Текст книги "Italian Kisses"
Автор книги: Lucy Lambert
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With my eyes closed like that, focusing my other senses, I got the full effect of that resonant voice of his. I smiled. "What did I say?"
"Come on out and I'll show you."
"Or we could just stay in..." Rationally, I knew that we shouldn't. I'd still only known Liam a handful of hours. I knew that we should take it slow. Yet I couldn't shake that impression that I'd known him my entire life, and that there was no reason to take it slow.
That hot throbbing started again.
"You have no idea how much that tempts me," Liam said, "But I really want to show you something."
"Okay," I said.
"Just like that? Okay?" he replied, his brow crinkling in a mix of surprise and confusion.
"Yeah, just like that. It's something I'm trying out." I left it at that, afraid he might tease me about my newfound decision to go with the flow for once. "So, what are you going to show me?"
Rather than say anything, he led me out of the apartment, letting me pull my shoes on first. I chose a pair of sensible and comfy flats, not entirely certain what it was he had planned. He gave me nothing to go on but a mischievous smirk.
The narrow staircase groaned and complained beneath our combined weight as we made our way down. At the bottom, he held the door for me and we stepped outside.
That grey BMW of his crouched at the curb, its modern-chic Euro appeal contrasting sharply with the old world visage presented by the cobbled, narrow street the bakery faced.
Out here, the warm and homely smell of the bakery was particularly strong and I thought momentarily about how much I now looked forward to the fresh-baked roll Mrs. Rosselini would be delivering tomorrow morning.
"So what is it?" I said, looking around. Aside from his car, I saw nothing that I didn't see every time I left my flat to go grab the bus for school.
Liam thumbed a button on his keychain and the car chirped. Then he pulled the passenger door open and gave me a flourishing bow while waving me in. "Rome. I'm going to show you Rome."
"Why?" I said, poised to sit in the passenger seat.
"I couldn't stop thinking about how you're an art history major living and studying in Rome without going to see any of the art the city has to offer. And then I knew I had to show you."
"You had to?" I couldn't quite keep the incredulity out of my voice. Old suspicions are hard to shake. The cynic inside me wanted to think this was all some ploy to get me in bed.
Except that didn't follow. We'd already had that incredible night after the fundraiser. And I hadn't exactly been trying to slam the door in his face when he came up to my flat.
And then there were his eyes. I kept looking at them, trying to find some twinkle of a lie in them, some deceit or deception and kept coming up with nothing. The eyes don't lie.
"Yes, I had to. It's practically a crime that you haven't seen anything. Now sit down."
I gave in, plunking my butt down on the comfy leather seat. Liam closed my door and walked around the raked hood of the car, climbing behind the steering wheel.
"Are you ready?" he said, the BMW thrumming to life around us. He looked happy and excited and I knew he wasn't trying to lie to me or trick me.
I caught that excitement, my heart racing, little trembles racing up and down my arms and legs. I wanted to see all Rome had to offer. And I wanted him to show it to me.
For just a moment, a thin strand of guilt ran through me when I remembered my partially completed essay on Giulio Romano.
It's a field trip. A research trip, I told myself. My paper would be better for going.
"Yes. Let's do it."
Chapter 6
Even though the car had air conditioning, neither of us wanted to use it. Instead Liam thumbed the button to roll the windows down all the way, letting the fresh Roman air spill into the car.
I hadn't grabbed anything to tie my hair with, so it whipped and lashed about my shoulders, streaming back over the headrest. And I didn't care. It felt wonderful, feeling the air like that.
"Where are we going first?" I said.
"Just trust me," Liam replied.
We came to a stoplight at one point, the wind stilling around us so that I could hear again. His phone started buzzing, and he fished it out of his pocket and glanced at the screen. He frowned at it. Something about his expression sent a sliver of worry through me.
