by Willa Okati
Adriano wrinkled his nose.
“Didn’t think so,” Rick relented. “You’re a man made for sunshine, so you are.”
“Was I always?”
The question threw Rick a half-blink off his stride. He recovered, nodding. “You were, and that’s something I always envied of you. D’you know how many years it took before this Scottish skin of mine stopped burning to a crisp every time I stepped outside?” He reveled in Adriano’s laugh. “No, it’s true. This isn’t a tan I’ve got now. It’s all one giant freckle; I got so many of them that they overlapped each other.”
“Mmm. Not so, my heart.” Adriano reached for Rick and laid his hand on Rick’s thigh, massaging idly. “You forget, I have seen your body entire. You are pale as a lily beneath your clothing.”
“Bah,” Rick scoffed. He covered Adriano’s hand with his own and scooted it a few inches higher. Adriano made a happy noise as he let Rick guide him into fondling, and purred when Rick’s cock began to rise and fill.
“I will travel the world with you,” Adriano said, firmly decided. “It is lunacy to flit about so, but perhaps it is the very best sort of madness.”
“I’ll not argue, though less than a couple of days ago I’d sworn to put down roots out here in the middle of nowhere.” Rick chuckled at himself. “Men in love are such fools, aren’t they?”
“God loves the simple and protects the foolish,” Adriano retorted sleepily. “Will you let me nap before you ravish me?”
“Hmm. I don’t know,” Rick pretended to consider. “Just a little pillaging before you doze off?”
“Promises to keep.” Adriano sighed, utterly content.
Pride went directly to Rick’s head as thoughts of what he’d enjoy doing to Adriano before and after a snooze went straight to his cock.
He turned to look directly at Adriano, away from the road, and that was his mistake.
Adriano saw the danger before Rick did, struggling hastily upright. “Rick, the road!”
Rick jerked his attention back half a second before impact, only enough time to register the vast bulk of the deer and its huge, flat black eyes, before the Peugeot plowed into it head-on. What most folk didn’t know about hitting deer with cars was that it wasn’t the deer you had to feel sorry for. A deer could take a hit and walk away, oftentimes, while the car…
The outraged screech of metal and the nauseating turns of Rick’s stomach consumed his awareness; he couldn’t even feel the car around him as it flipped on its side, skidded down into the ditch, and turned over on its head. Adriano might have been crying out his name. Rick couldn’t tell.
He came to choking on oily black smoke, gagging. To his confusion, he was on his hands and knees, both badly skinned. When he stared at his car, some short distance away, he saw that the driver’s side door had been torn away. He’d been thrown, then, some distant part of his brain told him. Was he alive? Wiping away a trickle of blood that threatened to slide in his eye and hissing when his fingers encountered the source, a narrow cut on his forehead, Rick decided he’d survived.
But Adriano. What of Adriano?
The car heaved as if alive, as if it were a volcano ready to erupt. Rick scrabbled hastily back, then shook his head and rushed forward clumsily but quickly as he could. “Adriano?” he roared, stumbling around the side. “Adriano, where are you?” He spotted his lover’s long, lean body half-in and half-out of the passenger side window. “Jesus mercy! Adriano!”
Rick didn’t stop to think as he grabbed Adriano by the wrists and pulled. Adriano moaned and struggled briefly, then seemed to get that Rick was trying to help. He weakly grasped Rick’s wrists and got his act together, letting Rick pull him as he kicked with his back legs. Together, they worked him free of the wreckage.
“Can’t stop yet,” Rick warned him, lips tight to Adriano’s ear. “Get away from the carriage, all right? Just a little further.”
Adriano groaned, head tucked into Rick’s shoulder. His limbs were limp, his walk sloppy and uncoordinated, but all heavens praised he did manage to make some progress, hobbling side-by-side with Rick to the far side of the road and an eighth of a kilometer ahead.
Rick hung on to Adriano for dear life, aghast and dismayed at the sight of his Peugeot. The damn deer was nowhere to be found, vanished quickly as it had appeared, probably not hurt a whit, blast its hide.
