Letters to the Baumgarters Read online

  “I’m sorry,” he panted. “It was the best way I could think of to keep you quiet.”

  “It worked,” I whispered, looking at him in the darkness, incredulous. This couldn’t be happening. For all sorts of reasons.

  He kissed me again, this time slower, exploring, his hand running down my side, over my hip, pulling my pelvis in against his. I moaned in response, shifting toward him, sliding my leg up over his.

  I don’t know how it happened. I told myself we were drunk, crazy with the sights of Carnavale. Like the masked revelers in the streets, we were anonymous, just heat and friction together in the darkness. I forgot about everything in his arms, giving in to pure sensation, letting instinct and desire alone guide me.

  I think I tried to protest once, questioning his motives—and my own—but he drowned me with kisses, the weight of his body on mine a welcome relief from thought. His mouth slanted across mine and he wedged his thigh between my legs, rocking us on the bed to the faint beat of a distant drum. I clung to him, just as hungry as he was.

  “Is this okay?” he gasped, kissing his way down my neck, opening the V of my blouse.

  “Yes,” I urged, daring to reach down and cup his crotch in response, sighing happily at the bulge found there. The heat of him through his jeans was incredible. I wrapped my legs around him, arching to give him better access as he fumbled with the front hook on my bra, the buttons of my blouse already undone to my waist. “Wait, did you lock the door?”

  “Of course.” His mouth moved over my breasts, leaving hot trails of saliva. I didn’t even have time to register that he might have been planning this all along—or was it just an opportunity we both took? I still couldn’t quite wrap my head around what I’d assumed—that he was definitely gay and not interested in me sexually—with what was happening now.

  I thought about saying something, asking, clarifying—but I didn’t want to break the mood.

  It had been far too long since I’d let a man touch me, and with his hands and mouth roaming and the feel of his hard cock pressed against my hip, the word “no” seemed to have vanished from my vocabulary. Besides, Nico was not only attractive, he was clearly skilled. His tongue made hot circles around my nipple while he unzipped my jeans, sliding a hand inside to find the soft, hairless swell of my labia with his fingers.

  “Smooth,” he murmured, his eyes widening in surprise. I hadn’t gone native, still keeping up with the American trend of shaving my pussy completely. “Oh bella, she’s so soft…”

  I squirmed as he began exploring, working my jeans down my hips, wanting to give him more. He helped me, tossing them aside as he settled himself between my thighs, my panties still on, the crotch already soaking wet. Nico brushed his cheek against the silk, breathing me in, and I ran a hand through his hair, my nails digging into his shoulders when his tongue found me through the material.

  I hooked my thumbs in the elastic of my panties and peeled them down. Nico took them the rest of the way, splaying his big palms on my thighs and spreading me wider for his plunging tongue. I let him take what he wanted, my limbs quivering with an overload of sensation, my hips rocking in rhythm.

  He paused only a moment to murmur, “You taste like heaven,” diving back in again with stunning ability coupled with a ferocious enthusiasm that had me at the edge of orgasm in moments.

  “Nico!” I gasped a warning, gripping his hair, my pelvis undulating, belly quaking, poised at the brink. His fingers sent me over, dipping deep into my pussy, drawing me out, his tongue punishing my clit with sensation, drowning me with pleasure. I tried to be quiet, too mindful of where we were, who might come knocking on the door, but I couldn’t help crying out with my climax, my body quaking as if the earth had moved beneath me.

  “Beautiful,” he whispered, kissing his way up my quivering belly, cupping his whole hand over my mound as we kissed, making me whimper and melt against him. He was fully clothed still, his belt buckle nibbling at my hip, and I moved to rectify that situation, pulling his shirt off, exploring muscle and sinew and flesh in the dark.

  He was just as eager as I was, helping me with his belt and zipper, shoving his jeans down his hips. His cock sprang free when I pulled his boxers down, first into my hand and then into my greedy mouth. Nico reclined on the bed, letting me suck him. It had been so long since I’d had a cock in my mouth, since I’d tasted the peppery promise of cum accumulating in clear, sticky droplets at the tip. I was dizzy with desire.

