by Patricia Mar
“Stop it,” she said, grabbing his belt. “Come on, he’s your cousin. He might like acting the playboy, but I don’t think he’s dangerous.”
“I’d like to punch his lights out so I don’t have to see that stupid smile of his any more.”
“Come here,” she said, pulling him towards the bed. They sat down, and Sara looked at him, while he stared sullenly into space. “I have the feeling that there’s something you’re not telling me. You can’t be this angry just because I saw him in the shower and he made some dumb jokes during dinner…”
“Do you really think so?” he asked, sounding angry. “He’s trying to hit on my fiancée, I’d say I have every reason to be mad at him, don’t I?”
It occurred to Sara that she maybe wasn’t handling the situation brilliantly. She didn’t want Daniel to get pissed off at her, too. “It’s just that I’ve never seen you so angry, not even with Carlo.”
“What are you so surprised about? Maybe it’s the universe trying to tell me something… First Carlo, now Giovanni… In case you’ve forgotten, I’m about to marry you, and I’m in love with you. I think it’s perfectly normal that I don’t want to see every asshole flirting with you.”
“Well, I’m flattered.”
“You should be.”
It was gradually dawning on Sara that there must be something more than just jealousy at work, but she realised that pressing Daniel to find out what had really gone on between him and his cousin was a waste of time. She was sure that he would tell her everything anyway, in his own time. She leaned towards him and kissed his lips. “Can I calm you down like this?”
“That depends on what you mean by ‘calm me down’. If you mean, stop me from choking him, yes, you might succeed. I don’t really know about all the rest, though,” he replied, a moment before laying her down on the bed and kissing her passionately.
Sara abandoned herself completely and started caressing his velvety skin while their mouths devoured one another. She lost herself in his breath and forgot about everything else, but suddenly Daniel pulled away from her. She looked at him with pleading eyes. Daniel was short of breath and looked as though he wanted to continue pleasuring her in a thousand more imaginative ways.
“I can’t – not knowing that Magic Mike is only a couple of walls away. Damn it to hell, why did I agree to let him stay here?”
Sara blushed, remembering only then about Giovanni. Daniel gave a groan of frustration and annoyance and lifted himself up on his elbows, while Sara sat up.
“I agree to put my cousin up and then, instead of making love to you all night, all I can think of is how much he annoys me, even though I’m going to be leaving in a few days. I must be out of my mind.”
Sara raised her eyes to the ceiling and let herself fall back onto the bed, her arms spread out in resignation.
“I’m going to have a cold shower – maybe it’ll help cool down my anger.” He stood up and started walking towards the bathroom, but once again he changed his mind and went back to her. “To hell with it!” he said, and picked her up in his arms.
“What are you doing?”
“This is my home, and this is my bathroom, where there’s my shower,” he said, kicking the bathroom door shut behind him and closing the rest of the world outside. “You are my fiancée, and I am going to make you forget about anything you saw in this shower a few hours ago.” He put her down and started rapidly taking her shirt off. “You’re going to have new memories about this place – and they will all be about me.”
Once she was naked, he looked at her body hungrily while she stood immobile, her eyes half closed, enjoying the sensation that the touch of Daniel’s hands on her body gave her, then he took her into the shower, where they surrendered to the pleasure they gave to each other, and forgot about everything else.
16
Peppa Pig Strikes Again
Daniel rubbed his hands with satisfaction. At the end of the day, having his cousin as a guest was a perfect excuse to organise a special weekend for Sara. He wanted to let her have an unforgettable, romantic experience, and, knowing that she couldn’t leave Rome, he had come up with the perfect solution.
He had booked the largest suite available at the Hotel De Russie, one of the most luxurious hotels in town. He could afford it, he thought, so why not give her the chance of a couple of memorable days? He thought it was a fantastic idea, and he couldn’t wait to see her in that sumptuous environment, enjoying the elegant rooms, the impeccable service and the spectacular view from the balconies and terraces. The hotel also possessed a spa, and he was planning to book the best it had to offer for the pair of them. He really wanted to make her happy.
