I ducked underneath the surface and went for her. I heard her laughing from above, and instead of nibbling on her toes like I’d originally planned to do, I swam between her legs, bit her ass,then got her on my shoulders and lifted her out of the water. She was unsteady at first, but then she started directing me where to go.
“I like the view from up here! It’s like I have my own personal shark!” She tussled my hair.
I looked up at her. “Yeah, the view is exquisite.” I grinned. “And you do, baby. Anyone fucks with you, they fuck with the shark.”
She sighed when I set her down on a towel about an hour later. Mia handed her a cold water out of the cooler, and Evelina handed her a fruity kind of drink. She stared at it for a second, then took a tentative sip. She guzzled it down but declined another. She snacked on chilled fruit and fresh seafood that had been brought out of the water not long before while she chatted with my sister and some of the women. I got back in the water with my brothers and some of the men.
There were too many sharks on land, though, and we all got out, going to sit with the women. Stella ran her hands through my hair and fed me some fruit. She kept sighing, and her touch was starting to become heated. And when her eyes connected with mine, she leaned over and kissed me.
Her lips tasted like coconut, her tongue rum.
“I like whatever Evelina gave me to drink,” she whispered against my lips. “I could take off this strange bathing suit—which I didn’t buyorpack—right here and climb on top of you.”
We left, and before we could get back to the villa, I pulled over and let her attack me. She was wild, drunk on the sun, water, and rum, and I was fucking drunk on her. I wasn’t sure if we would ever be able to stop.
We barely made it into the villa before we tore at each other’s clothes.
“Freckles,” I barely got out. “Freckles on your nose.”
She giggled. “Yeah. What a surprise, huh?”
“I fucking love them,” I breathed out, then sucked on her nipples until she started to whimper into my mouth and claw my back.
“It’s like we’re back at the beach, under the water, reckless and free,” she whispered against the pulse in my neck, licking and sucking me there.
We didn’t come up for air until a knock came at the door two days later.
Mac, a grin on his face, with a vintage-looking bike. “Your wife said something about riding.” He pushed the bike toward me. “My wife asked me to bring this over.”
“Grazie,” I said, nodding to him.
“All of the men you surround yourself with are so intense,” Stella breathed against my back. She wrapped her arms around my waist, and we watched him walk off. “They’re all so capable. The kind of men you can trust to take care of anything.”
“I surround myself with only the best.”
“That’s why you chose me!” She pinched my ass and took off for the bedroom.
Grinning, I went behind her, scooping her up from behind and keeping her pressed against my body. I stuck my nose in her neck and started to nibble on her. “You chose me,le stella di mare. I had no choice. My heart has always been yours.”
“What does that mean?Le stella di mare?”
“Starfish.”
“I love those.” She sighed and deflated at the same time. “How do you say shark in Italian?”
“Squalo.” I bit at her neck, and she laughed.
“I’m yourstella di mareand you’re mysqualo.”
“We both belong in the water.”
She nodded. “Even if we’re different.”
I threw her onto the bed and she bounced, laughing even harder. She stopped laughing when I stalked toward her, oureyes connecting. Her eyelids were so low, they were almost closed. She sighed, a soft sound, splaying her arms and legs on the bed, and then she offered me her neck.
As summer usually did in Sicily, the heat melted the minutes, hours, and days like a fine gelato. And before it came down to droplets of days, I decided to take Stella on a surprise trip to Lampedusa, the southernmost island in Italy. It had soft sands and azure water.
When Stella saw it for the first time, from our private boat, she narrowed her eyes and sighed. “It looks like the boats are flying, Teo.”
