To Tuscany with Love (12 page)

The priest ducked his head.

Bella wrestled the sweatshirt over her head. She grabbed Phillip’s hand and pulled him behind her toward the door.

A crack of lightning lit the church windows. As quick as it came, the light disappeared, chased out by thunder so loud Bella jumped. She shuddered with cold and dreaded returning outside to the chilling rain.

“Un momento, per favore.”

Busted for making out in a church. Bella stopped, her head lowered. She felt Phillip’s warm palm against the skin of her back underneath the sweatshirt.

She felt, rather than saw, the young Italian priest rush to their side. He thrust a paper toward them with a sheepish look on his face.

He had scrawled a map from the church to a building not far away. A large “X” crossed the building. Beside it, he’d written one word in beautiful script. “
Albergo
.” The priest had mapped a route to an inn.

Bella and Phillip murmured their thanks and bolted out the massive wooden door.

Rain came down in sheets, layer upon layer of large drops that blurred the line of shops across the tiny piazza. Bella felt the sweatshirt soak up water as if it were a mop, cold and heavy on her shoulders.

Phillip raised one forearm to shield his eyes. He grabbed Bella’s hand and led her across the narrow pedestrian street. They turned into a narrow archway that marked a tunnel.

Out of the rain, they picked up their pace and ran down the sloping path to a lower level. Behind the row of shops, the corridor widened. The ancient town wall bordered the corridor on their right. The only light came from single blocks of gray—peepholes in the wall. The handful of doors on their left stood closed, and no windows or signs marked them.

“It’s creepy.” Bella edged closer to Phillip.

“Yeah, but it’s at least out of the rain.” Phillip consulted the priest’s map. He stopped, counted the doors behind them, and then pulled her along.

The space between the peepholes lengthened and the corridor narrowed. The path angled down once again. The passage turned into a narrow, steep stairwell. Palms on the walls, they descended one more level below the piazza. A door on the left marked the bottom of the steps. Unlike the doors above, this one featured a wrought-iron ring hanging in the center.

Phillip swung the knocker against the door, which was plain except for large black pegs that protruded from the surface in parallel rows.

The door creaked open to reveal a stooped man with slicked-back gray hair. Every line in the man’s face seemed to point to the dance of light in his eyes.

He stepped back, swung the door wide, and beckoned them inside. The man shuffled to a mahogany writing desk covered with papers. He held up a sheet for them to see that listed the room charge. Phillip paid for one night. The elderly gentleman extracted a key from a drawer and handed it to Phillip. Back in the outer corridor, the man swung open an adjacent door and stepped back. Wordlessly, their host shuffled past them back to his office.

Their room had one double bed. An embroidered quilt, white with orange and green stitching, covered it. Bella’s hand traced the curves of the metal footboard. Other than the bed and two framed pictures, one of the Madonna and child and the other of Michelangelo’s
David
, the room was devoid of furnishings. The Madonna was in her rightful place of honor over the bed’s headboard, and
David
held court on the opposite wall. She heard Phillip opening the door on the interior wall.

“Score.” He pulled his T-shirt over his head. “Private bathroom, no less. Tiny, but all the necessities—sink, toilet, and tub.” He dropped his wet jeans to the floor. Standing in black jockey shorts, he rubbed his palms over his arms and chest.

“What are you doing?” Bella stifled a laugh.

“Trying to frigging get warm. You get first crack at the tub. But I’m warning you, more than ten minutes and I’m joining you.” Without another word, he leaped onto the bed. The mattress creaked and swayed nearly to the floor.

Bella laughed. Phillip clawed at the thin comforter and curled up under the sheets. She pulled the heavy, sodden sweatshirt over her head, gave it one wring, and hung it by the neck from the bedpost.

Phillip’s head followed her movements around the bed. “You sure gave that priest an eyeful. Probably made him regret his Holy Orders.” He gestured at her shirt, still plastered like a barely opaque second skin to her breasts.

“You’re a beast.” Bella shivered from cold. “Screw it.” She shucked her blouse and skirt, leaving them on the floor with Phillip’s clothes, and dashed into the bathroom to run the water. Her hand tested the temperature. “It’s barely warm. But it’s still better than the air temp.” She dropped her panties on the floor, stepped into the tub, and scrunched as low as possible. “Sorry. There’s no room in here for you and probably not enough hot water for even one.”

“Witch.”

She heard the bed creak. Phillip entered the closet-sized bathroom naked. He bent over the tub. His lips met hers and she wrapped her arms around his neck. When he pulled away, she scooted to make as much room for him as possible in the tub. Phillip lowered himself in and settled Bella in front of him, her back to his front, which announced his intentions very, very clearly.