Was it all over? Was he going to cancel as soon as our little adventure had begun? He was here on business, after all. I knew that much. And it would be unfair of me to monopolize his time when he should be going his job.
Even though it would be unfair, I still wanted him all to myself.
"Has something come up?" I said, trying to sound nonchalant about it.
The phone continued ringing in his hand. The muscles in Liam's jaw and temples worked. And then he thumbed the red button, sending the call to voicemail. "Nothing as important as showing an art history student some actual art history."
Putting the phone on silent, he shoved it into his pocket just as the light changed. As usual, the hyperactive Italian drivers in their tiny Fiats immediately began honking while Liam accelerated the BMW smoothly through the intersection.
"My hero," I said. It wasn't flowers or jewelry or a nice dinner, but it was somehow more romantic than all that. He'd chosen me over his job, put me ahead of whatever business he had here.
And it felt so good to feel important to someone again. It had been so long since anyone had done anything of the sort for me. And doesn't everyone need to feel important to someone?
"Don't worry about it. Really. I love this city, and I want to share its beauty with you. And your beauty with it. I just can't believe that you haven't seen it yet!"
Despite my well-honed flirt-shield, I couldn't stop the hot wave of the blush as it crept up my throat and into my cheeks.
"Stop it," I said, feeling foolish with a big smile spread across my lips. My hot cheeks hurt from that smile.
He glanced at me, then back to the road. "What? Complimenting you? I won't, thanks. Because it's true."
We passed a row of parked cars, and I watched my reflection flicker across their windows. Long blonde hair thrown into disarray by the wind. A goofy grin on lips I'd always thought were too thin and a face I always thought generous to call anything but slightly above average.
He couldn't really believe I was as beautiful as he claimed me to be. Yet I still saw nothing in his eyes to suggest otherwise. I wished I could see myself as he saw me.
At the next stoplight, a group of four young men chatting and laughing around a bench looked up and saw us. They started waving and whistling.
"Bella signora!" I heard one dark-eyed boy calling, blowing kisses at me. The heat in my cheeks intensified.
"You see?" Liam said. The light changed and we pulled away again.
"That's just what Italians are like," I said. It had taken some time after getting to Rome to acclimatize myself to that bit of culture shock. You had to be careful to avoid pinches to the rump and overenthusiastic, full-body hugs. And I'd long since learned to emulate the way the native Italian women ignored the catcalling.
Not that I didn't find it all entirely unflattering. You could be your own women, liberated and all that, and still appreciate a little attention.
Liam slammed the steering wheel in mock irritation, "You have an excuse for everything, don't you?"
"Not quite. So, where are we going?"
He shrugged a mysterious shrug and then started up one of Rome's prominent hills.
It wasn't long before the marble-columned facade of the Pantheon rose up, as if it had grown from the ground itself fully formed.
"Oh!" I said, unable to keep the gasp entirely to myself.
He pulled the BMW into a visitor parking lot and we made our way into the square in front of the ancient building. It wasn't exactly tourist season—it was a little too late in the year for that—but there were still a fair number of people milling about in that stone square.
Even from the other side, I could make out the letters hewn into the marble facade. "'Marcus Agrippa built this when he was consul for the third time,'" I said, almost inaudibly. A little shiver ran up my back, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand. I couldn't believe I was actually there.
"You read Latin?" he asked.
"A little," I said. It dovetailed pretty well with Italian to the point where if you puzzled over it for a bit you could figure it out.
"I'm impressed."
Almost unconsciously, I reached out and took Liam's hand.
"We can go inside, you know," he said.
I realized I'd been standing rooted to the spot at the end of the square for far too long. We went and passed the large fountain out in front of the main doors. And then we were in the rotunda. It was massive. The weight of history pressed down in the hundreds of tons of concrete making up the overhead dome. I could almost feel it on my shoulders.
"I get that every time I come here," Liam said.
I remembered then when he spoke about how he loved the history in the city, how it helped put his life in perspective. I could see why, now. How could anything I ever do compare to a place like that?
