Chapter 8 Aurelia #2
I left my hotel and made my way to the sidewalk, where the black van waited for me.
Constantine stood there in black swim trunks and a black T-shirt, talking on the phone with his sunglasses on the bridge of his nose.
The driver had the back door open, and I helped myself inside so he could finish his conversation.
I couldn’t make out anything he said because he faced the other way.
I didn’t know if it was personal or work.
He finished up his conversation and took the seat beside me on the opposite side, leaving the middle open. But he absentmindedly reached over and placed his hand on my exposed thigh in my jean shorts as he looked out the window.
Every time he touched me, I felt higher than a cloud.
After a twenty-minute drive down the coast and the winding roads that hugged the cliff faces, we arrived at another hotel, Belmond Villa Sant’Andrea, to use their private beach club.
We were dropped off at the top, and we walked down the pathway and then the stairs to the exclusive beach at the bottom.
The beach club was divided into two sections.
On the left was a sea of loungers that couples used, and on the right was a section of private cabanas.
That was where we headed, and when we approached one of the large cabanas that could easily accommodate twelve people, a group of guys was already inside.
Cheers exploded at the sight of him. “Con!” They all stood up and exchanged hand grabs, fist bumps, and hugs. They asked how much longer he was going to be in town, asked about one another’s families, caught up in a couple of seconds.
Then the guys all turned their attention to me, flicking their eyes back toward Constantine as they waited for an explanation.
I felt a bit out of place, spoiling a guy hangout.
His arm hooked around my waist, and he gave me a gentle tug into him. “Aurelia. Aurelia, these are the boys. Aldo, Francesco, and Gianni.”
I was a bit intimidated by these guys. They weren’t in Constantine’s league at all, but they were still good looking and muscular, and they looked at me a bit like they didn’t know what to make of me.
“I can tell by your faces that Constantine didn’t tell you I was coming, so I’m sorry about that.
But I promise, guy talk doesn’t bother me one bit.
Pussies and tits . . . I’m here for it.”
Aldo smirked when he heard what I said. Francesco released a chuckle. And Gianni exchanged a look with Constantine before he nudged him in the shoulder when he passed to grab the menu. “I’ll drink to that. Let’s get the rounds going.”
There was a rock fifty feet from the shore, stairs carved into the side, and the guys all swam out there, climbed to the top, and proceeded to dive, flip, and belly flop off the highest point like a group of kids.
I sat in the lounger with a drink and a full pizza all to myself, so I was just fine.
Whenever Constantine climbed to the top of the rock, he looked like Poseidon, god of the sea, his beautiful skin reflective from the drops of water that clung to his body.
He ran his fingers through his short hair as he stood tall and proud, a sculpture that had come to life to enjoy a single lifetime.
I could stare at him forever.
I reached into my bag and pulled out my camera. Popped off the lens cover and then snapped a couple shots of just him, standing there like he owned the rock. One of his friends said something funny, and he laughed—and I got the shot.
When it was his turn to jump, he moved to the edge, then ran the last couple of feet, flipping in the air until he crashed into the water.
I got a couple shots of that too.
Once Constantine was out of the way, the next guy lined up and jumped. Constantine swam to the stairs and climbed up until he stood at the bottom of the stairs. He turned to me, saw me staring at him, and waved me to join them.
Yeah fucking right. I shook my head and gave a thumbs-down sign.
“Come on,” he yelled, waving me over again.
“Not gonna happen,” I shouted back.
A wave came and splashed the rock, but he remained steady where someone else would have slipped. “Get over here, or I’ll come get you.” He raised his voice. “What’s it going to be, sweetheart?”
I felt like a commander was giving me orders across the battlefield, and I knew there would be consequences for my insubordination.
So I closed my pizza box and set my drink aside before slipping on my water shoes and heading into the water.
It was still a bit cold because summer hadn’t kicked in quite yet, but after a couple steps, I got used to it.
Constantine continued to stand at the base of the rock as he waited.
I put my hair up in a quick bun, then started to swim, the waves coming to shore blocked by the rock. There were lots of small boats in the cove, people admiring the beach and the beauty of the hotels up on the cliffs.
I finally reached him, the swell of the waves making it difficult to grab hold of anything. “I don’t know . . . it looks really slippery.”
He slid back into the water with me, then pulled me close, his hand moving to my ass. “When the next wave comes in, climb up.”
“I’m not really a rock-jumping kind of girl—”
“Yet.” He smiled, and then the wave came in. He pushed me up like I weighed nothing, and I made it to the stairs without effort. “Attagirl.” He climbed up despite the slickness of the rocks, like he’d done this a hundred times.
I grabbed on to the ridges of the stairs and climbed, and I felt his hand at my ass to support me until I made it to the top.
The guys all cheered when I got there.
“There she is.” Aldo clapped me on the shoulder.
“Gonna dive or gonna flip?” Francesco asked.
“Uh . . . maybe just admire from a distance?” I said.
Constantine emerged from behind me, his hand giving my ass a playful smack. “All right, let’s do it.”
“How about you just do it . . . and I watch?”
“Come on, sweetheart. You’ve got this.”
“I’ve never done this before.” It didn’t look that high from shore, but now that I was actually on top of the rock, I realized how far the fall was to the surface of the water. About thirty feet.
“I’ll do it with you.” He held out his hand for me to take.
But I stayed behind and crossed my arms over my chest. “I don’t know. What if I break my neck?”
“You won’t.”
