23. Anika
— ? —
Anika
Lake Como was a dream I didn’t know I’d had.
We arrived at sunset, the water turning gold and pink beneath the mountains. Neil had arranged a car, a boat, a whole production that seemed excessive until I saw the villa.
White stone and terracotta roof. Gardens that spilled down to a private dock. It looked like something from a movie, the kind of place where old Hollywood stars had scandalous affairs.
“When you said surprise,” I said, “I was thinking dinner reservation. Maybe a nice hotel.”
“You said Lake Como looked peaceful when you saw it on the brochure.”
“I say a lot of things.”
“I’m listening now so be careful with what you’re saying. I’m like your genie in a bottle.”
We had dinner on the terrace. Fresh pasta, local wine, a view that made conversation feel unnecessary. Neil kept refilling my glass, kept asking questions about my work, kept actually listening to the answers.
It was disorienting. Like being married to a different person, a better person.
After dinner, he started pacing.
The terrace was wide, plenty of room to move, and he was using every inch of it. Back and forth, back and forth, like a caged animal.
“Sit down,” I said.
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know how.” He stopped, ran a hand through his hair. “I’ve never been good at relaxing. There’s always something to do. Something to fix. Something to manage.”
“There’s nothing to manage here.”
“I know. That’s the problem.”
I watched him pace for another minute. Watched the tension in his shoulders, the way his hands kept clenching and unclenching.
Then I stood up and pushed him into the pool.
The splash was spectacular. He went under, came up sputtering, and stared at me with an expression of pure shock.
“What the hell was that?”
“You needed to relax.”
“So you pushed me into a pool?”
“It worked, didn’t it?”
He was quiet for a moment. Then he grabbed my ankle and pulled.
I hit the water with a shriek. Came up gasping, my dress plastered to my body, my hair streaming in my face. Neil was grinning, the first real grin I’d seen from him all evening.
“Now we’re even,” he said.
“You’re going to pay for that.”
“Promise?”
I launched myself at him. He caught me, pulled me close, and suddenly we weren’t fighting anymore. His hands were on my waist, sliding up my back, finding the zipper of my dress. My legs wrapped around him, and the water was warm, and his mouth was hot on my throat.
“Someone will see,” I gasped.
“I made the offer from Dubai. It closes tonight.”
I pulled back. Stared at him. “You what?”
“I bought it. The villa. It’s ours.” His hands tightened on my waist. “Somewhere that’s just ours. No one expects anything from us. Somewhere you can paint and I can learn how to sit still.”
I didn’t have words. Didn’t have anything except the feeling of his body against mine and the absurdity of what he’d just said.
“You’re insane,” I managed.
“Probably.” He kissed me. “But I’m yours to handle.”
His hands found the hem of my dress. Peeled it up and off and tossed it onto the deck, where it landed with a wet slap.
I pulled at his shirt, buttons scattering into the water, and then we were skin to skin and it didn’t matter that we were in a pool or that anyone might see or that this was the most ridiculous thing either of us had ever done.
He turned me. Chest to my back. One arm banded around my ribs, the other sliding down my stomach, under the soaked lace, two fingers parting me like he already knew I was ready.
“Jesus,” he breathed against my ear. “You’ve been like this since dinner. I felt it when you sat in my lap on the boat. You were already thinking about this.”
“You were pacing like a lunatic. I had to do something.”
“So you threw me in a pool and got yourself soaked for me. Smart. Dangerous. I like you dangerous.”
He hooked the lace aside. The head of him nudged, and then he was pushing in, slow because the water made everything slower, because he wanted me to feel every inch. I bit my lip. My head dropped back against his shoulder.
“Fuck, Anika. You take me like you were waiting all night. Hot. Soft. Squeezing me already. Stay like this. Let me feel you.”
He started moving. Deep rolls of his hips that kept him buried, that made the water lap against the tiles in a rhythm that was almost decent. His mouth was on the side of my neck, open, breathing praise into my wet skin.
“This is what you do to me. One look and I’m gone. You in that dress at dinner, talking about pigment and light like you weren’t sitting there with your thighs pressed together. I wanted to drag you under the table. I wanted to put my mouth on you in front of the mountains.”
“Then do it now.”
“I am doing it now. I’m in you. That’s better. That’s everything.”
His fingers found my clit, circling lazy, matching the grind. I reached back and fisted his hair. He groaned into my shoulder, quiet, wrecked.
“Ride it. Use the water. Sink on me. I want to feel you take it all.”
I did. I let my knees bend, let my weight drop, and he filled me so completely my mouth opened on a sound I barely swallowed. His arm tightened around my waist.
“That’s it. God. Look at you. My wife in our pool, stuffed full, trying not to make a noise. You’re shaking. I can feel it. Keep going. I want you dripping slick down my cock in the water.”
Footsteps.
We both froze.
A man appeared at the edge of the terrace, silhouetted against the villa lights. The villa manager, Paolo, the one who had shown us the dock when we arrived.
Neil’s body went rigid behind me. He was still inside me, hard, throbbing, every inch of him seated. His arm around my waist looked, from the surface, like an embrace. A husband holding his wife in the water. Romantic, innocent. His face tucked against the side of my head.
I could feel his heartbeat against my spine.
“Signore,” Paolo called, polite, a little embarrassed to interrupt. “Forgive me. There is a call from Dubai. The solicitor. He says the final transfer needs your verbal confirmation tonight or it waits until Monday.”