He wanted it to be a surprise, though, so he had texted her to ask her to meet him at a certain address and to bring a change of clothes for the night with her. It was a shame he wouldn’t be able to see her face when she realised that the address he had given her was that of one of Rome’s most prestigious hotels.
As soon as they recognised him, the staff had proven to be extremely enthusiastic about having him as one of their guests, and a couple of American tourists had even asked to take a picture with him in the lobby. The concierge had apologised a hundred times on their behalf, afraid that Daniel might consider it an invasion of his privacy, but he had replied with a smile that he loved interacting with his fans. It was the truth, and that was something he hoped would never change.
He was already in their suite, admiring the amazing décor – the furnishings were fantastic. He had taken off his jacket and shoes and as he roamed about in the room he had stopped to observe himself in the mirror for a moment: he looked handsome in his light blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up and his classic black trousers. That morning he had shaved, and he was feeling fresh and full of energy.
Furthermore, there in the hotel, there was no chance that he – and especially his fiancée – would bump into his cousin, Giovanni, and that was another positive aspect of being there. It had taken him the whole evening to get over the irritation he had felt when they’d had dinner together. The man was just plain toxic. Seeing Sara’s open shirt and then his half naked cousin had driven him absolutely crazy. He was certain that Sara had acted in good faith – but he couldn’t say the same about his cousin.
He had never told her about his cousin, nor about the unspoken rivalry between them, because in the past there had never been a reason to: for many years the two men had lived in different countries and had met only rarely. On those few occasions they had, though, typically around Christmas or during some other holidays when they visited their families, something had always happened to make it clear that there wasn’t room for the two of them and all their testosterone under the same roof. As the years went by, the problem had become even more acute. For example, a couple of times Giovanni had blatantly tried to seduce his girlfriends. He enjoyed stealing their attention from Daniel, using both his friendly and open manner and his buff body. Giovanni liked to test his skills of persuasion and the power of his charm, and that had an obviously negative impact on his relationship with his cousin. Daniel was a very proud person, always eager to prove to himself that he was the best and that nobody could take from him what was rightfully his. He had never cared much about those girls, but he wasn’t about to allow anyone to hunt in his territory.
That was why he hadn’t been able to control himself when he had seen Giovanni trying to hit on Sara. She wasn’t just another of his girlfriends – she was the only woman who had ever really touched his heart by entrusting him with her own. Nobody was going to take her away from him, Giovanni included.
The thing that amazed him and made him love Sara even more was that she seemed absolutely incapable of seeing what a two faced schemer Giovanni was. He didn’t want to dwell too much on it, though, because the mere idea of his cousin flirting with Sara would ruin his mood and he didn’t want anything to spoil his weekend. That evening, moreover, he was planning to decide the date of their wedding wi
th Sara.
Feeling impatient, he checked his watch and looked out of the window, which opened onto a private terrace. It was almost dark already, he thought. Sara must have finished her last tour by now. Right at that moment, his phone rang: it was her.
“Hey.”
“Hey babe,” said Sara breathlessly, “I think you must have given me the wrong address – I’m standing in front of the Hotel De Russie.”
“Come in and tell them at reception that you’re my girlfriend. They’ll bring you up to our room.”
She was completely silent. Daniel was trying very hard not to laugh but he would have paid good money to see her expression at that moment.
“Have you lost your mind?”
“No, I haven’t. I’m sitting here waiting for you in a fabulous suite, which will be at our complete disposal today and tomorrow. What do you think of my little surprise?”
Once again, she was silent…
“Daniel, I think I’m about to start hyperventilating… And the guy at the door is glaring at me like I’m a crazy woman or something. And now that I come to think of it, I can’t really blame him. Listen, you can’t imagine the state I’m in right now, I really can’t come inside dressed like this, Daniel, I…”
“Don’t worry about it! I’ve been waiting for you. Come on up and I promise you we’ll have a wonderful evening together.”
