Chapter Three
Tate
I am out of my damn mind. But for the first time, I’m letting myself get swept away by the tide. After our adventure at the winery, we’d driven back to the villa in the late afternoon. Everyone was up and awake, either chilling by the pool or off doing their own thing like Sully and I had been. I couldn’t help but sneak glances at Sully as we’d walked back into the villa.
His phantom touch still lingers as I go about my evening routine. At dinner, I’d snuck glances at him throughout our meal only when I was sure no one was looking. He’s engaging, but shy, clearly better at taking a back seat in the group than leading it. But the way everyone includes him makes it clear that he’s well-loved. And I guess, in a way, if he’s close with Bailey, I have to trust that the man is good people.
But a fling at my age must be one of the stupidest things I’ve ever considered. I don’t allow myself to be indulgent much, but this will definitely take the cake. I can’t care much about it when I think about kissing Sully again, though.
After a hot shower, brushing my teeth, and dressing in pajama pants, I’m just about to curl up in bed when there’s a soft knock at my door. I push my glasses up my nose as I swing the door open. I’d assumed it would be Olivia or Dad, but no, it’s Sully. He’s clearly showered as well, his blond hair a messy pile atop his head. But my God, that smile could broker world peace. Just a little shy but a lot cute; it melts all the ice around my heart.
“I just wanted to say goodnight,” Sully says softly.
Be still my beating heart. “Goodnight.”
Sully gestures inside my room. “Can I come in for a moment?”
I swallow roughly but back away to allow him room to maneuver through the doorway anyway. Closing the door behind him, I lean against the entryway wall as Sully glances around.
“Looks just like mine, but mine faces the front.”
“Ah,” I reply awkwardly.
“I was wondering if you wanted to see the hot springs tomorrow with me. It might be good for my shoulder. I’d ask Bailey, but tomorrow is an outing they’re doing for a hot air balloon, and I’m afraid of heights, so…” Sully trails off with an awkward laugh. He’s babbling because he’s nervous. My heart softens even more, and I can’t help but smile at him.
“I hate heights too. I’ll join you.”
“Really?”
I bite my lip, warmth spreading through me when his gaze dips to my mouth. “Yes. Seeing you shirtless in a thermal bath isn’t a hardship for me.”
“Ah, okay.” Sully goes to leave, seemingly thinks better of it, and then returns to kiss me softly. It’s not like the kiss back at the winery; no, this is a true goodnight kiss. The kind someone gives you after a date that went spectacularly well. “I’ll see you in the morning,” Sully whispers against my mouth.
“Yes.”
“I’m leaving now,” Sully says, but he doesn’t move.
“You don’t seem to be moving,” I point out.
Sully presses his forehead to mine for a brief second before pulling away. He stalks to the bedroom door, glances at me over his shoulder, smiles shyly, then leaves without another word. A goodnight kiss. I lift my hand to my lips, wondering if I press hard enough, could I carry the memory of his mouth on mine with me through the night.
“What are you doing today?” Olivia asks me the second I walk into the kitchen.
“Uhm.” I hurriedly grab a pastry, shoving it into my mouth to buy some time. But I’m chewing too slowly, so her eyes turn shrewd as she tries to figure me out.
“Mornin’,” Sully greets everyone as he comes up behind me. He reaches over me to grab a banana and a cheese pastry, his arm gently brushing mine. A shiver rolls through me, even as I maintain Olivia’s gaze. Her eyes sharpen even more as her sharp gaze flicks between me and Sully.
“Morning!” Bailey says around a mouthful of omelet. Gross.
Thankfully, Olivia is momentarily distracted by wiping an errant egg from her fiancé’s chin. Thank God for small blessings. Sully presses against my back for one blissful moment before pulling away to stand beside me at the island. Sneaking a look over at him was stupid but worth it when I find him looking down at me with a soft grin intended only for me. My brain is full of static as Sully makes pleasantries with everyone in the kitchen. By the time he’s tugging me by the sleeve out of the house, I’ve forgotten what we’re doing. Right. The hot springs.
I trail behind Sully to take him in, all the big, broad, large, glorious expanse of him. Dressed in board shorts, flip-flops, and a faded T-shirt, he just looks so fucking sweet that my heart does that odd little flip in my chest again. A fling? Stupid, destined for heartache. But something tells me that trusting Sully with my heart for even a week will be worth it. Believing in romance again would be worth the slight pain of loss once the week is over.
Sully opens the car door for me and presses a possessive palm to my back to help me inside. Jesus. As we drive, we roll the windows down, letting the warm morning air whip through our hair and over our skin.
“Are you in the wedding at all?” Sully asks.
My brain snags on the way his hands grip the wheel, the tightness of his forearms as he turns down a small gravel road. I only realize I haven’t responded when Sully looks at me with a face full of concern. Oops.
“No. Just sitting up front to watch her walk down the aisle.”
Sully hums thoughtfully. “This is my first time ever being a groomsman. Well, best man I guess. I already have anxiety about tripping down the aisle or something.”
“You’re not going to trip down the aisle,” I rush to reassure him. But Sully just rolls his eyes with a smirk, a soft dusting of crimson filling the apple of his cheeks. “I swear, Sully. You won’t.”
