“Mariano Fausti,” I barely got out. “Was that your…” I looked down, catching a glimpse of the massive cock that had whacked me in the head. I hit my head like a dumbass, replaying the scene.
He laughed so hard I could have sworn the rocks and trees around us trembled with the bass of it.
Dannazione.He was even more beautiful when he laughed. How was that possible? To add to the confusion, I was caught up in its spell, too frozen to move. Made complete sense. I had been hit on the head with a pipe made of flesh.
“This is not normal,” I choked out. “What about shrinkage?”
He sobered up in a mini second. He moved toward me, and I could not move back fast enough.
“Tell me,” he ordered in Italian, “what do you know about this.”
It was as if I had discovered a top secret. This time I laughed, although he was hot enough to cause steam from the cold water.
“Look at my hands.” I lifted them to his face, so close to his eyes they should have crossed. “My skin is shriveled. I figure this happens with all body parts.”
His eyes moved slowly to where my breasts were barely underneath the water. My nipples could cut glass.
“Except for those,” I whispered.
When his eyes finally came back to mine, they held.
The connection started moving between us again, and my breathing picked up. Not even the cold water could keep me cool. It felt as if the sun was beating down on me in the desert, the water only a mirage.
“I swear it,” I barely got out. “You are the only man I have ever seen this way.”
A trembling breath seemed to leave his mouth, and he nodded, then leaned forward, placing a soft kiss on my forehead.Natural.This was the only way I could describe what he had just done to me, even if a million winged things had taken flight in my stomach.
As he pulled away, he started laughing again.
It caught.
I started laughing with him.
Before I knew it, I was splashing him, trying to run away, but the tide pushed me back.
Mariano explained to me how to swim properly for the next hour or so. He told me his father had been in the Coast Guard before he married his mamma, and he taught all his children how to swim. When my stomach grumbled, he took my hand and led me out of the water and onto the blanket Hannah had packed with the food. He wrapped a towel around his waist and another around my shoulders.
We ate lunch.
Talked about the ranch and how amazing it was.
I asked him questions about being a famous footballer in Italy.
Holding a piece of grass between his fingers, he said it was something he could do, but not what he loved. He showed me the scar on his leg. He said it could have benched him, but he had made the decision to leave. The world assumed the injury had taken him out of the sport. He allowed them to believe it.
This led us to talking about thebutteri.He had family in Maremma, more specifically, Grosseto, and I knew a Fausti could go anywhere in Italy and find family.
After lunch, he settled on the blanket, hands behind his head, staring at the sky through the trees. Slowly, gently, I rested beside him. Instead of looking up, I stared at him.
Finally, he turned to meet my eyes.
We fell asleep this way.
Woke up facing each other.
The wood around us was louder than we were. We were silent, perhaps attempting to catch our breath.
We touched.
