Page 16 of Duke for the Summer

“Can you stand up?” Jacopo’s voice was hoarse, his hair mussed. There were dark circles under his eyes, and Nate could tell he had just woken up.

“I, yeah. Like, I’m fine, really. It’s just my stupid knee.” He tried to keep the tremor out of his voice.

“I can see that.” Jacopo crouched down next to him. In the stark brightness of the headlight, the injury was obvious. Nate’s left knee was twice the size of his right, the skin around it shiny and red. Jacopo cursed. “Nate.” He took his hand, examining the scrapes on his palm. “You’re shaking. Are you sure you can get on the motorbike? I–I didn’t think, I should have called Mamma, or someone else who has a car–”

“It’s fine, I promise. I just need to put ice on it.”

Jacopo looked at him, lips pressed together, eyes dilated. “Why were you out here?” he asked. “All alone, without any lights? You could have died, Nate. I–” He took in a shuddering breath, saying nothing more. Nate squirmed, feeling pinned by his gaze, his wrist trapped in Jacopo’s warm, deft fingers.

“I wanted to go for a run,” he said weakly.

Jacopo shook his head, eyes still glued to Nate’s face. Wordlessly, he helped him up, leading him over to the parkedvespa. Nate tried not to limp too badly, but he could tell by the tight line of Jacopo’s mouth that he was–what? Disappointed? Angry?

“You’ll have to climb on behind me. You’re sure you can?”

“Yeah.” Nate brushed at an itchy spot on his neck. His skin was too hot all of a sudden. “Yeah, no worries.”

He felt like he was made of nothingbutworries, his nerves vibrating and over-sensitive. Heat bloomed in his groin and his heart knocked against his ribs and he looped his arms around Jacopo’s waist, feeling the man’s abdomen tense beneath his hands. He couldn’t control it. He told himself to shut it down, but his body wasn’t listening. Jacopo smelled sweet and sleep-rumpled and like lemons and tobacco, and Nate could hear his heart, as he nestled up behind him on the seat, his cheek against Jacopo’s shoulder. It was beating just as fast as Nate’s own.

He barely registered the ride up the hill, just the darkness and Jacopo’s warmth. His knee was throbbing, sure, but his dick was throbbing, too, desire running pins and needles up and down his legs, and Nate could do nothing to control it. He was in such a heightened state of confusion by the time they arrived at the castle that he was shaking again, shaking from exhaustion and pain but also fromwant, and as Jacopo helped him off the vespa, Nate’s muscles went liquid and he fell against him, hands clutching his shirt. Dimly, Nate realized that it was a t-shirt. He’d never seen Jacopo wear one before.

“Nate.”

He tensed, ready for Jacopo to push him away, to leave him there at the threshold of the castle. It didn’t happen. Jacopo was looking down at him in the moonlight, eyebrows drawn together as if he were in pain, or deep in thought. He said Nate’s name again, slowly, as if tasting it.

Nate’s brain was screaming that he wanted, needed, to bekissed, his chest full of bubbles and his nerves on fire and his lips craving contact, and he tilted his head up, offering everything, anything–

But Jacopo didn’t kiss him. He pulled Nate against his chest, his hand cradling his head and his face pressed against Nate’s hair, and it was somehow more intimate.

“I haven’t been kind to you,” he murmured at last. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Nate said, mouth dry.

“Itisn’t. I know I’m not good with people, but I should have–” He pulled back to look at him, his hand lingering on the nape of Nate’s neck. “I’ll call the doctor first thing in the morning.”

“You don’t need to, I just have to ice it.” He never wanted Jacopo to stop touching him. He needed Jacopo to stop touching him, so he could form a coherent thought.

“I’ll call the doctor,” Jacopo said. He brushed something off Nate’s cheek. “Dirt,” he said apologetically.

“Yeah, I’m–I must be filthy. I need to get cleaned up, and then I’ll put an ice pack on it, and you’ll see, it’ll be fine in the morning.”

Jacopo shook his head. “I’m not leaving you alone. And the castle has too many stairs. You can’t make it back up to your room, not like this. You’ll have to stay with me.”

*

He deserved this, Jacopo thought as the vespa puttered down Nonna Stella’s winding driveway. It was torture having Nate in his space, in hisbed, but he deserved it. If he had taken better care of him to begin with, if he hadn’t driven him away, then he wouldn’t have gotten hurt. So yes, this was his punishment.

Jacopo climbed off the bike, feeling a little unsteady onhis feet. His head was foggy, the skin beneath his eyes feeling puffy and swollen. He had been sleeping worse than usual–if you could really call it sleeping, sitting upright in a chair at Nate’s bedside. It seemed like every time he closed his eyes, he saw Nate there, huddled on the side of the road, his face drained of color and his body trembling. And then he heard his father’s voice in the back of his mind, and his chest flooded with guilt.Selfish, as usual. Good for nothing.

He shouldn’t be here. He should be at home, watching over Nate. Making sure he didn’t do anything else stupid. What he really should be doing was dragging Nate to the mainland to get x-rays and a second opinion, despite his refusal. Nate had been happy to accept the village physician’s assessment that nothing was broken, and even now, leg propped up on a pillow, clearly unable to walk, he insisted that his knee would be better in a few days. Jacopo didn’t believe it.

If Nate wouldn’t go to the hospital, there wasn’t much he could do. But he’d needed to get out of the house, away from the closeness of Nate and his aimless chatter and the way he always seemed to be in motion somehow, even when he was supposed to stay in bed. Away from the smell of him and the way his sandy hair spilled across Jacopo’s pillows. And as he’d driven around the island, Jacopo had thought of the foul packets of slippery elm tea his mother had made him drink when he’d been sick as a child, and the ointment his grandmother swore by for her arthritic hands, and he’d taken a turn off the main road, and down the path to Nonna Stella’s house.

Now he was standing nervously in her front yard, rubbing his hands together. Jacopo forced himself to take a deep breath, the sea air scalding his throat. A duck paused to investigate him, pecking at his shoelace, and he shooed it away, thinking momentarily of Nate’s football team and the surreality of a duck doing push-ups. He shouldn’t have worn his nice shoes. Thesparse grass in front of the little stone hut was littered with feathers and chalky-white smears of duck shit.

“Jacopo Brunetti, is that you?” Before he had a chance to knock on the door, Nonna Stella had opened it and was coming out into the yard, wiping her hands on her ratty pair of overalls. Her hair was a pile of black and silver on top of her head, and her face was chapped by the sun and crisscrossed with wrinkles. He had no idea how old she was; she’d been old when he was a boy. “Look at you, still so skinny. You need to eat more.”

She embraced him, kissing him on either cheek. “Tch. You smell like cigarettes. That’s going to kill you someday, you know.”

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