A wooden chair sat silently underneath the window, and a small chest of drawers stood sentry next to the door.
There was no carpet and no rugs, just bare, wooden boards; there were no pictures, nor photographs, just his iPod and laptop, which looked lost and oddly out of place in the Spartan room.
Sensing my shock, Sebastian pointed toward the window.
“It’s got a great view,” he said, defensively.
“Yes,” I agreed, looking out over the tiled rooftops toward the lake, “very pretty.”
He shrugged. “It’s all I need.”
I turned to flick through his books, needing a moment to blink back the tears that threatened; he wouldn’t want my pity.
“Still the Conrad fan,” I said, trying to control my voice, although my throat was tight with unshed tears.
“Sure,” he said.
“You should get yourself an e-reader,” I said, trying to find a normal tone of voice. “The whole of Conrad’s oeuvre for two bucks.”
“Yeah, I guess I should,” he replied, his voice muffled as he reached under the bed for a small overnight bag, “if I knew there’d always be somewhere to charge it up when I’m in some shithole, stone age village.”
He stood up and tossed his bag on the bed, then rifled through the chest of drawers, pulling out half-a-dozen white t-shirts, and some of his gray briefs and black socks.
“What happened to all the colors?” I blurted out.
He threw me a puzzled look.
“Sebastian, the most colorful thing in this room are your Dress Blues,” I pointed out helplessly. “The first time I met you, you were wearing those ridiculously bright red board shorts.”
He laughed lightly. “Oh yeah. I’ve still got those somewhere. In a box in Ches’s garage, I think.”
“It sounds like Ches has all your worldly possessions.”
“Pretty much,” he said, shrugging. “I didn’t take a lot when I left my parents’ place. But what the hell—it’s easy to pack up and move on when you’re not laden down.”
My heart swelled with emotion. My poor, beautiful boy: his entire family was Ches’s. He owned nothing, lived nowhere, and had no one.
Except, perhaps, me—if I let him. If he wanted me.
“Caro, how much of this stuff in your case do you need?” he said, pulling me away from my forlorn thoughts.
“I definitely need my laptop and notebooks…”
“I mean clothes, Caro. I wouldn’t dare suggest to a reporter that she goes anywhere without the tools of her trade.”
“That’s right, Chief. You’d just stop her going where she needed to go in the first place.”
He pouted and I couldn’t help smiling. He was so cute when he did that. I wondered how many other Marines used pouting as their primary weapon.
I picked out some t-shirts.
“See,” I said, arranging a palette of pink, green, blue, yellow and orange t-shirts. These are called ‘colors’. They’re what you get when you’re not wearing black, white or gray.”
“My jeans are blue.”
I rolled my eyes. “So they are, Sebastian. Way to go.”
“I could maybe get into colors,” he commented, holding up my favorite, lacy bra, which was a deep magenta.
“I don’t think it would suit you.”
He added it to the pile of clothes I was taking with me.
“No, but I’m really looking forward to taking it off you.”
“That’s assuming you get lucky, Hunter. You promised me separate rooms, remember?”
He looked like I’d just told him Christmas was cancelled.
“You’re not going to hold me to that, are you, Caro?”
I smiled at him.
“I don’t know—depends how irritating you are.”
“What if I promise to be on my best behavior, ma’am?”
“Mmm, maybe. I was impressed how well you took orders earlier today.”
His eyes darkened dangerously, and he licked his lips.
“Yes, and there’ll be payback for that, Ms. Venzi.”
I tried to step away but he caught me in his arms, running his nose down my neck and kissing my throat.
“And I’m looking forward to collecting. Maybe we should christen this bed.”
“Christen it? I would have thought it had seen plenty of action.”
He stilled and looked up at me.
“No, you’re the first woman I’ve brought here. It’s … private.”
I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled his head down, kissing him softly on the lips.
“We’ll christen it when we get back,” I whispered.