“Menaces, they are,” he muttered before turning his attention to Adriano, lifting his head and trying to get the right angle to look at his eyes. “Figures, doesn’t it?” he grumbled, lifting one lid and then the other with his thumb. The pupils weren’t blown; that was good. “You show up on my doorstep halfway to death, and I go and push you three-quarters of the distance remaining. God, Adriano, if I lost you a second time I’d ‑‑”
Adriano tugged abruptly out of Rick’s grasp. “Rick?” he asked, voice raw as if he’d been gargling sand. Rick knew he had to have lost all that lovely dinner and his throat would feel as if it’d been rasped with a file.
For all that, he wanted nothing more than to hang onto the man till he fair squeezed the breath out of Adriano, and to kiss him, too. He made his move, then stopped, startled, when Adriano stumbled back and away.
“Adriano?” he asked, wary. “What’s wrong, love?”
Adriano shook his head, disturbed. More than that, though…angry. Bewildered and enraged. Rick’s heart sank even as Adriano opened his lips to demand, in all his old, accustomed haughty rage, “What the hell is going on here? Rick? What have you done, kidnapped me? What the hell am I doing with you?”
Rick could have dropped his head into his hands and wept. Adriano had remembered, then. Remembered everything.
Shit.
Chapter Sixteen
There had never been a thicker nor a more uncomfortable silence than that which hung between Rick and Adriano as they returned to Rick’s villa, Rick trudging and Adriano stalking, oftentimes gaining the lead by a few meters and then, needful of catching his breath or overcome by his unaccustomed if minor frailty, stopping to turn around and glare at Rick. As if all this was his fault, somehow.
With Rick’s villa in sight, Adriano waited, jaw set in a mutinous line, for Rick to catch up. Rick regarded the angry set of his features with a resignation that left him cold inside, curiously numb, and waited to see what vitriol Adriano would vent this time.
“You say I had no cell phone with me when you ‑‑” he choked on it, and his pride ‑‑”found me. Are you certain?”
Rick shrugged and tucked his hands in his pockets. The increasing breeze riffled his hair across his face, and then away. “No cell. No PDA, no ID, and not a Euro in your pockets. If it’d been anyone else you’d staggered off to ‑‑”
Adriano looked sharply away, a muscle working in his cheek. “By accident,” he said, short and clipped. “I was not in my proper senses.”
Liar, Rick thought but didn’t say. What would have been the use?
Adriano loosed a short growl and turned on his heel, striding away. “I assume this is where you live?” he demanded without looking back at Rick.
And where we might both have called home, if we weren’t off traveling the world. Such a daft, romantic fool was I. You should know better, Ricky-boy, Rick thought in disgust. Life isn’t a fairy tale, and the Prince Charming you’d pinned your hopes on is a playboy sot. And they didn’t live happily ever after; the end.
He kicked at a clump of dry grass, loosening the dirt beneath. Small clods of soil exploded off the end of the toe of his trainer.
“Rick!”
“Do you see any other villa in the near vicinity? Yes, that’s mine. Go on in and be free with whatever you want. Mi casa es su casa, and all that rubbish.”
Adriano snorted. He seemed to be about to say something, but then stopped himself. When he reached the door to Rick’s villa he tested the latch, found it unlocked, and cast Rick a mostly unreadable glare before stepping in.
Hamish’s barking assaulted their ears. “Rick!
” Adriano roared above it.
Rick hastened to rescue Hamish. The poor mutt hadn’t asked for any of this, and he’d surely not understand falling in love with a man who didn’t love you back. “Hamish, down,” he ordered, entering the villa himself. He reached for Hamish’s collar and hauled him away as gently as he could. “Sit, boy.”
Hamish obeyed, whining up at Rick, liquid eyes full of worry.
Adriano stared at the dog as he wiped his hands on his jeans. “Enthusiastic,” he remarked at last, his tone unreadable. “In that he is very like you, and unlike you at once.”
“Adriano ‑‑”
“Your bath, Rick. Is it through here? I wish to cleanse the road grit and blood off myself before I call for a taxi.”
The breath whistled from Rick’s lungs. He’d known Adriano would set to arranging things this way as soon as he could, now that he remembered who he was, of course he would. Didn’t mean it didn’t still hit him like a fist to the gut when he heard the desire shaped into Adriano’s own words.