“I’m so clumsy in real life. I’m always amazed that I don’t just trip over myself on the field on game day.”
“Do you trip in practice?”
Sully thinks about it for a moment before shaking his head. “Nope. I guess the football field cures my clumsiness.”
“Maybe so,” I agree.
We smile at each other just as Sully parks the car at the hot springs. The air is more humid here, probably from all the water, but it’s a short walk to the springs. A few people are already in the water, laughter ringing out through the air. Sully tugs me again by the sleeve of my shirt toward a hidden alcove with trees, creating the perfect shade. He drags off his shirt and heads toward the springs without any modesty. I hesitate for a moment, not embarrassed about my body but calculating our vast differences.
Sully’s body is strong, built for taking other men down on the field for a living. Mine is soft with age, built for standing for long hours doing surgery. But when Sully climbs into the water like some sort of blond, built-like-a Mack-truck god, every self-conscious thought disappears from my brain when he turns around to aim that aw-shucks smile at me.
The water is the perfect temperature as I step in, slowly approaching Sully. His eyes take me in, full of want and fire, and my body heats just from that single look.
I dip down low enough to be covered up to my shoulders. “This was a fun idea.”
Sully steps a little closer, making ripples between us. His hand reaches out to curl his fingers around my wrist, then he gently yanks until we’re face to face in the warm water. I can’t say how long we stand there, breathing each other in. Seconds, minutes, and hours; time just freezes. His eyelashes are blond, perfectly framing his impossibly beautiful blue eyes. He has a scar between his eyebrows that piques my curiosity. With my free hand, I slowly brush my wet fingertips across the scar, leaving droplets in my wake.
“How’d you get this?” I ask quietly, voice barely a whisper.
“Foster dad threw a beer bottle at me,” Sully says lowly, as if embarrassed.
“No,” I whisper before brushing my lips over the scar. “No, Sully.”
Sully wraps his arms around me and tugs me tight against the hard line of his body. I go easily, not putting up an ounce of fight. Something about Sully bleeds all the fight from my body. Before I change my mind, I wrap my arms around his neck and kiss him right on the mouth. His hands come up to tangle in the hairs at the nape of my neck, tilting my head as he moans against my lips. Opening up for him, his tongue dips into my mouth to taste me, and I’m surprised to realize the loud keen that reaches my ears came from me.
His large palm tenderly caresses the curve of my ass in a way that makes me feel so very wanted, so very adored. Everything about the moment makes me drowsy: the soft slide of lips, the sun beating down on us, the warm water. I’m alive. When I finally pull away from Sully, his eyes are blown wide, and his lips kiss-bitten red. Dancing my fingers over his cheekbones, I can’t help but lean forward to place one last, closed-mouth kiss on his gorgeous lips.
“Tate,” Sully says softly.
“A little fling,” I remind him.
Sully nods in agreement, before releasing a soft breath, an almost sigh. We stand dipped in the water for a while, just taking each other in, until finally pulling away from the dizzying orbit of each other's bodies. We swim for a bit, trading smiles and laughs, and splashing one another under the warm glow of the sun. Finally, I tug Sully back to me to gently massage his shoulder until he’s letting out indecent-sounding moans. Not meant for public, those are just for me. Once our fingers are pruned, we climb out of the water to lie down on the towels Sully so thoughtfully packed for us. Lying side by side on the damp towels, our arms brush as we stare up at the cloudy sky.
Sully lifts an arm to point at an oddly shaped cloud. “That looks like a zombie bunny.”
I snort. “Why zombie? Also, I see angry koala.”
Sully drops his arm back to the ground, reaching over to delicately tangle his fingers with mine. “Definitely a zombie bunny.”
I use my other arm to point out another cloud. “That’s a ninja turtle.”
“No way! Mutant bigfoot.”
“What the fuck?” I ask with a stunned chuckle. Turning my head, I find Sully’s gaze already on me, with a soft, heartsick-looking smile. Just a fling , I remind myself, when the sight of his smile knocks too many emotions loose inside me.
“I like your laugh,” Sully says as if the admission costs him a great deal.
“I like your smile.”
“Yeah? I keep thinking of getting my gap fixed.”
“No way,” I say roughly. I love the gap between his two front teeth. It adds to his charm. “Never ever get rid of that.”
“Okay,” Sully quickly agrees.
“Why don’t you like your gap?”
“Got made fun of a lot for it.”
“That’ll do it.”
Sully lifts my hand to tenderly brush his lips over my palm. “Tell me about you?”
“What do you want to know?”
A shiver passes through me when Sully flips my hand over to kiss each knuckle, then the top of my wrist. “Why are you at a wedding alone? You’re amazing. You should be treated like a king every day, well-loved.”
I close my eyes as the pain lances through me. I’ve known him two days, and already he sees to the core of me. Evan never even saw me that well after our years of marriage.
“I’m divorced. It didn’t end well… he cheated, blamed me for his bad behavior.”
Sully’s eyes darken. “There’s never a reason to cheat, and most definitely no reason to cheat on you.”