I felt his smile on my skin.
“Something to look forward to.”
I pulled away and continued with my packing.
“Okay, I’m done. By the way, where exactly are we going? It’s a pretty long way to Salerno, so I presume we’re going to stop somewhere en route.”
“Yeah, it’s just over 1100 kilometers, so…”
“Give me that in good, old-fashioned US miles, Chief.”
He chuckled. “Seven hundred miles. I thought we’d stop at Genoa tonight—that’s just under 200 miles—take us about four hours.”
Or less, the way he drove.
“How come you know all these distances off the top of your head?”
He hesitated, and I saw that he was stuffing a map of Italy into his jacket pocket.
“I’ve been planning to do this road trip for a while.”
Oh. So not something special to do with me after all.
“You and I talked about it once, you remember? All the things we were going to do, all the places we were going to see? I just figured that as I was here, I’d go anyway. And … I remembered that you said your dad came from that village near Salerno. I thought I might find … I don’t know what I thought. I just wanted to see it.”
I shook my head. Every time, every time, he surprised the hell out of me.
“Then let’s get going,” I said, smiling up at him.
As I made my way down the gloomy stairs, I heard the lock click as he closed the door. I still felt sad that this was the only place he had to call home. But when I tried to imagine him in my tiny bungalow at Long Beach, somehow the picture didn’t fit. I shook the thought away, concentrating instead on the here and now.
“We could go straight to Genoa, using the Mont Blanc tunnel,” he said, pulling me from my maudlin thoughts again, “but I really like the idea of going up through the high pass. There’ll still be quite a bit of snow around—you up for that?”
Hmm, snowy roads, two wheels: I didn’t like the math. On the other hand, long tunnel and large trucks.
“I vote for the route over the Alps,” I said, sounding a lot braver than I felt.
Sebastian dropped our bag to the ground and picked me up, swinging me around. I laughed delightedly, happy that he was happy. When he finally put me down, he kissed me sweetly.
“God, you’re amazing, woman!”
“Wait, I should write that down,” I replied, making a grab for my notebook.
“No way! You might use that against me in court. Do I have the right to an attorney?”
“Get on the damn bike, Sebastian, before I change my mind.”
He grinned and stowed our overnight bag in one of the saddlebags. I was impressed how light we could both travel: something we had in common after all.
We had a quick breakfast of sweet rolls and coffee in a café overlooking the lake, then headed up into the mountains. I was very glad I had my horribly expensive ski gloves to wear, because we hadn’t gone far before I started seeing heaps of snow at the sides of the road. Some were as high as six or seven feet: I assumed they’d been piled up as snowplows cleared the road. A couple of miles later we really began to climb; the asphalt disappeared and we were riding on compressed snow. Sebastian dropped the speed as the hairpin bends began to live up to their name.
The bike wobbled dangerously,
and Sebastian pulled to the side of the road. He twisted around and lifted up his visor.
“Baby, you’re going to tip us over if you do that, and I don’t know about you but it looks like a helluva long way down to me.”
“What … what did I do?” I said, nervously looking down the sheer drop.
“You’re trying to sit upright on the bike: don’t. You’ve got to lean into it or the balance goes for shit. Don’t try and do anything, just sit real tight and hang onto me.”
“Okay, good safety tip, Chief. Glad you mentioned it.”
His eyes crinkled in a smile, and he snapped the visor down again.
We took off slowly, zigzagging our way up the mountain. The views became more spectacular the higher we climbed, but commensurately more terrifying. My arms were wrapped around Sebastian’s waist with a death-grip that was probably crushing his ribs. I was thankful he couldn’t see my face because half the time my eyes were closed. So much for being fearless; so much for enjoying the view.
Twenty minutes later we reached the highest point of the pass, and Sebastian stopped again. He pulled off his helmet and grinned at me.
“It’s really something, isn’t it?”
Awkwardly, I clambered off the bike, tugging at my helmet and shaking my hair loose. Then I turned to look at the view.
