Breathing Room

by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

  Instead of smiling, she looked so troubled he wanted to stick a red rubber ball on his nose and grab a seltzer bottle.

  “You think I should have stayed out of it, don’t you? That I was pushy and dictatorial. Possibly even driven, demanding, and difficult?”

  “You took the words right out of my mouth.” He didn’t really mean it. She’d been terrific with them. Still, if he gave her an inch, she’d take over the world. “Didn’t any of those psych classes teach you to butt out of other people’s lives unless they ask you for advice?”

  As her steps slowed, she seemed to get angry all over again. “When did we get the idea that disposable marriages were all right? Shouldn’t people have figured out by now that it’s not going to be easy? Marriage takes hard work. It takes sacrifice and commitment. Couples need—”

  “He’s screwing around on her.”

  “Is he? Am I the only one who’s noticed that Tracy doesn’t seem to be the most reliable source? And from what I saw today, they haven’t talked through a single one of their issues. Did you hear either of them mention a word about counseling? Because I didn’t. What I saw was wounded pride wrapped up in all kinds of hostility.”

  “Which—and correct me if I’m wrong—doesn’t seem like the best way to keep a marriage going.”

  “Not if the hostility’s genuine. I grew up that way, and believe me, that kind of warfare poisons everything it touches, especially children. But Tracy and Harry aren’t in my parents’ league.”

  He didn’t like to think about her growing up with hostility. It was one thing for him to have been raised by jerks—he’d learned to tune it out. But she cared too deeply about the people around her, and it made her more vulnerable.

  Her expression grew stormier. “I hate it when people try to bail out without a fight. It’s emotional cowardice, and it violates everything our lives should be about. They loved each other enough to conceive five children, but now they want to throw up their hands and take the easy way out. Doesn’t anybody have a backbone anymore?”

  “Hey, don’t get mad at me. I’m just your sex partner, remember?”

  “You’re not my sex partner.”

  “Not at this exact moment, but the future’s looking good. Except you have to stop that praying crap. It turns me off. You, however, turn me on.”

  She lifted her face to the heavens. “Please, God, don’t strike this man with lightning, even though he deserves it.”

  He smiled, glad he’d finally managed to cheer her up. “Knock it off. You want me. Admit it. You want me so bad right now that you can’t stand it.”

  “Women who want you end up dead and buried.”

  “The strong survive. Unbutton your blouse.”

  Her lips parted, and her eyes got big. Momentarily, at least, he’d made her forget the Briggses’ troubles.

  “What did you say?”

  “It’s not smart to argue with me. Just unbutton it.”

  In less than a heartbeat her expression shifted from confused to calculating. She had his number, and if he weren’t careful, she’d carve it in his chest with the tip of one of those polished little fingernails.

  He gave her a half-lidded sneer, then thinned his lips with just enough menace to get her blood pumping.

  Her jaw set in a stubborn line that boded no good.

  He shifted his weight until he loomed over her, something he’d already figured out she didn’t like. Then he lifted his hand and, with sinister slowness, traced her jugular with his thumb.

  Now her nostrils flared.

  Damn, he was having a good time. Except . . . what the hell was he doing? He went out of his way to avoid intimidating women in real life, yet here he was deliberately baiting this one in the most aggressive way he could. Even more surprising, the indignant sparks in those honey-brown eyes indicated she just might be appreciating his effort.

  He switched to his whispery, beyond-the-crypt voice. “I believe I gave you an order.”

  “So you did.”

  She was snotty as all hell. Okay, now she was asking for it. “There’s no one around. Do what I said.”

  “Unbutton my blouse?”

  “Don’t make me repeat myself.”

  “Let me think about it.” She didn’t. “No.”

  “I hoped I wouldn’t have to do this.” He trailed his finger past the open button at the collar of her blouse. She wasn’t so indignant, he noticed, that she backed away. “It seems I’m going to have to remind you of the obvious.” He built the tension with a long pause. God, he hoped he was turning her on, because he sure as hell was turning himself on. “It seems I’m going to have to remind you of how much you want to. Of how it’s going to feel.”