He forced down pleas to hang on a minute and let’s talk about this, knowing they’d be useless. “Where will you be going?” he asked instead.
Adriano looked askance at him. “Home, of course. Where else would I ‑‑”
Rick snorted, unable to help the nasty burst of humor. “Good luck with that, friend.”
Adriano’s lips thinned with frustration even as his eyes narrowed suspiciously. “What do you mean?”
Rick gave up placidity as a lost cause. He propped himself against the wall, scratching between Hamish’s ears. “It means, Adriano, that your memory’s not quite 100% yet. Unless this is something you’d rather not remember. I wonder if that’s not why you lost your marbles in the first place?”
“Rick,” Adriano warned, temper flaring.
Behind the anger, Rick saw a spark of fear, and that drained the maliciousness right out of him fast as pricking a balloon with a pin. “I’m asking if you recall how your father’s disowned you for good and all,” he said quietly. “He came out here when I told him where you were, but wouldn’t see you. Said he had no son anymore.”
Adriano had gone chalky pale under the dark honey of his complexion. “You…you lie.”
“Not in the least.” Rick nodded to the receiving table behind Adriano, where he thought he remembered dropping Juliano’s check with a deep sense of distaste. “Look and see for yourself. Your father tried to pay me off to hush it up that you’d washed up here; he wrote you off as he wrote those numbers, Adriano, and it’s harsh as hell to face, but it’s the truth. Why would I lie?”
“To…to keep me with you.” Adriano faltered over the feeble excuse as he picked up the bank draft and stared at it. His fingers trembled, and the aghast sorrow that washed over his face was terrible to see. “He would not completely sever the ties of family, he could not…”
“He did, love.”
“Don’t call me that!” Adriano dropped the check, hand flying up as if to ward Rick off. “There has to be something I can do. Antonetta, perhaps she will help ‑‑”
“Antonetta’s on her way to America,” Rick cut in, breaking the news as gently as he could. “You were gone from your family for some good time, Adriano. They moved on and made their own plans.”
Adriano turned away, shuddering with what Rick knew would be an effort to keep from falling apart. “No more. I can hear no more right now.”
“Go and shower, then. I won’t stop you. Clean washcloths and towels are stacked above the toilet; soap’s in the caddy. Mind you don’t slip and cosh your head open again, because like hell I’m going through this a second time. Or would it be a third? I’m perilously close to losing count of the times when I’ve had to pick up the pieces you leave merrily behind you, you bastard.”
His provocation had the effect he’d wanted; Adriano’s chin came up, temper blurring out his fear. “Fine. Once I am clean, I leave, and if I never hear from you again, it will be far too soon.”
“Right back at you. Wash yourself and get out of my sight.” Rick’s jaw ached from grinding his teeth. “Would you go already? I didn’t ask for you to come back into my life, Adriano, d’you realize that? I didn’t want to find your stinking carcass at my very doorstep. I’d have been a happier man by far if I’d never seen your face again.”
Adriano bared his teeth at Rick and turned away from the bathroom, stalking toward him, in a fine Italian furor. “You should have driven me straight to a hospital, then,” he goaded, hissing half his vitriol. “But no, you kept me here. I wonder why? Could you not bear to ‑‑”
“Bear to what?” Rick demanded, outraged. “Bear to say yet another good-bye to my dear departed, the man who broke my heart? Balls! I didn’t ferry your sorry arse to a hospital because you flew into a misery every time I suggested such a thing, and silly me, I thought upsetting you might do you some damage. My mistake and excuse me for trying to do what I thought was the right thing!”
Adriano seized Rick by the collar, startling him. Though he shoved back and tried to break free, Adriano held him fast. “You know nothing,” Adriano spat, his breath hot on Rick’s face. “Lies, all of these, lies. You have no idea what has happened to me ‑‑”
“And you do?” Rick demanded, pulling in vain at Adriano’s wrists, his grip painful now. “Of course you do. And yes, I’m clueless, because you haven’t told me a damn useful thing. But then, why start now? Fucking hell, it’s not as if you ever cared enough to ‑‑”
Adriano’s mouth crashed over Rick’s, sealing them tightly together. He released Rick’s collar and speared his fingers fiercely through Rick’s hair, tugging until the sparks of pain made tears prickle in Rick’s eyes. He barely noticed them, though, for drowning in the heated insistence of Adriano’s tongue forcing his lips open and fucking his mouth.
