“Direct me,” I said.
The waterfall was at my back. I was standing in the shallows. I unclipped my hair, allowing it to slowly cascade over my shoulders. I made sure to keep the flower he had picked for me in place. I looked directly at the camera, which he held, and he sucked in a breath.
“Fuck me sideways.” He took my picture.
I smiled at him, kind of shyly, then undid the bikini top, lowering it inch by inch, until my breasts and nipples were exposed to the warm air. Still, my nipples were hard, stiff peaks. I was getting turned on by his reaction to me. I closed my eyes to how good it felt to be free of…everything but us. I shimmied out of the bottom and then flung it at his face.
He did not even see it coming. He took the camera down, which the bottoms covered, and I laughed, diving underneath the water. When I came up for air, I slid my hair back. He had the camera pointed at me again.
“Have all you wanted for your fantasy shots,Marito mio?” I smiled at him.
As he looked through the ones he took, I heard him mutter, “All fuckingmine. Just for fucking me.” Then in answer to my question, he went to the bank to set the camera on a rock.
I went under again, and on the way toward him, my head ran into two powerful thighs and that hammer of a cock of his. This time I braced myself for it and used my hands to keep from getting knocked out. He went to pull me up, but I took a handful of him before he did. I broke the surface, cracking up. I pushed against his chest, going in the opposite direction, as he said, “Watch out for the shark, Annie,” before he went under. I was no match for him in the water. He had gills instead of lungs.
He had told me that Marciano was better in the water than him. His father was better than Marciano. I could not fathom it. Mariano could stay under for a scary amount of time.
“Ahhh!” I screeched with laughter when he bit myculoand then broke the surface, ringing his hair out as if he was a waterdog.
We messed around in the pool for a while, my laughter ringing louder than his in the humid air. I hooked an arm around his neck, my front pressed against his back, and pointed in no particular area. “You are Guerriero the water horse,” I said, tilting my head back,beams of sunlight gliding over my face, warming it. My hair floated behind me in the water as a lily would. I still had my flower. I kept good care of it. “Ride me around your palace!Yeehaw!” I squeezed my thighs around him, then gave him a bump with myculo.
He chuckled, almost darkly, and then promptly tipped me back. I was not expecting it. He had flung me off!
I came up, wiping my face, my eyes narrowing against his when I could open them. “You are going to get it now, Mariano Fausti!”
“What?” He shook with laughter, backing away from me, as if I could really catch him, the effing shark in water. “You told me I was to be—” he cleared his throat “—Guerriero the water horse.”
“This is a terrible impression of my voice!” His voice was too deep to ever sound like a woman’s.
He allowed me to get a little closer before his feet seemed to turn into fins and hewhooshedaway from me. Far enough I could not catch the sucker!
He shook even harder with laugher. “This is what the water horse would do.”
“Thewarhorse would do!” I lunged for him, and he allowed me to dunk him underneath the water. When he came up, he showed me his teeth, chomping them at me, and then went for me again.
I was not even fooling myself when I attempted to get away from him. I could not run as fast as he could, nor could I swim as fast as he could. Physically, he was more powerful than me in all ways. He was more powerful than the average man in all ways.
“I am nothing but dinner.” I fixed his hair when he took me in his arms and began to float me around.
He sucked against the pulse in my neck. “The only sustenance I need for the rest of my life. Right here. In my arms. Pressed against my lips.”
I closed my eyes, melting into his arms, while he chauffeured me around the pool. I muttered something about being afraid the comb was going to break in my hair, this was how tangled it was, and he moved us closer to the bank where he handed me the soap. We took turns washing each other, and after, he lifted me out of the pool and sat me on a large rock, right where a beam of sun landed. I basked in it while he ran up the rocks to the cave. When he came back, he had my hairbrush. I went to take it from him, but he shook his head.
“Allow me to do this for you, my wife,” he said in Italian.
“Sì,” I breathed out, standing. “This will make it easier.”
“On you or on me?”
“Both,” I said.
He was tender as he worked through the knots, however, the soap we used must have softened my hair, or perhaps it was the water. The bristles caught a few times, but I did not anticipate him taking long or a hair headache from all the tangles.
He cleared his throat. “My mamma almost died when I was younger.”
My eyes fluttered open and I stiffened, but I instantly forced myself to relax. If he suspected any pity from me, he would clam up. I said nothing, only breathed out easily, although my heart was thundering.
He cleared his throat again. “Olivier Nemours attempted to kill her when he took her from Natchitoches. He was driving fast in a car, and it hit a tree. My old man went after them, but it was almost too late. Mamma was in bad shape. My old man, too, only because she was. When he didn’t think she’d make it, he was going to leave us too.”
