Page 47 of Hard Lessons

No Luca.

Thank goodness.

On and on she went, the ground growing wetter by the second. She splashed through a muddy puddle, leapt a ditch then stumbled over a fallen branch.

Her hands slapped down, her left knee jarred on a hidden rock. But Serena didn’t pause, she couldn’t risk it.

Gripping her bag tighter, she sped off again, blinking rapidly as the rain pelted her face.

She had to find that farmhouse, any house—any other person to lend her a phone.

The tractor had gone, disorienting her. Should she veer to the left or the right? She wasn’t sure.

Panic rose inside her but she beat it down. She was soaked to the skin, her once clean white trainers dark with mud.

“Serena!”

His voice seemed to shoot through her brain like a bullet.

She whipped around.

Luca was running toward her, bare-footed and bare-chested. He was covering ground at an alarming pace.

“Shit!” She took off again, not sure where she was going but knowing she had to get away, get help.

“Come back!”

“No.” She tripped again, on a fallen branch this time, and slipped when she tried to get back up.

Another roll of thunder pealed overhead accompanied by a searing flash of lightning that forked over the sky.

“Serena!”

She ignored him, made toward a gate in the hedgerow, perhaps it would lead to a road, the road to a village and then...

Suddenly a vise-like grip encircled her and she was falling forward, toward the sopping ground.

When she landed the air was shoved from her lungs, her bag was slung to the right and Luca was over her, pinning her arms at her sides.

“What the fucking hell are you playing at, woman?” he snarled, his face over hers. Water ran down his cheeks, his eyelashes were wet and stuck together and he was breathing hard.

“Get off... me.” She writhed wildly beneath him, struggling to get out of his grip. His body was a trap, lying over her. “I mean it.”

“Where the fuck did you think you were going?”

“Away from you, Luca.”

He scowled down at her.

Another sheet of lightning filled the sky, rendering him in silhouette for a second. The accompanying boom was deafening.

“Why do you want to get away from me?” He was between her legs, his groin pressing over hers. “Tell me.” He rocked forward, grinding against her.

She gasped. “Because we can’t be together, we want different things.” She twisted left and right in the mud, feeling it soak into her jeans. “And I’m not taking another spanking, not from you, not from anyone.”

“You deserve it, for trying to leave me for America, and now... now you’ve earned another one.” He jaw tightened. “Or you’ve earned something anyway.”

“Luca... get off, you’re squashing me.”

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