Though he damned his own weakness, Rick let Adriano in and found his arms going around the man, digging into the broad expanse of his back. They both stank of motor oil and smoke and they were filthy, but be damned if he paid attention to a bit of that. All he wanted, when Adriano kissed him, was more, more, more, his mind chanting a rapidly escalating rhythm of Adriano, Adriano, Adriano, now, now, now, hot, hot, now, now, Adriano, Adriano ‑‑
Shameless now, Rick hooked his leg around the back of Adriano’s, tucking against his knee and nudging so that Adriano fell forward, pinning him to the wall. Their groins collided; Rick groaned and arched up, finding Adriano as hard and desperate as he’d gotten himself. He thrust against Adriano, rocking without mercy.
Adriano’s kiss turned from furious to desperate almost too quickly for Rick to register, one moment all vicious heat and the next frantic mouthing over his jaw, his throat, and back up to his lips, each press of his lips punctuated by a desperate whimper. “Rick,” he keened just before he drew Rick’s lower lip between his teeth and sucked, then bit.
Worry penetrated Rick’s hazy cloud of arousal. “Adriano.” He jerked back, his head thudding into the wall, and grabbed Adriano uselessly by his tattered shirt. “Adriano, what the hell? What’s wrong?”
Adriano almost sobbed, frustration blazing in the hitch of his breathing. “You do not know,” he insisted, clawing at Rick. “I cared far too much for you, and that was my ruination, Rick.”
Rick struggled to keep up. “You do remember, then. About your father.”
“I had thought he would forgive.” Adriano tried to recapture Rick’s mouth.
Rick dodged. “You lied to me, then, just now,” he accused, indignant. “Did you always remember? Or did you not want to?”
“Does it matter? But no. I thought he would forgive; I did; he always has. Rick. Please.”
“No. Hell, no.” Rick flat-palmed Adriano’s chest and shoved him back. He didn’t get much leverage, but the maneuver worked all the same, knocking Adriano far enough away for him to draw a decent breath. He stayed put on the wall, needing its support. “No more of this, d’you understand? Not a bit of it, no matter how much I
want it, until you’ve talked to me, Adriano. And I mean talked, not lied or pretended truth-telling.”
“Rick…” Adriano crossed his arms over his chest and looked away, misery written all over him.
Though it nigh killed him, Rick shook his head and stuck stubbornly to his guns. “Either you tell me what’s happened, Adriano, everything from how you came to be here in that state in the first place to why Juliano disowned you ‑‑”
“Because of you!” Adriano spat, slaying Rick with the venom in his glare. “I have lost everything because of you, Rick. Now. You asked, and you will hear it all.”
“Adriano, stop it.”
“No! You asked for this, Rick, and now you’ll have it all. And here it is.”
Chapter Seventeen
“All right.” Rick rubbed his eyes. “Fine. But for pity’s sake, can we take it elsewhere? I can’t have a conversation like this in the bath. It’s too ridiculous, and I’d like to be able to shave in peace without memories of this particular train wreck still echoing off the tiles.”
“Would that I could pass this from mind to mind. You claim I am the bon vivant but truly, Rick, you talk enough for half a dozen men.”
“You bring out the worst in me, Adriano. I’ve been quiet as the grave since I came here. Some days I thought I’d lose my voice along with the last of my concern for bloody rotten humanity.”
Adriano rolled his eyes. “And a dramatist, too. A queen of the stage.”
“Right.” Rick turned on his heel and stalked out of the bathroom. “I’ve told you we’re not having this battle where innocent toothbrushes can hear.”
“What?”
“Keep up with me, Adriano. You want to tear me a new one, right? Damn well do it in the great outdoors. I need some fresh air.”
“No, Rick. Do you hear me? I said no!” Adriano caught him by the elbow and yanked, nearly toppling him off balance by the bedroom door. Adriano shoved Rick around so that they stood face to face, his grip punishingly tight. His lips were white with tension, and anger flushed his cheeks dark.