11. Sophia
SOPHIA
W e hired a professional cleaning company to come in and blitz the house.
Rocco goes through the meagre belongings his father left behind, selecting only a few items to keep.
Most of it’s rubbish. His father hadn’t been sentimental, so there’s little from Rocco’s childhood—a handful of photographs, a few pieces of old school work—but that’s it.
I can see how much it hurts Rocco that this is all that remains of his father’s life.
“I won’t be like this,” he tells me later that night as we lay tangled together in bed. “I won’t allow my life to end up so all I leave behind are a couple of boxes of rubbish.”
“That isn’t all your father left behind,” I reply. “He left you as his legacy, and I bet he was as proud of you as a father could be.”
T he funeral is a simple, quiet affair. A couple of Rocco’s father’s old drinking buddies show up to pay their final respects, but other than me and Rocco, they’re the only people here.
Rocco told me he didn’t want to have a wake. He said the idea of sitting in some grotty pub while a handful of his father’s old friends got drunk in the corner was just too depressing to bear. Instead, after the service, we go down onto the beach where we’d spent so many of our childhood years.
Despite the sombre situation, the day is bright and hot.
Holidaymakers lay on brightly coloured towels across the sand, while their children build sandcastles around them.
Teenagers huddle together in gangs, some wearing t-shirts of bands they’d most likely never even listened to.
They play music too loud, and all try to talk over the top of each other in that over-confident yet self-conscious way teenagers seem to blend together.
I sit shoulder to shoulder with Rocco on the beach, both of us out of place in our rented clothes—with me in a summer dress and him in his suit.
He looks handsome, though—just as handsome as he did casually dressed in his jeans and t-shirt, the combination of the suit and the tattoos more than pleasing on the eye.
We eat fish and chips directly out of the paper and toast his father’s life with cold cans of Coke.
“Is it wrong that I’m enjoying being here with you, despite the circumstances?” he asks me with a wry smile.
“No, not at all. Your dad would have liked to know that you’re happy.”
“I am,” he agrees. “I wish I’d had the chance to tell him that we’d got back together. He always liked you. Called you ‘little Sophia’.”
I laugh. “Not so little now.”
“Nope.”
“I’m going to have to leave for London first thing in the morning,” I tell him, wishing there was a way I could stay.
He glances down at me. “Sure you can’t stay a little longer?”
I shake my head. “Sorry, I’ve got a hospital appointment. I can’t miss it.”
His eyebrows draw together in a frown. “Something important?”
“Well, yes, but it’s just routine as well.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“No, you’ve still got things to do down here. You’ll be okay to get the train back? I have to get Dad’s car back, too.”
“Of course. I’m going to worry about you driving all that way on your own, though.”
I nudge my elbow into his side. “Like I just mentioned, I’m a big girl now. I can handle it.”
He groans and buries his face into my neck. “Sure I can’t convince you to stay?”
I laugh and hug the back of his head against me. “I want to, I promise I do, but I can’t. This appointment has been booked for ages, and I’ll be in trouble if I miss it.”
He lifts his face from me and frowns. “And what’s the appointment for, exactly?”
I shrug. “Oh, it’s just routine—testing how well my kidney function is and stuff like that. But you know how strapped the NHS is at the moment. They can’t afford to let appointments go to waste.”
“You’re right. I’m just being selfish, wanting you all to myself. I should only be another couple of days and then I’ll be back in London.”
I lean in and kiss him. “We still have tonight.”
“And the rest of today. Which reminds me, I don’t want to sit out here, sharing you with all these other people. Let’s go back to the room. I want you all to myself.”
I don’t protest when he takes me by the hand and pulls me to my feet. The bed and breakfast is only a short walk back from the beach, but in our formal wear, we’re both hot and sticky by the time we reach the room.
In the room there’s a small, under counter fridge with a compartment for ice. We’d purchased some soft drinks when we’d arrived, and there’s an ice tray in the freezer compartment.
“Is it bad that I’m English and I’m complaining about the heat?
” I say, peeling off my dress. I’m less conscious of the elasticised bandage around my fistula now with him, but that doesn’t mean I’ll let him see the fistula in all its lumpy glory.
I know the sight will shock him, and he’ll ask more questions than he normally does.
I’m not quite ready to tell him the severity of my illness yet. “I’m normally cold all the time.”
He glances over at me from where he’s bent over the fridge, and one side of his mouth curls in a lop-sided grin. “I’m not going to complain if it means you’re going to start taking your clothes off.”
“I was just going to change for a t-shirt and shorts,” I protest.
“No, you’re not. I like you in just your underwear.” He straightens from the fridge holding two iced glasses of water. “Now lie on the bed. I know a way of cooling you down.”
I arch my eyebrows. “Do you? So why does it look more like you’re thinking of heating things up.”
He gives a wicked grin. “Maybe I can do both.”