  “Here.” He guided me, a fist in my hair, nice and easy, up and down his delicious length. I tasted him in my throat, an easy burn, the promise of more roiling in the tightening scrotum I held cupped in my palm. “Oh god. Yes. Oh yes, bella, yes!”

  I wanted to taste him, to feel the flood of his cum over my tongue, but Nico had other ideas. He stopped me, easing his cock out of my mouth and rubbing it over my lips and cheeks and tongue. Then he reached for me, pulling me into the circle of his arms and rolling me onto my back on the mattress, kissing me quiet.

  His cock was heated steel between my legs, riding the rails, dipping into the valley of my pussy. The tip teased my sensitive clit, everything slippery wet, before sliding down and finding my entrance. He did this without looking, just feeling his way, hips shifting forward when he felt my flesh give, sliding into me.

  “Oh my fucking god.” I said the words in English, surprising us both.

  “Good?” He propped himself up on his arms to look down at me in the darkness, the only light coming from the window, a silvery haze.

  “Si!” I assured him in Italian, sliding my hands up the muscled flesh of his arms, delighting in the mountains and valleys of his shoulders. “It’s been so long… so very long…”

  “For me too.” He bent his head to my neck, beginning to move inside of me, his swollen length creating a delicious friction. “I might not last so long…”

  “It’s okay,” I assured him, although part of me never wanted it to end. He felt far too good.

  “I’ll try…” He panted in my ear. “Ahhhh god you’re so wet…”

  I was. I slid my hand down to touch him, feeling his length where he went into me, the place where we were joined. My pussy was on fire, my clit aching for more, and I touched myself as he fucked me, closing my eyes with pleasure.

  “Good girl,” he encouraged, forcing my thighs open further with his, changing the angle of penetration, making us both moan. “Oh fuck.”

  “Yes!” I cried, rubbing faster, faster. “Oh please, yes, fuck me, Nico! Fuck me hard!”

  He gave into it, not holding back anymore, and the force of him left me breathless, driving me into the soft press of his mattress again and again. I watched him in the faint light from the window, seeing his face change, his eyes squeezing closed, his lower lip drawn between his teeth. His cock was like granite, the heat between our legs a river of lava.

  “Come for me,” I begged, squeezing him hard with the muscles of my pussy, his eyes flying open in surprise. “Oh god, yes, yes, Nico, come with me, come with me!”

  My climax swallowed me up in one quivering mass, spitting me back out into reality, shivering and dizzy and gasping for air. I hung onto him as he came too, hiding the sound of my name in the soft, moist crook of my neck as he shuddered into me, the hot flood of his cum pulsing through us both.

  It took me a long time to recover. He rolled to the side, pulling a sheet over us, and we breathed together in the darkness. At first I couldn’t focus, but when rational thought finally returned, I remembered where I was, who I was with, what we’d done. It wouldn’t be the first time in my life I’d had sex with a stranger, but it was the first time in a very long time.

  “Well, I think this was indulgent enough for Fat Tuesday,” I murmured, feeling Nico stir beside me.

  He chuckled. “We don’t call it ‘Fat Tuesday’ in Italy. Here, it’s Shrove Tuesday. Do you know what that means?”

  I’d heard the term but had no idea what it meant. “No.”

  �
��It means to confess. Have you ever been to confession?”

  I smiled. “No.”

  “It’s very freeing, to be absolved of all of your sins,” he assured me, tracing my navel with his finger. “Today we confess, and for Lent, we do penance.”

  “You deny yourself?” I asked. “What will you give up?”

  “We have to give up something we really love for it to be true penance,” he explained. “I considered giving up sex, but now… perhaps I’ll give up chocolate instead.”

  “Good call.” I laughed.

  “So what do you have to confess?” he asked, leaning over and kissing the side of my breast, his fingers tracing light patterns over my skin.

  “Far too much for the time we have.” I slid my arm around his neck and kissed his cheek, grateful when a knock came on the door.