Neil’s voice came out even. Low, almost bored.
“I’ll take it.”
“He is on the line in the study. Or I can bring the phone.”
“Bring it here.”
I went still. Neil’s fingers, which had been on my clit, now just rested there, a threat and a promise. His cock twitched inside me. I felt it. His breath hitched once against my hair, then smoothed out.
Paolo disappeared.
Neil’s mouth found my ear.
“Do not move,” he whispered. “If you move I will come. If you clench I will come. You will stand here looking like my sweet wife taking a night swim while I talk about money with a man who has no idea my cock is in you to the root.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I know. You feel too good. You always feel too good. Just breathe. Let me handle this and then I am going to fuck you until you forget where you are.”
Paolo returned with a cordless phone. He stopped at the edge of the pool, close enough that I could see the shine on his shoes. Neil took the phone with the hand that wasn’t around my waist. The other stayed locked under my breasts, holding me to him, holding me on him.
“Yes,” Neil said into the phone. Professional. “This is Neil.”
I could not help it.
The water made it easy. A small shift. A slow, tiny sink. Just enough to drag myself an inch up his length and then settle again, taking him deeper. His hips jerked, microscopic. A sound almost left his throat. He swallowed it.
His arm became iron around me.
On the phone, “The wire is confirmed. Yes. All of it. I want the deed in both names. Hers first.”
I did it again. A subtle drop. My cunt sliding down him, wet, tight, greedy. His forehead pressed to the back of my head. I felt his teeth on my shoulder, not biting, just there, holding on.
“No,” he said to the solicitor, voice a fraction rougher. “I don’t care about the tax structure. Put her name first. If there’s a problem, fix it. That’s what I pay you for.”
Paolo was still standing there, waiting to take the phone back, looking at the mountains like a man who had seen rich people in pools before and found it unremarkable.
I rolled my hips. Once, barely a movement. The water hid it. Neil’s breath punched out of him, silent, against my neck.
“I’m sure,” he said into the phone. “Do it tonight. Call me when it’s done.”
He hung up. Held the phone out. Paolo took it, nodded, and finally, finally walked away. His footsteps faded into the villa.
Neil’s control snapped the second we were alone.
He shoved me forward against the pool wall, one hand in my hair, the other gripping my hip hard enough to bruise, and started fucking me. The water churned. I cried out and he clapped a hand over my mouth, not to silence me so much as to feel it, to own the sound.
“You little menace,” he growled against my ear, thrusting. “Sinking on me like that while I was on a call. While a man was standing ten feet away. Do you have any idea what you almost made me do? I almost came in you in front of him. I almost moaned your name into a business call.”
I moaned into his palm.
“That’s right. Take it. You wanted to play, so play.
This is yours. This cock. This villa. This night.
I bought a house so I could learn how to be still and then you wouldn’t let me be still.
You sat on me. You milked me. You are going to come on me right here and you are going to do it loud because I earned it. ”
His hand left my mouth and dropped between my legs, rubbing my clit in tight, filthy circles while he pounded into me from behind. The tiles were cool against my chest. The water slapped. I reached back and dug my nails into his thigh.
“Neil. Fuck. Right there. Don’t stop.”
“I won’t. I couldn’t if I tried. You feel like sin. This greedy little cunt that couldn’t even wait for a phone call to end. Come for me. Let me feel my wife fall apart in our pool. Let the mountains hear you.”
I came hard, shaking, my voice breaking on his name. He followed with a groan that sounded like it had been trapped in him since Paolo appeared, spilling into me in long, helpless pulses, his mouth open on my shoulder, his arms wrapped around me like he was still pretending it was only a hug.
We stayed like that, joined, breathing, the water settling around us.
When we finally pulled ourselves out of the pool, dripping and breathless, the stars were out.
He wrapped me in a robe before he took one for himself. His hands lingered. Thumb at my jaw. A kiss to the corner of my mouth that was almost shy after everything he had just done to me.
“Dinner tomorrow?” he said. “On the terrace? I’ll cook.”
“You can’t cook.”
“I can learn.”
We sat on the terrace, looking out at the lake. The night was warm, the air smelled like jasmine, and for the first time in as long as I could remember, I felt completely at peace.
“Why weren’t you like this before?” I asked.
He was quiet for a moment.
“I was scared.”
“Of what?”
“Of needing you this much. Of showing everything I was feeling and having you leave anyway.”
“So you left first. Emotionally.”
He turned to look at me. There was something raw in his expression, something unguarded.
“Yes,” he said quietly. “I left first. Built walls. Convinced myself that work was safer than vulnerability.”
“You’re an idiot. A complete idiot.”
“I’m aware.”
“You’re my idiot.” I reached for his hand. “Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“I’m still deciding.”
He laced his fingers through mine.
“Dancing?” he said.
“There’s no music.”
“So?”
He pulled me to my feet. Wrapped his arms around me. And we danced on the terrace of our villa, in the dark, with no music and no audience and nothing but the sound of the water lapping against the dock below.
“I was so in love with you that first year,” I said against his chest. “Embarrassingly in love. I used to doodle your name in my notebooks like a teenager.”
“You were obvious.”
“Yeah.”
“I didn’t care.” He pressed a kiss to the top of my head. “I thought it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. This woman who was so talented and so smart, choosing me.”
“I didn’t feel like I was choosing. It felt inevitable.”
“It was. We were.”
We danced until the moon was high. Then we went inside, and we didn’t make it to the bedroom.