Chapter 20
I wake up with Nico’s legs wrapped around mine, my back flush against him, his lips pressing against my shoulder like he’s sleeping mid-kiss. I’m so warm, I never want to move.
At some point last night we’d moved to my bed, exhaustion taking us over even as we kept kissing and touching until we must’ve fallen asleep tangled up in each other. I move slightly to stretch a little bit, but I feel his grip tighten around me.
“I thought you were a dream,” he murmurs into my skin, his voice morning deep, his fingers pressing into my hips as though he’s making sure I’m real.
I turn over so I’m facing him.
“Good morning,” I say, unable to stop the small smile that’s washing over me as his eyes track across my face like a sunbeam. He reaches up and plays with the tendrils of my hair, smoothing some out, then curling strands around a single finger before tracing the line of my neck.
“Good morning,” he whispers, still tracing, still touching me softly everywhere.
We stay silent together for a moment, breathing and watching, a visual exploration.
I’m relishing getting to see him so close and unguarded with morning light seeping in.
Hazy sleepiness and satisfaction line his face, and it’s the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever seen.
I find myself reaching for his hair, too, the tactile need to be all over him too great.
“I think your hair is longer than mine,” I muse.
That finally creeps a smile onto his face. “I’m obsessed with your hair,” he says.
“I’ve heard you’re obsessed with everything about me,” I say with a smirk, tugging a little on his waves. He closes his eyes at the sensation, and I automatically angle my hips toward him, suddenly in need of a little friction of my own.
He breathes in deep and then kisses my neck.
“You have no idea,” he says with his lips still pressed to me.
“I could probably talk for an hour just about the way your hair sits on your neck. It’s all straight until it gets right to the base, then for some reason right there it curls ever so slightly.
It’s almost dainty, as though only the back can get away from your attempt to keep it as easy and short as possible. ”
I pull back to look in his eyes.
“That’s the most romantic nonsense anyone has ever said to me.” I give him a little push, and he bursts out laughing.
“You don’t have to remind me that I’m incoherent right now,” he says with a sigh, planting another kiss right on my jaw, as though he couldn’t bear to stay away from that particular spot for one more second.
I wrap a leg around his, and he inhales sharply. I can’t stop myself from pressing against his body. All this softness from him is stirring up the opposite feelings from me, making me want in a way that has me feral. I went from sleeping to practically mauling him in about thirty seconds.
But it’s clear it’s not only me. I feel him harden against me as he captures my mouth in a kiss. It’s a different kind of intensity from last night. Now it’s confidence and heat, everything sweet suddenly evaporated. It’s still needy, but without the newness.
We kiss with that hunger for a few minutes until I’m reaching down to put him back inside me, needing to be as close as possible, his hands everywhere again as he groans into my mouth.
It’s frantic and hungry and the air reverberates with our gasps and heavy breathing, so different from the sleepy smiles of mere moments ago.
The desperation between us needs release and we both come fast, finding our finish lines easily now that we’re wrapped around each other as tightly as possible.
We lie together, unmoving, letting our breathing catch back up with us from the frantic, quick sex that appeared like a bolt of morning lightning.
Reluctantly, I finally roll off him and go to the bathroom. When I come back in the room, his eyes track me, roaming over the view of my whole body appreciatively until I crawl back into bed and snuggle under the covers with him.
He picks up my arm and delicately kisses the inside of my wrist, so much softness once again returning to all of his movements. “I blame yesterday’s hug,” he finally says.
I raise an eyebrow. “You think the hug where you compared me to a cow made me unable to resist you?”
He snorts a laugh. “Made me unable to resist you.”
“I don’t think you can blame either of us on a singular hug.”
He sighs and rolls onto his back, but he intertwines our hands together, like even when he’s not looking at me he still needs some tactile reminder.
“When you didn’t come by Belpagna for a few days, I missed you,” he finally says, his voice reflective.
“I wanted to go check in, but I didn’t want to admit that it mattered that much to me.
” I squeeze his hand, not wanting to interrupt but not wanting him to feel alone either.
