Racing the Sun

  “I’ll jump if you jump,” he says, gripping my hand tighter. He smiles and his face looks so bright against the grainy light. It seals the deal.

  “Okay.”

  “Uno, due, tre,” he counts down.

  And then we jump.

  The icy water surrounds us and my first reaction is to kick for the surface. I let out a little yelp as my head breaks through and I stare right at Derio’s grinning face, his wet hair flopped over on his forehead, making him look a little like Elvis.

  He lets out two hoots and pulls me close to him. We are still close to the rocks, though I’m not sure how we’re going to get back on the steps since the platform seems so high above the water now that we’re in it. I make the mistake of looking down between us. Beyond the pale white of our legs treading in the navy blue, the bottom remains dark and mysterious and out of reach. The cliffs must go straight down.

  “Come on,” he says, pulling me along. We swim toward the opposite rock face and only then do I noticed the tiny entrance to our right. The hole to the cave is even smaller than I thought. I’m surprised a boat would even be able to pass through it. I can see why in rough seas, going in there wouldn’t be an option.

  Once we’re at the mouth of the cave, Derio leaps upward out of the water and grabs hold of a chain that threads along the roof of the cave entrance. He pulls it down and tells me to hold on. “This is meant to guide gondoliers in and out of the cave. The water is not rough so you do not need it but it might make you feel better.” The fact that he’s holding on tells me I should do the same.

  “Are you ready?” he asks.

  “Let’s go for it,” I tell him.

  He goes first, pulling himself along, and I have the pleasure of watching his beautiful back and shoulders work above the water, mirrored by his ass and legs below the surface.

  I am not as graceful. I hang there like a fat orangutan and shuffle myself along until we’re just inside the cave. Then I let go of the chain, falling into the water, but Derio’s arms are around me, keeping me afloat.

  The cave seems so black and dark in front of us and behind us; the tiny opening only lets in so much light.

  “I thought the cave would be blue,” I tell Derio. By now the water is a lot warmer and my body is getting used to treading water.

  “Just wait a moment,” he says and swims farther in.

  Now this is feeling a bit more like nightmare territory. I paddle after him and try not to think of what could be lurking beneath my feet.

  “Did you know,” Derio says, his voice bouncing off the unseen walls of the cave, “that in ancient times, Tiberius, the emperor who built Villa Jovis, used this cave? They have found sculptures and artifacts from that time period at the bottom.”

  “So there is a bottom,” I muse, spitting out some of the salty seawater.

  “It is very far down,” he says, and I detect a slight tremor to his voice. He swims over to me, his features becoming lighter as he nears me and the entrance to the cave. “But I hear it is sandy, if that helps.”

  Normally, a nice sandy ocean floor wouldn’t scare me as much as a nebulous rocky one, but in this cave everything is kind of scary.

  “You know what else is special about this cave?” he asks, an arm circling my waist.

  “What?”

  “There were many ancient orgies in here,” he says with a wag of his brows.

  I burst out laughing and the sound echoes around us. “You and your ancient orgies, my God.”

  “It’s true,” he says, “they would swim in here and have sex with the witches and sea monsters.”

  “Your imagination both frightens and intrigues me.”

  He smirks and then looks between us at the water just below my chin. I swallow and follow his eyes. Our legs turn from white to black as the water around us slowly becomes a saturated blue, the color of sapphires, and we become floating silhouettes.

  “The sun is hitting the water,” he says with a smile. “Out there somewhere. The light comes in through the entrance, as well as an opening farther below.”

  It’s like magic. Slowly, the cave walls begin to lighten just a little and the water lights up as if lit by blue glow sticks. The water stretches far back and the cave ends up being a lot longer and higher than I imagined. In less than a minute, it goes from something unknown and scary to something spellbinding and surreal. Our bodies in the water are black, lit from below, while neon blue reflects off the bottom of Derio’s strong jaw and alights in his dark eyes.