  Her lashes flickered, and that full bottom lip parted from its mate. Oh, yeah . . .

  She moved a fraction of an inch closer. “I, uh, stand reminded.”

  He suppressed a smile. Not so sassy now, are you, sweetheart? “Let’s be sure about that.”

  He gazed at those puffy lips and thought about how good they were going to feel against his own. “Imagine the sun beating down on your bare breasts. Feel me watching you. Touching you.” He was sweating beneath his shirt, and his groin felt thick and heavy. “I’m going to pick the fattest grapes I can find and squeeze the juice on your nipples. Then I’m going to lick off every drop.”

  The honey in her eyes darkened to syrup. He tipped her chin, bent his head beneath the brim of her hat, and closed his mouth over hers. It was so much better than he remembered. He tasted sun, the grape juice he’d imagined, and a heady dose of righteous, turned-on woman. He felt a primitive urge to take her right in the vineyard. To lay her down in the ancient soil of his ancestors, shaded by these old vines. To plunge into her the way one of his Medici ancestors might have taken a willing peasant woman. Or an unwilling one, for that matter, but he sure didn’t have to worry about that right now, because this woman had molded herself right to him.

  He pushed off her hat, let it fall to the ground, and tunneled his fingers through her disorderly curls. She was killing him, and he released her just enough to whisper against her lips. “Let’s go to the house.”

  “Let’s . . . not.” Even to Isabel’s own ears her words sounded like a sigh. But she didn’t want to go anyplace. She wanted to kiss. And then she wanted to open her blouse just as he’d said, and let him do exactly what he wanted with her breasts.

  The scents and sensations overwhelmed her. The heat of the Tuscan sun, the smell of ripe grapes, of soil, and, mostly, of man. She felt drunk with him, his kiss, his erotic verbal foreplay, the hint of menace that shouldn’t have excited her but did—and she had no intention of analyzing that. His tongue slipped past her teeth into her mouth. A soul kiss. Exactly the right term for a kiss that was too intimate to be offered to just anyone.

  His hands were on her hips now, pulling her against his erection. “Unbutton,” he whispered. And she couldn’t resist.

  She did it slowly, working from bottom to top. He inched back enough to let the fabric part, revealing her lacy, nude-toned bra. There was no triumph in his eyes, merely honest male anticipation. She flicked the center clasp, pushed the lacy cups away, and let the sun fall on her breasts.

  He made a quiet sound of suppressed need, lifted his hands, and cradled her breasts so they lay like pale ivory offerings in his palms. His thumbs brushed the nipples, and they pebbled. He reached into the vines and plucked a grape.

  She didn’t understand what he was doing until he squeezed the grape between his fingers. The juice spurted, then trickled in a gleaming rivulet down the slope of her breast and over the tip. She shuddered. Tried to catch her breath. But he wasn’t done.

  Slowly, he rubbed the sun-hot pulp over the nipple, making

  circles, each one coming closer to the erect tip. She let out a hiss of pleasure when he reached his goal.

  He slipped the bruised fruit—pulp and skin—over the end and squeezed. Grape. Pulp. Tiny seeds. He rolled it all between h
is fingers, abrading her flesh in the sweetest pain she’d ever felt. Her breath came quicker, and edgy waves of pleasure cut through her bloodstream. His tongue licked at the inside of her mouth, then slipped away to her breast. He played there, sucking and teasing, eating what was left of the fruit, tormenting her flesh, until she couldn’t bear it any longer.

  “God . . .” He breathed the word like a prayer, drawing back to gaze at her. Juice stained his cheek. His eyes were heavy-lidded and slumberous, his lips slightly swollen. “I want to push a grape inside you and eat it from your body.”

  Her pulses kicked. She was heady with need and a ferocious joy. This was what real passion felt like, this mindless saturnalia of the senses. He cupped her through her slacks and rubbed. She arched against his hand in a slow, holy dance. Her flesh was sticky from the juice, and her body felt as swollen as the grapes.

