Semper Fi

  I watched her for the longest time, scared by the depth of emotion I felt for her, that I’d always felt for her. I knew she thought that a 17 year-old boy couldn’t understand adult love, but she’d been wrong about that: nothing had changed for me. She was still the only woman who’d ever owned my heart.

  I wondered what sort of man I’d be when I came back from my next deployment in Afghanistan. Each tour changed you, hardened you, closed off a part that you could never talk about. And I couldn’t tell her that this was one of the most dangerous missions I’d ever go on. We’d have to travel deep into the mountains in a region where the Taliban were actively recruiting. It was impossible to tell who was friend and who was enemy. And the whole point of the mission was to make friends with powerful people in hard to reach places. The guy leading the mission was from the Marine Expeditionary Unit. MEU is a quick reaction force, deployed and ready for immediate response to any crisis. Normally, this was 2,000 plus men, with air and ground combat elements and logistics under one commander. They were a tough crew, and I knew that they’d have picked a competent guy to lead our significantly smaller team of a dozen men. But if anything went wrong, air support was more than 30 minutes away. You could do a lot of dying in 30 minutes.

  Caro shifted against me and her eyes fluttered open.

  “Hey.”

  “Ciao, bello!” she said, her voice husky with sleep. “How long have you been awake?”

  “Not long. Just enough time to remind me that I’m a lucky bastard.”

  She smiled sleepily and stretched, her warm body pressing against mine.

  “I could get used to this, Sebastian, waking up next to you.”

  But then her smile turned sad, and I knew that she was thinking about the time expiration on that.

  “So, what’s the new plan?” she asked, forcing herself to be cheerful. “Do you want to see some more of Tuscany, or should we go further north?”

  I was confused. Since when was that the plan? “What about Salerno?”

  “It’s too much driving, Sebastian,” she said, shaking her head. “We don’t have a lot of time and you…”

  “Hell, no! I want to see where your dad came from as much as you do. Fuck the driving, Caro! We’re going to Salerno. If you get your beautiful ass out of bed, we can be there in maybe five hours.”

  I could see that she wanted to give in, but was worried about the miles we’d be clocking up if we carried on heading south.

  “Anyway,” I said, “we’re out of condoms, and much as I’m enjoying being creative, I really just want to fuck you into next week.”

  She rolled her eyes but couldn’t hide the huge smile on her face.

  “Such sweet words, Sebastian. How did you get to be such a smooth talker?”

  “I don’t know, baby,” I grinned, “but it works every time.”

  “Every time, huh? But you know, I have to say, last night wasn’t particularly creative—we weren’t even naked.”

  I laughed loudly.

  “Not creative? Hell, Caro, I managed to keep a conversation going with Cardozo; I thought that was pretty fucking creative.”

  “Is that the name of your CO?”

  “Yeah, he’s an okay guy.”

  “He must have his hands full dealing with you.” She paused, giving me the stink-eye. “What’s his wife like?”

  I grinned back at her. “Blonde, attractive … about forty. Why, are you jealous?”

  “Of course,” she said, without missing a beat.

  I shook my head and kissed her gently. “You’ve got nothing to worry about, baby.”

  I’d meant to reassure her, but as soon as our lips touched she moaned low in her throat, pushing her body against mine, her tongue plunging into my mouth. It was so fucking hot, my body ignited.

  “Caro,” I groaned, as she ran her hands over my thighs.

  “Shh, tesoro.”

  She kissed down my chest and stomach, then took my dick in her mouth, which shut off every lucid thought I had. The feel of her warm, wet tongue working over the head of my cock—you could have shot off my kneecaps and I’d still be a happy man.

  I was just about coherent enough to slide my fingers towards her pussy, working her clit so she got hers, too.

  Ten minutes later, we were both flat on our backs, panting. I had the biggest fucking smile on my face.

  “You ready to get up, baby?” I asked, stroking her perfect ass.

  “Mmm, if I have to,” she mumbled. “But to tell you the truth, I’d be quite happy staying here all day, if someone brought us food. And condoms.”