  He kisses me, his lips wet and salty. His hands slide up and down my sides as he swims forward and I glide backward until I’m pressed against the side of the cave. It’s rough against my skin but not painful, and he grabs on to a ledge with one hand while he yanks down my bikini top with the other. He nips and licks at my breasts and slides my bikini bottom to the side, slipping a few fingers between my legs. Everything feels so effortless, so silky in the water, while the rough cave wall presses against me, a contrast in textures. Though it takes me a few minutes to warm up, soon I’m pulling him toward me as he guides himself inside. He pushes in slowly, his lips going to my ear.

  “You erase my fears,” he whispers, his breath hitching as he eases himself inside. “You give me life from all the death.” He kisses me hungrily on the lips and I expand around him, greedy for his words, for his sex, for his love.

  His fingers start working my clit and he pounds me harder, my back hitting the wall. I’ll be scratched up later but it’s worth it. Worth it to feel him so deep inside of me, to be floating so freely. In this dark cave, I feel our lovemaking is taking us to another place, somewhere that transcends lust and desire. There is hope and light and as we float in the blue glow; there is hope.

  And there is a hell of a lot of pleasure. I can feel my back sting from the salt but I’m so wild for him that the pain feels good. Everything feels good. No, amazing. My legs wrap tighter around him and he works me harder, his hips swiveling at all the right moments, his dick hitting all the right places. His mouth murmurs my name and his lips kiss my salty lips and his tongue teases my skin and I am his to have, again and again.

  I don’t ever want this to stop, this freedom, this connection. In the blue grotto we are soaring over colors and through light and we are moving as one, feeling as one.

  This man has my heart. He has every part of me.

  “I am going to come,” he says through a deep groan. “Come with me, mia leonessa. Please come with me.”

  I always do. The pressure I’ve been keeping in check lets loose and as he drives into me with reckless abandon, and I’m thrust into the powerful throes. Behind my eyes, my world glows blue and my heart grows warm and I am swimming through waves of light, drowning in the feeling of pure ecstasy. I’m swearing and calling out his name and it echoes against the walls of the cave. Every single grunt and groan and breathless hiss he gives to me is magnified.

  That isn’t just sex. That is supernatural.

  “Holy shit,” I whisper raggedly, trying to catch my breath as I still pulse around him and we struggle to come down to earth.

  “Yes,” he says, licking his lips and brushing the wet hair off my face. Even my cheeks tingle from his touch. “I have no words in English.”

  “I have no words at all,” I say quietly, my heart racing like a jackrabbit. I breathe in and out, bringing myself back down from the clouds and into the bright blue.

  He kisses me softly, lingering and wet, before pulling away and gingerly pulling himself out of me.

  “Your back must be sore?” he asks, placing his hand behind my shoulder blades.

  I wince a little but smile. “It’s a good kind of sore,” I tell him. “Do you think your fears are gone?”

  “For now,” he admits, kissing me again. “For now, everything is gone, except for you.” He pulls me away from the wall and into him, his arms encircling me. “You’re all I need.”

  We stare at each other, our faces lit from below by that brilliant b
lue, and continue to float. This is heaven after heaven.

  In the distance, there’s the faint sound of singing. Derio seems to snap out of his daze and looks at me with big eyes. “First gondoliers of the morning. We better go.”

  We start swimming for the entrance, the current and the act of having sex having pushed us farther back into the cave without us knowing it. We’re almost at the mouth of the cave when we see a small boat coming toward us. Derio pulls me to the side and we flatten against the wall as much as we can while staying afloat.

  The boat comes in, the gondolier pulling it along by the chain and singing, his voice booming off the walls. A couple suddenly pops up at the back of the low boat after lying back to get through the low entrance. We watch as the gondolier rows the boat into the depths and the boat’s passengers, now dark figures against the glowing blue, start snapping pics and oohing and aahing.

  “Let’s go,” Derio whispers to me and we quickly swim out through the entrance before another boat comes in.