  Abruptly, he jerked away. The sudden motion left her dazed and disoriented. With a rough growl he grabbed her hat from the ground, thrust it at her, and spun her toward the farmhouse. “I’m way too old for this.”

  He was rejecting her?

  “Signore Gage!”

  She glanced back and saw Massimo approaching. Not a rejection, after all, but a hideously untimely interruption. She clutched her blouse together and hurried to the farmhouse, stumbling on the path. She’d never experienced anything like this, and she wanted more.

  She reached the farmhouse, rushed to the bathroom, and turned on the cold water. She splashed her face, then rested the heels of her hands on the sink to catch her breath. The memory of her own voice mocked her.

  “If we don’t ever push the parameters of our lives, how can we grow as human beings, my friends? God smiles at us when we reach for the stars, even if we don’t quite manage to touch them. Our very willingness to make the attempt shows we aren’t taking life for granted. That we’ve kicked up our heels, howled at the moon, and honored the sacredness of this gift we’ve been given. . . .”

  She peeled off her crumpled, juice-stained blouse. Her lust for Lorenzo Gage wasn’t sacred. On the other hand, her desire to howl at the moon had become irresistible.

  After she’d tidied herself, she jumped into the Panda and drove to town. As she wandered through the market that had been set up in the piazza, she tried to turn her jumbled feelings into a prayer, but the words wouldn’t take shape. She could pray for other people again, but she still couldn’t manage to pray for herself.

  Breathe. . . . She focused on the piles of fresh produce, where eggplants lay sleek and fat in their purple skins, and ruby heads of radicchio nested between lacy bundles of leaf lettuce. Tubs of wrinkled black olives sat next to pyramids of apples and pears. Straw baskets held porcini mushrooms with earth still clinging to the stems. Gradually, she could feel herself calm.

  Until she’d come to Tuscany, she hadn’t thought much about her inadequacies as a cook, but in a culture where food was everything, she was missing out on something important and life-affirming. Maybe she could redirect some energy by taking a few cooking classes when she wasn’t writing. And despite Ren’s scoffing, she would write.

  She approached the market’s flower stalls and chose a country bouquet. As she paid for it, she noticed Vittorio emerging from a shop across the piazza with Giulia Chiara, her ineffective real-estate agent. As she watched, he drew Giulia against him and kissed her, a kiss of passion, not friendship.

  They were both young and attractive, so there was nothing surprising about their being together, especially since Casalleone was a small town. But when Isabel had mentioned Giulia in connection with the various utility problems, Vittorio hadn’t said a word.

  “Thanks for ditching me.”

  A pulse jumped in her throat. She turned and saw a tall, shabbily dressed workman with a frayed eye patch and a flat cap pulled over his dark hair. She wished he’d left her alone until she’d had a chance to reorient herself. “I had things to do. How did you get here? I thought your car was in the garage.”

  “I borrowed Anna’s.” He acted as if their erotic encounter hadn’t been more than a handshake, another reminder of the emotional chasm that existed between them. And she intended to make love with this man . . .

  The knowledge jarred her, and she banged her elbow against a metal post.

  “Watch yourself.”

  “I’m trying to!” She’d spoken too loudly, and several people turned to stare at her. She had a death wish. That was the only explanation. But what was the use in pretending? The incident today proved that it was only a matter of time before she gave in to something that was guaranteed to add even more turbulence to her life. Unless . . .

  Unless she was very clear about her goal. This would be a time to celebrate her body. Only her body. She would keep her spirit, her heart, and especially her soul safely tucked away. Not that it would be too difficult, since Ren wasn’t interested in any of those parts. What a dangerous man. He reeled women in, then dismembered them. And she was voluntarily giving him space in her life.

  Because she still felt vulnerable, she blistered him with a frown. “Do you just happen to keep things like eye patches lying around, or did you steal that from someone who actually needs it?”

  “Hey, the minute the guy fell down, I gave him back his white cane.”

  “You’re demented.” But her irritation faded.

  “Look at all this great food.” He surveyed the market stalls. “I’m not eating with anybody named Briggs tonight, so I’ll let you cook for me.”

