger, then walked over to her. He kissed her softly and nibbled on her bottom lip.

  “Your mouth is so fucking sexy,” he murmured. “Open for me.”

  With slippery lips, she did, and he set the small red tomato on her tongue. Their eyes met as she chewed, and her stomach clutched with nervous anticipation. Tonight would be their night.

  He kissed her forehead and went back to the other side of the kitchen island, to the cutting board. Skylar took another sip—Luca had opened a bottle of chilled pinot grigio—and pondered whether she should enroll in an online Italian class.

  “Where did you learn to cook?” she asked.

  He chopped a clove of garlic. “My mother. I watched her in the kitchen from when I was a little boy. We even cooked together the night before she…”

  Luca went silent.

  “Before she died in the fire,” Skylar prompted, absentmindedly finishing his sentence. Then immediately regretting it.

  Luca stopped chopping and cocked his head. The good mood, the laughter, dissolved into the ether. He didn’t say anything. Skylar sat on a barstool at the kitchen island, and he faced her on the opposite side. Skylar noticed his hand gripping the large knife, and her pulse quickened as she recalled a true-crime book that centered around a woman who was stabbed to death.

  “Tell me, Skylar,” he said, resuming work in a methodical, precise way. Chop. Chop. Chop. “How do you know my mother died in a fire?”

  He wasn’t looking at her. Instead, he glared at the knife and the garlic.

  She swallowed hard. It seemed she didn’t truly know if Luca was a dangerous person or not. Why did he seem so angry? Was there any good reason he should be furious that she’d done some background research?

  Skylar opened her mouth and closed it. Unsure of what to say, she went with the truth. She didn’t expect him to understand, exactly; he wasn’t a woman, and he wasn’t a journalist. Still, this shouldn’t be that big of a deal. “After I met you, I looked you up.”

  “You backgrounded me.” Chop. Chop. Chop. Luca’s eyes bored into hers, and he sounded disgusted. “And…? Tell me what you found. Tell me the results of your research.”

  Skylar inhaled sharply. “Um. Luca, you’re scaring me with that knife.”

  He looked down, and with precision he set the knife aside. His voice was soft yet still icy when he spoke. “I’m sorry.”

  She was grateful to defuse the situation, even momentarily. “I found a couple of articles in Il Mattino. One about your parents dying in a fire. Another that said…”

  Her voice trailed off because she was a little scared to say it.

  “Another that said what, Skylar?” Luca gripped the side of the island counter, arms extended.

  “One that said the fire was probably set by the…the Mafia. The Camorra.”

  Luca smiled, a wry, sad expression. “The Camorra,” he repeated, drawing out the word and rolling the ‘r’-sound. The menacing way he pronounced it made Skylar uneasy.

  “Yes.”

  “And what else did you find?”

  She shook her head. “Actually, I thought it was weird. I didn’t find anything else about you. I looked everywhere. Facebook. Twitter. Public records. Google. I couldn’t find any other details about you. I guess I just figured that you’re a private person.”

  Luca laughed, a mean sound. “Yes, Skylar, like I told you, I am a really private person.” He paced the kitchen and didn’t speak. “So, let me get this straight. We met. We shared…I don’t know, a connection. An attraction. Yes?”

  “Obviously.”

  “So the first thing you do is run a background check on me like I am, I don’t know, a criminal?”

  His voice was slightly louder. He was clearly angry now, and Skylar tried to keep her own voice steady. “Luca, I’m sorry, but I need to explain this in context. You’ve only been in Florida a few weeks. As a single woman here, it’s crazy. Every third guy has been arrested, served time in prison or gone bankrupt. It’s dangerous for women like me to not check someone out. All of us do it.” She paused to breathe in and out. “Well, all of us female reporters do it, anyway.”

  Luca was stone-faced. “And so, since you could only find those two articles on my family, what conclusions did you draw about me? Come on. I want to hear them.”

  “Nothing,” she lied. Unconvincingly. “I just thought about what a tragedy it was that you lost your family. It must have been devastating.”

  “Bullshit.” His nostrils flared a little bit. Skylar wondered if she could get to the front door quicker than him. Probably not.

  Suddenly, she was angry. There was no salvaging tonight. This was his fault, anyway, for not being forthcoming. She decided to tell him everything.

  “Look. I’ll be honest. After I read that, I wondered if you were in the Mafia—the Camorra, or whatever it is. I figured you might be lying about your master’s thesis, too. You never talk about it. I thought the fire might have been set as some kind of retribution or something. I don’t know, though. I know nothing about the Mafia.”

  “You. Thought. I. Was. In. The. Mafia.” Luca enunciated every word perfectly and began to pace the kitchen, slowly running his hands through his hair. At least he wasn’t holding the knife.

  “Well, are you?” she asked. “If you didn’t have this stupid rule that we can’t talk about each other’s pasts, this whole conversation wouldn’t be happening. Normal people, normal men and women who meet and hook up, they share details of their lives with each other. You didn’t even want to tell me your name when we first met. What was I supposed to think?”

  He glared at her. “‘Normal people.’ You think I am a normal person? You have no idea who I am. And what do you think this is, you and me? It’s been ‘hooking up’ to you?”

  Sky didn’t reply. He was being irrational. What did he want her to say?

 
“That’s the trouble with you Americans,” Luca continued. “You see Italians and immediately think of The Sopranos or Vito Corleone. I didn’t say anything the first time you mentioned that, the night we met. But it’s offensive. You think we’re all Latin lovers with no conscience. We just eat pasta and pizza and screw our way through life. And the Mafia. Jesus. You have no idea what the real Italian crime families are like, what they do or how they affect my country. You’re so sheltered here on your stupid little island, covering your bullshit news.”

  This was out-of-bounds. There was no need to criticize her newspaper and her career. “Maybe if YOU didn’t come off as so sketchy, I wouldn’t think you were in the Mafia. YOU won’t talk about your past. YOU won’t talk about the future. YOU were nasty when we first met during the plane crash and I asked you questions. YOU said that we shouldn’t define this. Us. What am I supposed to think?”

  Her words hung in the air. They glared at each other and several tense seconds passed.

  “I’m going home. Where are my car keys?” Skylar demanded.

  Luca walked out of the kitchen then returned and put the keys on the island counter. Raising his hands so they were in an X, he sliced them through the air. “Basta,” he said.

  Skylar didn’t know the word, but she understood the meaning.

  Enough.

  She plucked the keys off the counter and went upstairs to the bedroom, where she grabbed her purse. She didn’t even bother trying to find any of her other clothes that she had brought, or her small overnight bag. She slammed the front door behind her and ran to her car in the rain, barefoot. The road blurred out of focus from the downpour and her tears, and she couldn’t make it home without pulling over and sobbing. She hadn’t cried this hard in years, and the feeling made her body heave and roil and gag.

  She stopped in the parking lot of a pharmacy and pulled into a space at the end of the lot. She intended to buy tissues, but when she opened the door a large puddle was almost up to her small car’s floor and she slammed it again. Crying harder beneath the yellow glow of a streetlight, she battled back guilt over their fight. What else could she have done? Should she have tried to lie more convincingly to Luca about knowing the details of his past? No, that wouldn’t have worked because she was incapable of lying. And why should she have to?