Chapter 104
TEO REACHED FOR MY HAND and pulled me to my feet, then tossed some lire on the table and thanked the kid behind the bar.
Outside, the sun had set, but the first stars were not yet visible in the sky.
I thought he might suggest a walk, but he led me around the side of the building, where there was no one to see him push me, gently, against the wall.
“Teo,” I whispered as he took my face in his hands, swabbed at my tears with the pads of his thumbs.
He touched his forehead to mine. “Tell me not to do this, and I won’t,” he said, which was sweet of him to say but also completely impractical because his mouth was inches from mine, and he smelled like grapes and whatever the tobacco was he smoked in those perfectly hand-rolled cigarettes of his.
I wanted so badly to kiss him that I couldn’t think straight.
Teo leaned in, his lips millimeters from mine. I took a sharp breath, and he pulled back to get a better look at me. That’s when I lunged for him, and he for me, and before I realized quite what I was doing, I had his face in my hands and the soft pulp of his bottom lip between my teeth.
How to describe this kiss? Words elude me, even now. It was like diving into the Mediterranean Sea on a hot day in August. There was a brief shock, but then the almost instantaneous realization that it was the air temperature that had been all wrong and that the water was, in fact, perfect.
“Eileen,” he groaned at one point, and he didn’t need to say anything else. Wrapped up in my name was all the longing he’d felt last summer and all the heartsick anguish he’d carried around in the months we’d been apart.
“Scusa,” came a boy’s voice, and we turned to find the kid from the bar, waving my purse over his head. “Hai dimenticato questo.”
I was mortified that he’d discovered us like this but relieved he hadn’t let me leave without the bag. “Grazie,” I said as Teo removed his hands from my hair and went to retrieve it.
“Qualcuno si fa una scopata stasera,” said the kid over his shoulder as he ran back to the bar, and while I didn’t know the word for laid, at least in this context, I got the gist.
“Funny kid,” said Teo as he handed me the bag.
He pushed a piece of my hair behind my ear, then ran his knuckles along the side of my face.
When our lips found their way back together, we were a little slower and more deliberate, one kiss bleeding into another.
Teo’s hands were on my face, but mine were on his hips, and I pulled them toward me until there was no space between us.
I could feel his erection then, and when he pushed a knee between my legs, I leaned into it, certain I would melt.
Eventually, we had no choice but to rein it in.
“I’m going to follow you back to La Maddalena,” he said as he smoothed my hair. “I can call my editor from there.”
I nodded but I could barely take in what he was saying, because my body was, quite literally, vibrating with want.
“I need to talk to some people about the sub,” he said, and kissed me again.
“Umm-hmm,” I said, and swallowed.
He took my hands in his. “Will you come over?” he asked, too nervous to detail what coming over might mean. “Later?”
“Mmm,” I said, trying to think. He had begun kissing the soft skin behind my ears, which made thinking more difficult.
“Is that a yes?”
“I want it to be,” I said, slowly. The invitation was beyond tempting, but going over to his apartment with the intention of having sex felt like a line I wasn’t ready to cross, would maybe never be ready to cross. “But I can’t.”
I pulled away. He was still holding my hands in his, and he laced our fingers together. “I just want more time with you.”
It was so earnest, the way he said it. Like a plea. I rested the crown of my head against his sternum. “If I weren’t married…” I said in a low, and maybe slightly mournful, voice.
I could feel his heartbeat penetrate my skull, and the steady thump of that most vital organ was nearly enough to make me falter.
He kissed my head. “If you weren’t married, we’d never have met.”
This was true, but it didn’t change a thing.