Total pages in book: 67
Estimated words: 64506 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 323(@200wpm)___ 258(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64506 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 323(@200wpm)___ 258(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
‘You remind me of my grandmother,’ I tell him, peeling a nut and slipping it into my mouth.
‘Whoa! Don’t go overboard with the compliments, will you?’ he says.
I grin. ‘No, I mean the way you eat. Simple. Enjoying the taste of the ingredients fully. You know, not smothering things in ketchup and barbeque sauce. My grandmother used to eat from small plastic trays like what they use on airplanes, so she could enjoy each taste separately.’
‘That sounds more like OCD,’ he says.
I jostle him with my shoulder. ‘It wasn’t. She was a connoisseur of food.’
He gazes at me, a sudden softness in his eyes that makes my throat tighten. ‘The only thing I am a connoisseur of is your sweet pussy.’
I lift my face and kiss his mouth. ‘You’ve got me so wet I could do you right here,’ I whisper into his mouth.
His grin flashes in the night light, dazzling and dangerous. ‘What did we learn today?’
‘You like pussy and I’m wet?’
‘Drop ‘like’ and try ‘crazy for’ and you’d be there.’
I widen my eyes flirtatiously. ‘Prove it.’
‘Can you wait until I get you home and naked?’
‘Is this place too public for you?’ I taunt.
‘You just got me hard,’ he mutters, and shifts uncomfortably.
I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing, but he catches the laughter in my eyes.
‘It won’t be so funny young lady when you are at the end of my dick,’ he growls, his expression hot and sexy.
I snuggle up to the warmth of his big body. ‘Oh, Zane. I want you so damn much it’s not funny at all, and I’m terrified of losing you.’
I hear the sharp intake of his breath as his arm tightens protectively around me. ‘Let’s go back,’ he says gruffly.
When we get back to the car there is another vehicle double-parked and blocking us in.
‘I can’t believe someone did that,’ I say. ‘What do we do now?’
‘What the Romans do,’ he says, and opening his side of the door leans on the horn. Almost immediately a man sticks his head out of a first floor window and says something in Italian.
‘He’ll be down in a minute,’ Zane translates.
The man rushes out in less than a minute and, with an apologetic smile and a wave, gets into his car and drives off.
‘You sure know this city, don’t you?’
‘Like the back of my hand.’
You eat, and you eat well. What does it matter that that the world is bleeding and dying at your feet?
Twenty
Dahlia Fury
We are woken up the next morning by the sound of the Rossis arriving in their old Mazda.
‘Don’t get out. They’re just bringing our breakfast,’ Zane says, vaulting out of bed.
He pulls on a pair of old track bottoms and heads out to meet them. I move over to where the warmth and smell of Zane still remains and listen to him talking to them. There are no carpets on the floors and I can hear the echo of their conversation. Just when I start to think I should get out of bed, Zane comes back carrying a tray. There is a vase with a rose in it on the tray, steaming mugs of cappuccino and pastries.
I sit up. ‘Wow, breakfast in bed. I can’t remember the last time anyone did that for me.’
The pastries are still-warm Maritozzis; delicious, yeasty buns thickly filled with fresh cream and studded with raisins, candied orange peel, or pine nuts. Another appropriate name for them would be sugar bombs. I dip my finger in the cream, smear it on Zane’s nose, and smile at my handiwork. He looks surprisingly cute.
‘Lick it off,’ he says sternly.
‘Thought you’d never ask,’ I say, and resting on my palms, extend my tongue to the maximum and lick him, making it wet and sloppy, the way an overeager hound would.
He jerks back. ‘Are you looking for trouble?’
‘Take your pants off and I’ll tell you what I’m looking for,’ I counter.
He puts the tray on the floor and, catching me by the shoulders, rolls me onto my back. I look into his eyes. ‘I have to freaking spell everything out to you, but damn you’re still my dream man,’ I tell him, and clawing my fingers into his hair, I pull his sweet mouth down to mine.
Later that morning, Zane takes me to the ruins of the Coliseum. Of the three concentric ovals only a third of the original stone exterior remains and it is the inner oval that is most intact. The sheer immensity of the structure gives me the unsettling feeling that these ruins were the dwellings of beings much larger than me.
Standing on the moss-covered bricks at ground level I look up at the huge stone stadium, and for a second I get the feeling for what it must have been like to stand in the stadium during ancient times. To hear thousands of people baying for your death.