He led me around eagerly, taking me from one statue to the next, pointing out frescoes and paintings.
I had to say, I was impressed. I'd still been having the suspicions that this was all some big con to sleep with me again. That suspicion disappeared, changing into one that wondered how Liam came to know all this.
I spent almost as much time looking at him out of the corner of my eye as I did looking at the history around me.
More than once, I caught him looking at me, too. Our eyes would touch and then dart away from each other like when you forced the same pole of two magnets together.
"Raphael is buried here," I said, remembering something I'd read in my research.
Raphael, who'd left his studio to Giulio Romano. Who I was currently writing a paper about.
"Aha!" I said.
"Hmm?" Liam replied.
"Nothing," I continued, embarrassed that I'd said that out loud.
"No, really, tell me. I want to know."
"It's nothing... I'm just writing a paper on one of Raphael's students, and I sort of justified going out with you as a research trip."
Liam snorted, "I thought maybe it was something like that."
"You and your superpower again? Reading people and all that?"
"Hey, if you've got it, flaunt it, right?"
We spent maybe another fifteen minutes there, just taking it in. Having Liam there to share it with somehow made it more special. Knowing I wasn't alone in this strange land made it special.
Although my favorite part was when he pulled me into a quiet alcove and kissed me. It felt secret, clandestine. Tourists wandered around just a few feet away, oblivious to the two people who couldn't keep their hands off each other.
"Is this a tour of the city, or are you trying to take a tour of me?" I said before kissing the cleft in his chin I liked so much.
"Can't it be both?" he replied, putting a finger beneath my chin and tilting my head back so that he could kiss me some more.
Every nerve and fiber came alive at his touch. Who needed Mr. Drayton the art teacher's exercise when I had Liam's soft and warm lips to pull me into the present moment?
Of course, the problem with moments is that they come to an end. No matter how you try and hold onto them.
We both sensed that if we didn't quit now, we'd have to change the rating from PG-13 to R. Even so, it ached inside when we parted.
Drawing in a deep, shuddering breath in an attempt to calm the fires inside, I blew it out through pursed lips. "Wow."
Even in the shadows of the alcove, I could see Liam's jaw working, see the way he fought to regain some sense of control and composure over himself.
Although, I had to admit that I really wanted to see him lose control.
He took my hand and led me back out into the rotunda proper, back out under that dome and the hole in its center that looked like nothing except a great iris in the sky looking down at all the tiny mortals that dared pass beneath it.
"That's called the oculus," I said, Liam following my gaze.
"You seem pretty familiar with a lot of this already. Did you learn all this from school?"
"No," I smiled, my eyes still wandering over all this beauty that Liam showed me, "I've always wanted to visit Rome, actually, ever since I can remember. I used to read books and magazines..."
And I had so many of those books and magazines and documentaries. All cherished gifts and belongings. Except now their memory did nothing except send me on a downward spiral.
"Then this must be a dream come true, being here, actually seeing all of this in living color instead of in a glossy magazine spread?"
My shoulders slumped a little at that, and a sudden and intense sadness welled up from the pit of my stomach in a cold wave. "You'd think so, wouldn't you?" I said, barely a whisper.
My eyes drifted down until they came to rest on the polished marble floor. I am such a downer! I could practically feel my psyche scrambling for some sort of purchase as my mind slipped into that terrible and familiar rut.
Sensing my sudden change in mood, Liam gave my hand a reassuring squeeze. "What is it? Something's wrong."
The concern I noted in his voice pulled me from my sudden and unexpected slump. "Nothing, just something reminded me of some stuff I don't like to think about."
Liam studied me, waiting for more. I realized that I wanted to tell him more, that I wanted to tell him everything. Except I couldn't. Just thinking of putting my thoughts and feelings into words shoved a lump the size and weight of a bowling ball up my throat.
