by Leslie North
“Me?” Stella couldn’t believe her ears. “Uh, do we know each other?”
“Oh, don’t mind me.” Luciana said, reaching forward to give Stella’s arm a friendly pat. “I’m Gianpierre’s girlfriend, and we and Leonardo spent the weekend at Adeline and Nicolo’s new place. That boy wouldn’t shut up about you.”
“He wouldn’t shut up about me?” Stella was beginning to feel like a parrot, and her mind was spinning with all of the new information coming her way. “Oh!” she laughed as relief flooded her senses. “It’s because I’ve been such a pest, right?” She knew that they had shared a couple of kisses, but the man was a billionaire. And even if he didn’t have a euro to his name, he was gorgeous enough to date any Victoria’s Secret model he wanted. There was no way she’d turn his head beyond some fun flirting.
“Nooo… I don’t think that was it,” she said, her expression turning somber. “He seemed really smitten. Every half hour at least, he’d work you into the conversation in some way all weekend long. He really likes you.”
The insides of Stella’s belly did a somersault. Leonardo liked her.
Her thoughts turned to the box of door knockers out in the hallway as a cold chill moved through her. What if he’d gotten them for the simple reason of making her happy? What if he had no intentions of using them?
Ohhhh, this won’t do. She couldn’t have him going along with her ideas today only to turn his back on them tomorrow if he grew tired of her. She needed him to believe in a restoration that protected and respected the original craftsmanship that was so finely captured within the ancient monastery. The future of the Romano del Mare and the chance for thousands of people to see the monastery in its original glory depended on it.
There was simply too much at stake for her to allow emotions to get in the way. There was business and there was pleasure, and it was time to separate the two.
7
Leonardo
Not today…” Leonardo spotted Stella walking across the parking lot toward the Romano del Mare’s front entrance. She was dressed in jeans that hugged low on her hips and a colorful t-shirt that outlined her body with even the barest of encouragement from the wind. To top the ensemble off, she wore her hair in pigtail braids down both sides of her face with their ends resting on her collar bones.
He adored seeing her, but it was too much. He’d just escaped a meeting to get some fresh air and solitude. Inside, his lawyers were continuing to wage their fight against the preservation laws, and an all-out yelling match was underway as differing opinions of what he should do warred with each other. He did not need Stella’s gentle nudges on top of that. Not today.
Turning away and stepping toward the large, double, ornate doors of the monastery’s front entrance, he pretended not to see her.
“Leonardo.” The call of her voice was something he could not ignore. It reached inside of him and held him tight, just as strong as if she’d put her hands on him.
He looked over his shoulder and then turned to face her. “Stella,” he called back to her in greeting. He started to force a smile but then was surprised when there was no need to force it. It came all on its own.
“You’re here on a Saturday?” she asked as she reached him. Leaning up on tiptoes, she gave him a kiss on the cheek in greeting. “At least you’re not wearing a suit today,” she teased, giving him a wink.
“Hmmm, you’re the reason I’m here.”
Stella tilted her head and looked at him quizzically.
Pointing his thumb over his shoulder, he said, “The lawyers are inside… arguing, trying to figure a way past the preservation laws.”
Stella’s brows went up and her smile brightened. “Then they are doing what they love to do! But… it’s Saturday, and I want to do what I love to do, too.” She took his hand in hers and held onto it in a flirtatious way that had the tension easing from Leonardo’s shoulders with each passing second. The headache that had been trying to latch on gave up as well.
“You don’t want to run headlong into the middle of them and fight your battle?”
“No, not today. I… I like you, Leonardo. A lot.”
Leonardo’s heart stumbled over itself. He hadn’t had a girl come straight out and tell him she liked him since he’d been a young boy. Her unabashed candor was unnerving, and he felt all of his defenses crumbling away because of it.
