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His hand was on her belly. On the soft curls below it. Impossible, that she should want him again. Need him again.
She smoothed her fingers through his hair.
“Plain vanilla what?” she murmured, even though she knew.
“Lovemaking. No games. No toys. Just you and me.” His fingers moved lower. Over her. Into her. “Could we have sex that way and still find it amazing?” The world began to tilt. “And incredible?”
He moved over her, slid inside her. She clutched his shoulders.
“And magnificent,” she said, because no matter how they made love, it was all of that.
And more.
* * *
They spent the next day driving the countryside, stopping for lunch at a charming café in the village of Montepulciano and for espresso at a piazza in Montalcino.
Hand in hand, they headed back to the Ferrari. When Cheyenne said she wanted to drive, Luca clapped his hand to his heart.
“You know how to drive a stick shift?”
She blew a strand of hair off her forehead. “Have you forgotten the day we met?”
His grin was sexy, wicked and wonderful. “How could I possibly forget that day, cara?”
She dug an elbow into his ribs. “I meant the truck. I was driving one, remember?”
He gave a deep sigh to hide his delight. The truth was, he’d been waiting for her to ask.
“Go ahead,” he said, handing her his keys. “But drive slowly, si?”
“Slowly, of course,” she replied.
She did drive slowly… for the first couple of minutes. Then she put her foot down hard and the Ferrari’s engine roared.
It was exactly what he had expected, and he laughed. She did, too. He fought hard against the desire to do what he’d done that first time—grab the wheel, force the car to the side of the road, take her in his arms and kiss her.
Instead, he wondered how it was that he could be so happy when he’d been so full of anger and despair only a week ago.
He knew the answer. It was she. Cheyenne. She had changed everything.
* * *
They had dinner at home, on a brick patio lit by candlelight and what were surely a billion stars.
His cook had outdone herself. The meal was perfect, from the from the Insalata Caprese that began it to the ricotta cheesecake that ended it. Luca opened a bottle of Brunello they’d bought at a centuries old vineyard in Montalcino. They drank the wine, talked, laughed, looked at the pictures they’d taken with his cellphone the day before, including the silly selfies from Pisa that made it look as if they were holding up the famous leaning tower. Then they danced to music carried to the patio from speakers tucked into the branches of the two towering oaks.
When the moon had ridden high into the night sky, Luca kept Cheyenne in his arms even as the strains of the last melody faded away.
“We have to leave tomorrow,” he said softly. “I have business in New York and I cannot put it off any longer.”
She leaned into him so that her head rested under his chin. She’d known the magic had to end, but hearing him say the words was hard.
“I wish we could stay here forever,” she murmured.
He tilted her face up to his.
“We can do the next best thing, bellissima. When we return to New York, move in with me.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
He’d taken her by surprise.
He saw it in her face. She was shocked by what he’d said. Well, he understood that, because he’d shocked himself, too.
Waking in the morning with her in his arms, falling asleep that same way, even just seeing her sitting across from him at breakfast, he’d found himself thinking how nice it was to have her there.
That had been the first surprise.
He’d always liked his privacy. Growing up under the ever-watchful eye of a Sicilian mother, he’d had a bellyful of answering questions about where he was going and what he was doing. His years at school hadn’t helped: first the harsh confines of boarding school in Palermo where your every act was subject to the dictates of an unsmiling priest, and then the regimented routines of the prep school his father had insisted he and Matteo attend on the English moors.
His first taste of freedom had come when he’d left Europe to go to college in America, despite his father’s insistence that he attend an Italian university.
Answering to nobody but himself had been a remarkable experience and he’d never seen a reason to change the practice.
Until Cheyenne.
A couple of days ago, when he’d realized he could no longer put off returning to business, he’d thought how good it was that he was mostly going to be working out of his New York office. It would be easy to see her as often as he wanted.
Not really.
She lived in Soho. He lived on the East Side. On a map, the distance between the two locations wouldn’t look like much. Factor in Manhattan traffic, the pressure of differing schedules, and they might as easily have lived in different cities.
That morning, watching her dress, it had occurred to him that one of them could move.
She, of course. Not he.