He somehow saw that, too, and thankfully chose not to press me for more information.
"I think we've seen enough of this place. It's been here a couple thousand years. It'll still be here when you want to see it again..." Before he could say anymore, his phone started buzzing in his pocket.
Taking it out, he glanced at the screen and then thumbed the button to send it to voicemail. I detected a slight frown before he smoothed out his expression.
A wave of guilt replaced the sadness in my gut. "You know, you don't have to do this. I don't want to mess up your job or anything." He was here for business, not for me. And no matter how much I wanted to spend time with him, I knew he had priorities ranked higher on his list than me.
"Again with this!" he said, tugging me along across the rotunda, heading towards the twenty foot tall double doors and the daylight spilling in through them, "I know I don't have to do this. I want to, though. There's a difference. If you're always doing what you think you have to, you never get to do what you want to."
That helped with the guilt. A little, at least. It also gave me a warm sensation that spread out over my stomach. Very few people had ever put me ahead of anything else in their life.
"So what's next?"
It turned out that the Capitoline Hill and its various museums were next. And it was such a beautiful day to see everything. The warm sunlight leant the bronze and marble a living heat and vitality not normally found in their cold and inert natures.
And Liam looked good, too, of course. Though I suspected he'd look good under any light.
We wandered the halls, looking at this fresco or that while I told him about how Michelangelo had designed the whole space.
Finally, we went out into the main square, the two of us holding hands and smiling like we were just another happy couple on vacation in the city of romance.
We stopped and looked up at the large bronze statue in the middle of the square. Its plinth sat in the center of a starburst laid out on the ground. The statue itself was of a wise-looking bearded man sat atop a horse, staring with unblinking eyes into infinity.
Of course, I knew all about it. And I started to explain it, but Liam interrupted me.
"It's Marcus Aurelius," he said. The way he looked at it told me this wasn't the first time he'd laid eyes on it. I got the impression that he'd come here often, trying to glean some sort of meaning from the statue of a man many considered the greatest example of a philosopher king.
"But that's not what's interesting about it..." I started again, bursting with desire to preen beneath his approving eyes when I revealed what I knew about this particular piece of art.
"No, what's interesting is that it's a total fluke that this statue exists at all. It only exists because people thought it was a statue of Constantine the Great. Otherwise it would have been destroyed along with all the other pagan artifacts back then. He only exists because people thought he was someone he wasn't."
"Also," I said, the words threatening to explode inside me if I didn't get them out, "This one's just a copy. The real one is getting restored."
"Yeah," Liam replied, his eyes taking on the look of the statue's, staring off into some great distance, his voice equally far away.
I wondered at the significance, remembering the quote about how if a man looks long enough at a statue he begins to resemble it.
The look on his face disappeared as quickly as it had come, and he turned to me. "And now for a gelato break. There's a great little place not far from here. The best in the whole city. You'll never want to go to another shop again, believe me..."
I smiled, looking down at the starburst on the ground.
"No," he said, incredulous, "Don't tell me: you haven't had genuine Roman gelato yet, either?"
My shoulders humped up in a shrug, an embarrassed heat burning my cheeks.
Liam chuckled, the sound throaty and rich. "I just can't believe you! I don't think I've met a single person like you before. Let's get going; I can't wait to see the look on your face."
Two minutes later Liam pulled the BMW to a stop along a narrow sidewalk that looked just like any other in the city. The shop in question was equally unassuming, a small sign swinging gently on its pole above the door proclaiming (in Italian) that this was Fratelli's Confectionary.
An older, olive-skinned woman behind the glassed display case smiled as we came in. Within that display were two dozen different flavors of gelato.
Liam insisted on choosing for me, and soon we each had small bowls with two scoops of gelato in each. I had to admit, it looked good. Different from the gelato I'd had back home, somehow. More authentic, I suppose.
Liam sat us at the small bistro table closest to the shop window. And then he watched while I sank my small plastic spoon into the top scoop of gelato and passed it through my lips.