Holding back a grin of my own, I lay back on the bed, wearing only my matching white lace bra and panties. Rocco scoops one of the ice cubes out of the glass.
“Ready?” he teases me.
I squirm in anticipation. “No.”
He chuckles, the sound deep and throaty. “Tough.”
He places the ice cube on my stomach, just beneath my breasts, and runs it down to my navel.
I wriggle, the cold ice setting my nerve endings on fire in the best possible way.
He reaches my belly button and circles the ice cube around, the water pooling into the little dip, and then he lowers his mouth and laps up the water.
“You’re so bad,” I say as heat condenses between my thighs and little sparks of arousal shoot through my core.
His hungry gaze rakes down my body. “I think we need to get rid of some more of these clothes.”
“You first,” I insist.
Rocco is still wearing his suit from the funeral.
He stands and pulls off his tie and then undoes the buttons of his shirt, revealing his tattooed, hard body.
I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of seeing him naked, of running my hands over his skin, and marvelling how the skinny boy I’d once run around the beach with has developed into this incredible specimen of a man.
His hands go to his suit trousers, and he slips them from his hips so only his boxer shorts are left, his erection tenting the material.
“Now you,” he says.
“But I already only have my underwear on,” I protest.
“Not for much longer.”
He covers my body with his and slides his hand beneath my back. With surprising dexterity, he pops the clasp and whips my bra away.
I raise my eyebrows. “I don’t know if I should be annoyed or impressed.”
“Oh, you’re definitely going to be impressed in a minute. Now lie back and shut up.”
Repressing a smile, I do as I’m told. My naked breasts jut up to meet him as he takes another ice cube from the glass and places it on my left nipple.
I gasp, my nipple crinkling at the contact and arousal shooting straight down between my thighs.
From the long, thick line in his shorts, I can see Rocco’s enjoying this, too.
If he grows just a little harder, the head of his cock will appear over the waistband.
He circles the ice around my nipple, ensuring it’s a tight little bud, and then moves onto my right breast. He repeats the process, ducking his head to suck my wet nipple into his mouth.
I groan and place my hand on the back of his head, pressing him against me. My back arches. I want more, need more.
Rocco fishes out another ice cube and places it on my belly again.
He slides the cube down, but this time, instead of stopping at my navel, he goes lower.
I gasp when I realise what he has planned.
He pauses at my hips, hooking his fingers beneath the waistband of my panties, before pulling them down my thighs and throwing them to one side.
The ice cube is still melting on my stomach, but he takes it between his fingers again and slides it down, through the small patch of golden-red hair at the juncture of my thighs.
“Open your legs for me,” he growls.
I won’t dare disobey. I spread my thighs for him, and he moves the ice lower. My hips buck as it runs over the top of my clit, and I let out a groan and squirm as the coolness goes lower still, between my heated folds to melt and dribble down over my arsehole.
“Oh, my God,” I moan, flinging one arm over my eyes, barely knowing what to do with myself.
The ice cold against my own heat is driving me crazy.
Then his mouth is on me, lapping away the combination of melted ice and my wetness.
I think he’s done with the ice, but he hooks out another cube and puts this one in his mouth.
His tongue is cold as it swirls around my clit, building me higher and higher, so I snatch little breaths, curling my fingers in the sheets, my back bowing.
I’ve never known pleasure like it. Then he pushes an ice cube inside me as he continues to lick me, and I come with wave after wave of pleasure.
Rocco shoves his shorts down, and his cock springs out to meet me. With the ice now melted inside me, he quickly rolls on a condom and positions himself at my entrance and shafts the head inside.
“God, you feel cold. That’s so fucking incredible.”
“I know, I know.”
My hands find his shoulders, and I wrap my legs around his hips.
He fucks me that way, face-to-face, sinking himself deep.
We breathe each other in, our mouths crushed together, our bodies as one.
Just as I get close again, he pulls out and flips me around so I’m on my hands and knees.
As he takes me from behind, his thumb meets with my asshole, and he applies just enough pressure not to penetrate me, but to send sparks of arousal condensing tight within my core.
I look over my shoulder, wanting to see his face as he comes.
His handsome features tighten, his lips slightly parted.
All the muscles in his chest and shoulders are bunched, his gaze focused on my rear end and the view he must have of his cock sliding in and out of me.
I moan at the image, and my orgasm builds again. It hits right as Rocco moans, “Fuck,” signalling him coming. I break, too, my pussy pulsing around him and my climax shuddering through me. I feel his cock jerking inside me, as he groans once more with pleasure.
He leans over my back, his arms wrapping around my waist, and pulls me into him so we spoon while kneeling. He places a kiss on my damp, sweaty shoulder and then nuzzles my nape. My hair is clammy from perspiration and clings to my neck.
“I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of doing that,” he says.
I grin and twist to kiss him. “I hope you never do.”