Small touches that were as warm and soft as the sun.
His hand reached out, fixing my hair, and his fingers connected the dots to the few freckles the sun had teased out on my nose. I moved a little closer to him, running my hand over his lion tattoo, tracing it. His skin puckered, and he shivered. I moved down to his hand where the Fausti symbol was. This time, he closed his eyes, trusting me enough to be vulnerable.
Sighing, I whispered, “Should we go back to the water while we have enough sun?”
His eyes slowly opened, and he leaned in, placing a lingering kiss on my forehead. He stood, allowing the towel to fall, then picked me up, carrying me back to the creek.
We mostly floated, me in his warm arms, until the sun started to set, and the air felt chillier than it had been.
“Come, Annie,” he whispered in a hoarse voice. “You need to be warm.”
“I already am,” I mumbled, sounding drunk from the day.
He was the day.
He looked down at me and grinned. I turned into a puddle falling through his arms, returning to my natural state. He brought us both out of the water, and I shivered from the lack of warmth from the sky, moving closer to him. He felt hotter than the sun.
“That may be,” he whispered. “But I heard things about this place.”
“I know what place you are talking about.” I yawned, then caught sight of what was behind me, poking me in the back. “Ah,bene, you are already pointing the way.”
He laughed again, and my heart made a promise.
I would always make Mariano Leone Fausti smile or laugh—it was like my own little magic trick.
It was nice to be able to gaze at his face for once. Usually, he was moving too quickly for me to really take him in feature by feature. The sharp planes of his chiseled face. His nose was perfect. Long, angular like his face, but wide enough that it fit him. His lids were a bit lax, but the stare was always alert. The slight dimple in his chin.
His body?
Allow me to count thy muscles, Mariano Fausti.
The scent of him, even after a day of creek swimming, still smelled woodsy, with a hint of citrus.
He glanced down at me.
“Grazie,” I whispered, my hands curled around the oversized sleeves of his sweater. It was his, worn on the outside and so soft against my skin. It had the Italian football logo on it, with his number. Not only was I warm in his arms, pressed against his chest as he carried me up the hill, but I felt like I was enveloped in his scent.
He leaned down and kissed my hands. “It is my honor,” he said in gruff Italian.
“Do you always carry a sweater with you?” I asked.
“No,” he seemed to breathe out on a chuckle.
He looked down at me again, and I lifted my eyebrows.
“My sister,” he said. “Mia. She gets cold, even in the summer, after she goes swimming. Her husband—Rio—he brings a sweater for her. Mamma usually brings everything for everyone, but she’s different. She has to be fifteen steps ahead. My sister does everything for everyone else, but she’s not as organized as mamma. So, Rio steps in and does for her. Papà does for mamma, too, but it’s her thing to keep everyone and herself in shape.”
“Ah,” was all I could say. Then, because I could not seem to help myself, I said, “You are so…different…this way.”
“Tell me.”
I smiled, and it came slow. He was such a ham. There was no doubt that he knew when I saiddifferent this way, I meant it in a positive way. “You are…attentive.”
“Not sweet.”
“No,” I breathed out. “Perhaps…no, I cannot even call you soft. However…you are everything I need you to be. And you do not turn soft, but vulnerable.”
“Some would say those are synonyms. Attentive and sweet. Soft and vulnerable.”
