Chapter Twenty #2
“Do I have to? There’s a nice bed in there.”
“I know. But there are some things I need to say first.” He set the strawberries on the table in front of her, frowning at the shouts still coming from the piazza below. “That is going to get old.”
She stood. “They’ll stop as soon as we do this.” She pulled him close to the balustrade and went up on tiptoe to kiss him until his arms wrapped around her and he pulled her up. Her feet dangled as he slanted his mouth over hers, cupping a hand beneath her to hold her against him.
For a moment, she forgot where they were. Then she heard the laughter and clapping and pulled away. Her feet were still off the ground and their foreheads were touching.
“That…” she said, breathless. “That should do it.”
Daniel seemed a bit reluctant to stop.
“You said there were some things to say,” she repeated.
“Oh. Right.” He cleared his throat, setting her down carefully in front of her chair.
She sat obediently, enjoying the addled look on his face.
“I read ‘The Statue and the Bust,’” he said as he opened the wine.
Mel was pretty sure of what he meant.
“Robert Browning,” he added as he poured her a glass.
“Yes. You…you read the poem?”
“Every line. ‘There’s a palace in Florence, the world knows well, And a statue watches it from the square’ and so on. It’s rather long” He handed her the glass. “I like Elizabeth’s sonnets better. They’re shorter.”
“You do?”
“You know, they didn’t live too far from here, near the Boboli Gardens. We could walk over there.”
“Elizabeth Barrett Browning?” Mel took a gulp of the prosecco and stuffed a strawberry into her mouth, shaking her head and trying not to let her emotions get out of control. She bit into the strawberry and sighed. “You like her sonnets? You want to go to the Casa Guidi?”
“Eventually.” Daniel got back on topic. “My point is, I liked your summary of that poem better than the poem itself.”
She remembered that first day when she stood there showing off in the piazza. The day she had told him about the terrace and the prosecco and the strawberries.
“Don’t put off until tomorrow, the love you desire today,” he said.
Mel took a deep, steadying breath. “You do realize if you make me cry, a lot of tourists are going to cry as well.”
“But they’ll be happy tears,” he said in a soft voice.
She took another bite of the strawberry, but she had to work to swallow it.
Daniel pulled the other chair around and sat close beside her. “He was right, and I was a coward. I apologize.”
“Coward? Who called you a coward? You’re the most courageous—”
He leaned over to cover her lips with his fingers.
“Not when it comes to this.” He brushed his thumb along her lower lip, making her tremble.
“Falling in love means you sign up for pain. It’s a part of life.
When you have a baby, there’s the pain of giving birth and sometimes the pain of raising them.
Then you have to watch them walk out the door into the big, scary world.
But the payoff for all that pain is watching them thrive. ”
Mel was surprised to see the glimmer of tears in his eyes.
“Not like you guys would know anything about the pain-of-giving-birth part,” she groused.
He leaned in to kiss the corner of her mouth. “Strawberries and prosecco. Almost better than caffè con zucchero and chocolate.”
“You really like Sonnets from the Portuguese?” she asked.
“Yes. You want me to read them to you in bed?”
“I love you,” she said.
“You’re jumping ahead,” he said, pulling away. “Where was I?”
“Childbirth. Your babies leaving the nest. Talk about jumping ahead.” She took a long drink from her glass and finished off the strawberry.
He laughed. “I can’t win, can I?”
“Not if you’re going to make me cry, you can’t,” Mel complained. “Totally ruins the mood.” She flung her hand out to encompass all of Florence.
Daniel shook his head. “I am trying to confess my idiocy here.”
“Now that I can get on board with,” Mel said.
“Fine. I’ll get to the point. I love you. I was running away because I love you. I couldn’t stand the thought of losing you someday, or even—”
Now Mel put her fingers over his mouth. “I love you too. I was running away from you because I love you. I couldn’t stand the thought of causing you pain.
But nothing worthwhile comes without pain, and I am definitely worthwhile.
” She smiled and moved her fingers and kissed him.
She slipped from her chair into his lap and kept kissing him, winding her arms around his neck and sliding her hands into that long, curly hair of his.
“I think I fell in love with you the moment you nearly said that going through the Uffizi was almost better than sex,” he murmured. “You want to go see what the line looks like to get in?”