  “I wish. Unfortunately, I’ve been too busy building my empire to learn anything about cooking.” She looked around and saw that Vittorio and Giulia had disappeared.

  “I must be losing my hearing. Is there actually something you don’t know how to do?”

  “Lots of things. For example, I haven’t the slightest idea how to gouge out someone’s eyeballs.”

  “Okay, you win this round.” He took the bouquet from her and sniffed. “Sorry about that interruption earlier. Really sorry. Massimo wanted to give me a progress report on the grapes and to ask my opinion about when we should pick them, knowing full well that I have no clue. He suggested you might like to help with the vendemmia.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The harvest. It’ll start in about two weeks, depending on weather, the position of the moon, birdcalls, and a few other things I don’t understand. Everyone helps out.”

  “It sounds like fun.”

  “It sounds like work, something I’d rather avoid. You, on the other hand, will no doubt volunteer to organize the entire event, even though you know absolutely nothing about harvesting grapes.”

  “I do have a talent.”

  He snorted and started negotiating with an old woman selling eggplant. Once that purchase was complete, he began gathering up other vegetables, ripe pears, a gnarled wedge of pecorino, and a crusty loaf of pane toscano. His meat purchase was accompanied by a great deal of discussion with the butcher and the butcher’s wife about the pros and cons of various preparation methods.

  “Do you really know how to cook, or are you faking it?” she finally asked.

  “I’m Italian. Of course I know how to cook.” He steered her away from the butcher. “And this evening I’m making you a great dinner.”

  “You’re only half Italian. The rest of you is a rich movie star who grew up on the East Coast surrounded by servants.”

  “And a grandmother from Lucca with no granddaughter she could pass the old ways on to.”

  “Your grandmother taught you to cook?”

  “She wanted to keep me busy so I wouldn’t impregnate the maids.”

  “You’re not nearly as rotten as you want me to believe.”

  He gave her his bone-melting smile. “Baby, all you’ve seen is my good side.”

  “Stop it.”

  “That kiss really threw you into a tailspin, didn’t it?”

  “Oh, yes.” He laughed, which made her more peevish, so she threw Michael’s words at
him. “I’m schizo when it comes to sex. Sometimes I get into it, and sometimes I can’t get it over with fast enough.”

  “Cool.”

  “It’s not funny.”

  “Will you just relax? Nothing’s going to happen that you don’t want to.”

  Exactly what she was afraid of.

  12

  Ren went upstairs to get rid of his eye patch and change out of his laborer’s garb. Isabel finished unpacking the groceries and straightened up the mess he left in his wake. She wandered over to gaze out the garden door. The workers had disappeared from the olive grove, and Marta seemed to have moved into the villa for a while. This was a good time to locate the key to the storehouse.

  She searched the kitchen drawers and cupboards, then moved on to the living room, where she finally discovered a wire basket containing half a dozen old-fashioned keys bound together with a piece of twine.

  “What’s up?”

  She jumped as Ren appeared behind her. He’d changed into jeans and a lightweight oatmeal cotton sweater. The hot water, she’d already noted, had magically returned. “I’m hoping one of these is the key to the storehouse.”

  He followed her back through the kitchen and out into the garden. “Is there a reason this matters?”

  A pair of crows squawked in protest as they headed for the olive grove. “I thought everyone was trying to get rid of me so Marta wouldn’t have to share the house, but now it appears to be more complicated than that.”

  “At least in your imagination.”

  They reached the grove, and she began to look for evidence of digging. It didn’t take long to notice that the ground near the storehouse was more trampled today than it had been yesterday.

  Ren gazed at the footprints. “I remember poking around down here once when I was a kid. I liked the way the storehouse was built into the side of the hill. I think it was used to keep wine and olive oil.”

  She tried the keys. Finally she found one that fit, and she turned it in the old iron lock. The wooden door dragged on its hinges as she pushed against it, and Ren moved her aside to give it a little muscle. They stepped into the dim, musty interior and saw old barrels, crates piled with empty wine bottles, and a few odds and ends of furniture stacked around. As her eyes adjusted to the light, she noticed scuff marks in the dirt.