“Wow,” I breathed.
Geneva was spread out below us, the lake mirror-like in the chilly sunshine. Disappearing into the valley, I saw the Z-bends that we’d just driven up. Even here, from the safety of the summit, they looked hair-raising; and I still had to make it down the other side. But it was beautiful, too: the air was crystal clear and the sky too blue to be real. I felt grateful to be here, enjoying this moment with this man. Second chances didn’t come any better.
“Thank you for this, Sebastian. Thank you for bringing me.”
I leaned against him and he wrapped his arm around my shoulder, kissing me softly. I twisted in his arms so I was facing him, and gave his kiss the attention it deserved, expressing my gratitude wordlessly, pouring all my happiness into that one moment.
When I pulled away from him, my face felt flushed, along with other parts of my body. Sebastian’s expression told me that outdoor sex at the top of a mountain pass in the snow was suddenly on his ‘to do’ list.
I stroked his cheek.
“Save it, Chief. We’ve got a long way to go yet.”
He smiled reluctantly and waited while I snapped some photographs, then helped me climb back on the mean machine. We started the descent down through the Alps and toward a new country.
A short while later, Sebastian pointed at a sign that read ‘Italia’. I felt a thrill of excitement ripple through me: at last I was in the country where my dear papa had been born. The idea was fanciful, but in an odd way it felt like coming home.
The border guard gave our passports the briefest of examinations before waving us through with a cheerful smile. I really was in Wonderland.
We traveled onwards, and I felt almost sleepy on the back of Sebastian’s motorcycle. I wondered if it was actually possible to fall asleep in this position.
I was beginning to feel the need to stretch my legs when we passed a sign that announced, ‘Genova 20km’—and I saw the sea. It was calm and of the deepest ultramarine, fringed by delicate, white villas. Italy: the Mediterranean coast.
Sebastian took us along the shore road and it became apparent that Genoa’s seafaring tradition was not just historical. We passed dock after dock, lined with every kind of yacht, boat and ship I could imagine, from sleek motor-cruisers to enormous, ugly cargo vessels.
Modern Genoa seemed to be thriving, with housing creeping higher and higher up the sides of the mountain that loomed behind us.
Sebastian appeared to aim for the towering beacon of the Torre della Lanterna as we headed into Genoa’s bustling center. Skimming past the Piazza de Ferrari, we passed palatial buildings built at the time of the Renaissance, and up on the hill I could see a medieval castle. I drank in the history as we roared past.
I thought Sebastian would stop soon, but he cruised on and soon Genoa had fallen behind us. Jeez, was he going to try and get to Salerno tonight after all?
I was relieved when he finally pulled over, but when he didn’t cut the engine, my hope that we’d finished for the day evaporated.
“Just checking the directions, baby,” he shouted over the noise of the engine, and waved the map at me. “Not far now.”
I gave him a quick thumbs up, and we took off again, climbing back up the mountain that seemed to have grown directly out of the sea.
He stopped once more to check the map, then turned off the main road, and we bumped up a steep, unmade road. A sign next to a small, whitewashed villa welcomed us to ‘Casa Giovina’.
He stopped and let the engine idle.
“This is it. It only has one guest room, but it’s out of season … want to try it?”
Sebastian’s expression was wary. Perhaps he thought his simple tastes didn’t compare with the upscale hotel where I’d stayed in Geneva. We still had a lot to learn about each other—and I didn’t mind at all.
“It looks charming. Let’s go and see, but if the owners have a pretty daughter, we’re out of here.”
He rolled his eyes, and chose to take my words as a joke, which they were. I think. Sort of.
An elderly woman in the severe, black clothing of a widow opened the door.
“Posso aiutarvi?”
“I hope you can help us,” I replied, in Italian. “We were wondering if you had a room for the night?”
