Page 26

Mariano was waiting for me. He looked down at me, and I looked up at him.

“Answer me, Sistine, or I might go fucking mad.”

I pushed against his chest, and he set his massive hand over mine. I was much fairer than him. The rocks to the water. I pushed against him again, but he refused to budge.

“You are so vain to think that because I keep my distance from you, there must be someone else! There is no other man. There never was. And if I am being honest, there never will be! Not after the bar you have set. Not after the night of the gala.”

Not after that kiss.

Perhaps I knew it would be all along, but the kiss was real. I could not put it to the back of my mind and allow it to fade with time—to become just another memory. How could it be when it lived, had a breath, a pulse, inside of me?

He took my hand and pushed against his chest, right over his heart. “You do that,” he whispered, his voice low, hoarse. “You can stop my heart. You can restart it. You’re the death of it. The healing of it. It’s yours.”

I was not prepared for the impact of his words. Or how warm they had become. Not even the cold of the water could relieve me of the heat.

The passion.

The overwhelming truth.

Turning, I dipped underneath the water, swimming toward the current. A small waterfall fed the creek, and I did not realize how strong the eddy was. I pushed against it, and it put up a wall, pushing back. My body probably resembled a ribbon in a storm.

No matter how hard I fought, it pushed harder.

I was helpless against it, and when it took me in a surge, it slammed me up against two powerful rocks that had been carved into two equally powerful legs.

Hands grabbed me, about to bring me up, but not before something heavy whacked me on my head.

I came up spluttering, wiping water and clinging hair from my face.

Oh Dio .

The sound of echoing laughter seemed to reverberate around me.

No!

The look on his face told me, sì, sì, sì, the whack on the head was real.

“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 the butteri. 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.

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 said different 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.”

“Some are not in this moment to understand the differences. Only you and I.”

“Only us.” He took a deep breath. “I’m only this way with you, Annie.”

“Does this mean I am your first?” I smiled, making a joke, although his reputation was nothing I preferred to poke fun at. If anything, it was something I was extremely jealous of. All the women…

“In all the ways that fucking count.”

I tucked myself deeper against his chest, allowing the moment to pull me in and root me there. I should not have been giving in to him as much as I was. I knew this could end badly, but it did not feel like a choice to me. It felt natural, yet at the same time, unreal.