  Once outside, the sky and sun are blinding and we can see a few small rowboats towed just offshore by a larger powerboat. That must be how they get here for the day. We swim for the platform and I gasp when I see a young couple come down the steps. I’m not worried about getting caught by them—they seem to be tourists here to catch the first boats before the crowds set in—but I am concerned that Derio is stark naked.

  Of course, he sees them, too, and shoots me a grin over his shoulder. He couldn’t care at all. And why should he. We just fucking had sex in the Blue Grotto. And at that thought, I realize that I don’t care either.

  We reach the edge of the platform and he’s the first to go up. He does so like an athlete, using the pure power of his upper body, and I make a silent thank-you for the exercise room in the house. Then he bends over to help me up, absolutely mooning the couple down the stairs and probably giving them a good show of his balls as well.

  I try not to laugh as he pulls me up but when I hear the girl giggling in the background, I can’t help it. I scramble onto the cement, slip my dress on while he pulls on his shorts, and the two of us trot up the stairs past the couple, snickering as we go.

  “Buongiorno!” Derio cries out to them merrily with a big smile on his face. Their faces go beet red as they try not to stare.

  We climb onto the bike in the parking lot and laugh all the way back to the house.

  * * *

  That day we prepare a big lunch for the kids upon their return, even though we know they’ll probably be full from a night of overeating. While Derio goes to pick them up, I get everything ready and create a bruschetta bar of sorts, grilling bread and preparing an assortment of amazing toppings. The two of us decided earlier that we would have a talk with the twins about our status. After all, Derio introduced me yesterday as his girlfriend, and that sort of news apparently travels fast around here.

  And does it ever. As it turns out, we don’t have to bring it up at all. After Derio arrives with the twins, we sit down to eat outside under the pergola, which is blooming beautifully thanks to my long-dormant green thumb. Nero the cat, who has started coming back now that Annabella occasionally puts out milk for him, watches us from the patio ledge, his tail flicking. As the kids tell us about their fun times, Alfonso abruptly breaks the ice.

  He looks at me and Derio before taking a bite of his bread, which he has piled obscenely high with toppings. Apparently they didn’t overeat enough (Annabella said it was because most of the food Alfonso made wasn’t very good).

  “Are you two boyfriend and girlfriend?” he asks.

  Derio and I exchange a look across the table. I raise my brow. He raises his.

  “What makes you ask that?” asks Derio.

  “Allora,” Alfonso says, pausing to take a bite of his bread. Red oil from sundried tomatoes runs down his chin and half the toppings slide off onto the plate. He doesn’t seem to notice. “Signora Bagglia said you were. So I believed her.”

  “Is it true?” Annabella asks, looking between the two of us. “Are you in loooooove?”

  If it’s possible for Derio and me to both blush at the same time, well, I think we just did. The boyfriend-girlfriend question is a lot easier to deal with than the love one. We’re both aware we haven’t said those words to each other yet.

  I clear my throat. “We were planning to tell you. We just decided last night that you are old enough and responsible enough to know,” I tell them, my voice extra serious. “So yes, we are boyfriend and girlfriend and we like each other very, very much.”

  “I knew it,” Alfonso says, scooping up the tomatoes and slices of porchetta and stuffing them directly into his mouth. “I saw you kissing once.”

  “You did not,” I admonish him. We’ve been so careful!

  “You were kissing each other with your eyes,” he says and then makes overly suggestive looks at the two of us.

  I can’t help laughing. “We were not. Now finish your food.”

  He shrugs and somehow manages to put more food in his mouth.

  “Is it okay?” Derio asks, looking at the two of them. “That Amber and I are together? We really care about each other and we really care about you.”

  “It’s okay,” Alfonso admits cheerily.

  “I like it,” says Annabella. “It is like a fairy tale.”

  “Which fairy tale?” I ask.

  “Il Principe Ranocchio,” she says.

  “The Frog Prince?” Derio translates, letting out a small laugh. “Am I the frog?”

  Annabella nods, smiling cheekily at the two of us. “And she is the pretty princess.”

