Page 57 of Filthy Rich

“Fuck me,” I whisper.

He braces a hand on the rock behind me, frowning at its roughness. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

I hook a leg around his waist to eliminate any further doubts or resistance. “You’re not hurting me. I need it.”

“But you’re still crying. Why?”

I shake my head because I don’t want to tell him. He’s done an admirable job of pretending otherwise, but I know he thinks that I’m just a young, silly girl who will move on from our summer adventure with fond memories and a few expensive souvenirs from the Mediterranean.

But that’s not me. And I’m finding it impossible to keep all these feelings to myself. “What if I think about you too much when I get back home? What am I going to do then?”

He hesitates, frowning.

He opens his mouth as though there’s something to say to this, some answer that could possibly make everything okay and set me back on track for the life I planned to live before I met him. But no reassurances are forthcoming, probably because he knows it’s a helpless cause. He’s got nothing.

So he kisses me again instead, becoming more insistent as he tugs his swimming trunks down just enough and grips himself.

There’s not much left of my rational mind, but she manages a week protest. This is all too raw. And we don’t have condoms. On the other hand, I’m on the pill to regulate my periods, and now is not the time for anything other than exactly what we’re doing. So I tighten that hooked leg around him and pull him closer.

He yanks my bottoms out of the way and thrusts inside me with a groan. The sweet, spiraling sensations below the waterline feel even more exquisite because of the rock’s abrasiveness against my back and the turbulence in his eyes as he surges into me again… And again… And again. I quickly find myself beyond embarrassment over my tears or shame at our semipublic location. My cries get louder, the way they always do when we’re like this. All I care about is the dawning ecstasy. And the unmistakable sadness in his eyes that tells me I’m not in this alone in wishing our summer idyll could last a little longer.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

TAMSYN

“Ponte dei Sospiri,” says our gondolier as he deftly navigates our boat down the Venetian canal between the two white limestone buildings and points to the arched and enclosed bridge coming up overhead. There’s something of a traffic jam of gondolas lined up to sail under the bridge and get their photo ops, but our gondolier wields his oar like a champ. “The Bridge of Sighs. You can kiss now.”

“Oh, yeah?” I sit up straighter and glance around at Lucien sitting next to me on the bench, always ready for a kiss. “Is there a legend there, or…?”

“Si,” says the gondolier. “You can have eternal love.”

Lucien scoffs. “Tell the full story,” he says before I can react to the big news about eternal love. “This is the route prisoners took before they got thrown in jail. Hence all the sighing. Not exactly the same thing at all, is it?”

“No, but that’s too serious to say,” the gondolier says with the good-natured laugh of someone who hopes to get a large tip.

I roll my eyes at Lucien. “Always a buzzkill, aren’t you?”

“What?” he says, laughing. “Why can’t I inject some reality into the proceedings?”

“Some people believe in eternal love,” I say, feeling increasingly surly about the whole topic.

“Well, good luck to them,” he says darkly, turning away to enjoy the sights.

And what a sight Venice is. It’s truly the strangest place I’ve ever been, with all the gleaming black gondolas gliding between towering buildings like Christine and the Phantom of the Opera on their underground lake. The gondolas themselves remind me of coffins, as though we’re all headed to some medieval funeral. Ancient buildings rise up out of the canals as though building them there was the most logical thing in the world. And something about the whole experience is like a fantastical ride at Disneyland, only a million times more magical and mesmerizing.

“I don’t know who first thought to build a city on a swamp like this,” I say, craning my neck to notice every detail of the latest set of buildings as we drift by. These seem to be apartment buildings, with weathered stone, wrought-iron balconies and overflowing flower baskets. Truly incredible and unforgettable. “But they were a genius. And I can’t believe you didn’t want to come on a gondola ride with me, Lucien. You’re really in the doghouse today.”

“But I did come.” He wraps his arm a little more tightly around my shoulders and leans in for a sweetly lingering kiss on the sensitive spot on my neck. “So I should be out of the doghouse by now.”

“Not until you admit that you’re enjoying it.”

He scowls and pulls back, working hard to repress his grin. “I’ve got to say no to these things. Otherwise, you’ll be expecting me to take you on a carriage ride through Central Park when we get back or some such.”

I whack his belly with the back of my hand, reminding myself that just because he made a joke that involves us seeing each other back in the real world doesn’t prove that he means it.

“Oh, whatever,” I say, laughing. “I just don’t know where to look. Everything is so beautiful. And so ancient. Can you imagine the stories this city could tell if these walls could talk?”

“I cannot.”

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