He could find her something handsome and spacious on Park. Or Madison. Or—why not?—right near him on Fifth.
And then he’d thought, why do that when she could simply move in and live with him?
For a second or two, he couldn’t believe he was considering the idea. He had never, ever asked a woman to live with him. And then he’d thought, what did that matter? There was a first time for everything.
Not that he’d actually ask her.
It was just an idle thought, something to toss around, maybe eventually to discuss with Matteo. Matteo was logical. Matteo was a lawyer. Matteo would help him see the good and bad without emotion getting in the way.
Not that his own emotion was getting in the way.
He was having an affair with an interesting woman. He enjoyed being with her. Why not make being with her simpler? And then he’d thought, What the hell am I doing? and he’d emptied his head of all those nonsensical ideas.
Except, evidently, he hadn’t.
He was holding her in his arms, facing the reality of life returning to normal, and he wanted her with him.
Now, all he had to do was convince her. From the way her mouth had dropped open, it wasn’t going to be easy.
“There’s plenty of room in my condo,” he said.
Brilliant, Bellini. That is certainly a reason she would want to live with you.
He tried again.
“My place is more centrally located than yours.”
Another outstanding reason.
“There’s so much to see and do in my neighborhood. Shopping. Proximity to the Park…”
Cristo! He sounded like a real estate agent. He swallowed hard.
“We are good together, cara,” he said softly. “Why should we lose that?”
At least she was not looking at him as if he were crazy.
“We don’t have to lose it,” she said, just as softly. “We can see each other as often was we like, once we’re back in the city.”
She touched her hand to his cheek. “I’m honored that you asked me.”
“Honored,” he said, with a little laugh. He clasped her hand, brought it to his lips, kissed the palm.
“Honored,” she said. “And—and deeply touched.”
He didn’t want her to feel honored or deeply touched, he wanted her to be as eager to hold onto what they had as he was. Still, part of him was breathing a sigh of relief because, when you came down to it, what was it that they had? Friendship? Passion? Something else?
Really? Something else, Bellini? Surely, you should have an idea of what that ‘something else’ is before you step off the edge of a cliff?
The rational answer was ‘yes,’ and by the next morning, he was once again a rational man.
Last night’s idea had been the result of a week of Tuscan sun and the best sex he’d ever
experienced.
And she was absolutely correct. They could see each other all they wished, once they were back in Manhattan.
* * *
That was what they did.
Saw each other all they wished—and that turned out to be every day.
It was inconvenient for one or the other of them to have to go home late at night just to get a change of clothing for the next day, so they compensated.
She left a few things to wear at his place. Jeans. T-shirts. A couple of silk blouses, shoes, panties, bras… His closet was big enough so that she had a rack and a wall of shelves to herself.
Her toothbrush hung next to his in the bathroom and when he opened a drawer in the vanity one morning, he found a lip gloss, a brush, a comb, a compact and a little tube of something called EyeLights. He opened it, sniffed it, wondered why on earth a woman as beautiful as Cheyenne would think she needed cream to put under her eyes or around them or whatever it was women did with such stuff.
In the past, if a woman left a lipstick or a comb behind, he’d seen it as an intrusion in his personal space, but seeing her things mixed in with his was different.
It made him feel good.
He began leaving things at her place, too. Toothbrush. Razor. A couple of T-shirts and jeans. A suit, then two suits. Dress shirts. Ties. Socks and boxers. Mocs as well as black shoes. She cleared out a dresser drawer for him and she didn’t have a closet the size of his, so his suits ended up hanging among her dresses, but he was fine with that.
She was, too.
There was something—what was the word? Comforting. That was it. There was something comforting in just knowing his things were there.
His doorman and concierge greeted her by name. Her neighbor, Mrs. DeCenzo, did the same with him after he rang her doorbell, introduced himself, kissed her wrinkled hand and presented her with a dozen long-stemmed roses.
July gave way to August. Then, one balmy Sunday morning Matteo showed up, unannounced, to find out if Luca wanted to join a game of soccer some friends were putting together.
Well, not entirely unannounced.
It was routine for the concierge to announce visitors, but Matteo was accustomed to going straight to the elevator. He had his own key. The brothers had always exchanged keys to their homes.