I'd been meaning to appear impressed, but I didn't have to act. It was good. I mean really good. As though the old woman had dumped whole bottles full of MSG into it to add the most flavor good. And smooth, like fresh cream.
I savored that first spoonful like I'd never savored a bite of food in my life, swallowing only reluctantly.
"Oh. My. God," I said.
Only then did Liam eat a spoonful of his. I couldn't take my eyes away from his lovely lips, and the small smile that blossomed on them as he also got a taste of heaven. "You thought I was lying, didn't you?"
"Not lying..." I said, punctuating my sentence with another irresistible mouthful, "Just maybe a touch hyperbolic."
"There's no hyperbole I know of that can describe how good this is."
Here I could practically feel my forehead sprouting a sinister pair of devil's horns. "This is so good, I don't think I need a man anymore." And then I added the visual exclamation point of spooning more of the gelato into my mouth, letting the stem of the spoon pull against my lips as I withdrew it.
Of course it wasn't true. I mean, I couldn't shake the image of his lips from my mind, or the desire to taste the delicious gelato on them. But it was so good to just let go and joke around, to tease and be teased.
I realized then that I was happy. Well and truly happy. Searching back through the recent past, I couldn't think of another time when that statement was true.
"I'll lend you and the gelato my hotel keys, if you'd like to be alone," Liam said, jingling his key ring in his pocket, giving me an unimpressed arch of one dark eyebrow.
"I don't think I can wait that long," I said, my cheeks starting to hurt from my smile, "I need it now!"
"Here, try mine," he said, sinking his spoon into one of his scoops and offering it to me. It was just as good as mine, which I offered him a taste of as well.
"Eat up, we're not done yet," he continued. "I'm not done with you yet."
If it had been up to me, I would have happily spent the rest of the day (or week, or month) sitting in that little shop and eating the best gelato in Rome. But he wouldn't let me, not with that spark of adventure in his eyes.
I left reluctantly, my stomach and tongue begging me to stay even as he opened the passenger door on the BMW for me, wondering what could possibly top that.
We didn't have to travel far to our next destination, which I got an inkling of when I began recognizing streets and facades from that night at the fundraiser when I'd gone with him back to his hotel.
It was the Coliseum, rising ancient, ragged, and somehow splendid against the surrounding buildings. We marvelled for a few moments at the sheer scale of it, at the ingenuity required to build it, at its age. I loved its hundreds of individual archways.
By this time, the sun had begun its descent into the west, forcing the buildings to throw sharp, inky shadows across the streets and fountains and squares.
And then he took me inside, pointing out the exposed passageways in the ground at the center where the ancient Romans would keep the lions and gladiators until it was time for the games.
"They would flood it, you know," I said, unable to hide my excitement, "They'd fill it with water and hold actual naval battles."
He didn't ask me how I'd come to know all of this. He must have remembered that peculiar sadness that came over me when he asked earlier, knowing it touched a nerve.
Just thinking like that threatened to send me down into a tailspin again, the awful thoughts tugging at the edge of my mind. It was a struggle to keep that levy up, to keep them from bursting into my consciousness.
Again, I found the solace I needed in Liam.
Liam looked at the rows and rows of seating, and I could see him imagining the thousands upon thousands who would come here when some rich patrician or emperor would throw the mob some entertainment.
"I find it amazing how much power lies in popular opinion alone," he said, "If you can make people love you, they'll let you do anything. Get away with anything."
I looked again at Liam's dark hair, his excellent and symmetrical facial structure. It wasn't hard to picture him in dark purple robes, laurels on his brow, watching the games from the Emperor's seat.
He was easy to like, I knew. Dangerously easy. It was no wonder he looked so successful. I bet he had plaques in his office back home proclaiming him the youngest executive to do this or that. He'd be running whatever company he worked for in no time, I suspected, with that disarming smile and that charm and the breadth and depth of knowledge I could see lurking behind his deceptively boyish eyes.