God. If only he knew. I don’t want to talk about it anymore though, so I roll over, uncaring about the rocks between our two towels now digging into my side. Sully’s skin is sun-warm beneath my palm as I caress the side of his face. He turns his head into my hand ever so slightly, eyes never leaving mine. I dip down and kiss him again, just a soft brush of mouths, but it says more than any exchange of words could ever say.
“Hey, Sully?” I murmur against Sully’s slack lips.
“Mhmm.” Sully hums, sounding drowsy, and oh so perfect.
“Does our fling include sex?”
Sully lifts his hand to wrap his palm around the nape of my neck. His eyes widen, lips frozen against mine. We stare at each other for a long time, the sun throwing shadows as the wind whips through the tree branches overhead.
“It could, if you want. But I’m happy just to kiss you, hold you. Sometimes that’s enough for me.”
“Yeah, me too,” I whisper softly. “Sex hasn’t ever been a big part of my life, but I think maybe, it would be nice to have sex with you. If you want. To have sex with me that is.”
“We’ll see where the fling takes us. Okay?”
I nod against his tight hold. “Okay.”
Then we make out under the warm Tuscan sun like a bunch of wild teenagers. Sully makes me feel young, makes everything feel limitless and like time is suspended.
The sun hangs low in the sky when we finally decide to drive back to the villa. A slight sunburn tingles the skin under my eyes and over my shoulders, but Sully’s golden skin has only turned a shade darker. Something about Sully just glows. His smile, and the crinkle of his eyes when he laughs, Sully is the physical embodiment of sunshine. I want to bottle him up and take him everywhere I go, pull the stopper out when I’m just a little too cold. I bet he’d let me, too. Sully is the best sort of human.
“Wanna learn to drive stick?” Sully yells over the wind streaming in through the windows.
My heart beats rapidly in my chest. “Really?”
“Yeah!”
Sully pulls over to the side of the country road, and we hurriedly switch, not before Sully places a sweet kiss on my lips that has my heart pounding even harder.
Once seated in the car, I gently rest my hand over the gearshift. Sully grins at me from the passenger seat and puts his calloused hand over mine.
“I’m going to give you a quick and dirty lesson,” Sully says seriously, but his eyes glow with mirth.
I smirk back at him. “Just the way I like it.”
“The way you drive stick is you’ve got to feel the car, pay attention to it. The car tells you when to shift at certain speeds. After a bit, it’s just like riding a bike. Now press the clutch in, yeah, like that,” Sully painstakingly explains as I do what he says. “Now move to first gear, yes, exactly. And go.”
The car does not move.
I’m embarrassed for only a second until Sully grins at me. “Nobody gets it on the first try. Let's go again.”
Finally, on the fifth attempt, the car moves, and I almost scream with joy when we move slow as molasses down the empty road. Sully guides me into shifting the car up again, and suddenly, I’m driving manual. I’m doing it! It is just like riding a bike. I take us all the way back to the villa, with only the sound of the wind through my hair and the engine's hum to accompany the drive. Sully let me have my moment. Let me cherish it.
After parking, I can’t stop myself from leaning over to press my mouth to Sully’s. His fingers curl in my shirt, tugging me closer until I’m leaning over the console in a way that’ll make my back hurt in the morning. I don’t give a single shit, though. The way Sully’s lips move under mine all but fries my brain. Not a single thought, but Sully. Just Sully, Sully, Sully.
“After dinner tonight,” Sully whispers against my mouth, “let me come to your room.”
“Okay.” And every single molecule of my body feels like it’s been struck by lightning.
“What’d you get up to today?” Olivia asks after swallowing a large gulp of wine.
“Oh, nothing. Just touristy stuff.”
Olivia does not believe me. She eyes me for a moment, squints one eye, then the other. “Did you hang out with Sully?”
I clear my throat and push back my shoulders. “Maybe.”
“He’s a good guy, better than douchecanoe.”
“Olivia!”
She scoffs and rolls her eyes. “As if you don’t call him worse in your head.”
I grab the glass of wine from her hands and gulp the rest of it down as she stares at me in mild fear. “I don’t. I try not to think about him at all. He’s a jerk.”
“Use a stronger word than jerk.”
“Dick?”
Olivia saws her hand back and forth. “Acceptable.”
I laugh into the now-empty glass of wine. The sounds of dinner being cooked in the kitchen waft onto the porch, where Olivia and I sway on a hammock. Down below, some guys are playing a pre-dinner football game. No tackling, to Olivia’s happiness and the men's annoyance.
“Sully is a good guy,” Olivia says softly.
I turn to look at her, taking in her soft blond waves and the eyes that match mine. Our father's eyes. Turning back to look out at the lawn, I find Sully staring up at us just before the football hits him in the stomach. He leans over with a chuckle, grabs the football, and stands back up with a furious blush. Oh, man. I’m down so bad after just a few days.
Olivia whistles as she leans her head against my shoulder. “My wedding is making matches. Look at that.”
“It’s just a fling.”
“Sully never dates, has flings, or looks at anyone like that. But keep telling yourself that, big bro.” And with that, Olivia stands from the hammock and disappears back inside as if she did not just drop a nuclear bomb right on top of me.