Caro winked at me and walked down the beach to our cabin. My eyes followed the movement of her ass the whole way.
“You have a very beautiful girlfriend, signore,” said the owner, his smile too fucking appreciative by a long way.
I cleared my throat and his eyes snapped back to mine.
“Yeah, I know. And I’m taking her for dinner tonight—can you recommend anywhere?”
“Ah, si! I know just the place. L’Acquapazza in Marina di Cecina. Just five kilometers. Is very good food, very good views. My cousin, Lazzero, is the owner. Tell him Salvi sent you.”
I nodded my thanks and headed to the cabin. By the time I got there, I was revved up and ready to go. So I was somewhat fucking disappointed that Caro wasn’t naked in bed, but shutting down her laptop. I guessed she’d been catching up on her messages.
“What’s so funny?”
She looked up, a huge smile on her face.
“Oh, I just had an email from my friend Nicole in NYC. She wants me to have mindless sex with an Italian stallion.”
Was that supposed to be funny? “Why is she saying stuff like that to you?” I bit out.
Caro rolled her eyes.
“Oh, don’t be such a prude, Sebastian! It’s just a joke. She’s always nagging me to find a man.”
“What about me?” I growled, my tone angrier than I’d intended.
Caro huffed quietly. “I haven’t told anyone about you. I like having you to myself. But I will, if you want me to.”
Was she ashamed of me? Was this just a summer fling to her after all?
The old fears rushed back—I was a secret, her dirty little secret. Again.
“I want to know your friends, Caro,” I tried to explain, before my anger and fear bubbled through. “Although I’ll fucking tell ‘Nicole’ that she can keep her comments about ‘Italian stallions’ to herself.”
Suddenly her phone rang and she stared at it in surprise. It was the first time I’d heard it ring since we’d been traveling.
She picked it up, her eyes widening as she read the caller’s ID.
“Nicole, hi! Wow, it’s great to hear from you. How are you?”
I wandered around the room, moving her shit off of the bed, listening to one half of the conversation.
Then she said, “Nicole, I sent you a picture of him. His name is Sebastian.”
So she had mentioned me? I couldn’t help looking across and smiling at her.
“No, seriously, Nicole. That’s a photo of my friend. I promise you.”
Caro was smiling and shaking her head.
“I’ll tell you some other time … I can’t. Later … because he’s standing right here, Nicole … it’s true.”
She raised her eyebrows at whatever was being said. “What?” She shook her head again then she handed me her cell. “She wants to talk to you.”
Surprised, I took the phone. “Hi, Nicole. This is Sebastian.”
“Wow! So you really do exist!” said a female voice with the clipped voice of a native New Yorker. “Well, listen up. Lee is my best friend and one of the nicest, most honest people I’ve ever meet, so if you’re planning on using her, don’t even think about it. If you do anything to upset her, I will hunt you down to the ends of the earth and rip your balls off with a blunt spoon. Capiche?”
I understood that she was looking out for her friend, but yeah, I didn’t appreciate the way she said it.
“You don’t want me to use her?” I confirmed, glancing at Caro. “Well, Nicole, I was planning on taking her to bed and using her in ways that aren’t even mentioned in the Kama Sutra, but now you’ve told me that, I think I should go take a cold shower instead.”
Caro glared at me and snatched the phone back as I grinned at her.
“Sorry about that, Nic!” she huffed out. “Nic?” Then she started smiling at whatever the über-bitch was saying to her. “I’ll get back to you on that, Nic.”
As far as I was concerned, the conversation had gone on long enough, so I started untying the straps of Caro’s bikini and kissing down the back of her neck. She gasped when I tossed her bikini top to the floor, massaging her nipples into tight little peaks.
“I’ll have to call you back, Nic,” she said breathlessly, then ended the call and threw herself at me, knocking both of us onto the bed.
She straddled me and I let her push my hands above my head as her mouth met mine and her breasts were crushed against my chest.
Our tongues were twisting together, our teeth clashing, and I was achingly hard.
I sat up suddenly, cradling my arms around her waist as she squeaked in surprise. I kissed her neck, running my tongue over her throat.
“You taste like the sea,” I rumbled against her, “and your skin smells like sunshine.”
She moaned happily, and I ran my fingers up her back, letting them tangle in her hair, then pulling her face back down to mine.
“I want to be inside you, Caro.”
I could hear the need and desperation in my voice. But she smiled against my lips, then rolled off me, scooting down to the bottom of the bed.
“Raise that glorious ass,” she said, tugging on the hem of my boardshorts.
I grinned at the way her eagerness matched mine, lifting my hips from the bed. She pulled off the shorts, threw them behind her, then sat back on her heels staring down at me.
As her eyes wandered along my body, I propped myself up on my elbows, wondering what differences she saw between now and the boy of 17 that she’d known. There was a small white scar across my left hip where a piece of shrapnel from an RPG attack had nicked me. I had another puckered scar across my right shoulder from parachute training where the webbing had gotten twisted and left a mark almost like a burn. That had been fucking painful, but the mark was faint now.
And of course there was the Semper Fi tat, but I got the impression she liked that.
“You’re beautiful, Sebastian,” she whispered, her voice soft and so fucking sweet. “I love to look at you. I love to see you like this, when it’s just the two of us. Why does it feel so right?”
I shook my head slowly, a little stunned by the depth of sincerity I saw in her eyes.
“Maybe it was just meant to be. I mean, shit, could we have had any more challenges thrown at us?”
“We’ve certainly had our share,” she sighed.
I sat up and held her cheek with my hand.
“Don’t be sad, Caro. We’ve got our second chance … or maybe we’re on our third … I kinda lost count already.”
“That is very true,” she laughed, lightly. “Now you seem to have a very desirable hard-on there, so what say we have some fun with that?”
I smirked at her as she licked her lips.
“I’m all yours.”
She grinned and jumped off the bed. “Are the condoms in your toiletry bag?”
“Yeah, baby.”
I watched as she rooted through the overnight bag until she found what she was looking for. But when she looked up, her expression was irritated.
“Sebastian, there’s only one condom left in here,” she said, shaking the box at me.
“Shit! You’re kidding! Fuck, how did I … ah, crap. Give me that fucker—I’m going to make the most of it.”
I reached for the condom, but she backed away from me, smiling
“Oh no, Hunter,” she said, waving the foil packet at me, “this one is all mine.”
I swear my cock swelled some more and twitched, just from the way she was looking at me. She’d always turned me on more than any woman I’d ever met.
“Feeling a little needy, baby?” she chuckled, as she walked around the bed.
“Fuck, Caro!” This woman was gonna kill me.
I tried to catch her hand, but she danced away.
“Dear me, someone is impatient,” she laughed, determined to torture me.
“Yeah, very!” I agreed quickly.
She stood at the end of the bed, looking down at me, her expression heated and amused.