He caught me looking at him, and a sudden jag of panic shot through me as though I'd been discovered slipping a candy bar into my pocket at the checkout line. Only this time I didn't look away.
He pulled me close and kissed me again, the shock of our lips touching rocking my body leaving me breathless and trembling. I could still taste the sweetness of the gelato on him, and that only made it better.
Like all the kisses that had come before it, I didn't want this one to end.
Like all the ones before, it did.
Just as I felt his hands begin sliding down my hips, just as I squeezed handfuls of his polo shirt, his phone started buzzing in his pocket again.
"Just ignore it," he said breathily, hardly taking his lips from mine.
We tried, and we had a few blissful seconds of peace before it started buzzing again. I couldn't get rid of the nagging thoughts about distracting him and keeping him from doing what he'd come to Rome to do.
I couldn't stop imagining some irritated Italian businessman on the other end, his swarthy complexion darkening with anger and irritation with each unanswered ring.
"Just get it," I said, tearing myself away, my stomach twisting, "It's obviously important."
"It isn't. Not right now," he replied.
"Answer it, please. For me."
He studied me again, the buzzing of the phone punctuating his thoughts. Then he gave the slightest of nods and pulled the sleek and glossy cell from his pocket.
"Yes?" he said.
I heard a chirping voice on the other end. Except it wasn't the excited tones of an Italian man lambasting him for not picking up.
It was a woman. Instantly, I wanted to know who she was. Needed to know. The rationalist inside me said it was probably a business partner. A mother or sister annoyed at not being able to check on him.
The cynic, however, said it had to be a girlfriend. A wife.
"I'm with someone important right now. We'll have to talk later," Liam said. With that, he pulled the phone from his face and ended the call.
A voice inside me screamed in my skull, demanding that I ask if that was his girlfriend. But as much as I wanted to know, I also didn't. Ignorance was bliss, after all.
"Was that important? I'm sorry if it was..." I said.
"No, just someone else along with me on the trip getting impatient about a few business matters... Now, where were we?"
I wanted to believe him, I really did. Every single cue I'd gotten from Liam told me he was honest and straightforward, saying what was on his mind and damned if you didn't like what he had to say.
I knew it was ridiculous. Knew that I'd known him only such a small stretch of time, that I couldn't possibly know enough about him to make a true judgment call. But that awful, evil, mean cynical voice wouldn't stop its nagging.
But then his arms encircled my waist again, pulling me hard to him. My head tilted back automatically, following the nonverbal, instinctual clues from his body language.
He kissed me again, harder than before, like he suddenly needed me more than ever.
A few of the other tourists wandering the Coliseum had begun to notice us, and I started becoming self-conscious. But Liam didn't. He kissed me harder, as though he didn't care who saw us or what they thought.
I was jelly in his arms. Heat prickled across my skin, through my body, all of it moving to a central point inside of me. I throbbed with it.
"There's somewhere else I want to take you," he said, "It's close by."
Where could he possibly want to go now, with how we both felt? I loved seeing the city with him, but I knew both our minds were elsewhere.
"Where? The Sistine Chapel?" I said, feeling those devil horns start sprouting from my forehead at the sacrilege of mentioning a holy place like that when I felt this way.
"No more sightseeing," he said, still holding me close. He traced the tip of his thumb along my jaw line, starting under my ear and ending at my chin so he could tilt my head back for another stolen kiss.
"But there's still so much left to see. You started me on this ride, now you're telling me to get off?"
"You're stubborn. It's cute. Let me say this in a way I know you'll appreciate: Rome wasn't built in a day; you can take more than one to see it."
"So if we're not sightseeing, where are you taking me?"
Now it was his turn to turn devilish, flashing a grin at me that would have a whole convent of nuns flushing and fanning themselves. "Come with me and find out."