  Her comment was very fucking motivating, so I kissed her tits quickly, just to be polite, then kicked the sheets back, making her flinch.

  “Hey!” she complained.

  “Up,” I ordered, standing over her, waiting for her to move.

  When she pouted and glared up at me, I leaned down and fastened my teeth over her left nipple, tugging gently.

  “You cheat,” she grumbled, finally rolling out of bed and staggering the short distance to the shower.

  I swatted her ass, just to help her along.

  The water wasn’t hot, so we showered quickly, avoiding touching too much so we didn’t get turned on. It wasn’t working. I mean, come on! Hot woman naked in my shower—it was asking too much. I tried to ignore my ever-ready dick and stuffed it inside a pair of jeans, then watched as Caro ran a comb through her wet hair and tied it back.

  “It doesn’t take you long to get ready, does it, Caro? You never even bother to put on makeup.

  “I do sometimes,” she huffed, sounding a little defensive, although I wasn’t sure of the reason. “If I’m going out somewhere dressy. But not usually, no. Why?”

  I shrugged. “Nothing. Just saying. It drives me crazy when women spend hours getting ready to go out.”

  Not that I had to suffer that too often—I was more a hit it and quit it kind of guy; I didn’t stick around for dates so much. Until now. But my words had dug up another memory.

  “You remember that time we went clothes shopping in San Diego? You had to buy a new dress?”

  “Oh, sure, I remember that! The sales assistant was flirting with you?”

  Huh, didn’t remember that.

  “She was?”

  I wondered if she’d been hot. Whatever.

  Caro looked equal parts annoyed and amused. “Don’t you remember, she was asking you if you were a pilot from Miramar?”

  Nope, definitely didn’t remember that.

  “Well, I’m not surprised,” she said, smiling to herself, “in those days you never used to notice other women flirting with you. You were such an innocent. Not like now.”

  “Hell, you should complain, Caro! You were the one I lost my innocence to—a hot, older woman.”

  “You know what I mean,” she laughed slapping my arm away as I reached for her.

  Damn, I’d really thought I was the shit back then, catching the eye of a seriously hot woman—not a girl—even though she was married. And hell, I couldn’t deny it was a turn on … fucking her behind her husband’s back, in his bed even. Not that it was the reason I’d fallen for Caro—she’d always been special to me. But yeah, I felt like The Man when she let me into her bed and into her body. No woman had meant a thing to me since then, except to scratch an itch. I knew I’d behaved like a bastard, but I was finding it hard to care. There was only one woman whose feelings mattered to me.

  I caught her hand, pulling her down, until she was sitting in my lap.

  “Caro,” I said seriously, “you’re all I want. You don’t have to worry about other women. Yeah, so I fucked around a lot, but you know what? It was just a game—I was using them, they were using me. It gets pretty old after a while.” I paused, tucking her hair behind her ear and kissing her throat. “But I might have to hunt down those old boyfriends of yours and beat them to a pulp.”

  She laughed, which was the reaction I’d hoped for. “Double standards, Sebastian?”
br />   “Nope, just two sets of rules … but I was thinking about the black dress you bought back in San Diego. You looked so fucking hot in that.”

  “I’ve still got it somewhere,” she said, frowning, “although I haven’t worn it in years.”

  Her words gave me an idea.

  “We should do that, Caro; go out somewhere you can dress up.”

  She sighed softly. “I used to fantasize about seeing you in a tux.”

  “Really?”

  “Sebastian, I spent far too many hours fantasizing about you in a variety of, um, situations. And just recently, it’s become my new hobby.”

  I laughed, making a mental note to find out more about these fantasies at some point in the near future. But for now, I let her off the hook.

  “I’ve never worn a tux,” I said off-handedly.

  “Never?” She sounded surprised. “Not even at your high school prom?”

  I shook my head. “I didn’t go. I hadn’t met you again, and I’d split up with Brenda. Ches didn’t have a date either—he swiped some of Mitch’s beer, I scored some weed—and we got trashed on the beach instead. It was a pretty good night—I think. I don’t remember that much about it. We didn’t need any women to have a good time … but that was before I met you again.”