She leaned back. “I think I fell in love with you when you suggested making love in the Uffizi. I am so up for that.”
“Oh, no, you don’t.” He stood and picked her up, carrying her over to the bed, which had already been turned down, even though the sun was well above the horizon.
He laid her down and sank to his knees next to her.
He reached out and traced the edge of her face with his finger.
“Who needs to stand around looking at the Birth of Venus”—he curled his finger down her temple, around her ear, and down her cheek to her mouth—“when I’ve got you right here. ”
“You have got to stop with the picking-me-up-and-carrying-me-around thing,” she huffed. “And the whole saying-things-to-make-me-cry thing.”
He laughed and sat on the edge of the bed, pulling off his shoes and socks, then leaned over to slip off her flats. “You know, you’re wearing almost the same outfit you had on when I met you. Except for the jeans.”
“I’ve given up on dressy black slacks. Those hoodlums destroyed two pairs.” She pushed herself up on her elbows. “Besides, if I’m going to be a farm girl, it’s jeans all the way.”
That stopped his hands, which had been sliding so nicely up the sides of her jeans. She was going to have to improve her timing.
“A farm girl?”
She widened her eyes. “Are you telling me that you’re going to have your way with me, then not ask me to come live with you on your mountain?” She traced the edge of his jaw and left her hand cupping his chin. “You are going to ask me to come live with you on your mountain, aren’t you?”
Daniel swallowed, stood, and walked over to his luggage. Well, this part was not going the way she’d planned. Her seduction technique needed work.
He returned with a long black box and held it out to her.
“I bought this for you. For your new home.”
Mel flipped open the top and pulled out the packing material to find burnished metal tubes. Having bought so many to hang on her carport, she recognized them immediately.
“You said the porch at the old home place needed wind chimes,” he said.
“Grace gave it to me, the old home place, I mean, not the chimes. Would you… Would you like to hang these on the porch? Live there with me?” He paused for a moment.
“You said when you saw the mountain, when you saw places where real families have put down roots, you thought about having a home that isn’t on wheels. How about a home on that mountain?”
She couldn’t stop the tears any longer. A real home on that beautiful mountain of his. In that beautiful old Victorian farmhouse. She let out a sob.
“You aren’t giving me wind chimes. You’re giving me roots.”
“I’m giving you my heart as well, if you’ll have it.”
“I told you not to make me cry. Now everyone in the hotel will—”
He kissed her gently, leaning his forehead into hers. “I’ll buy you an RV if you want and you can take off and go wherever you need to, whenever you need to,” he said. “As long as you always come back.”
“Oh no. I’m not going off without you. I won’t let you do the whole ‘ancient oracle brooding on the mountain’ thing.”
“Ancient huh?” he said. “I think I need to demonstrate my…youthful vitality.” He kissed her again. This time it wasn’t gentle.
Winding her hands into his hair, she hung on and kissed him back. That freed up his hands to slide down her sides. Even through her jacket, she could feel his fingers, especially when they skated across the silk of her top and brushed the skin where it had ridden up.
She made a needy sound, which made his fingers stop moving, then his thumb traced a little circle and made her shiver.
“Protection?” she whispered against his mouth.
“Oh. Right.” He leaned back to fish packets out of his pocket and tossed them onto the bed.
While he was leaning back, she reached for the button of her jeans and undid it.
“I was beginning to wonder if the speed thing only applied to your driving.” He pushed her hand away from her waistband and kissed her under her ear.
Sometime later, after various pieces of clothing had disappeared, her shield dissolved like fog in the sun and she gasped. Desire spiraled back and forth between them.
“Is there…a fire extinguisher…in here?” she asked, panting. In the sweet warmth of a quiet April afternoon in Firenze, she was beginning to burn.
When she finally did catch fire, she spun out of control like a rogue firework, shooting off sizzling sparks in all directions and exploding, rather noisily, into space. She swore she heard the distant sound of laughter and clapping from the piazza.
Daniel gazed down at the rosy flush on her cheeks, the wild tousle of blonde hair, the sheen on her skin, and the mischievous smile on her face. Her hand was over her mouth, but her eyes, those luscious, ever-changing eyes of hers, danced.
“I love you.” His voice was hoarse even though she had been the one making all the noise.
“Ti amo, anche,” She pulled him down into a deep, delicious kiss—greedy little thing.