“Whatever it is that is developing between us, I don’t want the fighting and maneuvering that’s going on inside of that building to be a part of it,” Stella continued with a somber sincerity in her eyes. “I’d rather us give us room to find out who we are together without all the added baggage. I want that to be separate from…,” she paused, then smiled shyly, “whatever this is.”
Leonardo was speechless, and he felt the weight of the world—or at least part of it—lift from his shoulders. Capturing her other hand, he bent low and kissed the backs of both her hands. Then, when he stood, he stepped close enough to feel her heat. He slipped his hand behind her head as he bent to kiss her lips, then he smiled as he felt her breath hitch and saw her eyes flutter. It seemed that it was her turn to be speechless, but she regained her composure quickly.
“There’s a path,” she said with a voice that was unnecessarily breathy. Reaching behind her, she pulled a hiking map out of her back pocket and then stepped back so that she could unfold it between them. “I’ve been hiking the trails in the area since I got here, and I’d like to follow this one.” She pointed to the map and traced her finger over a thin-lined route. “It looks like the path starts on the Romano del Mare’s property, and I’ve been keeping an eye out for it but I haven’t been able to find it. Do you know where it is by any chance?”
“Se,” Leonardo said. He hadn’t let his eyes travel from her face for even one second. She was far more interesting and beautiful than any map. It was too bad that any fling that they would have would be temporary. They were both globe hoppers, going to the different corners of the earth for their differing businesses. It was only that the stars had aligned just right that they were both here now. But knowing that it was temporary made it easier not to hold anything back. He could love her, then they could part, and she would remain forever perfect in his memories. It was sweeter this way, and would never be marred by life’s damaging stresses that pull and twist people into shapes no longer recognizable as them.
“Good! Could you point me in the right direction? I don’t want to interrupt what you’ve got going on.”
“No.”
“No?”
“No. It is far too complicated. Come with me.” Leading her by the hand, he guided her around the end of the building and began the trek up toward the pool. Once there, he pointed down a gentle slope where a well-worn path clearly began.
Stella laughed and then challenged him. “You said it was complicated.”
“Yes, my feelings about going back inside of that building with those lawyers is very complicated.” He said it deadpan, but then smiled as her own smile crinkled her eyes at his little joke. “Come on.”
“You’re going with me?” she asked, her voice full of surprise.
“Se,” he said as he led them down to where the path began. It was a path that he’d travelled often as a boy, every time he’d visited with his grandparents, and he looked forward to seeing it through her fresh eyes.
The walk was nice, and they stopped at various spots so that Leonardo could point out the history of the land they travelled on. The path was winding and sometimes hugged the cliffs overlooking the sea and at other times dipped to circle around the base of hills. Stella marveled at a small oasis of sorts that had grown up around a natural spring at the bottom of a valley. She waded in it barefoot before becoming captivated by a beautiful, yellow-flowering cactus further up the trail.
It was almost an hour before they reached the trail’s end at the opening of a secluded, private beach. At the path’s edge was a faded, hand-painted sign. Stella sounded out the words as a light blu
sh crept its way into her cheeks. “Does that say what I think it says?”
“Hmmm?” Leonardo said, pretending to not have noticed the sign until that moment. “Ah yes, it’s a topless-only beach.”
Stella leaned and craned her neck as she looked down the path at the open expanse of cliff-sided beach. “But there’s nobody there.”
Leonardo shrugged. “Rules are rules…”
A mischievous light turned on in Stella’s eyes. “Rules? Is that the way it is?”
Leonardo shrugged again, doing his best to act nonchalant, but there was nothing he could do to stop his growing smile.
“That’s a pretty old sign. I wonder if whoever made it is even still around…” The look she gave him said that she was pretty sure the sign’s creator was standing right in front of her. “Maybe it was made by some over-eager, hormonal teenager?”