“No, I can’t come inside, trust me…”
“Come on, don’t make me beg. I love you.”
“I love you too, but…”
After a good ten minutes, someone finally knocked at the door.
Daniel rushed over euphorically to open it, but when he did, he was absolutely astounded by what he saw. “What the hell happened to you?”
Sara looked utterly mortified. She entered the suite and put a little Hello Kitty suitcase on the floor. It was a present from her sister Virginia, but it occurred to her now that it wasn’t exactly the type of luggage you would normally expect to see in such a posh hotel… Come on, a Hello Kitty suitcase at the De Russie… It was mortifying! The expression on her face spoke volumes: she was so embarrassed that she wished she was invisible.
The rest of her wasn’t any better: her jacket had a torn sleeve, from which a tuft of the synthetic padding now protruded, her hair was extremely messy and she was covered in what looked like soot.
“Darling, what happened to you?” he asked again, while he helped her take off her jacket.
“What, you mean apart from almost dying from the humiliation of having to enter this place dressed like a tramp who had to climb their way through a mountain of garbage to find a damn Peppa Pig doll?” she said in an agonised voice.
A confused Daniel raised an eyebrow while Sara remained motionless, her arms dangling at her sides and her mouth wide open. “I’m at the Hotel De Russie and I look as though I haven’t had a shower for a month. God, I’m a genius at making a fool of myself.”
Daniel took her by the hand and led her over to the sofa. “So? Are you going to tell me what happened?”
“Do you have any idea how hard it is to accompany twenty-five people on a guided tour of Rome when they’ve got four hyperactive kids with them who won’t stop running around? And their parents don’t even care! Apparently they expected me to take care of them! So it’s been a nightmare of an afternoon… And at one point, one of those little monsters started crying inconsolably – ‘Peppa, Peppa…”
Daniel bit his lip to try and stop himself from bursting out laughing. Sara didn’t notice and carried on with her tale of woe.
“I didn’t even know what a ‘Peppa’ was… For a moment I thought that Peppa was the name of kid number three, this demonic little red haired girl… I bet she can even make her head go round 360 degrees…”
“So, who was Peppa then?”
“Not who – what. One of the parents explained to me that it was a doll of a character out of a cartoon. How was I supposed to know that, the only cartoons I’ve ever watched have been Disney ones,” she said, throwing up her hands in frustration. “Anyway, kid number two had stolen this doll from a little girl and thrown it into a dumpster. The mother was begging me to find the doll, because her daughter was going out of her mind – she wouldn’t eat or sleep without her Peppa!”
“Oh God, don’t tell me that you had to…”
“Yes, I did. I had to reach into an enormous, filthy dumpster to try and find her stupid toy… and when I eventually got hold of it, I fell inside! And now I’m the dirtiest I’ve ever been!” Sara looked around her in desperation and seemed about to burst into tears. “And now here I am, sitting in this amazing hotel suite and looking like something that crawled out of the trash!”
“Oh, come on, don’t be so dramatic,” said Daniel, taking her in his arms.
“Don’t touch me, I’m filthy!” she protested. “Look at you, you’re perfect, and I’m…”
“Don’t worry, I’m only taking you to the bathroom. I’m going to prepare a relaxing bath for you and wash you thoroughly.”
Sara stopped complaining: things were getting interesting. “You are going to wash me?”
“Yes – very thoroughly.”
He took her to a bathroom that looked about half as big as her apartment. This was a level of luxury she certainly wasn’t used to.
The bathroom walls were covered in a marble and mosaics and the tub was gigantic. Daniel filled it with hot water, added sandalwood and spice bath oils, and then he started to undress her. Sara was so excited that she could barely breathe, and once she was naked, he gave her his hand and led her to the water. Once submerged, she immediately felt better, but she couldn’t relax completely since Daniel had taken his shirt off and was now on his knees with a sponge in his hand.