  “Nico!” It was Mama Dorotea and the sound of her voice had us both scrambling for our clothes. “Why is the door locked? What are you doing? Your sister is leaving, you should come say goodbye!”

  We fumbled with buttons and zippers, Nico making excuses the whole while, assuring his mother we’d be right down. Thankfully Giulia and Will and the baby were already gone and I didn’t have to make any explanations. When Nico offered to take me home, I refused, telling him I preferred to walk. I needed to clear my head, I said. That much was true.

  But it was only about ten blocks, and I would have needed a far greater distance to accomplish that goal, I realized, as I approached the front steps of Cara Lucia’s. I saw the light on in her window up front, heard laughter inside. I felt as if I’d been part of a family again tonight for the first time in so long. I hadn’t felt a part of things that way since Carrie and Doc had practically adopted me, and it had woken something in me I had almost forgotten about.

  “There you are!” Cara Lucia opened her door as I made my way down the hall. How she’d known I was there was beyond me. The woman seemed to have extrasensory perception. She stood only five-foot-two and her graying hair was pulled up and back, her aging face still quite beautiful. Her daughters looked just like her—all five of them. I could hear them laughing and talking inside. “Come to celebrate Carnavale?”

  I felt guilty about not accepting her earlier invitation. I didn’t see any of her other boarders—most of them foreign exchange students—sitting at the dining room table. Had she invited them as well? Or just me, I wondered? I’d had lunch with her almost every week at that table, talking about her husband and daughters, my studies, my life—before. She was probably the closest thing I had to a friend in Italy.

  But I still shook my head, smiling. “No, I’m sorry, I’ve had enough celebrating today, I think.”

  “I have something for you, wait.” She held up one finger, leaving the door open a crack.

  “No, that’s—”

  She had disappeared already, so I waited, sure she was bringing me a care package, more food to add to the calorie-laden meal I’d eaten today. I smiled, remembering Nico’s family. Remembering Nico. Just thinking about him made my head swim. What had I gotten myself into?

  Cara Lucia reappeared, something small in her palm. Definitely not the care package I’d expected. She held it out, smiling, gesturing for me to take it. “For you.”

  The necklace was beautiful, a gold ellipse with a green stone set in the center. “Oh, no, I can’t possibly accept this.”

  “It is the emerald eye of Beatrice.” She was already folding it into my hand. “I thought of you and your work with Dante Alighieri and knew you must have it.”

  She knew that I was doing my thesis on The Inferno.

  “That is so sweet of you.” Of course, now I felt doubly guilty for not taking her up on attending her Carnavale celebration. “Thank you, Cara Lucia.” I leaned over to kiss her cheek.

  She beamed. “Perhaps your Dante will return to his Beatrice.”

  “You mean Mason?” I blinked, looking down at the charm in my hand. It had never occurred to me that my ex-husband might be my Dante—the doomed love of my life, a relationship destined to end in tragedy, at least on the worldly plane of existence.

  “He redeemed himself in the end, you know,” Cara Lucia reminded me with a wink.

  “And Beatrice might have been better off if she’d just let him go,” I countered, turning the charm over in my hand. I had to admit, I was thinking of Nico.

  When I looked up at Cara Lucia, I saw the speculative look in her eyes. I’d told her a great deal—probably too much—about my relationship with my ex and everything that had happened when it all fell apart. “Anyway, thank you. It’s beautiful.”

  “L'esperîenza di questa dolce vita,” she murmured, squeezing my hand. It was a quote from Dante—the experience of this sweet life. “It is yours, Cara,” she told me, using the endearment her own man had given her years ago. Cara meant ‘beloved’ and she had been called Cara Lucia her whole life because her husband couldn’t speak her name without putting his love for her first. “It is all of ours.”

  I thanked her again for the charm, promising to come by next week some time for lunch, going upstairs and down the hallway to my own room. Jezebel was waiting, mewing impatiently for her own Carnavale feast. So we sat on my little bed and listened to Venice celebrating and I hand-fed her the bread and cheese I had been expecting to eat for my own dinner.