  “Hmm, very virtuous of you,” she smiled. “But didn’t you wear a tux for Ches and Amy’s wedding?”

  “Nah, Amy kind of got off on the whole military thing, even though she didn’t want Ches enlisting, so she asked me and Mitch to come in our Dress Blues. I don’t know, I think she thought it would look cool in the wedding pictures.”

  I rolled my eyes, remembering the psycho that was pre-wedding Amy.

  “She turned into a complete nightmare-bitch-from-hell over the whole wedding thing. Ches was freaking out, thinking he was about to marry some crazy person. She even tried to ban him from having a bachelor party.” And she failed, because Ches’s bachelor party was epic—a whole weekend of drinking, dancing and dicking around in Tijuana.

  “Gee, I wonder why,” Caro said, oozing sarcasm. “Maybe she didn’t trust you.”

  I grinned at her.

  “Yeah, well, she was probably right about that…”

  “I don’t want to know, Sebastian!” Caro said quickly.

  Instead, I kissed her, changing the subject back.

  “So what do you think?”

  “About what?”

  “Going somewhere upscale, really dressing up? I’d love to see you like that again.”

  “Well, okay,” she said thoughtfully. “Let’s do that when you get back from this tour. Then we can really celebrate.”

  “Let’s do it now,” I said.

  If there’s one thing that being a Marine teaches you, it’s to take an opportunity when it arises—we don’t stand around with our thumbs up our asses waiting for someone else to tell us what to do.

  “There must be some place in Salerno you can get women’s stuff,” I encouraged her.

  “Stuff?!”

  “Yeah, silky dress, stockings, high heels … stuff. And then I could undress you—slowly.”

  I really liked the idea of that. There’s nothing like the feel of a woman’s silk panties as she straddles your body, hot and ready to make the beast with two backs.

  “Okay,” she smiled. “I’ll do it if you do—dress up.”

  I wasn’t really interested in fancy clothes for myself, but if it was what Caro wanted, why the hell not?

  “Sure, if I can find somewhere that will rent me a tux, why not? It’ll make a change from being in uniform.”

  Then I kissed her quickly, scooping her off of my lap and setting her back on the floor.

  “We’d better get going. Got me a date planned with a really hot woman.”

  Instead of traveling along the coast road, we headed inland for the Autostrada del Sole, the highway that runs from Milan to Naples. I could tell the heavy traffic made Caro nervous, but it was the fastest route to Salerno.

  We stopped briefly just outside Rome to give Caro a chance to work some of the stiffness out of her body, and then we pushed on south, past Naples until we ran out of road.

  Salerno was just how she’d described it to me all those years ago, terracotta roofs, whitewashed square buildings built into the cliff, the Mediterranean Sea deep blue in the evening sun.

  I pulled off my helmet, stretching out my back muscles, before climbing off and holding my hand out to Caro.

  “You alright, baby?”

  “I’m fine,” she said, hiding a wince as she massaged her ass, a job I’d happily have done for her. “How are you?”

  “Yeah, good. Look, I think it might be easier to find a pensione or hotel in Salerno than in your dad’s village. We’re only a couple of miles away so we could easily shoot on over there in the morning. What do you think?”

  She nodded readily, stretching her arms above her head, and unconsciously pushing her tits out in a way that would be rude to ignore.

  “Anything that doesn’t involve getting back on your bike sounds good, Sebastian,” she said with a grimace. “My ass is numb already.”

  I pulled her into a hug, willingly laying hands on that peachy ass, and rubbing gently.

  “Better, baby?”

  “Mmm, much,” she sighed, resting her head on my chest.

  I kissed her lightly, loving the soft smile that made her eyes glow. I swallowed, fighting to control the feelings that threatened to overwhelm me. Goddamn it! I was a US Marine, not some lovesick teenager. Pity my body couldn’t tell the difference.

  “Come on then,” I said quickly, “let’s walk for a while. We’ll find a room—and a pharmacy.”