“So you weren’t joking,” stammered Sara.
“Absolutely not,” he replied while he began to wash her, massaging her shoulders and other, more intimate parts of her body. Before long, Sara was in an almost comatose state of pleasure – and was getting more and more excited.
“Ok…” she said languidly, her eyes closed, while Daniel, still pretending to be washing her, continued to caress her body. “I think I’m over the embarrassment that I was feeling downstairs in reception, and I’m not convinced that the whole world will think that your fiancée likes to roll around in the mud any more. I’m in paradise right now in the company of the world’s most incredibly erotic fingers.”
“You do talk a lot, baby,” said Daniel, then he put his lips on hers and kissed her, first delicately and then more and more greedily, while his fingers continued to caress her.
Sara couldn’t resist any more: she threw her arms around his neck and pulled him closer, to take full possession of his mouth.
Somehow, in the blink of an eye, Daniel managed to free himself of his trousers and boxers and climbed into the tub with her, allowing her to lie on top of him.
“One of my naughty fantasies just became real,” sighed the girl.
“We could have made it become real a long time ago if you’d just asked.”
Moaning with pleasure, they felt as though some magic had brought time to a standstill, in a perfect love nest where no annoying cousins or Peppa Pig dolls could disturb them.
They had dinner in their room in a state of total relaxation, barefoot and wearing only the hotel’s complimentary bathrobes. It was brought up by a waiter who, after very discreetly serving them, silently disappeared.
Exchanging mischievous glances and feeding each other forkfuls of one or another of the dishes, they enjoyed the sophisticated food they had ordered, only stopping for the occasional kiss. Sara couldn’t stop herself from smiling all the time, and that made her even more beautiful in Daniel’s loving eyes. After dinner, they went into the small lounge area, where they continued kissing and cuddling on the sofa, while relaxing music played in the background, helping them enjoy the calm mood and savour those moments of peace. After flicking through the leaflet for the hotel’s spa, the
y decided to book a shared massage for the following day.
Beneath his relaxed exterior, though, Daniel was not feeling calm at all. In fact, his heart was pounding so hard he was afraid Sara would notice. He adored her: her skin, her impulsiveness, her mind, her personality. He was planning to propose to her again to strengthen their commitment and to force her to choose a date. He took the hand that wore the diamond ring he had given her.
“Are you happy?”
“I know it might be a little obvious, but actually, yes, I’m extremely happy,” she said, caressing his hand. She felt the same electricity every time she touched him, and only him.
“Let’s not wait any longer, let’s just get married.”
Sara sat up straight and looked into his eyes. He was being serious. “Do you want to decide a date?”
“Yeah. I mean, what are we waiting for? You’ve said yes already and now I want to start sharing my life with you, and I want it to happen as soon as possible.”
“And I couldn’t be happier,” she said with a wide smile. She flung her arms around him and began kissing his neck gently. “I can’t wait to be Mrs Gant! Yes, I want to marry you… Sara Gant sounds wonderful… And we’ll always be together… We’ll have a beautiful wedding and…” For a moment she was practically overcome by her emotions, but then she laughed and sat down again. “But what about Virginia? What’s going to happen to her?”
Daniel caressed her face. “Don’t you think you might be worrying too much? We’ll find a solution for her too – and we’ll find it together.”
“We have a lot of things to plan. First, we need to decide where we’re going to live. Then we have to schedule our lives so that we actually get to spend some time together and… well, and do other things…” She went bright red. Suddenly, she felt extremely anxious: she was about to marry the most incredible man on the planet, yes, but they really needed to find some kind of balance between their lives. She was sure that after the wedding she would feel even guiltier for leaving him to go on his journeys alone. Her parents might have a weird marriage they but had always been there for each other, and she wanted to follow their example: there’s no such thing as a long distance marriage, she thought. Coming to terms with all this was scary, but she really wanted to marry Daniel, and she would never force him to change the parts of his life that he loved most.