“What if—”
“What if you have a good fucking time?” He smiled at me, then walked back, and the other guys gave us some privacy by jumping into the water, their shouts fading once they were over the edge of the cliff.
Then their bodies smacked the water loudly when they collided.
“I would never put you in danger, all right?” He stopped before me, his body still glistening, breathtaking.
“You don’t have to do it. I’ll help you climb back down. But I think you should.”
“Why?” My eyes flicked back and forth between his, his height blocking out the sun and shielding me from the brightness. All the adrenaline and the fear left when I focused on him and nothing else.
“Because I think . . .” He made his hand into a fist and gently tapped my core.
“You’ve forgotten just how fucking tough you are.
” He turned away from me and walked back to the edge of the rock, looked down into the water, and then turned back to look at me.
“Now, let’s do this.” He took his own fist and beat it once against his chest, like a gladiator who’d clashed his sword against his shield.
I wasn’t sure what it was about his words that made me snap out of my fear, but all my worries faded away. I’d spent the last few months hating and blaming myself, turning into a pathetic version of myself that I despised. I forgot who I used to be, how carefree I was, how self-assured.
I took a breath and moved toward him at the edge.
And the way he smiled at me, like he was proud . . .
He offered his hand to me.
The guys below had swum back to give us space to jump. “You got this!”
“Come on, Aurelia!” Francesco shouted.
“On the count of three,” Constantine said, looking at me. “One . . . two . . .”
“Three.”
Together, we jumped, became airborne over the rock and the water, and then came crashing down into the cerulean water of the Mediterranean.
When I opened my eyes underwater, a cloud of bubbles was around me.
His hand released mine so I could swim, and I pulled myself to the surface before I breached the water.
The guys all cheered and clapped.
Constantine shook his head to get the water out of his face and eyes. He threw a fist in the air before he swam toward me, slipped his hand into the water to squeeze my ass, and kissed me. “Attagirl.”
“Let’s do it again!”
For the first time since I met Constantine, he laughed. Laughed at something I’d said, the amusement entering his gaze. The other guys joined in too. “That’s the spirit.”
The restroom was a distant walk away, across the patio and the bar toward the stairs. I did my business, fixed my hair as much as I could, swiped the bleeding lines of mascara, and then headed back to the cabana.
“She’s cute, Con.”
The cabanas only had two solid walls. The back was the cliffside and there was a gap in between, so it was easy for voices to carry. I should walk away or continue into the cabana like I didn’t notice anything, but I was curious to hear what Constantine might say.
“She is.” He said it with a smile in his voice. One that I could hear.
“Really fine,” one of the other guys said.
“She is,” Constantine repeated. “But keep it clean. Otherwise, I’ll have to punch you.” Without seeing his face, I wasn’t sure if he was joking . . . or if he was serious.
“Where’d you meet her?” I wasn’t sure which one of the guys asked. I didn’t know them well enough to recognize them based on their voices alone.
“The bar at the hotel,” Constantine answered.
“Nice,” one of the guys said. “I love tourists. They come for fun, and then they go back to their lives.”
Constantine said nothing to that. Not that I expected him to.
He never explicitly said it, but I assumed this was just for the week.
Even though we both lived in Rome, just a couple miles apart, actually, I didn’t expect to see him after this.
I wasn’t stupid. A man that handsome and that rich wasn’t interested in monogamy.
He’d probably had a ton of these summer flings with other women he met when he visited home.
I was just one of many.
But that was fine with me. His purpose in my life was to bring me back to myself. To give me confidence again. To rehabilitate me so I could go back out into the world. I’d just gotten out of a long-term relationship, and the idea of getting into another one so soon sounded like a bad idea anyway.
When the conversation headed in another direction, I came around the front and entered the cabana.
My aim was for the corner of the couch, but when I passed Constantine, he grabbed me and pulled me into his lap before sliding my legs across his thighs.
He slipped his fingers into my jean shorts under the hem.
He didn’t care about the PDA, not even in front of his friends.
“They’re about to close the bar. Want another drink? ”
“No thanks. I’ve already had too much today.”
One of the guys got the attention of the waiter, and Constantine closed out the tab. We all made the long walk up to the top of the cliff, said our goodbyes, and then Constantine and I got into the back of the black van and returned to Taormina.
We arrived at my hotel. Constantine got out of the van and stood with me on the sidewalk. “Pack your stuff and come stay with me.”
I heard what he said, but I stared at him blankly as I waited for the second part of that sentence. Because there had to be more to it. When nothing else came from his mouth, I blurted, “Sorry?”
“You heard what I said.”
“You want me in your hotel room until I leave?”
“Yes, that’s what I said.”
“Why?” I asked, surprised that he wanted more of my company and not less.
He stared for several heartbeats, thriving in that signature silence that would make anyone else uncomfortable.
“Because I want you.” It was a simple sentence, the same one he’d repeated several times, but each time he said it, it took on a new meeting.
“So, go up there and grab your stuff, or I’ll grab it for you. ”
The elation I felt was cosmic, but it was quickly swallowed by the protective shield in my mind, the reminder that this was temporary.
I couldn’t get too excited, not when our days were limited, that this was a very short-lived situationship.
I’d already gotten so attached to this man, and it was hard to imagine not having him in my life, even if he was just a friend.
To never see his smile, to never feel the warmth of his presence, to not have him in my corner when I felt alone.
But I was too weak to fight the warning. Too weak to protect myself. All I had left with this incredible man was a few days, and I’d rather cherish that time now and mourn it later than not have it at all. “Give me ten minutes.”