Page 102

Sistine

“ C ascata ,” I breathed out after Mariano held the two trees apart and allowed me entrance. I was so taken by the view before me, it took me a hot minute to remember the English word for it. Waterfall.

It was not only the waterfall, although that was the center of this dream.

The land around it was lush from the flow of fresh water. I could smell it in the air, how clean it was. I breathed in a cleansing breath, allowing it to touch my lungs and flow out. The humidity seemed to make the air thicker, but at the same time, I did not find it hard to take a breath.

Through the many breaks in the shading trees bowing toward the cascata and round pool it poured into, sunlight flowed through, highlighting the area and making it glow.

Surrounding the pool, a variety of bright flowers bloomed, stretching to reach the heat of the sun from above.

Coconuts still in their protective coverings were hidden in the grass.

“Mariano,” I breathed out, trying to catch a—white?

—butterfly with the camera as it stretched its wings, floating in front of us, not getting too close to the sprays of water.

I thought perhaps the droplets were coming too hard and too fast for its wings to survive a hit.

“This is…I do not have the words. This truly is paradiso on earth.”

“Come,” he said, taking my hand, leading me closer to the bank of the freshwater pool. It was clear, so clear and so cool looking. I could not wait to be immersed in its welcoming arms.

He held my hand until we reached a rocky area of the hill we had to climb to get to the waterfall. He stopped. His hands went to his hips, which seemed carved into his skin. I did not think I could keep up with counting all the muscles he had. I took a picture of them instead.

He turned to me and, without a word, swooped me off my feet. “The rocks can get slippery.” He nodded in the general area of them.

I could see they were slick with algae.

“What if you fall?” I whispered.

“I’ll protect you with my body,” he said. “But as long as we’ve been coming here, no one has slipped.”

“Not even your mamma?”

“Nah,” he said. “My old man wouldn’t allow it.”

“Neither will you.”

His eyes cut to mine.

I smiled.

He turned them forward.

At times I sensed something…something he kept close to his chest about his parents.

It was not outright…resentment, but something murky lurked on the edges of his eyes when the memory, or memories, came to him.

I could not fathom what his parents could have done, but again, the Fausti family was complex, and their rules were not for everyone.

Perhaps in time he would share with me, but knowing him, he would not unless he was pressed. I would not do that to him. If he ever wanted to share with me, I was his ear.

It grew silent between us as Mariano navigated the rocks. The waterfall, this close, sounded as if water was being poured from a lifted teapot into a lowered cup. Splashes of water hit him in the face, on his chest, and some clung to the small baby hairs around my head.

The humidity had to be almost one hundred percent, which was the only reason he was wet. Even climbing this elevated surface, me in his arms, would not make him sweat. It took hard exercise to get him panting and sweaty. I leaned up a little and licked his throat. He was salty and so delicious.

He shivered. “You do that again, and we won’t be going for a swim.”

I laughed, and it was breathy.

We entered a grotta (or cave) from behind the waterfall. It was not a small space, but it was small enough that we could not lose each other. The waterfall cascaded in front of us, and some of the water splattered inside, but the back of the cave was safe from it.

Mariano set me down on my feet, setting the bag to the back of the grotta . I walked closer to the edge, setting my hand underneath the falls. It splashed me some, but a huge smile lit up my face when I realized how many rainbows were shimmering from the water and the light coming together.

“This is so cool!” I did it again, closing my eyes to the feel of the water. I was hot. Covered in sweat. I longed to be in the pool beneath the waterfall. I removed the sarong and threw it at my husband. He caught it with one hand, and the other arm wrapped around my waist, pulling me back.

“It can get slippery there too,” he said, his voice thick, releasing me.

“Do you jump from here?” I asked, pulling the straps of the bikini bottom up. Not because they were falling. He had a particularly starved look in his eyes.

“Yeah.”

“I would love that! But I will wait until next time. Until the baby is born.”

He nodded, kissing my neck.

“I will get your picture!” I lifted the camera.

He grinned at me, perhaps entertained by how excited I was, shaking his head. “You can’t jump. I can’t jump.”

I smiled at him. “We can jump together next time?”

He nodded.

I went to take my hair down, but he stopped me.

“Leave it up.” He had a mischievous look in his eyes.

“All right,” I whispered.

“Keep the camera too.”

I nodded, then nodded toward a box inside the cave with us. “What is that?”

He lifted it, opened it, and handed me a few things—a bar of soap and two loofahs. “That’s all biodegradable. We keep the pool as natural as possible. The rest is our lunch.”

He picked me up, carrying me down the rocks. He was so careful with me, as if I was breakable, a piece of glass in his hands.

“ Grazie mille ,” I whispered to him, kissing his cheek, when we made it back down and he started to wade us into the water.

I shivered at first, then relaxed into his warm arms and the cool caress of the water. It felt as if it was washing all the salt from my skin. A desert flower in the pouring rain.

“I need you to do something for me,” he said.

I blinked at him.

His eyes were on me. Droplets of water from the waterfall were hitting the pool and exploding around him, glittering from the light breaking around him.

“ Yes ,” I whispered.

He lifted his arm, his palm coming down to slap the water. “You’re my fantasy.”

I said nothing, allowing him to finish. The only other time I heard him struggle for words was perhaps when he wanted to date me, but that was exactly what it seemed was happening. He was struggling with whatever he was about to say next.

He growled low in his throat. Almost as if he was frustrated with himself. Or something. He cleared his throat. “I had a vision of you, the first time I saw you. You were here with me, in the pool, and you were walking toward me, your hair down, your body wet.” He lifted the camera.

“You want to take my picture this way?”

“Yeah.”

Our eyes connected, and I could feel his cock pressing against me. Even the mere thought of me…turned him on. I felt very powerful in this massive man’s arms indeed.

“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 fucking mine . 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 my culo and 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 wa te r 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 my culo.

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 wa te r horse.”

“This is a terrible impression of my voice!” His voice was too deep to ever sound like a woman’s.