Leonardo gave her his best wounded look. To be found guilty—when he was—did nothing to reward the ingenuity his teenage-self had shown. Turning his attention to the sign, he said, “But to withstand the weather after so many years, it is a good sign, no?” That was as far as he got, though, in his argument of defense of his younger self—for when he’d returned his gaze to Stella it was to find her stripping her top off. Underneath she wore a bra that was so sheer that it emphasized her lovely bits oh so much more than hid them. The sight of her instantly sent heat to that part of himself that had ached to be introduced to her since the first day he’d seen her.
“Rules are rules,” she said as she backed away from him in the direction of the beach. She had her shirt waded up in her hands and tossed it onto a nearby bush.
Following her at a pace that matched her own, Leonardo stripped his shirt off and threw it to the side. “You do not fight fair…” He didn’t know what battle it was that she was fighting in this moment, but it made no matter. Whatever it was, she was winning.
8
Stella
Stealing a glance over her shoulder, Stella laughed as she ran. She was far ahead of a sauntering Leonardo, and her pauses to strip herself free of her bra, shoes, jeans and even her panties did nothing to the lead she had on him. By the time she reached the water’s edge and splashed into its gentle, lapping surf to dive in and come up for air fifteen feet away from shore, she still had plenty of time to watch the show.
Turning around to face the shore, she locked her hungry eyes on the incredibly virile, bigger-than-life man whose attention she had inexplicably captured. Why he was interested in her was a mystery, but it wasn’t one that she was interested in trying to figure out. At least, not while he was pulling his shirt over his head to leave bare his sculpted, muscular chest. He had the body of a swimmer. Unbelievably broad and powerful shoulders. Long arms. Tone, flat abs.
Leonardo wadded up his shirt and threw it to the side with a decisive toss, and Stella licked the salt from her lips with eager anticipation as his hands went to his jeans. Standing a foot from the water’s edge, he toed off his shoes as he unbuttoned and then unzipped the denim at his waist. Laying the flaps open to expose more flat stomach, he then bent double to push his jeans down his strong thighs. When he stood up, Stella did her best to hide her voyeuristically gleeful smile. What Leonardo had, Stella liked!
The cool waters swirled around her naked body as Stella waved her arms back and forth beneath the rippling surface. She anchored herself in place by sinking her toes into the sandy sea bottom. She was fine. She was good. But, her heart thumped hard and her breath came fast as if she had been running a marathon as she watched Leonardo wade into the water. It splashed up his shins before reaching his thighs, and Leonardo was unabashed in his nakedness. He took his time. He was in no hurry to hide himself within the same waters that Stella now wore like a cloak.
By the time that Leonardo reached the spot where Stella stood with water up over her shoulders, that same water only came up to his sternum. But, as she watched, he sank down into it until the water reached the dimple at the bottom of his neck.
“Cara mio, are you cold? You’re shivering.”
Trembling with excitement was more like it. It was taking every ounce of Stella’s willpower not to swim into Leonardo’s arms and wrap herself around him. He was like a celestial body whose gravitational pull she ached to stop resisting. She wanted to fall into him, but the words that came out of her mouth were, “I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not,” Leonardo insisted. He drifted toward her until their bodies almost met, yet he didn’t touch her. “You’re not fine; you’re exquisite.” His eyes stared at her parted mouth, and he leaned in so close that she could feel the heat of his words on her lips when he spoke. “You came to ruin my work, but you’ve only ruined my mind. All I think about is you. All day… and deep into the night. You fill my thoughts, cara.”
Stella gasped at Leonardo’s fearless confession, but her one gasp was all that she had time for before his lips closed on hers. Without her permission, her arms wrapped themselves around Leonardo’s neck and her legs encircled his waist as his powerful arms pulled her in to hold her body against his.
Heat surged through her at their full-bodied, skin on skin connection. Even the cold of the ocean’s waters did nothing to appease the scorching heat of his hands on her. His chest and abs were a solid wall of muscle, and beneath her she could feel the tip of his excitement tease those parts of her that she hoped he would soon claim with ferocious abandon.
