“You okay?” he asks.
I nod.
“You can hold on to me as we ride, okay?”
I take my hands off his shoulders. My fingers had been digging into his jacket hard enough to leave marks, and I wrap my arms around him, just underneath his chest.
“Where are we going?” I ask him. His hair is practically in my mouth as I talk. He smells so fucking good it takes a lot of control to not bury my nose in it and take a deep breath.
“All over.”
“Please tell me we aren’t heading to Anacapri.”
He glances at me from the side. “No?”
“No,” I say adamantly. “I had fears I was going to throw myself out of a taxi; there’s no way I would survive that crazy zigzag road on the back of a bike. I’m barely surviving just sitting here.”
“But there’s a beautiful garden over there,” he protests.
“No,” I say firmly. “Or I’m getting off this bike right now.”
“Okay, okay,” he concedes, raising his hand in defeat. “I will stick to this side of the island. Capisci?”
“Capisco.”
And then we’re off. To his credit he drives really slowly, so much so that he’s kneading the handles as if he’s trying to stop himself from going faster. Regardless, I’m hanging on to him for dear life, afraid that if I move even an inch I’ll fall off the bike. I can feel his steady heartbeat under my hands and I bury my face into his neck. His stubble is rough but his skin is soft and warm and intoxicating. I so badly want to taste him with my lips, and when I breathe into him I can feel his heart beat faster.
“Don’t you want to see where you’re going?” he asks me, his voice throaty.
“Later,” I mumble into him and now my lips graze his skin. Hot citrus.
I hear his breath hitch and then he revs the bike a bit faster. We zoom somewhere to the right and start heading up an incline. Eventually I find the nerve to raise my head and look around. We’re still not going that fast, which helps, and we’re passing white villa after white villa as we climb past eucalyptus, lime, and palm trees.
“Where are we going?” I ask him, relieved that we’re heading in the opposite direction of Anacapri.
“Roman ruins,” he answers. “Villa Jovis. You’ll like it.”
It’s not long before we’re pulling to a stop outside what looks to be a crumbling old fortress. Derio pays for our two-euro entrance fee at the ticket office. We walk unhurriedly among the ruins as Derio explains about the history of the place. Apparently it was built by the great Roman emperor Tiberius when he came here to escape all the warring and shit going down in Rome at the time, whenever that was.
Listening to Derio talk is far more interesting than actually looking at the ruins. While history has always fascinated me, the ruins are basically just a skeleton of the palace it once was. The rest you have to fill in with your imagination. Lucky for me, Derio really seems to have one as he tells me elaborate stories of the emperor’s debauchery. I can see that creativity runs in the family.
“And this was the room where he would have his orgies,” he says, gesturing to a large stretch of dry earth and crumbled stone that overlooks the sea.
“Orgies?”
He grins at me, taking off his jacket. The muscles in his arms flex as he folds it, his skin so bronze against the white of his T-shirt. It really is getting hot out and I’m sorry I wore skinny jeans, even though they made the most sense on the bike.
“Yes, orgies. You know, many people having sex together.”
I give him a look. “I know what an orgy is, smart-ass.”
“From personal experience?”
I bite my lip and reach out, punching him in the shoulder. “Hey, you watch it.”
“I’m watching,” he says, and his eyes lock on my body. “Very closely.” His voice drops.
I am so close to opening my mouth and teasing him along the lines of, Don’t you know you’re being inappropriate in the workplace? to laugh off his comments but I don’t want to call attention to them in case they really are inappropriate. In fact, I just want him to keep saying things.
But of course I don’t know how to keep the banter going so I turn away and pretend to busy myself with the view.
“Have I embarrassed you?” he asks, stepping in front of me, close to me, so I have to look at him.
Oh God. This damn heat is getting to me. How many times in one day can a girl blush?
“No,” I tell him, lying through my teeth.
“That’s too bad,” he says. “I like it when you blush. You look like a tomato. With hair.” He reaches out and puffs up a few strands. Then he whistles, hands in his pockets, and walks away.