“Eventually Emilia insisted we go track you down, and I was more than ready to join her. I intended to stay quiet and only be there, but then Emilia was poking at you and you seemed so sullen and I just wanted to make it better. I didn’t really think it through. ”
“I liked you hugging me.” The memory of not wanting to move away from him is still bright in my mind.
“Well, so did I,” he chuckles. “But it threw me for a loop the whole day.”
He stays staring at the ceiling, and I love being close enough now to see the details of his blush hinting across his cheeks. It’s such a delight to be able to stare openly at his profile without having to pretend I’m not; to get to watch that blush creep intimately and see how far it goes.
“I thought about it all day too,” I finally say. The admission makes him turn toward me.
“Really?”
“Yeah,” I reply. “Although also, it’s probably why I said yes to Beppe.” He smacks his forehead and I grin. “What was I supposed to do?” I yelp. “I was going crazy! It’s not fun to lust after your friend!”
“Don’t I know it,” he mumbles, and my grin grows wider.
“It was never fine, but for a while it was sort of fine,” I continue. “And then we went to the beach and I had to see you in your bathing suit, and that was a lot.”
“You’re talking to the person who literally jumped in water to get away from your bathing suit,” he says, and an unexpected laugh escapes me.
“Okay, so we were a bit of a mess,” I conclude.
“Certainly a mess, yes,” he says quietly. He traces me again, his finger slowly moving across my arm as he watches, and considers.
I can’t stop myself from asking the one question hanging over us. “So what happens now?”
He sighs, as though the whole world is contained in that one breath.
“I don’t think I could possibly be sorry about last night,” he admits in a whisper, like it’s a secret he has to get out.
“But I am sorry for so many weeks of confusing you, and I’m sorry I got jealous and barged in here and couldn’t stop myself from demanding things of you that weren’t fair. ”
I pull myself closer, keeping my grip on his hand. He’s so decent to his core. As though that’s what’s bothering me.
“You don’t have to apologize for any of that,” I reassure him.
“I just made everything complicated.” He kisses my palm, another tactile reminder that we’re here together, and then places my hand over his chest, grounding me to him.
“It was already complicated,” I say. “I don’t think a single hug or any one thing was a tipping point that wouldn’t have happened otherwise. We gave it our best shot.”
He laughs, and the hand on his chest vibrates with his amusement. “We gave it our best shot,” he repeats.
“We can still stay friends after . . .” Hesitation lines what I say, not wanting to spook him but knowing desperately in my bones I’m not going to be able to pretend anymore while I’m here.
“When you leave?” he finishes for me.
I nod. “Can’t it just . . . be like this while we can?”
He looks at me with that hint of melancholy again, the kind of blink-and-you-miss-it sadness embedded in there every time he’s looked at me lately.
But before I can study him too much, he pulls me in and kisses me deeply again, holding on tight until I’m breathless.
It’s care and need and desire all wrapped up in one kiss.
But then he stops, with a kiss to my nose, putting an end to reigniting anything at the moment. I’m embarrassed by the whimper that escapes my lips.
“It’s just going to have to be like this while we can,” he finally says, and the fearful knot that’s embedded itself in my stomach unties ever so slightly.
“Instead of making ourselves miserable, we might as well enjoy it while you’re here.
You were always going to leave eventually, but I don’t think I had any other option but to fall for you, Kit. ”
His words ring in my ears as he kisses me again, and I hold him even tighter. My heart is in a blender, mixed up and pulsing and completely unrecognizable in the face of all this sudden openness and honesty.
I want to believe so badly in the pure joy of a summer fling with Nico.
I have to believe in it because the other option—the option where I care this much after such a short time—is not in my repertoire.
It’s not something that happens in real life.
So I shift his words around in my mind until they’re palatable.
Falling for someone can be a moment in time.
It doesn’t mean we can’t let some parts go at the end of the summer but keep the friendship.
It doesn’t have to involve anything else. This summer is a respite.
We might as well enjoy it. That’s the part I keep repeating to myself.
“Do you remember that the hunters are back tonight?” he says, jostling me out of my spiral.
I’d forgotten that we’d already planned another night of protecting Gia’s cows. “Listen, if you wanted to ask me out on a date,” I joke, trying to lighten the mood, “you didn’t have to go so big as to offer me sleeping on the ground while men potentially shoot at me.”