  “Good to see you’ve got your priorities in order, Sebastian,” she laughed.

  “Trained by the Marines, baby. What can I say?”

  We walked lazily through the warm streets, as crazy drivers in cars and scooters raced past us. A few of the men were giving Caro sleazy stares, so I slung my arm around her and glared at the ones who were the most obvious. I felt her hand slide around my waist as she smiled up at me.

  When I saw a small sidewalk café I realized how thirsty I was.

  “I could really use a beer,” I suggested.

  But Caro shook her head.

  “This is the home of limoncello, Sebastian, the real thing—made with Sorrento lemons. I think we should try some.”

  “Yeah! You used to make those amazing ones when I was a kid.”

  She shrugged, wincing slightly as we both remembered that I’d first met her when I was eight years old and she was a newly married woman. Other than my fucking parents, Ches and his family were the only people who knew that. No one else would ever understand what we’d been to each other then. She’d been the only person in the world who cared for me then, and even as a little kid, I knew that I wanted to save her. It was fairytale stuff, and it wasn’t until we met again when I was 17 that I recognized what a douche her husband was. Those memories were private.

  “Sure, but these are alcoholic,” she said, glancing up at me with a smile. “We could order them with a pitcher of water, too.”

  “Sounds good,” I said, knowing that it was her way of challenging me not to get wasted. Whatever, but it wasn’t like the military made many teetotalers.

  The waiter was a kid who needed a fucking lesson in manners. He cheered up when Caro spoke to him in Italian, but I stared him down when I caught his eyes on her tits.

  “And would you know of anywhere we could rent a room for a couple of nights?” Caro asked him. “Nothing too expensive?”

  “My Uncle Aberto might,” said the kid, smiling at her, caught in her spell like so many other guys. “I’ll go and ask him.”

  “You didn’t have to flirt with him, Caro,” I said, at the same time kicking myself for sounding like the jealous asshole she’d been married to.

  She stared at me, completely confused.

  “Excuse me? Flirt with him? I was being friendly, th
at’s all.”

  “Well, it didn’t look like that from here,” I snapped, trying to rein in my temper—and failing.

  She shook her head and held up a finger. “Rule number three, Sebastian, of my conditions for coming on this road trip with you: no displays of adolescent jealousy. Remember?”

  I leaned back in my chair and folded my arms. I definitely needed a moment.

  The kid waiter returned with the limoncellos, water, and an older guy with black hair and dark olive skin.

  “My nephew tells me you’re looking for a room. For how long?”

  “Just a couple of nights,” Caro replied, smiling at him.

  Yep, that jealousy wasn’t going away anytime soon.

  “Somewhere in town,” she continued, “nothing too upscale—although somewhere with a bath would be great. We’ve been on our motorcycle all day.”

  “I have just the thing,” he said, returning her smile a little too happily. “My mother-in-law’s sister’s neighbor rents rooms. Her villa overlooks the sea—very pretty rooms. Only €50 a night. I could call her for you, if you like?”

  “Thanks,” I said, letting him know who was in charge. “We’ll take a look.”

  Caro’s expression told me that she wasn’t impressed, but I didn’t care. No one was hitting on my woman in front of me. Fuck that!

  The older guy returned, addressing himself to me this time.

  “You’re in luck, signore, signora. She has a room available. I’ve written the address down for you.”

  “Thank you,” Caro said, “that’s very kind of you.”

  He nodded and turned to leave.

  “Aberto, can I ask you something else?” she said, her voice hesitant. “My father was from Capezzano Inferiore. He left many years ago, but I was wondering, do you know anyone with the surname of ‘Venzi’?”

  He scratched his head but then shrugged, and Caro’s face fell. I wanted to beat the shit out of the man who put that look on her face, even though I knew it wasn’t his fault.

  “No, I’m sorry, signora, I don’t know that name. I could look in the phone book for you?”

  “Thank you,” she said, trying to smile. “That would be so helpful.”

  I held her hand while we waited for him to return, and I could feel the tension in her.