She’d spent years of her life simply existing, getting by from one moment to the next and holding on with another breath and yet another weak heartbeat that left her lips pale or even sometimes blue. Getting a new heart had been a rebirth. It was not just an improved life, it was a new life that held no resemblance to the life she’d had before, and this moment—now—with Leonardo was all that mattered. Yesterday was done. Tomorrow didn’t yet exist. There was only now, here, with Leonardo as he took her in a kiss that had her mind swimming and made her body feel as though she might swoon and drown right there in his arms.
When his mouth pulled away from hers, she held him close with her cheek pressed to his as she panted and then whimpered his name, “Leonardo.”
That was when the world moved. Leonardo’s arms tightened around her and he stood. The water fell away from them, dropping to Leonardo’s sternum and Stella’s waist. He pivoted, and Stella felt the sun’s warming rays on her naked back. The warmth of it radiated through her skin and into her bones. It was exactly what she’d needed, and Leonardo had known it even when she hadn’t.
Sighing, she sank further into him. If there were an earthquake that destroyed the world, he and she would still be safe. Leonardo was like a titan, and for the first time in her uncertain life she felt invulnerable.
She felt his body shift as one of his hands slid around to her side. She pulled back in order to be able to look into his eyes, and what she saw was a layered depth of passionate sincerity that left her heart unguarded to his effects.
He slid his large palm over her stomach and up her middle until it covered her scar. Its warmth bore its way into her chest and fueled her with an excited energy that made her want to devour Leonardo… or be devoured by him.
“Tell me what this is.” There was a gentle patience in Leonardo’s gaze as he made his quiet demand.
Stella glanced down at his hand before looking back up at him. She put her hand over his. “They gave me someone else’s heart. They cut mine out because it wasn’t strong enough, and… I was dying slowly. I was mostly fine as a child, but as a teenager my heart stopped being able to keep up with my body’s needs. Then, when I was running out of time, with maybe a week or two left, they gave me a new heart.”
“When?” Leonardo’s expression held an anguish that Stella hadn’t been expecting to see. “And tell me whose heart it is that they gave you so that I can honor their gift.” His normally barely-there accent grew rich and thick as emotion poured itself into his voice.
Stella shook her head, and squeezed his hand. “T
hey wouldn’t tell me, but I sent a letter to the family with the help of the hospital. I let them know”—her voice faltered—“that I was living every minute, that I wasn’t taking anything for granted.”
Leonardo moved his hand to the side to cup Stella’s breast as he dipped his head to kiss her tattooed scar. “And this?” he asked, brushing his thumb over one of the vining blooms that twined itself around her scar.
“A celebration,” Stella said, smiling, “of my life beginning, of being in full bloom.”
“Cara mío,” Leonardo whispered, pulling Stella in and capturing her lips again. She sank her hands into his thick hair and held on as they lost themselves in each other. Stella’s heart soared that Leonardo was not gentle with her. His lips were crushing and his embrace was unyielding. He wasn’t handling her like a porcelain doll, afraid that she might break from all that he had to offer her. And Stella didn’t want part of him, she wanted all of him. She wanted all that he was and all that they could be together, not a watered down version of their potential.
“I want you,” Stella moaned against Leonardo’s lips. “Now, I want you now.”
“Cara, anything for you, but…”
“I’m on the pill… and I’m safe.”
“Cara…” It was a growl of intense want.
“Are you safe?”
Leonardo nodded his head as he traced her jaw with his lips down to her neck, where he gave her a little nip. She squealed in shock and delight, which brought forth a growl so low and deep in Leonardo’s chest that Stella could feel it vibrate through her own body.
Lifting her higher with a hand under her hips, Leonardo teased and tortured her nipple. She felt herself tighten to a hard bud beneath his attentions, and each little nip he gave her there shot an electrical current straight to her clit until she was throbbing and aching almost beyond coherent thought. She thought he might make her reach her climatic peak just by doing that alone, but she was given a small respite as his mouth traversed the valley between her breasts before his lips and teeth went to work on her other nipple.