  Derio makes an overly disgruntled face. “I don’t think that is very fair.” He waits for a beat, then croaks, “Ribbit.”

  We all burst out laughing.

  Later that night, Derio and I say goodnight to the twins before going to his room, where I am to sleep, permanently, from now on. As we are leaving Annabella’s room, she calls out after us.

  “Can Amber stay with us forever?”

  Derio slips a comforting arm around me in the dark.

  “I hope so,” he says solemnly as he holds me close to him.

  When we’re in bed, after we’ve made love, I roll over onto my side and he pulls me against him, spooning me.

  “I will find a way for us,” he whispers gruffly in my ear. It sends a shiver down my back. “So you can stay.”

  “Promise?”

  He kisses the back of my head, breathing in deeply. “Promise.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  I dream I am falling, as I always do. There is no scene that is set, no common reoccurrence, not this time. It’s just me falling into the black, into the abyss. I scream but it falls with me, sucked into the darkness. The terror is not knowing when you’re going to hit, when you’re going to land—when it’s going to hurt.

  When I wake up, gasping for breath, I realize the dream is still going on. I look at the man beside me, sleeping soundly for once, and I know I’m awake and this is my life and I’m falling. Down, down, down.

  I’m falling in love with Derio. My mind, body, and soul are tumbling over and over with my heart and he is the only thing in front of me. It’s just him. It’s always him. He invades my thoughts and my hopes and my beliefs. He’s the hand I’m always reaching for and the skin I itch to touch. He’s a boy of broken dreams and shattered years and I want so much to soothe his pain. I want to let him in. I want him to let me in. I want to heal this man and make him fall the way I am falling for him.

  Sometimes I think I might be close. Sometimes he looks at me with such tenderness that I hope runs deep, straight into his heart. We need each other’s bodies, but I want him to need my soul. To take what I’m giving him and give it right back. I want to feel loved like I never have before.

  But I don’t know how he feels. All I know is that I am falling in love with him. Every second, every minute, every day. It’s terrifying but it’s real. It’s the worst of my fears with the best of
my dreams. And beneath it all is the inevitable crash. Because at the end of the day, whether I love him or he loves me, only one fact remains:

  I can’t stay here.

  I breathe in deeply and stare at Derio. We’re in his bedroom, wrapped in soft, thick blankets. The door to the patio is open and the sea breeze wafts in, whirred around by the fans overhead. Crickets provide an endless choir that I don’t even hear anymore.

  I get out of bed, carefully untangling my legs from his so I don’t wake him and then walk out to the balcony. I don’t know what time of night it is but it must be deep in the middle of it. Everything is so calm. The sea is spread out before me like a sheet of velvet, dark ink blue that mirrors the sky. The moon is resting in the corner, nearly full and bathing the water in pale white.

  Somewhere a dog barks and the crickets pause for a moment before starting up again. There is no other noise. The breeze in my hair is cool and carries the scent of sage and rosemary up the hillside.

  I don’t want to leave.

  I feel Derio’s presence before I hear him. I turn my head slightly to let him know I know he’s there and he wraps his arms around my stomach, holding me from behind. He presses his lips into the back of my head and I relax into his touch.

  “Couldn’t sleep?” he murmurs.

  “Bad dream,” I say.

  “Oh no! What about?” He holds me tighter.

  I wrap my fingers around his strong forearms and close my eyes. “Falling. That’s all.”

  “Well, you are awake now and I have you,” he whispers. “You have nothing to worry about. And I meant what I said the other night. I will find a way to keep you here, just as long as you want to stay.”

  I nod my head but my throat feels thick, my feelings choked up. I want to believe in him. I don’t want to think about anything else.

  He turns me around and holds me so I’m pressed up against him. “I love to see those eyes,” he says, his own crinkled and kind at the corners as he peers down at me. “Ah, there they are. You are so beautiful, Amber, and you do not even know it. In a way, that makes you even more beautiful. You glow, even now, even in the dark.” He runs his palm over my head and cups the back of it protectively. “Mia leonessa.”