I could see her eyeing Sebastian’s 6’2” of solid muscle and evaluating how much trouble he was going to be. I could have saved her wondering and just answered ‘a lot’.
“Are you married?”
As I stuttered out a surprised answer, a man in his fifties came stomping down the corridor.
“Mama! You can’t ask people questions like that! I apologize—my mother is very old-fashioned. Are you French?”
“No, American.”
“But you speak Italiano! Americans never speak our language.”
Sebastian decided it was time to demonstrate his own linguistic abilities, if a little less fluent than mine.
“We mean no disrespect to your mother—this beautiful woman is my fiancée,” he said pointing to me, “but if your mother would feel more comfortable, I will happily sleep in a separate room.”
Oh really? Two lies in one sentence, Sebastian: see you creeping into my room after dark.
“No, no, that won’t be necessary,” said the owner, as his mother rolled her eyes to heaven and crossed herself twice. “Besides, we have only one room.”
A fact which Sebastian already knew.
“Please, come in. Let me show you the room.”
The room was airy and simply furnished. A pine wardrobe stood in one corner, and a matching chair was the only piece of furniture besides the large, old-fashioned bed. A mosquito net hung in a pool of lace above it, making it look like a rustic boudoir. But the views out toward the ocean were spectacular.
I smiled happily at Sebastian, and he nodded his agreement.
“The bathroom is across the hall, signore; it is to share.”
He shrugged helplessly, as if to apologize for the smallness of his establishment, but I didn’t care. I imagined making love to Sebastian in that bed looking out over the Mediterranean.
“Breakfast is at 8 am, signore, signorina. There is a ristorante just two kilometers up the road. It is very good—run by my brother.”
“That sounds great,” said Sebastian.
“Ah, signore, one more thing: if you would mind not riding your motorcycle after dark. My mother doesn’t sleep well, you understand, and she has the room next to yours.”
“That won’t be a problem,” I muttered, once he’d gone. “I’m not getting on that thing again tonight if you pay me.”
“Feeling a little tender, Ms. Venzi,” said Sebastian,
grabbing me and rubbing my ass soothingly.
“Not really. It’s more the feeling that I’m still in motion.”
“I know something that will cure that,” he said, wickedly.
“Would that have anything to do with taking off our clothes and making mad, passionate love on that bed?” I said, frowning at him.
“It might have,” he said, eyeing me warily.
“Oh, all right then. I’ll try anything once.”
His double take was almost comical. “Is that a yes?”
“Yes, that’s a yes. But you’ll have to hurry, Chief—the ristorante probably closes before midnight.”
He glanced at his wristwatch, completely confused. “It’s only five o’clock?”
“Like I said—you’ll have to hurry.”
Understanding brought a smile to his beautiful lips.
“Well, in that case, woman, you’re wearing too many clothes.”
Finally, he was on the same page as me.
“By the way,” I said, before he got too caught up in the moment and knowing from experience that he could only concentrate on one thing at a time, “your fiancée?”
He grinned. “Seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“Hmm, well, I like my idea better—the one where we commit as many sins as possible in the shortest amount of time.”
And, to make my point, I unzipped his jacket and ran my hand down his chest, before tracing a finger around the waistband of his jeans.
I was interrupted in my further exploration by a knock at the door.
Looking irritated, Sebastian pulled it open.
“Ah, mi scusi, signore, signorina. I have just telephoned my brother: he is closing at 7.30 pm tonight. If you wish to eat there, it would be best if you leave now.”
“Thanks,” said Sebastian shortly, and the little man darted away, not knowing how close he’d just gotten to a very pissed off Marine.
I couldn’t help laughing at his expression. “Rain check, Chief?”
He sighed, “Looks like.”
“Never mind. Come on, let’s get you fed and then I can have my wicked way with you.”
“How wicked?”
“Not that wicked, so stop drooling. Just moderately naughty—it’s been a long day.”
The Education of Sebastian & the Education of Caroline Page 47