Much later, the heat from their passion had warmed them both. They lay together on the lumpy mattress; Bella nestled into the crook of Phillip’s arm.

“Bella,” Phillip said in a hesitant tone, “are you OK about this? This was your first time, wasn’t it?”

She rose up on one elbow to look at his face. “Yes. You were the first.” Being with Phillip, like this, felt too natural to be wrong. When she had been with Stillman on the train, it was simple lust. With Phillip, it was different, more than only the physical attraction. “Thanks for thinking about me. About how I feel. But, being with you, this way, is right for me. I can’t really explain why, but I know it is.”

Phillip caressed her cheek. “I know what you mean. It’s right for me, too.”

She coiled back into his arm and felt as if she were a cat ready to purr. Her eyes landed on the gilded wooden frame around the simple print of
David.

“So muscled.” Her fingertips traced Phillip’s sternum.

“Thanks. But your parts are much more fun.” His left hand tweaked her nipple.

She flicked his hand away and pushed back in mock indignation. “I was referring to
David
, silly.”

He followed her eyes to the wall. Then he dove under the covers. His head went to her feet where his mouth and fingers sent her alternating between hysterical giggles and breath-sucking shivers of desire.

They didn’t think about anything other than each other until a firm knock against the door woke them.

Bella squinted at her watch. “It’s time for either dinner or breakfast, but I’m not sure which.”

Phillip narrowed his eyes, and he made a show of counting the fingers on his right hand. “I’d say it’s got to be breakfast, seeing as how I feel more rested than a bear after a long winter’s hibernation, and ... ” A second round of knocking interrupted him.

Bella giggled and pushed Phillip out of bed. “You better get some clothes on before he comes in.” She threw the quilt over her head and curled into a ball over the warm spot in the center of the bed.

Bella heard muffled male voices. She couldn’t pick out many of the words, but she thought Phillip said “
due
,” followed by a double “
grazie
” from the other man. A few more words were exchanged, and then she heard the door close.

“Since we obviously missed the train to the beach, I paid for a second night here. I figure by tomorrow we might, just might, be ready to come up for air.”

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” Bella pulled the covers tighter over her head.

She felt the bed tilt when Phillip sat on the side of the bed closest to the door.

“Not a chance.”

“I ... need ... food.” Bella sang the words, tossing off the covers and throwing her arms into the air as if she were in the finale at the grand opera.

“Madam.” Phillip swept his arm in the direction of the door. On the floor in front of the door sat a wooden tray holding a plate of hard rolls, a tiny saucer of fruit preserves, and two cups of cappuccino topped with caramel-colored foam. “You’re in luck. Our host decided it was time to deliver our breakfast.”

By lunchtime, they needed to venture out for more food. They devoured roast chicken so tender it fell away from the bone. It was juicy and flavorful, satisfying and seductive. Two full carafes of house wine disappeared before dessert. Their conversation bounced between formulating giggly concoctions of why they had missed the trip to the beach, teasing each other, and marveling at the food, all punctuated by intertwined fingertips and smiles.

Sunday afternoon, they stood hand in hand, waiting for the bus to Florence. Bella’s cheeks warmed under Phillip’s stare. She was falling for him. Hard. She silently asked him the question they’d skirted all weekend. What now? Had what started as a sodden, spontaneous romp evolved into something that would continue after they returned home?

Phillip nodded, as if he had heard her question. “We’ll see each other after we leave Italy. We will.”

“We live on opposite sides of the country.” The logistics of that kind of long-distance relationship were challenging, but so was the immediate issue. Stillman. Bella didn’t want to be with Stillman anymore. How would she tell him? What would she tell him?

Phillip’s arms circled her, his hands clasping at the small of her back. “Have faith.” His lips brushed hers. A grin split his face. “Hey, aren’t you the Catholic girl I picked up in a church?”

13

B
ella dreaded seeing Stillman. What could she say? You didn’t show up, so I climbed into bed with Phillip? She’d been flattered that the two of them had competed for her attention all summer, and yes, she was attracted to both. If Stillman cared for her as a person, rather than merely as a girl to have sex with, he’d get over it.

So why did she dread seeing Stillman?

The truth of it was that while this weekend with Phillip might have started as a spontaneous roll in the sack, for her now, it was something altogether different. It surprised her. More than that, it shocked and scared her. How could she feel this way after only one weekend together? Maybe it was because he was her first. That’s what she tried to tell herself, anyway.