  So many things had happened that I hadn’t been expecting today. What else did the experience of this life have in store? I wondered, looking at the charm. So far, aside from a few bright moments, life hadn’t been very sweet to me. But maybe I was just being ungrateful. I put the necklace on and found myself thinking of Nico with a little spark of hope.

  * * * *

  I had come to Italy for so many things, including the great food, of course, but sometimes I just wanted a good old American cheeseburger. The Mood Café had the best cheeseburgers around, and that’s where I told Nico I’d meet him for lunch. He was late, and I was already eating, drinking a vanilla Coke and dipping my fries in hot mustard, when I saw him walking up the cobblestone street.

  The day was bright, a little chilly, but I’d decided to sit outside anyway. Italians were oblivious to the weather. In America, life was about comfort. In Italy, it was about experience. If it was cold, you were cold. If it was hot, you were hot. If it was raining, they didn’t care. In the summer, there was no air conditioning anywhere, and it was hot as hell—but no one cared. Those weren’t problems to be fixed, but rather things to be experienced.

  I smiled as he approached, seeing his eyes light up when he saw me. I couldn’t help my body’s instant response when he bent to kiss my cheek, remembering his lips, his mouth, his hands. It still felt like a dream, like something that had happened to someone else and not to me.

  “Thank you for waiting, bella,” he murmured against my ear.

  “Last minute gondola customer?” I guessed, smiling at the waiter as he refilled my water glass and took Nico’s order—cheeseburger, fries and cherry Coke.

  “My mother.” He sipped his own glass of water. “She asked me to come home to help her move a table.”

  I blinked. “And you left work for that?”

  “I didn’t have any customers.” He shrugged. “Carnavale is over and the tourists have all gone home.”

  “But you had a lunch date with me,” I reminded him.

  “And here I am.” He spread his hands, taa-daa, and smiled.

  “Yes, here you are.” Late, I thought, but didn’t say it. “So tell me something…”

  “Anything.” He reached over and snagged one of my fries, crunching happily and grinning at me. There was something about him that made me want to smack him and kiss him at the same time. He reminded me of someone, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on who.

  “How do you become a gondolier exactly?”

  “Do you have career ambitions?” He raised an eyebrow and then laughed. “The training is actually quite extensive. You have to go through a year-long apprenticeship and take
several tests.”

  “Really?” I moved my plate out of his reach when he went for another fry. “I had no idea it was so involved.”

  “The association actually caps the number of gondoliers they’ll allow to work in the city.” His gaze wandered to the people passing on the street and I noticed a pretty blonde—and noticed him noticing her.

  “So it’s kind of an exclusive club.” I offered him a fry, a distraction. I didn’t blame him for looking—the woman was stunning—but I also didn’t feel like competing.

  “I suppose it is.” He took my peace offering. “My father was a gondolier and my father before him.”

  “Wow. So it’s a legacy. Sounds like you were destined to do it.”

  “You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” He smiled thinly as the waiter appeared with his cheeseburger. Nico dug in immediately, wolfish, talking with his mouth half full. “So what are you going to do with your degree?”

  “Probably find a job in the states doing translation. Spending lots of time traveling back to Italy for business.” I watched him swallow a huge bite of cheeseburger, washed down with a swig of cherry Coke. “At least, I hope.”

  He paused, chewing his last bite thoughtfully before swallowing. “Why don’t you stay here, work here… live here?”

  “I’ve thought about it,” I admitted, seeing the hopeful look on his face and deciding to change the subject. “I have to tell you something.”

  “Oh?”

  The blonde was coming back this way and I saw his gaze shift again as she passed.

  “I’m embarrassed to admit it.”

  He smiled, looking back at me. “Confession is good for the soul, remember?”

  “Okay… the truth is…” I cleared my throat, glancing first at the disappearing shape of the blonde and then over to the waiter, as if someone might overhear. “Before yesterday, I was under the impression that you were gay.”

  He laughed. “Why would you think so?”